ttf@dsg130.nad.ford.com (Tihamer Toth-Fejel) wrote:
> people will attempt to gain power over other people by fair
> means or foul. Pretty much just like now.
>
> Yes, (as Ghandi put it) "because of the devils in my own heart."
> Power is FUN! Also, power gives a sense of security against the
> outer demons of the dark -- hunger, punishment, pain.
>
> Until the seduction of power and the fear of pain is somehow
> ameliorated, people will try to gain power over other people.
Of course, this is all predicated on us maintaining the illusion of individuality we now have. Imagine how this might change, though, once the first comprehensive high bandwidth brain interfaces become common. Simply inserting a selectively transparent synaptic interface across the corpus callosum might allow us to record and replay enough of a brain state to induce a "sympathetic resonance" that would reinstate a previous experience as if it were happening right then. Now imagine what might happen if we performed a hemispheric swap, where my left hemisphere is communicating with your right, while your left hemisphere is communicating with my right. These two new brains, half me and half you ought to be able to strike up a coherent experience with a little practice. If left in this state, do we now have two new individuals? What happens if we form a sort of "daisy-chain", sharing hemispheres in a group? At some point, our collective wetware simply becomes a sea of memes, moving and permuting among the neurons of the collective network. Actually not so different from now, when you think about it. The only real change is the elimination of the bandwidth bottleneck between our brains.
Gregory Bloom gjb@evolving.com (303)689-1226(vox) (303)689-1399(fax) Evolving Systems, 8000 East Maplewood Avenue, Englewood, CO 80111 (rox)