Learning Without Brains

Can creatures without brains think? Many of them can learn, so are they thinking? This article highlights several brainless life forms capable of learning:

Organisms Without Brains

Of course, this premise depends on what we mean by learning. If we think of that activity as a process that requires consciousness, a brain is probably essential. However, the article defines learning as "any change in behaviour as a result of experience." By that definition, creatures such as jellyfish, some plants, and even slime molds can learn, remember, and modify their reactions to the environment accordingly. For example, the beadlet anemone as a rule "violently opposes any encroachment on its territory by other anemones," yet it doesn't show aggression toward its genetically identical clones. Slime molds remember routes to food and use those experiences to guide future foraging. The Venus flytrap also acts as if it has a memory. Another article explores the potential "intelligence" of plants in more detail, discussing how chemical and electrical signals in their transport systems may carry information.

Can Plants Think?

I've probably mentioned in the past a story in which one character asks another, "With what does a plant think, in the absence of a brain?" The skeptical second character who scoffs at the idea of plant cognition might be wrong after all.

The concept of brainless organisms capable of remembering and learning raises the question, again, of how we could be sure of recognizing an intelligent alien if we met one. Suppose they have modes of intelligence that, unlike ours, don't need anything that seems analogous to a brain? How easily could we realize they are actually thinking?

If "learning" means "any change in behaviour as a result of experience," considering what we watch and read in the daily news, we might well doubt whether some Earth-humans with allegedly functional brains have the ability to learn!

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

How Many Brains Does a Creature Need?

Leeches have 32 brains. Well, sort of. Each of its separate segments contains its own neuronal ganglion. As one answer on Quora puts it, "precisely it does not have 32 brains but a single brain that exists in 32 parts throughout the body," yet because each ganglion works independently, we might say it literally has a brain for each segment.

Is It True That a Leech Has 32 Brains?

Here's a page with thirteen wild and wonderful facts about animal brains:

13 Facts About Animals' Brains

Starfish have their neurons distributed through their arms instead of concentrated in a central location. A spider's brain is too big for its head and extends into its legs. Octopuses, similarly, keep two-thirds of their neurons in their tentacles instead of in the central brain. Thus, like spiders, they can perform amazingly complex feats with their limbs. The octopus, in fact, has the highest brain-to-body mass ratio of any invertebrate. This article explores octopus intelligence, including their ability to use tools:

How Smart Are Octopuses?

On the other hand, although we consider ourselves the planet's superior life form because of our intelligence, the humble sea squirt doesn't appear to value brainpower very highly. In the transition from its immature, mobile phase into an adult rooted in one spot, it "eats" its own brain. Among other animals that seem to consider brains optional, a cockroach can survive a long time with no head (until it starves to death). Then there's the famous case of a chicken named Mike, who lived for eighteen months after being (mostly) decapitated:

Mike the Headless Chicken

So maybe we members of the species Homo sapiens ("wise human") should be a bit more modest about the power to rule Earth through our intelligence? Maybe alien visitors would single out ants or termites as the dominant species, since there are so many more of them than us, and their excavations produce significant effects on the landscape. Or how about grasses? Not only do they cover much of the globe, they obviously employ us as their servants to help them spread and thrive.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Anticipating Androids

In Mary Shelley's novel, Victor Frankenstein apparently constructed his creature by stitching together parts of cadavers. (His first-person narrative stays vague on the details.) Considering the rapid decay of dead flesh as well as the problem of reanimating such a construct, if we ever get organic androids or, as they're called in Dungeons and Dragons, flesh golems, they're more likely to be created by a method similar to this: Robotics experts at the University of Vermont have designed living robots made from frog cells, which were constructed and tested by biologists at Tufts University:

Xenobots

They're made of living cells derived from frog embryos. Joshua Bongard, one of the researchers on this project, describes the xenobots as "a new class of artifact: a living, programmable organism." The frog cells "can be coaxed to make interesting living forms that are completely different from what their default anatomy would be." Only a millimeter wide, they potentially "can move toward a target, perhaps pick up a payload (like a medicine that needs to be carried to a specific place inside a patient)—and heal themselves after being cut." They might also be able to perform such tasks as cleaning up radioactive materials and other contaminants or scraping plaque out of arteries. While this process doesn't amount to creating life, because it works with already living cells, it does reconfigure living organisms into novel forms. Although there's no hint of plans to build larger, more complicated artificial organisms, the article doesn't say that's impossible, either.

If an android constructed by this method could be made as complex as a human being, could it ever have intelligence? In an experiment I think I've blogged about in the past, scientists at the University of California, San Diego have grown cerebral "organoids"—miniature brains—from stem cells:

Lab-Grown Mini-Brains

These mini-brains, about the size of a pea, can "mimic the neural activity" of a pre-term fetus. Researchers hope these organoids can be used to study brain disorders and perhaps to replace lost or damaged areas of living human brains. At present, they can't think or feel. But suppose they're eventually grown large and complex enough to—maybe—develop sentience or even consciousness? In that case, it could be reasonably argued that they should have individual rights. The "disembodied brain in a jar" that's a familiar trope of SF and horror, is, according to the article, a highly unlikely outcome of this research. If these miniaturized brains ever became complex enough to transplant into a more highly developed version of the frog-cell "xenobots," however, the question of personhood would surely arise.

