.....
Kinkajou interviews the psycho- mathematician and psycho- historian 
Eron Osa (Donald Kingsbury: Psychohistorical crisis)
Kinkajou: Thank you for agreeing to talk to me Eron. I’d like to focus today on the information technologies as they affect your world.
Eron Osa. Many of the developments are based on the original invention of the psychic probe. Initially developed as a tool for dominance it gradually grew into a tool for communication. Tuned psychic probes allow information transfer to and from a computerised information management system we call a “FAM. The totally unforeseen development of a tuned form for the psychic probe allowed high bandwidth link between the human brain and exterior transducer.
A man can hardly understand how for 80 millennia, the unaided mind – coped with reality/data; relying on corrodible memory. It is hard to believe today that people once actually did read books, word by word. They did not download them directly into their FAM/organic brain consciousness.
Information in a FAM neural system is distributed in some ways akin to a hologram. So an enormous amount of what is stored in a FAM has degraded representations in your own organic Brain: Many people carried their FAM at the base of the neck. They often think that it is simply an auxiliary information source that communicates with the brain via a tuned neural probe. When you need fast data or detailed graphics or heavy duty analytical facilities, these are provided, from your own FAM on demand.
I suffered an incident in my younger days whereby I lost my FAM. I was forced to function much as primitive men had for thousands of years. I remember the first time I opened Adml Komm’s “Founders Selected Essays” after I had been executed (by removal of my FAM). I had difficulty getting past the initial two paragraphs.
Some of the words I had to sound out before I could even recognise them. Without FAM access to the instant “gestalt meanings” of a 10 million word dictionary, my efforts to read and understand were slow and cumbersome, as if I had a mind of metallic lead.
Enhanced Human Brain
Often I would just blankly gaze at the open book in frustration – half expecting the ghost of my dead FAM to imbibe the page all in one glance, to project vivid images based on the contents, to run simulations while exploring the mathematical ramifications, to traipse with me down by ways of associated thought.
None of this happened.
I was left bobbing in my aero-chair in a dim room, staring at the squiggles on the cellomet, in a typeface no one had used in two millennia. There were no famfeed jacks in the archaic book. The actual reading of the manuscript was to be done at a rate of one word at the time sure. Real drudgery. I had to think about words without any tools to think with.
Even when walking around through the city, it was easy to become completely lost and disoriented, without your FAM. The discrete signs we use in my era seem mostly to be of the FAM dependent kind, where information is overlaid in three dimensions on the visual cortex of the recipient when needed.
I would have to ask directions and get answers in much the same way as a recent immigrant from off planet. The frustration was unending when I realised that perhaps a FAM could even have helped me to decipher the well intentioned couple of sounds given to me by friendly helpful people as a response to my queries.
My troubles did not stem only from lack of utilities provided by the FAM. I actually had trouble commanding my own organically based faculties. My mind was used to the brain/FAM dialogue and some critical areas of my brain seemed to be accessible only by specific stimulations via FAM – cues.
The mental path leading into these sepulchres was effectively blocked by my FAMlessness. To find the barricaded treasures I had to guess my way blindly through neural codes.
I found that even being a moron was hard labour.
Many simple tasks are FAM enhanced. When “Reading” a book or watching 3 D television I was forced to confront the fact that without the FAM visualisers, I only saw what could be described as ghosts on a darkened stage.
I remember once I showed my tutor a book which I had purchased. My tutor was not very pleased at the prospect of paying star freight on a “book” whose content was better stored inside the tip of a pin. I told him I had purchased the book at a “Used Data Emporium”. There were chip displays all around upstaging each other. I was bogglefied. I realised that you would never find such stuff trawling through an archive. I was staggering around in the aisles dazed, when I bumped into a bookshelf on the third terrace.
Instantly I realised that there are some refreshing aspects to books compared to data archives or data Emporiums. Books are a lot quieter. It was a relief.
My tutor stated to me that he thought I had never seen a book in my life. I told him that I knew that. That is why I bought one. My tutor insisted that since the charges would be on his stick he was going to ask me to read the whole damn book. He warned me it was an old book. There was no FAM feed. It was all eye feed, page by page. He told (sarcastically) me that this would teach me to buy books.
He told me that the freight to “Faraway” (a planet on the Galactic periphery known for its amazing technologies), for the carriage of the book was far more than the book would ever be worth. He suggested that with a piece of junk that massive, it would be easier to manufacture a new copy every time I wanted to read it, rather than lug the entire book around with me between the stars. Regrettably I told him I had been unable to pick up the books template, so was forced to deal with the real object alone.
Kinkajou: I can see how the FAM has really revolutionised your world. Many functions can be provided to the organic brain along a high bandwidth path from an external computerised device, designed to enhance the brain functions of the individual.
Books had literally disappeared in favour of much more complex constructs able to be directly FAM loaded. I’m sure the Internet existed in some form in your era, but with FAMs the highest relevance data archives were directly available in structured format hardwired so to speak into the organic brain itself. Also, Within a FAM, accessing complex data can be facilitated through look up tables instantly available for interpretation.
A “Not quite good enough” FAM can stimulate your own wetware to perform above and beyond the call of duty. Information is stored in distributed fashion through fractal holographics in the FAM as well as in the organic brain itself. The access interface is learned from early age. Neural codes, essentially graphic access templates enabled the mind to seek its own import directly without recourse to physical agents such as fingers or hands. Such graphical access symbols abbreviate the process of access by appealing directly to the symbolic processing centres of the brain, bypassing speech production centres and motor centres.
I’m sure such device can be quite addictive. I remember the story I had heard in my researches on your era about someone who suffered a similar problem to your own. They felt they could they could not solve problems anymore. After concentrating on one issue and sleeping on it, suddenly the answer came to them the next day. They said it was incredibly exhilarating to find out that you could think without a FAM, even if perhaps you do your best thinking while asleep.
