Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine

Something that we all strive for and pride ourselves on is our intelligence. But are there things that can make us smarter then the machines we've made? Clampe takes a look at Donald A. Norman's book Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine to find out. Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the Ag author Donald A. Norman pages publisher Perseus Books rating 8/10 reviewer Clampe ISBN 0201626950 summary Hey, it turns out that we are smart! The Scenario

Many people may be familiar with one of Norman's other books, "The Design of Everyday Things". Well, the good news is that this book is as engaging, and the bad news is that it isn't all that much different. Norman, the uber-advocate of person centered design, uses this book to debunk the motto of the 1933 Chicago World's Fair "Science Finds, Industry Applies, and Man Conforms".

Things That Make Us Smart has a double meaning. Norman spends a decent chunk of this book explaining how humans have very defined cognitive abilities, like pattern recognition. Not only do we have these cognitive abilities, but we're good at them. If you are ever at a cocktail party (which most geeks avoid) and someone says your name, you are likely to pick it up out of a host of other ambient noises in the room. So the first meaning of the title of this book is that humans have abilities that prove we are smart. The second meaning is that we have created cognitive artifacts to extend the limits of our mentalities. These are the "things" that make us smart. Now, we are used to thinking of tools expanding our physical abilities. We use a hammer so we don't pulp our hands while smashing them against the head of a nail. We use a car because we can't run that fast. What Norman explains is that we have also created a ton of tools that help us expand our mind's capability.

It starts with cuneiform. We have bad memories for facts, so when we wanted to remember facts we started writing them on clay tablets. Books were great innovations, since they help us not only remember stuff, but allow us to write down our thoughts and share them with people we'll never meet. Computers have developed as the latest tool we use to expand our cognitive abilities. They do things we can't do very well, and vice versa. We can only hold about 5-7 things in our memory at any one time. Computers can handle lots more. Still, before you start looking for your personal Hal, there are important things that we can do that our computers cannot. Even computers running un a Linux OS. A computer sees a picture of a butterfly as just dots on a screen (yes, I know they are working on this at Bellcore) while we are immediately able to apply meaning to those dots. My favorite example that Norman uses is shooting a free throw. The very things that for us are easy, like identifying the hoop, are incredibly tough for the computer. However, whereas we have big troubles with accuracy the computer can shoot all day once it has figured out the calculation.

Now this would be a great situation if we were intelligent about it. Technology helps us to do the things nature did not wire our brains to do. However, so much of the current market of technology is centered around what the machine needs or can do that we are expecting humans to conform to the technology, making us the tools to the machines. It's an easy trap to fall into. Humans can tolerate a lot of ambiguity. It's one of those things that makes us smart, but Norman argues that we should be designing in a way that augments our lives, not living in a way that validates our design.

What's Good?

This is a great introduction to Donald Norman for those who have not read him. A great bathroom book, you can skip around alot and the examples are engaging. The early part of the book also does a great job of teaching cognitive psychology, with sensical examples and descriptions of human cognitive processes. Also, the theory of user centered design is extremely important, and Norman does a wonderful job of supporting its tenets.

What's Bad? If you already know a lot about Human Computer Interaction, or are pretty good with cognitive psychology, this book may seem to slow. Also, it's only a mild variation on other Norman books, though if you've not read any to this point, start with this one. The second half of the book is light on quantative evidence, but that's more because you've entered the land of large statements about the meaning of life from the author rather than that he doesn't know how to quantify results.

So What's In It For Me?

If you do any programming, or put together sites for general viewing, this is a valuable book for the argument towards user centered design. Almost anyone can find something out of this offering, from the defense of lowly human cognition, to the descriptions of how we can use technology more intelligently.

Other important links... Buy this book at Amazon .

Buy Norman's latest book, The Invisible Computer, which we'll review soon. If you're interested in serious usability engineering, this is the book to get, Usability Engineering by Jakob Nielsen.