Margaret L. Carter

Margaret L. Carter

The Purpose of Pain

This title doesn't refer to the metaphysical question of why suffering exists. (My favorite book on that topic is THE PROBLEM OF PAIN, by C. S. Lewis.) I'm talking about the biological and evolutionary reason for the sensation of pain. That subject comes to mind because, with age, I've started collecting a variety of physical aches and pains, none of them disabling yet (thank goodness) but cumulatively annoying. Are we biologically fated to put up with this nuisance, which in many cases can escalate to the level of extreme distress? Of course, I know why it evolved. Without that warning signal, we wouldn't notice when our bodies are being damaged. People born with congenital insensitivity to pain tend to hurt themselves a lot and often die prematurely. But does the process have to work as harshly as it does? Why can't the pain stop when the cause of the damage has been discovered and addressed? Instead, it may hang around throughout the healing stage. Also, some people suffer for years without any definite cause being identified. And women, at least, are stuck with some pains that seem completely pointless, as in severe menstrual cramps and the contractions of the advanced phase of childbirth. Why couldn't labor signs consist of mild cramps that get only closer together, not more intense, as the moment of delivery approaches?

Organisms too "primitive" to have brains with which to be aware of discomfort nevertheless recoil from hazardous stimuli. A robot could theoretically be programmed to avoid potential damage without consciousness. Why can't our nervous systems be programmed that efficiently? Yes, we need a warning device. But does it have to inflict discomfort or agony? Couldn't we experience a mild zap, like static electricity, which would recur every minute or so until we fixed the problem? Why didn't we evolve the ability to turn off pain as soon as we've found the source and started fixing the problem? Wouldn't it be nice to have a control panel in the brain with a "red alert" button we could switch off after acknowledging it?

The obvious catch is that if the damage signal didn't cause extreme distress, we might ignore it. Most of us know people who act as if powering through sickness or injury makes them tough guys (or gals). A highly rational being such as a Vulcan would respond appropriately to pain stimuli and wouldn't abuse the ability to suppress it at will. If we can't possess the rationality and control over autonomic body functions that Vulcans enjoy, couldn't we at least have some less agonizing system? Maybe if we ignored damage signals for too long, we could abruptly lose the use of some minor appendage or function, to jolt us into taking action. I'd accept that alternative over severe cramps or stabbing pains. For instance, this relatively mild but annoying chronic ache in the arms from shoulder tendinitis. I adjust positions for sleeping and computer use, conscientiously perform recommended exercises, avoid muscle strain, and apply ice to the affected areas. What more does it want from me? Why isn't there a handy diagnostic screen where I can check the status of the condition and respond accordingly? In some respects, the design of the human body leaves a bit to be desired.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme Element Giving And Receiving Part 2 Science of Science Fiction by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme Element Giving And Receiving

Part 2

Science of Science Fiction

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Part 1 is here: http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/theme-element-giving-and-receiving.html

Scroll down through Part 1 (which doe not have a "part" label) and you will find a list of previous posts discussing Giving and Receiving -- which is the subject of the Science Article published in 2018 that we will study in this post. 

We shall have to discuss "Strong Characters" in greater depth in future posts, but the source of Character strength in story, especially Romance, is Theme so we will analyze this science article in terms of science fictional themes it can be used to generate, giving your Romance Couple-to-be an obstacle to conflict with and conquer. 

The obstacles you can generate from this science article are genuinely "ripped from the headlines."  People are grappling with these problems, groping in a fog, trying to chart a life-path for themselves in spite of living in a world in turmoil.  Propose a useful analysis and they will memorize your byline and Tweet about your novel.

Where a Character stands on an issue (a theme) makes that Character a memorable individual whose name readers remember, and even make symbolic (like the strong and memorable Character,  MacGyver).

MacGyver refused to carry or use guns, so when he needed a weapon, he created one out of whatever innocuous bits and pieces were in reach.  This clearly demonstrates:

THEME: tools do not cause behavior.  Anything can be a weapon. 

The Strong Character's stance on a specific Headline Issue generates the Conflict for your story.  Your story opens when the Character takes up his stance on that issue to fling him/herself against some opposing Force or Obstacle, in order to achieve a Goal.

The Duke's Daughter fleeing an Arranged Marriage is one cliche that illustrates how a Strong Character can be depicted "taking a stance."

The segment of a Character's life that is "His Story" is the segment where the Character leaps (willingly or willfully) toward the bottom rung of the karmic ladder dangling from the Divine Helicopter come to the rescue. 

It is that vision of "this is what I must do in this life" -- this is what I will achieve that is worth my life -- that sends a Character into "his story" in do-or-die mode.  That is this individual's reason for living.  All else is commentary or gravy, or just noise (Red Herring) to distract.

Note how all of this is about Character, about people (human or not-so-much).  It can be about an AI - an artificial intelligence, a robot.  You could have a strong Character who is not biological.

The opposing Character also has a goal.  The nature of that Goal is what gives the reader a clue about whether the opposition is a Villain or just a different sort of Hero who can be won over.