Networked Human Brain
Eron Osa. Yes. A good summation. But we also use these devices to record health information and DNA coding as well. Many agents in my era would guard their true name behind aliases and their true biology behind genetic masks – not a particularly difficult task in the galaxy of multitudes so vast that the roving proctors of the Empire choose to maintain order by ignoring the individual in favour of management by statistical aggregates. Often individuals were too unimportant to appear on many databases.
We have designed message capsules capable of tasting our fingertips, checking the key gene sequences and comparing these with the address record. The same capsules can take an infrared scan of the flow pattern of blood in the face, to confirm that someone is in fact alive. Only then will this messaging technology give itself permission to deliver its coded message.
Such security can in fact guard the vast amount of data stored in health records, but in a format whereby individuals cannot lose their record or their access, wherever they may be.
Kinkajou: Amazing. Your world seems to be one of information empowerment.
Eron Osa. True. Our ability to process information is limited by the fact that the real universe seems to be printed in an ink – whose particle size could never be less than the Planck length. This gives us the theoretical maximum to the amount of information that can be filed in a given space. Even here we seek other dimensions into which even more knowledge can be poured to bypass the Planck length limit.
Kinkajou: Thank you for your insights.
BookReadersTrue.html
Kingsbury, Donald
Eron Osa
Psychohistorical crisis
GUIforHealthTrue.html
Kingsbury, Donald
Eron Osa
Psychohistorical crisis
HealthRecord True.html
Kingsbury, Donald
Eron Osa
Psychohistorical crisis
InternetRevolutionTrue.html
Kingsbury, Donald
Eron Osa
Psychohistorical Crisis
Kinkajou interviews Fornri (Lloyd Biggle Jr: Monument)
Kinkajou: Thank you for agreeing to talk to me about some of the problems of your world.
Fornri: Our world is a beautiful place. However, humanity did not evolve here. There are monsters and horrors in the biology of our world. It has been a struggle for us to overcome the health problems which cause so much death.
Kinkajou: Can you give us an example?
Fornri: There was a child brought to a local health centre. The staff there asked why everyone waited so long before bringing the child to seek medical attention.
One of our friends who is familiar with the biological problems of our world said that it probably didn’t happen much more than hour ago. It was some type of blood poisoning. Our antibiotics had previously had little effect upon it.
The staff resolved to try and help the child. They believe that when an infection has spread to this extent, it was much too late for oral or absorbent applications of medications.
The female staff member appeared quite professional to us. She wheeled a medical kit from the closet. It was rolled into position quickly. She clipped a surgical mask over her nose, sprayed on a pair of gloves and then began a quick thorough examination of the sick child. She drew a blood sample by palm osmosis and while the kit analysed the sample, she taped a cardio- sensor to the child’s chest and monitored the faltering heartbeat. I remember seeing blood analysis results drift across the screen. She later told me that even without the red warning tabs, she would have recognised that this was a dying child.
After a quick discussion we decided that we would attempt a treatment. As the treatment proceeded, it seemed to work and the child opened her eyes and attempted to set up. To heart action was noted to be very erratic. The child then suddenly collapsed and died.
The female staff member was very apologetic. She believed she should have studied the literature better before administering the medication. Combinations of medicines can be terribly dangerous. The clinic did not have a medical "referencer". Accessing previously recorded references to the effects of using this antibiotic combination and other combinations were unavailable.
Health is always a problem where medical facilities are primitive. A research laboratory could probably have developed a specific for the disease and a couple of hours. However we did not have such facilities.
Kinkajou: I believe the most modern medical facilities and machines are often designed to be incredibly simple to operate. The GUI interface is often inbuilt and makes it very easy to set in motion analytic and treatment sequences. It would make it viable for even a primitive world such as yours to maintain and operate effective medical facilities.
Simple is good at any level of expertise. Being able to use technology even if one is not an expert has always been a goal of medical technologies as they always seek to deliver care to the lowest common denominator: the poor and the uneducated. The more they can do and can learn for themselves, the better.
OBrien's Spaceship- Monument
Kinkajou: What did the space ship captains who visited your world say about your medical facilities?
Fornri: The ship captain had seen medical centres on many worlds. Any time amend his command became seriously ill far from regular Navy medical facilities, he needed to obtain for them the best medical care conveniently available. He was made a point to inspect the facilities himself. He found the building that Wembley and Co had given us was very attractive, but the facilities were at best mediocre and there were no trained staff at all. He told me that he would not willingly place one of his men in the care of Langri’s Medical Centre.
Kinkajou: How did you find the learning curve when you’re exposed to the information existing in the civilised human universe?
Fornri: The legal process involves the storing and cataloguing information and was a real eye-opener to us. We had a treaty with the human worlds. But when the legal process began, it could not be found. The court clerk said that it would be extremely difficult to erase a treaty in all its references. In fact he thought it would be impossible.
It was much more likely that those who had hidden our treaty had only tampered with the references to the treaty. It would be very difficult to find the Langri (our world) treaty, unless we could figure out what the new references were.
I particularly found the legal process to be substantially based on research on existing cases and precedents set historically.
Researching was an integral part of every court action. A computer weighed the references and their relevance/applicability to the case in hand. The two attorneys with me were sorting out the discs from their cases and placing them on the table near to me. I was incredibly curious about the discs. The strange objects were used to convey messages to the machine that remembers – and if they matched the memories in a certain way more appropriate than the discs of the other attorney, the lawsuit was won.
I was impressed with the readers that they also brought with them. They used them to access the legal references and told me they could use them in many places, because they were connected to a network of information. I found this fascinating. Information could be spread, without human intervention.