Comments

Kind of ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

However, so much of the current market of technology is centered around what the machine needs or can do that we are expecting humans to conform to the technology, making us the tools to the machines.

Isn't it ironic that such a statement (which is true, btw) would show up on a Linux related site? Linux is the epitome of user-hostile design. Reading this book (and using a Mac for a month or two) would probably open some eyes aroung here.

Re:Intelligent Machines

[Skyshadow]

Would we? If we ended up with a truly conscious, thinking being, could we simply turn it off? Assuming that we can create such a thing, flipping the power off would be awfully close to killing a human.

Your point? We kill other humans all the time, oftentimes for some pretty silly reasons (aka, nationalism). I don't think that assuring our place as top of earth's evolutionary ladder is at all as trivial as you seem to assume it is.

Trust me -- if humanity in general ever had reason to think that its place at the top of the evolutionary food chain was in contest, we'd do what we had to do to ensure that is wasn't -- even if it means killing a potentially intelligent and sentiant being and (if necessesary, or maybe even if not) its creators. It's kind of a sad commentary, but we can't help it. It's hardcoded into our DNA by the experience of a thousand generations.

----

Intelligent Machines

[Skyshadow]

It'll happen; computers have the advantage of scaling much better than our wetware can. You could build a huge computer in orbit *far* easier than you could build a better human brain. Given that kind of scalability, it'll only be a matter of time and some pretty remarkible programming before we come up with a computer that's smarter than any human.

At that point, it'll be interesting to see if Darwin takes over. I don't foresee a "Terminator"-type war or anything like that; chances are we'd just get nervous and lobotomize or power off the thing.

I'm thinking that the evolutionary imperatives hardcoded into our wetware will probably eventually doom any really generally intelligent system. Instead, you'll probably see a Star Wars-type solution where you have systems that do one or two things really well, but are functionally inept in other places (C3P0 can understand 10 million forms of communication, but a unilingual battle droid could kick his shiny metal ass). That was, we can remain the masters (which, as a human, is the way I prefer it).

----

Re:Intelligent Machines

[jafac]

And humanity may not ever make a machine of that magnitude again, for 100 years or so. But eventually, history will be forgotten, and someone will try it again, or perhaps it may happen "accidentally" through processes we do not understand, networking of many "stupefied" computers, genetic algorithms, etc. If that machine ever comes up with a "survival mechanism" that allows it to compete in the physical world, and if that same machine also puts 2+2 together (potentially, I am a threat to them, and if they see that they will destroy me, and they do not now, but eventually may, so I must destroy them as a matter of survival), you can kiss Humanity goodbye, along with McDonalds, tennis shoes, Madonna, and bad haiku.

"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."

Re:Intelligent Machines

[remande]

The LAN makes a lot of sense, considering the droids were networked to an orbital craft anyhow. I can't imagine it being to prevent ECM; if you can forge a LAN order, you can also jam the LAN and shut the force down.

However, there is a good reason for them to speak verbally. To get back on topic, the use of verbal communications allows bioforms to interact better with battle droids. The Federation was at a tremendous disadvantage with an all-droid army, as those droids were especially bad at dealing with odd situations (such as Qui-Gon's request to board the ship--it had to think for a few seconds before deciding to arrest them).

I'm assuming that the Federation simply didn't have the manpower and were stuck with an all-droid army. If you had the money and the manpower, you could have a small bioform officer core supplemented by droids. In that case, the bioforms have to know what their droids are doing, so the verbal communication is key.

Re:Intelligent Machines

[remande]

It still does, to a degree. Even when the droids aren't talking to you, hearing them talk amongst themselves gives you (as a soldier working with the droids) vital clues as to what they were doing. The idea is that you, as their superior, could hear them quickly discuss a bad plan, and interrupt them. Besides, if I was one of the Federation types, I'd want my droids talkative so I could make sure they weren't going nonlinear behind my back.

Re:Intelligent Machines

[Mr. Slippery]

Yes, it took billions of years to get from single cells to human intelligence - but as progress was made, progress became faster.