But it is not just the nature of the Goal that defines a Villain.  Generally speaking, we view those who "want to rule the world" as Villains.  It is the methods the Characters are willing to use that distinguishes Hero from Villain.  Generally speaking "the end justifies the means" defines the Villain.

Thus MacGyver is viewed as a Hero because he finds other means to thwart his opposition rather than guns and killing.  He hurls himself into danger, takes insane chances, depends on his physical strength and agility - but never neglects to protect and rescue. 

So is MacGyver a Republican or a Democrat?  Is MacGyver a Conservative or a Liberal?

When the TV Series first came on the air in 1985 (keeping in mind "development" would have been 1980-1984)
https://www.amazon.com/MacGyver-Pilot/dp/B000HL2J0G/
the definitions of "Conservative" and "Liberal" were totally different than they are in 2018.

In fact, the two-party system in the USA causes the parties to redefine themselves continuously after each election.  So the definition of "Republican" and "Democrat" changes, as do those who "register" with one or the other party.  Most people probably don't bother to change registration as they change their minds and the Party changes definition. 

Few vote in Primaries which is all Registration matters for, so bottom line for a Science Fiction Romance Writer (even writing contemporaries) is that there is no definition of Conservative or Liberal -- you have to make up your own.

That means you have to know more about the philosophy behind "Conservative" and "Liberal" than your readers do. 

The stances on issues reverse rapidly between Conservatives and Liberals. 

As noted in previous posts, humans tend to subjugate themselves to a Group in order to "fit in."  This process is painful and what makes High School sheer hell for most. 

Culture-clashes are the meat and potatoes of science fiction -- the very definition of "Alien From Outer Space" is "From A Non-Human-Culture."  If the alien's culture complements the human's, it can work out peacefully.

But most humans, of any culture, are not so accepting.  What exactly does it take for a Strong Character to set aside preconceptions and explore the Alien?  Here are a few posts nibbling at the edges of that topic.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/05/defining-and-using-theme-part-2-love-vs.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/03/theme-plot-character-worldbuilding.html

Currently, a number of scientific studies of human brains vs political leaning are trying to show a scientific basis for the right-ness or wrong-ness of certain views of what government is, what it is for, what it must not be used for, and why humans keep inventing government.

The "we have to get organized" chant that erupts whenever a random group of humans comes together to pursue a common goal (we must get Federal funds to fix this bridge -- we must attract a company to build a hospital in our town -- we must elect this fellow to get better funding to Community Colleges.  Whatever the community goal, "we" have to get organized.

Throughout human history, it has been shown that the better organized groups "win" or prevail in some way.  A single human really can't do much until or unless he/she attracts a following that "gets organized" to support him/her.

In other words, humans choose "leaders" and the followers get organized.

Labor Unions are a good example.  Mobs yelling and throwing bricks didn't do much good until they got organized.  Now they can hold huge companies hostage during a strike because the individuals all move together.

So science has been studying the difference between Good and Evil using "liberal" and "conservative" as proxies, trying to peg the brain configuration that defines the difference.

http://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-differences-between-conservatives-and-liberals-2018-2

There have been a lot of studies on brain development which I've mentioned in passing, showing how experiences rewire the brain, how learning develops different brain regions, how sensory deprivation shrivels other brain regions, and how traumatic experiences change the brain and even genetic expression.

Human beings are among the weakest animals on this planet - no shell, no pelt, poor hearing, so-so eyesight, not very fast runners, very tasty eating.  Many have concluded that our main survival trait is our brains.

The idea is that the ability to think, to theorize, to make and use tools and language, to create records and teach the young, is our survival trait. 

At the moment, our tools and technology seem to be killing us (pollution, global warming, species extinctions among our food supply, over-hunting/fishing). 

So maybe our brains are not our biggest survival advantage.

Perhaps it is our adaptability that will get us through this?

The blows hammering our children from the environment reshape the children so that the resulting adult thinks differently.

Cyberbullying, tackled in...

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/09/depiction-part-32-depicting-brain-to.html

...will, no doubt, produce a generation more adapted to the larger social structures forming online -- utterly alien to Middle Ages Villagers.

But as Science Fiction Romance writers, we are futurologists.  It's not enough to look back and find trends rooted in the 1980's like MacGyver (now revived).

We have to look deeply at the present and project what trends will become visible to the public 30 to 50 years from now.

One big trend is the movement to substitute Science for Religion.  Since it is "Settled Science" that humans caused Global Warming, anyone who doesn't believe that human activity is causing human extinction is a) stupid, b) evil, c) The Enemy of Civilization -- or d) worse.

If you think Global Warming is caused by human activity, you are excluded from the group.  If your conclusion is the result of thinking from facts, you might change your mind.  Those desperately dedicated to stopping Global Warming and saving humanity from itself can not risk that.

You must believe because Science says so -- just as Galileo was required to believe because someone said the Bible said so (which it didn't, and he knew it.)

Believing means taking someone else's word as truth, replacing what you think with what they believe.  Humans urgently desire this kind of agreement with their Group -- survival depends on being integrated into a Group (e.g.

getting organized).

