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text archive, Kyoto University
datacenter, December 2010
Date:Tuesday, 9 February 1999,
3:27 UT
To:Chickie Levitt <chickie@neuro.usc.edu>
From:Ushio
Kawabata <ushio@kyotou.jp>
Translation:jp1->am1
Encoding:text:rsa-pubkey
Your
musings yesterday on a permanent broadband mental
link to the worldnet were very thought-provoking. I think you are right, it
would allow the human mind to
bootstrap itself in an effective way into an entirely new, and much larger, arena
of possibilities. In the early stages the effect would be of an expanded mind,
with the contents of the world libraries as accessible as one's own memories,
and the computational capacities of the world's computers as available as one's
own skills. As integration proceeded, one might slowly download one's entire
personality into the net, being thus freed from all limitations of the body.
It is hard, from our present standpoint,
to even imagine what might be seen and reached from that perspective.
Have
you any ideas on how to proceed? There was an article yesterday
article in Comp.Par on Andrew Systems' Crystal 3. It is probably powerful and
small enough to serve as a data compressor for a link: only 1/20 cubic meter for
10 TeraOps: Perhaps one could carry it in a backpack for a perpetual connection?
********************
Date:Tuesday,
9 February 1999, 8:16
UT
To:Ushio Kawabata <ushio@kyotou.jp>
From:Chickie
Levitt <chickie@neuro.usc.edu>
Translation:am1->jp1
Encoding:text:rsa-pubkey
Usio-samba!
Well,
it would still give a pain to carry your brain. A backpack compressor
might offer higher bandwidth to the net, but would be much less convenient than
a straightforward Eye-glass optic nerve interface (and considerably more risky).
I've been thinking of a way around having to put all the processing in electronics,
and still get higher
overall bandwidth in a vastly more compact form. *If* we could get the neural
connections to cooperate----to crossbar and compress the calloflow----we could save
99% of the computation and external communication, making callosum interface
practical---- with data rate low enough for a sat-cell relay. So then, you would
have to carry around only a standard multiplexer and sat-cell transceiver. The
hard parts of the operation can be distributed anywhere over the worldnet!
********************
Date:Tuesday,
9 February 1999, 8:18 UT
To:Chickie Levitt <chickie@neuro.usc.edu>
From:Ushio
Kawabata <ushio@kyotou.jp>
Translation:jp1->am1
Encoding:text:rsa-pubkey
That
would be artful
- a few chips at your end, giving access to the world's data and processing
power. Not only images and sounds, as with Eye-glasses, but, with callosum access,
feelings, motor sensations and more abstract mental concepts, since the
connection is to your cortical
areas for those functions. One could be in touch with almost anything in the web
with an intimacy now possible only with one's own thoughts! (on the other hand,
there is danger from useless net blabber all day long: like mental tunes that
will not cease).
Small problem: The crux of your suggestion is to
build biological neural structures to do most of the job we have been doing in
electronics. How does one persuade the neurons to, so conveniently, arrange themselves
to compress your callosum
flow for satellite transmission?
********************
Date:Tuesday,
9 February 1999, 8:19 UT
To:Ushio Kawabata <ushio@kyotou.jp>
From:Chickie
Levitt <chickie@neuro.usc.edu>
Translation:am1->jp1
Encoding:text:rsa-pubkey
Well,
that's the hard part
all right. I have been reading in sci.bio.research about gene hacking by the
nerve repair crowd at Hopkins. They've managed to develop viral vectors that
infect neurons and bugger their
genetic initiator sequences so neural stem cells begin differentiating in mid
growth program of just about any structure they want. They can grow an isolated
callosum! - Though the ends come out tangled, since there's no place for them
to connect to.
********************
Date:Tuesday, 9 February
1999, 8:19 UT
To:Chickie Levitt <chickie@neuro.usc.edu>
From:Ushio
Kawabata <ushio@kyotou.jp>
Translation:jp1->am1
Encoding:text:rsa-pubkey
There
must be many difficulties there. My friend Toshi Okada, who does gene-engineering
at Tskuba, tells me that in embryology, almost half the information
required to properly grow cell structures comes from the previously grown structure:
expressing the DNA code alone is not sufficient to build working assemblies
in most instances. Though perhaps additional coding could be added to substitute
for insufficient external framework? That would be rather like building
scaffolding in preparation for
construction proper.
********************
Date:Tuesday, 9 February
1999, 8:20 UT
To:Ushio Kawabata <ushio@kyotou.jp>
From:Chickie
Levitt <chickie@neuro.usc.edu>
Translation:am1->jp1
Encoding:text:rsa-pubkey
They've
done some of that, but still get
some distortion. It gets better if the growth is started in the generally right
kind of preexisting tissue
I'm thinking of growing a couple of square centimeters
of cortical tissue with
callosal fibers that seek out and merge with an existing callosum. The DNA
hackery would be encoded into an RNA virus deposited on the same electronic chip
that contains the digital data interface. The chip would have chemical target
sites for one end of the new nerve growth, and would be powered by body metabolism
via an integrated ATP fuel cell. Implant the chip somewhere on the edge
of the corpus callosum on the brain midline, and the virus will cause the surrounding
brain structure to grow
a biological data-compressing interface between the chip and the callosum.
The
chip would have to be connected to some kind of external antenna to communicate,
maybe a thin wire through the skull, like a hair.
********************
Date:Tuesday,
9 February 1999, 8:20 UT
To:Chickie Levitt
<chickie@neuro.usc.edu>
From:Ushio Kawabata <ushio@kyotou.jp>
Translation:jp1->am1
Encoding:text:rsa-pubkey
Most
interesting proposal! I'll ask
Toshi if you can use some of Tskuba's gene modeling and embryology software
to help you with the design. They've become quite good in the last few years.
I
will contact you then.
Best wishes - Ushio