It only took hundreds of millions of years to get from vertebrates to mammals, millions to get from mammals to hominids, hundreds of thousands to get from hominids to humans, tens of thousands to go from hunter-gatherer humans to agricultural ones, hundreds to go from agricultural humans to industrial ones, decades to go from industrial to electronic, and a matter of only years to go from electronic to digital computer networks. In fact change has been so rapid that while you and I, gentle reader, are cyberwhatering our brains out on /., there are still hunter-gatherers hunting and gathering in the Amazon.

There's a Scientific American commentary from about two years back on this subject that you might want to read.

Re:Intelligent Machines

[Tau Zero]

We don't need to build "brains" anymore than we need to build "walkers" (i.e. machines that walk), wheels work much better.

Do they? Wheels are efficient in their milieu, but they are limited. Wheels are great if you have a smooth roadway or a rail for them to ride on. When you get into slippery, boggy or uneven surfaces, you sometimes can't use wheels at all. There is a reason that the Dante robot (sent to probe a volcano) was a six-legged walker instead of a wheeled or tracked machine; legs can handle things that the others cannot.

Roads and rails can be viewed as an example of fitting the problem to our solution, adapting the way we live to our technology instead of vice versa. (Wouldn't *you* rather have grass, flowers and trees than streets and highways?) One of the reasons we might want to build artificial brains is because our computers don't have the flexibility to deal with the world in the ways we'd like them to. How much hassle have we gone through to "pave over" problems to make them suitable for our computer systems to handle? Food for thought.

You do not understand human factors

[bluGill]

Your arguements ahve nothing to do with this book. You are looking at what you think this book says, what the mac is, and assume that the mac is the end all of human factors.

Not so. A large part of user interface design is speeding up the expert. There are people who count the milliseconds it takes to complete a task.

Sure, as an expert Unix is more productive then windows could be (if you were an expert in windows instead). Windows assumes some things that are not true for you, but are for most people. When playing a game windows is the wrong way to go, which is why most games bypass windows for a single full screen task.

Your transmission arguement is a recignised part of human factors. AT&T spends a lot of money building a system that only expert operators can use, and then a lot of money training operators to beocme experts. They are not stuipd, they know that the expert only system will in the end save them money as the expert operators need less time to do their job, meaning they can help more people faster. This system that AT&T has designed is considered one of the triumphs of user interface design.

proper user interface design requires the goals be set in stone. In AT&Ts case speed was the number one goal, in the macs case they can sacrafice a little speed once in a while. However Bruce Tognisky in TOG on Interface reports that for some operations users who used the keyboard shortcuts said they got the job done faster, but the stop watch said otherwise! This is regaurds a few very specific situations, and can't be generalized to everything. The point can though: Often while you think you are productive you are less productive, you just feel like you are working. Step back and examine your habbits objectivly, is Unix more productive or does it just seem that way because you have to think about the way to do things as opposed to the mac where you mearly had to move the mouse to the right position.

Good example of the pointlessness (?) of AI

[Daniel]

I've always wondered why so much effort is spent in AI and trying to develop a computer that can think. What's the point? Computers are useful precisely *because* they are deterministic, fast at simple arithmetic and boolean operations, and able to store huge quantities of data -- all categories where the human mind happens to be less than perfect. Personally, I suspect that human intelligence is a design compromise -- that, for example, pattern-recognition and more 'fuzzy' logic needed to deal with ambiguity come at the expense of being a little finite-state machine. (yeah, computers can do this stuff, the same way humans can do coordinate space transformations..) And even if someone does build a intelligent machine, what's the point?
It just seems like a big gee-whiz project to me. Maybe it's created 'incidental' advances in other areas of computing, but I think that once someone gets voice recognition working, the only AI project -that I'm aware of- which seems to have really interesting possibilities (dictating code would be cool) will be done.

Daniel

Re:Good example of the pointlessness (?) of AI

[MarkWCats]

Yes, part of AI is the fact that it is impressive.