Suppose that is the trait your Aliens do not share with humans.  What kind of Strength of Character will your Main Character (MC) need to Love across a gap like that? 

To discoverer where to find such traits in human nature, examine this research on the human Brain and political leanings.

http://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-differences-between-conservatives-and-liberals-2018-2

-------quote-------
Scientists have discovered the key psychological differences that can make you liberal or conservative by 
Hilary Brueck  Feb. 26, 2018, 10:50 AM

... Being scared can make you more conservative.
Being scared can make you more conservative.
Decades of research has shown that people get more conservative when they feel threatened and afraid

....A conservative brain is more active in different areas than a liberal one.
Brain scans show that people who self-identify as conservative have larger and more active right amygdalas, an area of the brain that's associated with expressing and processing fear. This aligns with the idea that feeling afraid makes people lean more to the right.

...On the other hand, feeling safe and endowed with strength might make you lean a little more liberal than you otherwise would.
Groundbreaking research that Yale psychologists published in 2017 revealed that helping people imagine they're completely safe from harm can make them (temporarily) hold more liberal views.

...Liberals are less squeamish about looking at yucky stuff like vomit, feces, and blood.

A 2018 study of college students showed that those with more socially conservative views were quicker to physically look away from disgusting images — like pictures of blood, feces, or vomit — than their liberal peers.

...Conservatives tend to display more ordered thinking patterns, whereas liberals have more "aha" moments.

A 2016 study at Northwestern University found that when conservative and liberal college students were given word problems to solve, both groups managed to arrive at some correct answers through gradual, analytical analysis. But when feeling stuck on a problem, liberals were much more likely to draw upon a sudden burst of insight — an 'aha' moment, like a lightbulb turning on in the brain.

...Liberals tend to follow the wandering gaze of others more often, while conservative eyes stay more focused on the original subject they're looking at.

In 2010, researchers at the University of Nebraska tested whether conservatives and liberals physically see the world in different ways. They found that when it comes to matching the gaze of other people, the two groups differ.

...Holding conservative views seems to make people more resistant to change and help them explain inequality.

A 2003 review of decades of research on conservative people suggested that their social views can help satisfy "psychological needs" to make sense of the world and manage uncertainty and fear.

...Liberal and conservative tastes in music and art are different, too.

Studies from the 1980s showed that conservatives preferred more simple paintings, familiar music, and unambiguous texts and poems, while liberals enjoy more cubist and abstract art.

...Liberals are more likely to describe themselves as compassionate and optimistic, while conservatives are more likely to say they're people of honor and religion.

A 1980 study of high school students found conservative students at that time were more likely to describe themselves as "responsible," "organized," "successful," and "ambitious," while liberal students might describe themselves as "loving," "tender," or "mellow."

...Conservatives believe they have more self-control.

One 2015 study found that conservative students were often better at focusing their attention on a cognitive task called the Stroop color and word test. The common psychological study tool asks participants to quickly name the correct color of a word that's written on a different color background.

...Liberals and conservatives extend feelings of compassion to different people.

New research shows that conservatives tend to express compassion to smaller social circles than liberals.

--------end quote------

I just cropped some headlines from that article.  If you can find it, read it all, or just read up on the studies cited, and more recent follow-up studies.

All these studies suffer from the same flaws - A) assuming that statistics works both ways (if a Group has a Characteristic, all members of that Group have that Characteristic), B) Recruiting College Students to study, who are typically young and still being "formed" by "life" then applying results to 60-somethings.

But those flaws can be used, in fact leveraged, by Fiction Writers to great advantage.

A novel needs a target audience, and audiences are defined most easily by studies such as these listed in the quotes above.

College age students are most likely to be the readers for Science Fiction and for Romance, and Science Fiction Romance.  They love Fatansy, Paranormal Romance and all the mixed genres.  It was college dorm TV's that were turned to Star Trek on first run -- thus missed by the Nielsen rating service.  Studying college students tells you more about what will happen 20 years from now than about what is happening now.

If you are writing Science Fiction Romance that will be a "Classic" -- you should aim at what current college age people want to read.

So consider how the definitions of Conservative and Liberal have morphed over decades.  Then consider how both Republican and Democrat Parties have both Liberal and Conservative members, and how they agree or disagree on different issues.

A given Character can be Liberal on Gun Control and Conservative on Federal Reserve Policy -- and not see a contradiction.

Is there a contradiction?  Can you find a pair of issues which do contradict?

Where would your sexy-hunk Alien From Outer Space stand on Video Game Violence causes children to grow up violent?

A number of studies have shown that kids are more prone to solve social problems with force after playing a Video Game that uses force as the solution, not the problem.

That is solid, settled science -- but is it true?  Maybe it's true of humans but not your Aliens? 

Maybe it is true of 21st Century American kids but not of 21st Century human kids raised on an Alien Planet among Aliens (or in the far future or a parallel Earth?) 

We have science measuring the effect of violent video games on children -- but not a lot of research on anti-violent video games played by children.  Are there any? 

Now consider how "threatened" the kids growing up in the war-hammered Middle East (Syria and so on) -- the terrorist threatened European cities flooded with migrants -- will Syria and Europe (the bastion of modern Liberalism) suddenly turn Conservative 20 years from now?