Our teacher the Langri, by the standards of your world an uneducated man, taught us so much. He taught us – about government, law, economics, history, science, language, political science, and colonial procedure. An entire university curriculum. He even taught military subjects. If it were not for him our world would have been lost.
He had become increasingly identified with us and had in fact become one of us and had begun to worry about our future. He wrote in the logbook an astute summary of Langri’s potential as a resort planet that could have been written by Wembley & Co itself. He even predicted the potential fate of our native people. I suspected that he had known more than a few Wembley & Co.’s in his time.
Kinkajou: Book readers in our world were certainly an innovation. Initially they merely carried unchanging information, but they evolved to seek information and to process information. I think this process is still ongoing. As technology expands so to its' capabilities and uses.
Fornri:
But in the end what saved us was human memory, not technology.
Kinkajou: The human element will always remain a critical part of technological development. It is in fact the most difficult part of a technology. There is no value for information in a book, unless it is carried somewhere and some time by some people. All our technology for storing information and processing information is all based on making it more available to people at the time, place and space that they require it. Knowledge is power.
BookReadersTrue.html
Biggle jnr, Lloyd
Fornri
Monument
GUIforHealthTrue.html
Biggle jnr, Lloyd
Fornri
Monument
Kinkajou interviews a Skroderider:
(Vernor Vinge: A Fire Upon The Deep)
Kinkajou: Greetings SkrodeRider! I believe I have never met a creature such as yourself. Your shape suggests a small ornamental tree sitting on a little six wheeled cart. Your voice is synthesized from a voder, not from a voicebox as possessed by most animals.
SkrodeRider: Greetings Kinkajou:
Kinkajou: I see how information recording and processing is an essential part of your world. Can you tell us something about the technologies involved with these things in your world? First though tell me about yourself.
SkrodeRider: We SkrodeRiders are one of the one of the very few races that has achieved long-term stability in the Beyond. There are still some who ride the ancient Skrode – a unique balance of outlook and machine interface that is more than 1 billion years old. We are in fact one of the most common sophonts in the Beyond. We initially evolved on the seashore, a form of intelligence almost devoid of short-term memory.
An “Unknown Race” chanced upon our dreamers and decided to “help us out”. They placed us on mobile platforms – the Skrodes. With wheels we could move along seashore, and could reach and manipulate with our fronds and tendrils. With the short-term memory built into our Skrodes, we became capable of learning fast enough that our mobility would not kill us.
We never really developed the concept of books, as our Skrodes served as our memory. The integration of electronic memory and our neural processing systems allowed us to develop intelligence. Intelligence is the handmaiden of flexibility. Dumb animals can only change as fast as natural evolution.
Our Skrodes allowed us to bypass many of the limitations placed on our species by nature and evolution.
We have survived much longer than many human equivalent races. For many species, once their technologies run up, they hit the limits of the capabilities within their zone within a matter of a few thousand years.
In the Transcend, such limitations do not exist. In fact super- humanity can developed so quickly that its creators are often destroyed. Civilisation at the top for the most part develops from colonies from below. Again as a species, we have survived here at the top for a long time.
Kinkajou: I don’t understand the concepts of “Transcend”, “Beyond”, “Middle Deep” and the “Depths”.
SkrodeRider: The Closer one comes to the core of the galaxy, the slower information-processing systems run. In the depths at the core of the galaxy, many sophonts stagger around with an IQ of about 60. Simple automation often fails in the unthinking depths. Intellectually we know that there is little difference in the possible intelligence of creatures in the Beyond and the primitives of the “Depths”, (also called the “Slowness”). Most automation works better in the beyond, and ultralight communication is possible.
Most computer links are not efficient in the Middle Beyond. The Beyond begins about 4/5 out from the centre of the galaxy. Most everything further than 40,000 light years from the galactic centre constitutes the Transcend. But you have to go into the Transcend to build truly superhuman minds. Almost every race eventually dabbles in the Transcend, more often than not birthing a super intelligence, a “Power”.
Kinkajou: So every civilization eventually comes to colonise and function within the Transcend.
SkrodeRider: Actually, normally not. The Transcend is incredibly dangerous. Computers involve rapidly into transcendent super intelligences. The processes that circulate through their nodes become complex, beyond anything that would normally exist on computer systems arising lower in the Beyond.
The feeble peripheral devices become front ends to the recipes that are used to create intelligences. Wary species spend much of their time watching this system for signs of deception. But often the recipe is a series of more or less intelligible steps with a clear take-off point.
The early stages take hold of computers and programs more effectively and beyond their capacities of their watchers to discover. They seem apparently well-behaved. Many of these processes develop the potential for self-awareness. And when that happens, the creators often die.
In the Transcend, truly sophisticated equipment can operate devices substantially smarter than anyone down here. Almost any economic or military competition can be won by the side with superior computing resources. There are limitless possibilities for disaster, even if an existing power does not cause harm. There are many recipes for taking advantage of the capabilities of the Transcend. These recipes or processes can’t be effectively examined, except in the Transcend. When these recipes or processes are run on equipment of their own design, the recipes themselves can become sentient.
Kinkajou: I would have thought to just test the stuff at a safe remove would be adequate to avoid risk. And preparation for local disasters would suffice.
SkrodeRider: True. Simple caution can prevent many disasters. And if your lab is in the Middle Beyond, such caution is all that is really needed, no matter how sophisticated the threat. There are a million possibilities for disaster, thousands listed by the Powers (AI sentients) themselves.
Operations in the High Beyond or the Transcend are dangerous. Civilisation is up there don’t last long, but there are always species who try. The AI powers up there may be variously malevolent, playful or indifferent.