However, it does have pratical aspects:
Signal lag between Mars and Earth for the Pathfinder mission was about 10 minutes. The robot had to have a certain ability to make it's own decisions - whether to go on, turn back, etc. However, as such missions become more ecomplicated, and reach further from Earth (say, Europa, Titan) then obviously a computer capable of weighing various data and making intelligent decision based on them will be better suited than a dumb computer using what is essentially an if-then loop. The same goes for any situation where a computer is 'in charge' - nuclear power plants, etc. After all, if the computer has to consult humans, then there is immediate potential for misunderstanding, loss of time, etc.

Secondly, one of the things that humans are good at is pattern recognition - but one of the things we're bad at is storing vast amounts of data in our concious minds (ever had the feeling that you recognise something/one from somewhere, but don't know where?). If a computer had such a pattern recognition ability, it could apply it to much larger sample sets of data than a human could in the same time. A recognition of this limitation is the basis of the novella "Sucker Bait" by Issac Asimov, where a Mneomic Service is trained form birth to have perfect memories, and then apply the human pattern recognition ability to this information - precisely because computers were unable to.

- An AI discussion - one of the few things that brings me out of my shell.

Re:Thought....

[rve]

Cranking up the voltage doesn't make a CPU run faster, just hotter, and if you overdo it just a teenie tiny bit it stops working.

The brain is a 'neural' computer. One of the factors that determines the speed of a neural system is the number of 'neurons'. If you could increase the number of neurons in your brain, and manage to insert them in the right place, you might find an increase in speed. The reverse is observed regularly. Brain damage that randomly takes out neurons, (due to diseases like altzheimer or encephalitis or drug/alcohol abuse for instance) often causes the victim to think more slowly, and have a lowered IQ.

Another factor in overall speed is the speed of communication between the 'neurons'. This communication takes place via chemicals called neuro transmitters. If you could find a way to optimize the transmission or production of neurotransmitters in your brain you might increase the efficieny of communication, and thereby overall speed.
The reverse is often observed. Horrible diseases like parkinson's disease decrease the availability of neurotransmitters (dopamine in the case of parkinson), causing the poor victims (among many other things) to think more slowly, sometimes coming to an almost complete stop.
Also, many people use drugs to manipulate the levels of certain neurotransmitters. This seems to decrease the efficiency of the brain, although users of cocaine may not actually notice they are speaking raving nonsense when they're high, and long term users often display a decrease in receptors for certain neurotransmitters, probably caused by the brain trying to compensate for the abnormal levels of the chemical (some patients of diseases of the brain benefit by prescription drugs that manipulate levels of neurotransmitters, but if it ain't broken, don't fix it).

There are probably other properties that determine the speed of a neural network, but I don't know much about the subject. Could someone post a link to some info?

Re:Thought....

[Ed Avis]

Would you be able to theoretically 'overlock' your brain?

I think that's what caffeine is for.

Overclocking the brain

[jabber]

If you've ever seen One Flew Over The Coo-coo's Nest, you're probably familiar with electro-shock therapy. It's similar to what a defibrilator does, only for the brain. It is used to disrupt the electrical pattern of the brain for a variety of reasons... Ending an epileptic siesure is one, stupification (forced complacency and the removal of higher level free thought) is another.

Raising the charge in the brain is a very bad idea since the circuitry is designed for a very specific environment. However...

Boosting the levels of neurotransmitters that facilitate signal propagation across the synaptic gap might be promissing. This is what many drugs do. But, while drugs tend to act on the brain as a whole, with a particular tweak in the pleasure center areas, a boost in the cognitive or sensory regions might be what you're proposing. This, coupled with repeatedly firing the desired pathways in order to 'pave the road' for future use, should improve whatever skill or perception you're interested in boosing.

I'd recommend plenty of rest, exercise, a balanced diet, productive intellectual activity and adequate fresh air. :)

Curious, the brain...