Or will the threat be over and all those people who grew up under danger and threat suddenly turn Liberal because they feel safe at last?

These issues reflect the Theme Element of Giving and Receiving. 

People "feel safe" when they are "given protection." 

One goal of parenting is to give your children a good childhood, free of the life-or-death concerns of adulthood, 

So feeling "safe" is defined as the psychological condition of childhood - of being "innocent" and not knowing how dangerous the world is, or how easy one mistake can destroy your life.

People "feel powerful" when they are "giving protection."

One of the sexiest bits of dialogue in Romance is, "I will protect you."  We write a lot about rescuing.  We love the scene where the big, strong, muscled Hunk places himself between the slender, near-naked Princess and takes the bullet for her.

Our culture regards being protected as the female goal in life, while doing the protecting is the male goal.

That cultural assumption is under attack, and is morphing before our eyes, faster than 40-something parents can adjust (adapt, changing their brains).

The most important element in Romance is RISK.  We write about "bearing the Soul" in the lead-up to the "I love you" scene.  Saying it first is the biggest risk most people take in a lifetime.

We write about the muscled Hunk who vanquishes amazingly horrible threats but can't take the risk of saying, "I love you." 

Which is the stronger Character, the one who says it first, or the one who says it second? 

Who is the Hero - the one who feels safe and thus freely gives compassion at no risk, or the one who feels threatened and thus freely gives safety at great risk? 

Which brain is the lover, and which brain is the beloved?

We talked about how people consider Political affiliation as a deal-breaker element on Dating Sites in this post: 

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/05/defining-and-using-theme-part-2-love-vs.html

The THEME element of giving and receiving, and how it functions (male to female) in a Relationship is vitally important to the HEA ending of your Romance, but it comes into even greater importance when the Couple is raising children.

https://amazon.com/Shooting-Sports-Women-Shotgunning-Outdoorswoman/dp/0312147333/

Children, we hold in our culture, must be "protected" -- and they must "feel safe" (i.e. have their brains configured for Liberalism).  Thus we explode at each other over issues related to School Shootings, School Safety and even "what" may be taught in the curriculum.  (can a High School host ROTC? Riflery Team?) 

Who has Power -- someone must because we can't have civilization without someone holding Power to force others to behave properly.  Left to themselves, humans just won't behave properly. 

Ponder that quote from the article saying that "Conservatives" (defined by those with a more active amygdala ) believe they have more self-control.  It does not say, but seems to follow that Conservatives expect OTHERS to have more self-control.

Conservatives may discipline their children to develop self-discipline and thus admire and strive for self-control.

If you read Romance novels from pre-MacGyver 1970's and then read on by year, you will likely find the preponderance of Romance novels shifting to the "irresistible" model of human nature.

Lust, sex, and the intense attraction to the Soul Mate is "irresistible" -- and the excuse for having inappropriate sex is "I could not resist." 

We can't resist the urges of the flesh.  The body has power over us.  If it feels good, do it. 

These are themes rooted in the philosophical context of the "Self" that has "Control" being the animal body.

"Irresistible" is a word that depicts the entire philosophy behind the World the writer has built.  Sex, lust, CAN NOT BE resisted.  The "self" that has all the power is the animal flesh.  If there is a Soul, it is powerless.

If, on the other hand, the author uses the wording, "I could not resist" - there is the admission of guilt, of not having developed a Strong Character.

And here we come to the definition of Strong Character in the fictional sense.

What is Character -- not the fictional representation of a person, but in real life, the attribute of a complete human called Character?

Here is an idea to ponder until it becomes a THEME in your mind.

Character is the Relationship between body/flesh and soul/identity.

A Strong Character is a Soul that has made a strong ally of the Body -- so the Soul feels safe and the Body feels safe.  Neither needs to bully or be armed against the other -- Inner Peace reigns.

A Weak Character is a Body that dominates and bullies the Soul, seizing any opportunity for instant gratification of bodily lusts (for food, sex, money, power). 

Delayed gratification is the sign of a Body/Soul on the path to being a Strong Character.

A truly Strong Character, completely matured, has no inner conflict.

Remember, External Conflict is a reflection of Inner Conflict in the Character who will "Arc" (or morph or change or grow or learn) during the story.

The truly Strong Character has no internal conflict, and thus is way past where his/her story happens do him/her.

So Main Characters who are "Strong" are not strong in every trait.  They have lessons to learn, chiefly the lesson "I love you." 

But perhaps, in Science Fiction Romance, the biggest and hardest lesson to learn is never to believe in science.  Science is about thinking, so new evidence can change your thinking.  There can be no believing in Science.  In Romance, the biggest and hardest lesson is to Believe in the Beloved -- through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, never waver in belief in that beloved Soul's innate spirit. 