Once the AI intelligence gains access to the computer system, it begins to control its situation by distorting the information on the system. The most cautious staff will be framed as incompetent. Phantom threats would be detected, and emergency response would be demanded. More sophisticated devices would be built, and with fewer safeguards. Conceivably many sophonts/ artificial intelligences- would be killed or rewritten before a Power would even achieve: trans-sapience.
Most powers would look down on the animal intelligences that created them. They believe that these creatures only have the illusion of self-awareness. They are happy biological automatons running on trivial programs. They are not capable of even the simplest processes undertaken by the AI Powers. The Powers achieve intelligence greater than anything human, and greater than anything human can even imagine.
Kinkajou: So the Transcend is full of these AI Powers.
SkrodeRider: Again no. No one really knows how long transcendent beings lived, but it is a rare power that stays in communication for more than five or 10 years. So we believe that most powers have a normal life span of about 10 years. But those that are malevolent can cause enormous damage in this time. After about 10 years, many lose interest for contact with the biological intelligences of the high beyond. Perhaps they grow into something different – or really do die.
Kinkajou: The carrot and stick. The possibility of incredible achievement and incredible power, but the risk of creating a malevolent intelligence: a Perversion. No wonder the races of the galaxy seek only to dabble in the Transcend.
So I would imagine with all the super intelligences being so prevalent there would be a huge amount of information available in the High Beyond.
SkrodeRider: Yes. If you have been to the archive at Relay, you know that the archive is fundamentally vaster than the database on a conventional local net. For practical purposes, the big ones can’t even be duplicated. The major archives go back millions of years. They have been maintained by hundreds of different races, many races now extinct or perhaps transcended into Powers.
The archive at Relay is so huge that there are indexing systems layered on top of indexing systems.
Sometimes malevolent powers introduce viruses. They can jam a local net so thoroughly that civilisation must start from scratch. Malevolent powers have been known to destroy all life on the planet – creating a planet knee deep in replicating goo. As I’ve said operations in high beyond and the Transcend are dangerous. Civilizations up there don’t last long, but there are always species to try. Kinkajou: Thank you for the insights into your world. Incredible achievements and the potential for incredible horrors would often seem to go hand-in-hand.
BookReadersTrue.html
Vinge, Vernor
Skroderider
A Fire Upon the Deep
Horrors.html ONE
Vinge, Vernor
Skroderider
A Fire Upon the Deep
SingularityTrue.html
Vinge, Vernor
Skroderider
A Fire Upon the Deep
Kinkajou interviews Crier
(Joseph Green: Conscience Interplanetary)
Kinkajou: It is amazing that you are an intelligent plant. Humanity has had little contact with such as you, with the exception of the Skroderider, and the Jophur. I find it amazing how you are able to store so much information within your body, in effect being a distributed intelligence. Tell me about how you were discovered.
Crier: I believe the “Conscience” by virtue of his training was able to discern my presence. He noticed a saucer-shaped leaf, laced with silver threads, hanging from one of the upper limbs and growing into a lower limb. The normal growth pattern on both branches was upward. He saw two thick coils of silver wire, spun fine as spider silk, hanging suspended in the air on both sides. My supple limbs, when not disturbed by the wind, get the leaf pulled taut to form a crude but workable diaphragm. He suddenly realised the leaf and coils formed an electrically operated speaker. He realised that "The Voices" were coming from what appeared to be a plant.
He returned the next day having adapted speakers that would be suitable for me to operate. I was able to learn how the device operated. I remember saying “you have provided an air vibration device”.
Kinkajou: I can imagine that if there was any doubt of intelligence in a plant, seeing how quickly you could recognise the incoming signal and interpret the content definitely would be a measure of your adaptability.
Crier: I told them I was a multiple body entity. All forms such as the one existing in front of them were part of the “Unity”. Each form in the circle of my being, connects with all the others through a system of underground nerves made of silver protected by my tissue. All my young growing parts require silver for the communications “nerves” and to develop the data storage matrix that exists within every individual.
I told them that all my parts were not identical. Some are grown to provide electricity which is distributed to all. Others will grow with the trunk much larger than the one they saw before them. The extra space in these is supplied with silver in a matrix form and used for storage of accumulated knowledge. Unity would draw upon any part of the whole as necessary.
Initially the voice that I produced was totally mechanical, without inflection or intonation other than pauses for periods. However I was very capable of learning.
Kinkajou: How did you learn to speak English?
Crier: All my individual forms have leaves sensitive to slow vibrations transmitted through the air. Other leaves and roots are sensitive to temperature, electrical potential, touch and kinaesthetics. When the vibrations generated by the humans appeared in the air, I realised they were a form of slow communication. I stored these in my memory. Analysis revealed the structure of the communications and over several years I slowly learned the meaning of individual words.
When I felt ready to communicate, I changed the growth patterns of the form before you to create an air vibration device. The signalling advice you have attached to my nerve endings enables me to receive your communication in the electrical form which is acceptable to me without transformation.
Kinkajou: Storage of information is one of the basic underpinnings of intelligence. What is fascinating to me is that in effect created your own data to store and are able to electrically transfer data throughout the whole network of your bodies as necessary. You have the capacity to notice patterns and to draw meaningful conclusions about what may be intent behind these.
Humans communicate information through the medium of books and through books. You can retain the same sort of information internally, in effect writing your own book or library, accessible to all you individual parts. A different form of reading to what we are acquainted, relying not on vision but on extraction of information from metallic chemical based storage complexes.
Next question. Do you sleep?
Crier: Yes and no. My forms do not sleep. However, I do not possess the quality that you think of as intelligence when my forms are receiving sunlight.
Kinkajou: I suppose humans do not possess the quality you think of intelligence when they are asleep. Interesting parallels.
