From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Mon Aug 02 1999 - 01:04:38 MDT
Well, I went to see the Matrix for the third time. Afterwards, I was
wondering what it would take, in terms of biotech, to enhance someone to
the point where they could punch through walls. (Trinity from _The
Matrix_... Buffy from _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_... I've just got this
thing for women who can punch through walls.) Initially I was thinking
in terms of metal- or buckytube-reinforced bones, augmented muscles (not
sure how they'd work), faster nerves (replace the nerves between muscle
and spinal cord with electrical transmission?), buckytubes in the skin,
and ATP "batteries" for high mitochondria output.
Later I started to wonder whether punching through walls would create
hydrostatic shocks or other basic traumas that would require
reengineering on the cellular level, instead of just lacing the body
with hacks. Anyway, biotech isn't my specialty, so I'm throwing it to
the list. Pre-drextech only, please.
--
I mentioned this to someone else - "What would it take to implement _The
Matrix_?" - and he said something to the effect that the technology
didn't exist and we had no idea of how to make it, and I disagreed...
anyway, when the dust settled, I had said something to the effect that
whether a technology exists isn't a binary value, it's a spectrum.
Here's my proposed spectrum:
7. Available at your local supermarket.
6. Exists in a few laboratories.
5. Component technologies work on rats (or other toy domains).
4. We can hold a conference.
3. We can do the calculations.
2. Science fiction.
1. Fantasy.
Thus FTL travel is stage 1; time travel is stage 2; punching through
walls is stage 3; replacing damaged pieces of the brain with chips is,
frighteningly enough, stage 4 (I would have said stage 2!); regenerating
nerves is stage 5; neurohacking is stage 6; and the Web, of course, is
stage 7.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html
Running on BeOS Typing in Dvorak Programming with Patterns
Voting for Libertarians Heading for Singularity There Is A Better Way
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