Can "belief" span the political gap?  Can Love conquer Politics?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg

Persistence of Selfhood

In her alien-invasion-plus-vampire novel THE MADNESS SEASON, C. S. Friedman creates a species called the Marra, incorporeal beings who wear material bodies "like clothes." Upon assuming a new body, a Marra constructs an identity to shape its lifetime in that persona. Being true to the present identity is vital to a Marra. For instance, the female-gendered Marra with whom the novel's protagonist becomes intimate currently lives as a healer. Yet through all the shifts of bodies and identities, each individual Marra remains the same person with continuity of memories. How can a self persist with no permanent physical form to anchor it, however? The Marra must be the SF equivalent of disembodied souls. Maybe the soul or self of a Marra is an energy network?

Of course, many religions believe in disembodied souls. The concept of reincarnation depends on the existence of a nonmaterial soul that moves from body to body through death and rebirth. As I understand it, the general belief holds that in a new life the soul doesn't remember past lives, so in what sense is it the same person? In folklore, fantasy, and horror, many tropes exist that conceive of the spirit as detachable, so to speak. Ghosts can linger on after the death of the body. In stories as different as FREAKY FRIDAY and Lovecraft's "The Thing on the Doorstep," people can trade minds between bodies by magic.

On the physical level, cells in our bodies are constantly wearing out and being replaced. Different tissues get replaced at different rates. So if we don't have the same body we had at birth, are we the same person or a different person sharing some memories with the earlier one? Accepting the second answer would have scary implications, because it could mean that someone suffering from severe dementia-related memory loss is no longer the same person despite bearing the same name. On the other hand, it's believed that neurons in the brain never get replaced, so does their existence provide continuity of selfhood?

In time-travel stories that allow two or more versions of the same person to exist in one moment of time, which is the "real" person? Both/all of them? If "selfhood" is defined by self-awareness, the status of existing in two bodies at once, each with its own separate awareness, generates a tangle of philosophical problems. Maybe selfhood follows the traveler's consciousness as it moves through his or her personal timeline; when you meet your earlier or later self, that's not a "real" self because your awareness isn't currently resident in that body. (So what does that make the earlier or later version? Some kind of zombie?) Dr. McCoy speculates in an early STAR TREK novel that the transporter doesn't literally project a person across space. Instead, the transporter destroys the individual at the origination point and creates a duplicate at the destination. Therefore, everybody who travels by transporter "dies" on the first trip, and every subsequent trip kills a version of that person and constructs a new version. Along the same lines, if you have your consciousness uploaded to a computer, and your body dies soon afterward, is the computer consciousness really yourself or only a simulation?

Some psychologists maintain that no such phenomenon as the unified self, the ego, exists. What we think of as the mind is a collection of different processes. Consciousness, according to these scientists, is an illusion the brain has created for its own convenience. The trouble with this hypothesis, in my view, is that the construction of an illusion of selfhood implies an agent to do the constructing. Therefore, we come back to a unified, controlling self.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Depiction Part 32 - Depicting Brain To Computer Links - Online Bullying Prevention

Depiction

Part 32

Depicting Brain To Computer Links

Online Bullying Prevention 

Previous parts of this series on how writers can depict (eliminate details, sharpen symbols, transform "reality" as observed into enjoyable fiction) what the writer observes in their real world are indexed here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

Writers are born observers of "reality" -- people watchers who can spin a life's history from a few details seen on a shopper at a Mall.

It doesn't matter whether the tale spun has any relationship to the actual reality of that person -- it is a story, a potential possibility, a flight of imagination far more interesting than the person's reality.

Writers look at people -- and see Characters.

Getting good at the craft of writing means perfecting the ability to distinguish between people (readers, for example) and Characters.

We all look at people and see someone other than the person who is really there.

We all fill in the blanks, make wild and unsubstantiated assumptions, and then deal with the real person as if that person is actually the Character we have imagined.  All your readers do it -- and most people who do not ever read fiction do it, too.  

The human brain is hardwired to take shortcuts, to recognize patterns from a few real details then imagine the rest of the details to fit that pattern.

That's how viewers guess the criminal in a TV whodunit.  It isn't TV (or videogames) that cause us to learn to do that, nor is it novels.  We do it in all our life's endeavors.

Consider a hunter in a jungle -- gotta bring home dinner.  He's got to spot the game animal and kill it, then retrieve it before scavengers eat it all up.

How does the hunter sort the cluttered jungle mess into information?

Like distinguishing between people and Characters, we must learn to distinguish between data and information.

These skills are developed at the brain's circuits, synapses, and even the sizes of brain regions, are developed from infancy through maybe 20 years of age.  

A writer's depiction is information.  What is being depicted is data.

Today, there is a massive push on among (swiftly grown to vast proportions) Tech Companies to create Artificial Intelligence that can learn to depict!  

I'm not sure any of them knows that is what they are doing - rewriting the world  - but the analogy between what a fiction writer does and what a self-driving car must do seems crystal clear to me.

In childhood, we learn to understand our world (green jungle, concrete jungle, down on the farm, King's Court Aristocracy, street smarts, etc.) by internalizing an Archetype -- a pattern, a "template" of reality around us that we then keep plugging data into, trying to transform data into information.

The current war between and against Media News can be described as a war between "Reality Templates" -- one template describing a well governed world where life is tranquil, and another describing a well governed world where life is strife-conquered-daily.

Anything that challenges the compartments of the template (think Microsoft Powerpoint or Microsoft Publisher where you download templates divided into little boxes, then insert your own images and text which magically re-formats to be beautiful), is immediately rejected with a glaring and stubborn error message.