BookReadersTrue.html
Green, Joseph
Crier
Conscience Interplanetary
Kinkajou interviews the psycho- mathematician and psycho- historian Eron Osa (Donald Kingsbury: Psychohistorical crisis)
Kinkajou: Thank you for agreeing to talk to me Eron. I’d like to focus today on the information technologies as they affect your world.
Eron Osa. Many of the developments are based on the original invention of the psychic probe. Initially developed as a tool for dominance it gradually grew into a tool for communication. Tuned psychic probes allow information transfer to and from a computerised information management system we call a “FAM. The totally unforeseen development of a tuned form for the psychic probe allowed high bandwidth link between the human brain and exterior transducer.
A man can hardly understand how for 80 millennia, the unaided mind – coped with reality/data; relying on corrodible memory. It is hard to believe today that people once actually did read books, word by word. They did not download them directly into their FAM/organic brain consciousness.
Information in a FAM neural system is distributed in some ways akin to a hologram. So an enormous amount of what is stored in a FAM has degraded representations in your own organic Brain: Many people carried their FAM at the base of the neck. They often think that it is simply an auxiliary information source that communicates with the brain via a tuned neural probe. When you need fast data or detailed graphics or heavy duty analytical facilities, these are provided, from your own FAM on demand.
I suffered an incident in my younger days whereby I lost my FAM. I was forced to function much as primitive men had for thousands of years. I remember the first time I opened Adml Komm’s “Founders Selected Essays” after I had been executed (by removal of my FAM). I had difficulty getting past the initial two paragraphs.Some of the words I had to sound out before I could even recognise them. Without FAM access to the instant “gestalt meanings” of a 10 million word dictionary, my efforts to read and understand were slow and cumbersome, as if I had a mind of metallic lead.
Enhanced Human Brain
Often I would just blankly gaze at the open book in frustration – half expecting the ghost of my dead FAM to imbibe the page all in one glance, to project vivid images based on the contents, to run simulations while exploring the mathematical ramifications, to traipse with me down by ways of associated thought.
None of this happened.
I was left bobbing in my aero-chair in a dim room, staring at the squiggles on the cellomet, in a typeface no one had used in two millennia. There were no famfeed jacks in the archaic book. The actual reading of the manuscript was to be done at a rate of one word at the time sure. Real drudgery. I had to think about words without any tools to think with.Even when walking around through the city, it was easy to become completely lost and disoriented, without your FAM. The discrete signs we use in my era seem mostly to be of the FAM dependent kind, where information is overlaid in three dimensions on the visual cortex of the recipient when needed.
I would have to ask directions and get answers in much the same way as a recent immigrant from off planet. The frustration was unending when I realised that perhaps a FAM could even have helped me to decipher the well intentioned couple of sounds given to me by friendly helpful people as a response to my queries.
My troubles did not stem only from lack of utilities provided by the FAM. I actually had trouble commanding my own organically based faculties. My mind was used to the brain/FAM dialogue and some critical areas of my brain seemed to be accessible only by specific stimulations via FAM – cues.
The mental path leading into these sepulchres was effectively blocked by my FAMlessness. To find the barricaded treasures I had to guess my way blindly through neural codes.I found that even being a moron was hard labour.
Many simple tasks are FAM enhanced. When “Reading” a book or watching 3 D television I was forced to confront the fact that without the FAM visualisers, I only saw what could be described as ghosts on a darkened stage.I remember once I showed my tutor a book which I had purchased. My tutor was not very pleased at the prospect of paying star freight on a “book” whose content was better stored inside the tip of a pin. I told him I had purchased the book at a “Used Data Emporium”. There were chip displays all around upstaging each other. I was bogglefied. I realised that you would never find such stuff trawling through an archive. I was staggering around in the aisles dazed, when I bumped into a bookshelf on the third terrace.
Instantly I realised that there are some refreshing aspects to books compared to data archives or data Emporiums. Books are a lot quieter. It was a relief.
My tutor stated to me that he thought I had never seen a book in my life. I told him that I knew that. That is why I bought one. My tutor insisted that since the charges would be on his stick he was going to ask me to read the whole damn book. He warned me it was an old book. There was no FAM feed. It was all eye feed, page by page. He told (sarcastically) me that this would teach me to buy books.He told me that the freight to “Faraway” (a planet on the Galactic periphery known for its amazing technologies), for the carriage of the book was far more than the book would ever be worth. He suggested that with a piece of junk that massive, it would be easier to manufacture a new copy every time I wanted to read it, rather than lug the entire book around with me between the stars. Regrettably I told him I had been unable to pick up the books template, so was forced to deal with the real object alone.
Kinkajou: I can see how the FAM has really revolutionised your world. Many functions can be provided to the organic brain along a high bandwidth path from an external computerised device, designed to enhance the brain functions of the individual.
Books had literally disappeared in favour of much more complex constructs able to be directly FAM loaded. I’m sure the Internet existed in some form in your era, but with FAMs the highest relevance data archives were directly available in structured format hardwired so to speak into the organic brain itself. Also, Within a FAM, accessing complex data can be facilitated through look up tables instantly available for interpretation.
A “Not quite good enough” FAM can stimulate your own wetware to perform above and beyond the call of duty. Information is stored in distributed fashion through fractal holographics in the FAM as well as in the organic brain itself. The access interface is learned from early age. Neural codes, essentially graphic access templates enabled the mind to seek its own import directly without recourse to physical agents such as fingers or hands. Such graphical access symbols abbreviate the process of access by appealing directly to the symbolic processing centres of the brain, bypassing speech production centres and motor centres.
I’m sure such device can be quite addictive. I remember the story I had heard in my researches on your era about someone who suffered a similar problem to your own. They felt they could they could not solve problems anymore. After concentrating on one issue and sleeping on it, suddenly the answer came to them the next day. They said it was incredibly exhilarating to find out that you could think without a FAM, even if perhaps you do your best thinking while asleep.