[Anonymous Shepherd]

We really don't know what the limits of our brain is. We have examples of idiot savants and autistic people as extremes, but they aren't quite right. Or child geniuses, prodigies, and talent.

I'd imagine that, as fast as we make our artificial brains and intelligences, that people would keep up and stay ahead. I'd imagine it would actually be easier to train and grow a person surrounded by weather data all their life and have a much more accurate prediction device than any supercomputer.

Ick. Imagine. A kid, from birth, born blind and deaf but hooked up through various sensors to weather devices all over the world, and as an a adult being able to 'see' weather?

We'll come up with ever more efficient message passing algorithms and encoding methods to overcome the natural inefficiency of communication, and begin to harness the power of multiprocessing, human style.

We'll figure out how to train, teach, and educate kids so that we stay ahead of the race. Everyone knows how much of a joke most school systems in the US are, right? How much time is wasted with bullying, rote exercises, stupid lectures? Does anyone else think the system actually slows down and retards the children?

Just how capable are we?


-AS

Counter-argument

[Anonymous Shepherd]

Without going into flames here=)

Newer VW cars have something called tiptronic transmissions; normally they behave as automatic, but when you flip a switch you can control the up or down shift at appropriate RPMs, giving you, in reality, both automatic and manual transmissions in one.

And in the computing world we have BeOS and the soon to be released Mac OSX to give us intuitive interfaces and immediate productivity as well as powerful and useful design.

So it may very well be possible to have your cake and eat it too =)


-AS

Poetry

[Anonymous Shepherd]

I totally agree.

I'm not saying rid ourselves of ambiguity and vagueness. They are way too much fun. But, like Grafiti is to Palms and Visors, some sort of reduced instruction set language for enhanced communications.

Being able to think to each other will open other opportunities for poetry and creativity as well. Imagine 'seeing' someone else's imagination? I believe our imagination is every bit as powerful and stimulating as a real sunset, a real rainbow, a landscape, or artwork. Heck, every piece of art or poetry is, in effect, hampered by our inability to express the concept perfectly, limited as it were by two dimensional mediums, paints, pigments, materials, etc.

Painting across the cyberscape =)


-AS

Not so pointless...

[Anonymous Shepherd]

A good deal of the research is done in order to better understand ourselves.

There are also those who study just to do it. I don't know that anyone is doing it to make a better brain(yet).

There are also autistic people and idiot savants that actually demonstrate some of the tradeoffs we may have made to gain our intelligence. I also don't know if it can be reconciled, the ability to tap into our brains in the same way and still retain human flexibility and adaptability.

But the fact that people are born with supercomputing capabilities means that it may be very possible, for a slight trade off in social ability or manual dexterity or what-not, to gain ever more brain power.


-AS

Unlimited capacity of humans?

[Anonymous Shepherd]

How do we know that it's possible to surpass human intelligence? That humans just won't keep advancing? Do we know that there are limitations to what we can do?

I'd say that our brains are marvelously developed but have been underutilized for the past thousand years, barring the musical genius or the uber-warrior-general. We keep pumping information and data into ourselves and our children, and surprisingly, we keep up. Imagine humanity years from now, born plugged into a network, some sort of global consciousness. Is it possible? I think so. Can we keep up? Yes to that, too. Imagine communications without all of the ambiguity and vagueness of body language and speech. Sure it won't be perfect, but it's an incredible vision.


-AS

Limits in human ability?

[Anonymous Shepherd]

Would anyone be willing to comment on this?

Just how much can we scale? No one really knows, right? We have extreme cases, like idiot savants and autistic people, as well as geniuses and prodigies and such, but as we become ever more connected and ever more indulged with an influx of information and sensory data, will we cope?

I would like to think so. I would imagine that even as computers get faster and more powerful, as we get more resources we'd just adapt more deftly. We'd invent languages and message passing technologies to reduce overhead and miscommunication, and increase the capbility and efficiency of our world. It's now the world of 24x7, right? I guess one of the biggest limitations right now is sleep. Once we can tackle that problem, we'd have twice as much brainpower*time, right?