Everything in one Media News template rejects every single bit of content from the other Media News template.  It's wrong. It's evil to disturb or distort the template of reality because that is what allows either tranquility or strife-conquered.

The two templates are incompatible.  One belongs to, say, Powerpoint and the other belongs to, say, Adobe In-Design.  There is a lot of acceptable material overlap, but incompatibility produces a mess or nothing at all.

We live in a reality where some people have internalized one template, some people the other template, some people have switched preferred templates, and others are trying to invent new templates and promulgate them.

Humans seem to thrive on this jungle like lifestyle.  It is now called multi-culturalism where each template is a culture.

Can we expect A.I. (robots, androids, smart thermostats and autonomous cars and trucks) to master all our templates, mix and match them to create new templates, overlap them and use two incompatible templates at once while ignoring incompatibilities?

The single most distinctive trait modern primates possess is adaptability and nowhere is that more evident than in the homo sapiens species.  

We might be the most adaptable intelligent species in the universe -- or the least adaptable -- and many grand Science Fiction Romance stories can be spun against backgrounds built from either premise.

But to spin such stories, the writer has to create a "template" that is being used by a Character to sort the tangled jungle of data, the heaving sea of data, the firehose of data, into information upon which to act.

Information is critical for survival, while data is not so critical.

Think about "Big Data" -- the enormous product of the Internet is massive tangles of data, but it becomes useful only when Google sorts it for you.  That's why Google has become so dominant - they solved the problem of "how do I find what exists on this topic?" and then they solved the problem, "how do I get rid of this spam."

Both solutions were based on algorythms that "crowd sourced" data collection and used their proprietary template to sort that data into information, then sort the information into organized files that could be searched.

Some of you may not remember the ludicrous answers Google search first came up with, or the world where to determine if an answer was online you had to use at least 5 search engines stating the question in different terms.

Then social networking became a possibility, a mere glimmering of an idea.  Facebook probably was not the first -- there were many forums and email Lists, and so on before Facebook.

The Prodigy Forums and Fido Net connections were all based on the existing ways that humans formed social groups.

Family, city, town, county (geographical regions where everyone has something in common - the Old West's Barn Dance), plus idea based groups (the Masons, Churches, Knights of Columbus, Science Fiction Fandom), and political parties, -- readers of a certain magazine or newspaper -- or people who bought from the Montgomery Ward Catalog or the Sears Catalog.

People who owned race horses, people who were accepted at Court -- whatever binding a group had in common, very often economic success depended on being an accepted member of that Group.

We are hard wired to seek acceptance in a Group.  Primates are not loners, though as a Group we do produce individuals who go out exploring (Mountain Men, the pioneers who found a way across the Rockies, etc. around the globe).  Those loners will probably be the first to settle on Mars.

But socialization is our primary survival trait.  So while it is true that, "You didn't build that," it is also simultaneously true (different Templates sorting the data into information) that "The Group didn't build that."

Among all primate species, there has always been an uneasy truce between the individual and the group.  No group can survive without strong and independent individuals -- but no group can survive without taming, harnessing, civilizing the strongest of those individuals.

The process of taming and harnessing those individuals starts with Romance, and all its associated elements from the highest spiritual plane of soul mates, to the grittiest necessities of physical sex.

It is the FAMILY UNIT that "tames" the wild individual to the purposes of the Group, so that individual survival becomes identical to Group survival.

The root of it all is testosterone and related gender identity hormones, all working in harmony (or disharmony).  

We discussed some articles about the effect that being bested by a woman has on a man - or being bested by another man has on a man.  Conquering or being Conquered actually has a lasting, permanent and continually reinforced effect on behavior and self-image.

Here is an entry in this series citing scientific research about depicting the married hunk - the hugely gorgeous, testosterone perfected, male molded into a father.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/depiction-part-19-depicting-married.html 

And here is an entry discussing how to use what you learned in Part 19 to expand the romance to include Aliens.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/depiction-part-21-depicting-alien.html

What happens in that transformation of the wild male into a father can be viewed as a Template Replacement.  

Before replacement, the Male sees the world as one thing - afterwards, as another.  Same DATA, same world, arranged differently.  

You can do this to a blog on blogger.com by changing the "template" and suddenly all your words take on a different arrangement.  At one point in blogger.com history, doing a template transformation wiped out all the comments that had been made.  The exact same world just looks so different, and new meanings emerge.

Humans in our civilized jungle undergo several template transformations, but at increasing intervals. It is called "growing up."  

A lot of the template shifting occurs because of physiological brain growth -- as the capacity increases, more data can be arranged and rearranged into more templates, giving wider, bigger, deeper, richer pictures of reality.

The more that inner picture of reality aligns with the actual data reality pours onto us, the more likely that person is to survive to become a parent.  

The more conscious the child is of the process of acquiring, sorting, and combinging templates into a personalized view of reality, the more flexible the adult will be as Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things changes what it takes to survive in the world.

It is possible the generation being born now, the generation that will regard your current W.I.P. as boring, antique, false because it is old fashioned, will live in an Artificial Intelligence world, a world crafted by and for A.I. and thus demanding humans adapt.