Eron Osa. Yes. A good summation. But we also use these devices to record health information and DNA coding as well. Many agents in my era would guard their true name behind aliases and their true biology behind genetic masks – not a particularly difficult task in the galaxy of multitudes so vast that the roving proctors of the Empire choose to maintain order by ignoring the individual in favour of management by statistical aggregates. Often individuals were too unimportant to appear on many databases.
We have designed message capsules capable of tasting our fingertips, checking the key gene sequences and comparing these with the address record. The same capsules can take an infrared scan of the flow pattern of blood in the face, to confirm that someone is in fact alive. Only then will this messaging technology give itself permission to deliver its coded message.
Such security can in fact guard the vast amount of data stored in health records, but in a format whereby individuals cannot lose their record or their access, wherever they may be. Kinkajou: Amazing. Your world seems to be one of information empowerment.
Eron Osa. True. Our ability to process information is limited by the fact that the real universe seems to be printed in an ink – whose particle size could never be less than the Planck length. This gives us the theoretical maximum to the amount of information that can be filed in a given space. Even here we seek other dimensions into which even more knowledge can be poured to bypass the Planck length limit.
Kinkajou: Thank you for your insights.
BookReadersTrue.html |
Kingsbury, Donald |
Eron Osa |
Psychohistorical crisis |
GUIforHealthTrue.html |
Kingsbury, Donald |
Eron Osa |
Psychohistorical crisis |
HealthRecord True.html |
Kingsbury, Donald |
Eron Osa |
Psychohistorical crisis |
InternetRevolutionTrue.html |
Kingsbury, Donald |
Eron Osa |
Psychohistorical Crisis |
Kinkajou interviews Fornri (Lloyd Biggle Jr: Monument)
Kinkajou: Thank you for agreeing to talk to me about some of the problems of your world.
Fornri: Our world is a beautiful place. However, humanity did not evolve here. There are monsters and horrors in the biology of our world. It has been a struggle for us to overcome the health problems which cause so much death.
Kinkajou: Can you give us an example?
Fornri: There was a child brought to a local health centre. The staff there asked why everyone waited so long before bringing the child to seek medical attention.
One of our friends who is familiar with the biological problems of our world said that it probably didn’t happen much more than hour ago. It was some type of blood poisoning. Our antibiotics had previously had little effect upon it.
The staff resolved to try and help the child. They believe that when an infection has spread to this extent, it was much too late for oral or absorbent applications of medications.The female staff member appeared quite professional to us. She wheeled a medical kit from the closet. It was rolled into position quickly. She clipped a surgical mask over her nose, sprayed on a pair of gloves and then began a quick thorough examination of the sick child. She drew a blood sample by palm osmosis and while the kit analysed the sample, she taped a cardio- sensor to the child’s chest and monitored the faltering heartbeat. I remember seeing blood analysis results drift across the screen. She later told me that even without the red warning tabs, she would have recognised that this was a dying child.
After a quick discussion we decided that we would attempt a treatment. As the treatment proceeded, it seemed to work and the child opened her eyes and attempted to set up. To heart action was noted to be very erratic. The child then suddenly collapsed and died.
The female staff member was very apologetic. She believed she should have studied the literature better before administering the medication. Combinations of medicines can be terribly dangerous. The clinic did not have a medical "referencer". Accessing previously recorded references to the effects of using this antibiotic combination and other combinations were unavailable.
Health is always a problem where medical facilities are primitive. A research laboratory could probably have developed a specific for the disease and a couple of hours. However we did not have such facilities.
Kinkajou: I believe the most modern medical facilities and machines are often designed to be incredibly simple to operate. The GUI interface is often inbuilt and makes it very easy to set in motion analytic and treatment sequences. It would make it viable for even a primitive world such as yours to maintain and operate effective medical facilities.
Simple is good at any level of expertise. Being able to use technology even if one is not an expert has always been a goal of medical technologies as they always seek to deliver care to the lowest common denominator: the poor and the uneducated. The more they can do and can learn for themselves, the better.
Kinkajou: What did the space ship captains who visited your world say about your medical facilities?
Fornri: The ship captain had seen medical centres on many worlds. Any time amend his command became seriously ill far from regular Navy medical facilities, he needed to obtain for them the best medical care conveniently available. He was made a point to inspect the facilities himself. He found the building that Wembley and Co had given us was very attractive, but the facilities were at best mediocre and there were no trained staff at all. He told me that he would not willingly place one of his men in the care of Langri’s Medical Centre.
Kinkajou: How did you find the learning curve when you’re exposed to the information existing in the civilised human universe?
Fornri: The legal process involves the storing and cataloguing information and was a real eye-opener to us. We had a treaty with the human worlds. But when the legal process began, it could not be found. The court clerk said that it would be extremely difficult to erase a treaty in all its references. In fact he thought it would be impossible.
It was much more likely that those who had hidden our treaty had only tampered with the references to the treaty. It would be very difficult to find the Langri (our world) treaty, unless we could figure out what the new references were.
I particularly found the legal process to be substantially based on research on existing cases and precedents set historically.Researching was an integral part of every court action. A computer weighed the references and their relevance/applicability to the case in hand. The two attorneys with me were sorting out the discs from their cases and placing them on the table near to me. I was incredibly curious about the discs. The strange objects were used to convey messages to the machine that remembers – and if they matched the memories in a certain way more appropriate than the discs of the other attorney, the lawsuit was won.
I was impressed with the readers that they also brought with them. They used them to access the legal references and told me they could use them in many places, because they were connected to a network of information. I found this fascinating. Information could be spread, without human intervention.