-AS

Re:Thought....

[Kaa]

What happens if you boost the electrical charge, just a little bit mind you. Would you be able to theoretically 'overlock' your brain?

Well, first, overclocking has to do with increasing the frequency of the basic 'pulse' of the chip, thus making all operations a bit faster. There is no direct connection with increasing the voltage supplied to the chip. If you just increase the voltage supplied to the CPU, it will not run faster.

Second, if you stick electrodes into a human brain and send appropriate current through appropriate parts, you can get strange and interesting results. A typical effect is being able to remember with perfect clarity a scene that you thought you forgot completely. A Spanish researcher named Delgado (?) did a fair amount of experimentation around 20 years ago. I don't think a lot of people work on it now, mostly for ethical reasons. Most of the work is being done with people who are heavily mentally ill.

Kaa

Before you down-moderate....

[DonkPunch]

Yes, the post might be considered flamebait, but I'm going to treat it as a thread-starter on the issue of user-friendliness.

I challenge the assumption that "users" are all the computer-clueless. I am certainly a user, but I also write software. For me, "user-friendly" takes on a whole different meaning. A Unix-like environment is most certainly friendly to me. I can go beyond interfaces that are designed to be "intuitive" and use interfaces that are designed to be "productive". Do I have to read a few HOWTOs? Yes.

But the time spent learning (for example) VIM is repaid with gained productivity. I get more done in less time once I've mastered the interface.

It is a natural trend when mastering any technology. You start out wanting to be productive right away. Later, as you master the basics, you look for the shortcuts to make yourself more productive.

It may be a fair criticism to say that Unix concentrates on productivity shortcuts at the expense of immediate productivity. It may also be fair to say that interfaces perceived as "friendly" (like the Mac) concentrate on immediate usability at the expense of long-term productivity.

I look at it this way:
A stick shift is not as "friendly" as an automatic transmission. I still prefer a stick because I like having torque on demand. I hate waiting for the RPMs to get high enough for an automatic to downshift when I'm trying to pass a semi. I have more control with the stick.

Comparing Mac to Unix is like comparing automatic to stick. It all depends on what you want to do with your machine. The ultimate interface might combine both, but it might also be so bloated and inconsistent that nobody would want to use it. Can you imagine having both automatic and manual transmissions in your car?

Re:Other Enhancements

[Paul Johnson]

In the Terry Pratchett book "Men at Arms" Cuddy the dwarf designs a cooling helmet for Detritus the troll. Pratchett's trolls are made of silicon, and have superconducting brains. Hence a warm troll is a stupid troll, and a cold troll is a very intelligent troll.

(And this is not a troll).

Paul.

human memory != RAM

[johnrpenner]

It is important to note that nature of human memory is fundamentally different than the externalized computer storage of "memory". If you study neuro-psychology, you will understand that scientists have had utmost difficulty in localising memory in the human brain. That is because human memory is not like RAM at all. Every time you recall something, you are not doing a lookup from a physical-electronic memory address. Instead, the impression is brought up as an entirely new creation within your consciousness. To speak of machine sentience, you must consider this very fundamental difference between machine "memory" and human memory which is an aspect of self-consciousness.

see: http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles/Hu mansNotRobots.html

Other Enhancements

[zairius]

How long until Kryotech sells a helmet so you can
cool your brain to -36 degrees celsius so you can overclock it?

Electrical-chemical

[twit]

While an electrical impulse travels along the length of a single neuron, the transmission in the gap between neurons (which takes up most of the time and gives you most of the interesting side effects), or synapse, is actually a matter of chemistry.

Which isn't to say that you wouldn't be able to reengineer the brain with electromechanical implants or somesuch - there are some things, like rote memory (as Norman and the reviewer point out), which the brain is bad at. Our eyes, as well - the primary processing could be very much improved, and the brain itself would almost certainly adapt to the increased or more acute signal coming to it. What would be needed is a method to both read and write to the brain, but I think that that is certainly possible given time and dollars.

