Articles and Information [ OCC ]

Information that is related with our Role Play that can help to create a better "Immersion"

This is Related with Human-Machine Interface

This is an extract from "A vision of the future with Cyborgs" By Baiju Parthan
Here pasted only the part that could be of Interest to Us:


"...As machines continue their rapid evolution towards increased miniaturization and functionality, and as we keep tinkering with our bodies and brains at the molecular and genetic level, this involvement will become more feasible. For instance, the problem of how to increase human intelligence is being approached from various angles. One approach is the use of chemicals like Vasopressin to enhance already existing processes in the brain such as memory. The other is an attempt to link the brain directly to computers. Such brain-computerinterfaces could amplify the processes that constitute the human mind to unimaginable levels. The computers could be small enough to be implanted within the body of the user.

According to post-humanist thinker Max More: "A human brain reasons, creates, feels, plans, calculates, appreciates. These properties of living, conscious beings result from the immensely complicated connections among our billions of neurons. An individual neuron by itself displays no consciousness, reasoning, or creativity. The neuron is a biochemical machine. We should therefore be able to replace or repair damaged neural tissue with implants and supplement biological neurons with synthetic neurons while retaining the same functions. We should be able to add memory, processing power, and new abilities by doing so. In principle, we could replace all our neurons until we had an entirely synthetic or prosthetic brain. If the new neurons worked similarly to the old, and were connected up the same, we would never notice the difference."

By far the most ambitious project of this kind is 'migration through silicon' or 'uploading', which involves putting the mind into a machine. Uploading or 'migration through silicon' plainly means transferring or duplicating the mental processes of a living person along with his/her identity on to a specially designed computer. Once a mind is successfully transferred on to silicon, one could modify that mind by increasing the scope of the senses or even add new senses. Or increase and enlarge the memory functions by creating remote links to all the existing records in human cultural and intellectual history. One could eliminate unnecessary activities like sleeping, or eliminate unwanted personality traits, instal new ones, invent new emotions, dream while fully awake, choose what emotions and moods to experience, inhabit artificial bodies of either sex or of completely new sexes, experience completely imaginary states of being, and so on... "

An excellent reading:

Cyborg Discipline
Publisher Springer Boston
ISSN 1571-5736 (Print) 1861-2288 (Online)
Volume Volume 143/2004
Book Information Systems Research
DOI 10.1007/b115738
Copyright 2004
ISBN 978-1-4020-8094-4
DOI 10.1007/1-4020-8095-6_5
Pages 71-81
Subject Collection Computer Science
SpringerLink Date Friday, October 05, 2007

This paper argues for a model of information systems in terms of cyborgs: a boundary-crossing mixture of the technical and the social. The argument for this model is substantiated from the personal experience of the author, presented as examples of being a cyborg researcher within a disciplinary context. Lessons for information systems are drawn.