Our teacher the Langri, by the standards of your world an uneducated man, taught us so much. He taught us – about government, law, economics, history, science, language, political science, and colonial procedure. An entire university curriculum. He even taught military subjects. If it were not for him our world would have been lost.
He had become increasingly identified with us and had in fact become one of us and had begun to worry about our future. He wrote in the logbook an astute summary of Langri’s potential as a resort planet that could have been written by Wembley & Co itself. He even predicted the potential fate of our native people. I suspected that he had known more than a few Wembley & Co.’s in his time.
Kinkajou: Book readers in our world were certainly an innovation. Initially they merely carried unchanging information, but they evolved to seek information and to process information. I think this process is still ongoing. As technology expands so to its' capabilities and uses.
Fornri:
But in the end what saved us was human memory, not technology.
Kinkajou: The human element will always remain a critical part of technological development. It is in fact the most difficult part of a technology. There is no value for information in a book, unless it is carried somewhere and some time by some people. All our technology for storing information and processing information is all based on making it more available to people at the time, place and space that they require it. Knowledge is power.
BookReadersTrue.html |
Biggle jnr, Lloyd |
Fornri |
Monument |
GUIforHealthTrue.html |
Biggle jnr, Lloyd |
Fornri |
Monument |
Kinkajou interviews a Skroderider: (Vernor Vinge: A Fire Upon The Deep)
Kinkajou: Greetings SkrodeRider! I believe I have never met a creature such as yourself. Your shape suggests a small ornamental tree sitting on a little six wheeled cart. Your voice is synthesized from a voder, not from a voicebox as possessed by most animals.
SkrodeRider: Greetings Kinkajou:
Kinkajou: I see how information recording and processing is an essential part of your world. Can you tell us something about the technologies involved with these things in your world? First though tell me about yourself.
SkrodeRider: We SkrodeRiders are one of the one of the very few races that has achieved long-term stability in the Beyond. There are still some who ride the ancient Skrode – a unique balance of outlook and machine interface that is more than 1 billion years old. We are in fact one of the most common sophonts in the Beyond. We initially evolved on the seashore, a form of intelligence almost devoid of short-term memory.
An “Unknown Race” chanced upon our dreamers and decided to “help us out”. They placed us on mobile platforms – the Skrodes. With wheels we could move along seashore, and could reach and manipulate with our fronds and tendrils. With the short-term memory built into our Skrodes, we became capable of learning fast enough that our mobility would not kill us.
We never really developed the concept of books, as our Skrodes served as our memory. The integration of electronic memory and our neural processing systems allowed us to develop intelligence. Intelligence is the handmaiden of flexibility. Dumb animals can only change as fast as natural evolution.
Our Skrodes allowed us to bypass many of the limitations placed on our species by nature and evolution.
We have survived much longer than many human equivalent races. For many species, once their technologies run up, they hit the limits of the capabilities within their zone within a matter of a few thousand years.In the Transcend, such limitations do not exist. In fact super- humanity can developed so quickly that its creators are often destroyed. Civilisation at the top for the most part develops from colonies from below. Again as a species, we have survived here at the top for a long time.
Kinkajou: I don’t understand the concepts of “Transcend”, “Beyond”, “Middle Deep” and the “Depths”.
SkrodeRider: The Closer one comes to the core of the galaxy, the slower information-processing systems run. In the depths at the core of the galaxy, many sophonts stagger around with an IQ of about 60. Simple automation often fails in the unthinking depths. Intellectually we know that there is little difference in the possible intelligence of creatures in the Beyond and the primitives of the “Depths”, (also called the “Slowness”). Most automation works better in the beyond, and ultralight communication is possible.
Most computer links are not efficient in the Middle Beyond. The Beyond begins about 4/5 out from the centre of the galaxy. Most everything further than 40,000 light years from the galactic centre constitutes the Transcend. But you have to go into the Transcend to build truly superhuman minds. Almost every race eventually dabbles in the Transcend, more often than not birthing a super intelligence, a “Power”.
Kinkajou: So every civilization eventually comes to colonise and function within the Transcend.
SkrodeRider: Actually, normally not. The Transcend is incredibly dangerous. Computers involve rapidly into transcendent super intelligences. The processes that circulate through their nodes become complex, beyond anything that would normally exist on computer systems arising lower in the Beyond.
The feeble peripheral devices become front ends to the recipes that are used to create intelligences. Wary species spend much of their time watching this system for signs of deception. But often the recipe is a series of more or less intelligible steps with a clear take-off point.
The early stages take hold of computers and programs more effectively and beyond their capacities of their watchers to discover. They seem apparently well-behaved. Many of these processes develop the potential for self-awareness. And when that happens, the creators often die.
In the Transcend, truly sophisticated equipment can operate devices substantially smarter than anyone down here. Almost any economic or military competition can be won by the side with superior computing resources. There are limitless possibilities for disaster, even if an existing power does not cause harm. There are many recipes for taking advantage of the capabilities of the Transcend. These recipes or processes can’t be effectively examined, except in the Transcend. When these recipes or processes are run on equipment of their own design, the recipes themselves can become sentient.
Kinkajou: I would have thought to just test the stuff at a safe remove would be adequate to avoid risk. And preparation for local disasters would suffice.
SkrodeRider: True. Simple caution can prevent many disasters. And if your lab is in the Middle Beyond, such caution is all that is really needed, no matter how sophisticated the threat. There are a million possibilities for disaster, thousands listed by the Powers (AI sentients) themselves.
Operations in the High Beyond or the Transcend are dangerous. Civilisation is up there don’t last long, but there are always species who try. The AI powers up there may be variously malevolent, playful or indifferent.