I would dare say that these would be implemented before a true artificial brain, because when compared to an artificial brain they seem so much easier to accomplish. (Not to mention that they're necessary preliminary steps to creating the artificial brain).

--

Re:what's the big deal?

[ucblockhead]

Not overtly, but such ideas are built into all sorts of technologies, from doors on up on the complexity scale to nuclear power station control centers.

Do programmers still expect users to learn a new input behavior for each application?

Unfortunately, yes, and this is one area where Linux is weak. Coming from OS/2 and Windows, I'd grown accustom to standard keystrokes for all applications. Now, moving to Linux and loading up applix-ware, I suddenly have to remember a whole new set of keystrokes. It gives me 1988 DOS flashbacks.

I had the good fortune of taking a class from Dr. Norman on user centered design over ten years ago, when he was just starting on the book publishing route. And while he sometimes sounds like a more literate Andy Rooney, everyone who wants to call themselves a programmer should read at least one of his books. At the very least, it will open your eyes to the number of "human errors" that are caused by poor design, and perhaps make you think a little more about how to avoid this sort of thing of thing in the first place.

Usually the problem isn't so much that designers overtly demand that users conform to their design. Instead, it is merely a matter of designers not even thinking about what designs might confuse a user. The book that best describes this, I think, is Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things", as it uses simple things like doors, ovens, showers and such to show how simple design decisions can wildly effect how usuable an item is. If you've ever accidently pushed on a door marked "pull", you've run into an example of something that was designed poorly, without thought.

Thought....

[Kintanon]

As I was reading the review of this book I had a thought, just a tiny one. The brain is made up of synapses, neurons, etc... These things run off of electrical current much like the processor in the 'puters we have everywhere. Sooo... What happens if you boost the electrical charge, just a little bit mind you. Would you be able to theoretically 'overlock' your brain? What kind of effect would this have on your thought processes?
I doubt it's possible even if I understood more about the workings of the brain than I do, but it's still an interesting idea. We are, after all, only electrical impulses at the base of our thought.

Kintanon

Re:Thought....

[phrawzty]

Hmmm... Any idea to what extent you would alter someones personality by minutely adjusting the signal to the brain?

Is it not feasable to utilize neuro-reactive chemicals to force faster synaptic responses, keep the "gates" between synapses open, and boost electric signal in the brain?

I'm sure that "optimizing" the way our brain works would make us very different people, to say the least.

In the same breath, i can't help but think of the possibilities of integrating a peice of incredibly fast, single-task peice of hardware into a "slow" or "underdeveloped" portion of the brain, and improving it (the brain). I'm not talking about replacing the entirety of the pink mush, but rather, improving where improvement seems to be needed.

Furthermore, it stands to reason that by using these "neuro-additives", in conjunction with the hardware, we could open the pathways to otherwise under-used or completely un-used portions of the brain, tapping their (currently unexplored) abilities.

Could the next stage of Human evolution be the amalgamation of man and machine? It is the great question of all things Sci-Fi, but is it really that far from the truth?


.------------ - - -
| big bad mr. frosty
`------------ - - -

Re:Computers are Finite

[MarkWCats]

Of course, this is not to say that computers will be incapable of acting human or simulating a self-aware being. I think eventually computers (robots) will be able to simulate human actions/emotion, but they will still lack that "human nature"

OF course, this gives rise to the question - how do know that something which *seems* self-aware *is not* self-aware. Surely anything which has the appearance of conciousness - which passes the Turing test, whatever - shoudl be considered concious? After all, how do we know that anbybody else is truly concious? We can't - it's simply a reasonable assumption, given that
a] they're humans as well (probably), and
b] they seem self-aware.
It would seem that if a is false, then many seem to consider b to be insufficient - why is that?

- REAL /.ers enter their .sigs manually.