Once the AI intelligence gains access to the computer system, it begins to control its situation by distorting the information on the system. The most cautious staff will be framed as incompetent. Phantom threats would be detected, and emergency response would be demanded. More sophisticated devices would be built, and with fewer safeguards. Conceivably many sophonts/ artificial intelligences- would be killed or rewritten before a Power would even achieve: trans-sapience.
Most powers would look down on the animal intelligences that created them. They believe that these creatures only have the illusion of self-awareness. They are happy biological automatons running on trivial programs. They are not capable of even the simplest processes undertaken by the AI Powers. The Powers achieve intelligence greater than anything human, and greater than anything human can even imagine.
Kinkajou: So the Transcend is full of these AI Powers.
SkrodeRider: Again no. No one really knows how long transcendent beings lived, but it is a rare power that stays in communication for more than five or 10 years. So we believe that most powers have a normal life span of about 10 years. But those that are malevolent can cause enormous damage in this time. After about 10 years, many lose interest for contact with the biological intelligences of the high beyond. Perhaps they grow into something different – or really do die.
Kinkajou: The carrot and stick. The possibility of incredible achievement and incredible power, but the risk of creating a malevolent intelligence: a Perversion. No wonder the races of the galaxy seek only to dabble in the Transcend.
SkrodeRider: Yes. If you have been to the archive at Relay, you know that the archive is fundamentally vaster than the database on a conventional local net. For practical purposes, the big ones can’t even be duplicated. The major archives go back millions of years. They have been maintained by hundreds of different races, many races now extinct or perhaps transcended into Powers.
The archive at Relay is so huge that there are indexing systems layered on top of indexing systems.
Sometimes malevolent powers introduce viruses. They can jam a local net so thoroughly that civilisation must start from scratch. Malevolent powers have been known to destroy all life on the planet – creating a planet knee deep in replicating goo. As I’ve said operations in high beyond and the Transcend are dangerous. Civilizations up there don’t last long, but there are always species to try. Kinkajou: Thank you for the insights into your world. Incredible achievements and the potential for incredible horrors would often seem to go hand-in-hand.
BookReadersTrue.html |
Vinge, Vernor |
Skroderider |
A Fire Upon the Deep |
Horrors.html ONE |
Vinge, Vernor |
Skroderider |
A Fire Upon the Deep |
SingularityTrue.html |
Vinge, Vernor |
Skroderider |
A Fire Upon the Deep |
Kinkajou interviews Crier
(Joseph Green: Conscience Interplanetary)
Kinkajou: It is amazing that you are an intelligent plant. Humanity has had little contact with such as you, with the exception of the Skroderider, and the Jophur. I find it amazing how you are able to store so much information within your body, in effect being a distributed intelligence. Tell me about how you were discovered.
Crier: I believe the “Conscience” by virtue of his training was able to discern my presence. He noticed a saucer-shaped leaf, laced with silver threads, hanging from one of the upper limbs and growing into a lower limb. The normal growth pattern on both branches was upward. He saw two thick coils of silver wire, spun fine as spider silk, hanging suspended in the air on both sides. My supple limbs, when not disturbed by the wind, get the leaf pulled taut to form a crude but workable diaphragm. He suddenly realised the leaf and coils formed an electrically operated speaker. He realised that "The Voices" were coming from what appeared to be a plant.
He returned the next day having adapted speakers that would be suitable for me to operate. I was able to learn how the device operated. I remember saying “you have provided an air vibration device”.
Kinkajou: I can imagine that if there was any doubt of intelligence in a plant, seeing how quickly you could recognise the incoming signal and interpret the content definitely would be a measure of your adaptability.
Crier: I told them I was a multiple body entity. All forms such as the one existing in front of them were part of the “Unity”. Each form in the circle of my being, connects with all the others through a system of underground nerves made of silver protected by my tissue. All my young growing parts require silver for the communications “nerves” and to develop the data storage matrix that exists within every individual.
I told them that all my parts were not identical. Some are grown to provide electricity which is distributed to all. Others will grow with the trunk much larger than the one they saw before them. The extra space in these is supplied with silver in a matrix form and used for storage of accumulated knowledge. Unity would draw upon any part of the whole as necessary.
Initially the voice that I produced was totally mechanical, without inflection or intonation other than pauses for periods. However I was very capable of learning.
Kinkajou: How did you learn to speak English?
Crier: All my individual forms have leaves sensitive to slow vibrations transmitted through the air. Other leaves and roots are sensitive to temperature, electrical potential, touch and kinaesthetics. When the vibrations generated by the humans appeared in the air, I realised they were a form of slow communication. I stored these in my memory. Analysis revealed the structure of the communications and over several years I slowly learned the meaning of individual words.
When I felt ready to communicate, I changed the growth patterns of the form before you to create an air vibration device. The signalling advice you have attached to my nerve endings enables me to receive your communication in the electrical form which is acceptable to me without transformation.
Kinkajou: Storage of information is one of the basic underpinnings of intelligence. What is fascinating to me is that in effect created your own data to store and are able to electrically transfer data throughout the whole network of your bodies as necessary. You have the capacity to notice patterns and to draw meaningful conclusions about what may be intent behind these.
Humans communicate information through the medium of books and through books. You can retain the same sort of information internally, in effect writing your own book or library, accessible to all you individual parts. A different form of reading to what we are acquainted, relying not on vision but on extraction of information from metallic chemical based storage complexes.
Next question. Do you sleep?
Crier: Yes and no. My forms do not sleep. However, I do not possess the quality that you think of as intelligence when my forms are receiving sunlight.
Kinkajou: I suppose humans do not possess the quality you think of intelligence when they are asleep. Interesting parallels.
BookReadersTrue.html |
Green, Joseph |
Crier |
Conscience Interplanetary |