In every generation for the last few hundred years parents have adamantly refused to "let" their offspring do whatever new-fangled activity was now possible because of technology.

In other words, "good" parents prevent children from acquiring the adaptations that will insure their survival.  

Parents do that because we have survived dire threats to our survival only because of the adaptations  (the templates that transform data into information) we have internalized.  The goal of a loving parent, therefore, is to transmit the successful Template to their offspring.  

Because of the increasing tempo of change in the world (Alvin Toffler, Future Shock explains this), each recent generation has had to mix-and-match and create new Templates, new survival strategies, new ways to transform data into information that is actionable intelligence.

In the 1950's grammar schools forbid children to take ball point pens to school and insisted on teaching fine-motor-skills by using fountain pens.  The prior generation was forbidden to bring fountain pens and had to learn the proper way to dip a nib and not splash ink.

In the 1960's, college courses forbid electronic calculators and insisted students had to learn to do the calculations on a slide rule.  That insistence lasted fewer years than previous resistences to tool adoption.

And by the 1980's colleges began insisting each student must have a computer to log into the University's system.  Today live, real-time video courses are common, papers, grades, almost everything is done online.

When you choose the story you want to tell, you have to run up and down the sweep of history to find the decade that most vividly showcases that story.  Knowing the details of a historical decade is important, of course, but more important is understanding the connections among those decades.

It is not enough to depict the way parents resist the technology of their era, because you are writing for today's readers, and for tomorrow's readers.  Your story will have more verisimilitude if you explain (in show don't tell, not exposition) why these specific Characters are resisting whichever technology is swamping the development of their offspring.

Good parents have the objective of equiping their children to survive -- maybe also to thrive -- but to present grandchildren and great-grandchildren as soon as possible.  

Over the last century, there have been any number of books on how to raise your children.  Lately, there are more titles, not just because it's easier to publish now, or just because more people can read, or just because more new parents are so estranged from their parents that they have no source of reliable in-person advice, but because times are changing so fast.

New parents today know that whatever Template they acquired in childhood would lead their children to destruction because it is no longer valid in this world -- and change is accelerating in a direction that makes the truisms of twenty years ago deadly today.

So new parents go looking for books on raising children, new books based on current scientific research.

And of course, News Media interviews form a major source for stressed out, overworked new parents struggling to found a career.

The loudest thing new parents are hearing today is how Facebook Is The Source Of All Evil.  Facebook is rampant with Bullies.  Cyber-bullying on all the social networks is driving teens to suicide.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/19/popular-social-media-sites-harm-young-peoples-mental-health

To me, this sounds just like the ban on ball point pens.  Ruination will be the result of allowing teens to access current, modern technology.

That is a result of sorting many dozen News Items through a Template of my own crafting, composed of a multitude of Templates I've mastered (if not adopted, just learned how to use so I can depict Characters who see the world differently than I do).  

Like ball point pens and electronic calculators, social media is something today's teens must master, not be protected from.  

But how does a parent who did not grow up on Facebook teach their child to stay out of trouble on Facebook?  You can see how the writer's mind transforms reality into a Plot Conflict and thematic statement.  The writer's mind poses questions nobody else is asking, nevermind answering.

What is cyberbullying?  Why does it happen?  What is the mistake being made, and what Template does a parent have to train a child to use, to avoid becoming a Bully or a Victim of cyberstalking?

Develop a theory that can supply answers to those questions and you will be able to extract, clarify and symbolize a THEME -- one large enough to support a galactic war and powerful Alien Romance.

Such a theme will be a statement of what the human primate really is, how it cam about that we survived to dominate this planet, and whether we are adaptable enough to survive in a galactic civilization.

There are thousands of such themes.  How do you find them?

Study people.  Invent Characters from them.  Find the Character's "story" and his internal conflict, then generate the plot that supports the story of his life.  

So we have a Character who we first meet as a teen of Romance-Susceptible age.

And we have a world of social media where Facebook Must Be Forbidden Because It Is Full Of Nothing But Cyber-Bullies.  Using Facebook turns you into a bully - it must be so because everyone on Facebook is a bully and generally, everyone isn't a bully.  Facebook must be at fault.  

Good parents must ban Facebook.  It is the root of all evil.

What will children raised under such a ban, ban their children from doing?

Is banning and preventing the best way to raise children to survive in a rapidly changing, A.I. world?

A first set of the Characters in your novel would affirm that thesis, and their Tempate would justify banning as a parent's duty because children are impressionable and can be harmed for life by a bad experience (which is a scientific truth we have to live with.)

Another, second set of Characters might reject the thesis out of hand, and their Tempate would sort the data stream into true and false based on the thesis that research comes out the way those paying for it demand.  It's not a "conspiracy theory" because nobody conspires with anyone to produce this behavior - it is intrinsic human nature to want to please your employer.

This second set of Characters might permit their children to do any sort of online thing the child wanted - including porn - and possibly online bullying, forming online gangs to beat the rejected child for the sheer joy of beating up on the weak.  After all, being beaten up is how you learn to hit back harder and become a strong adult. (that's a THEME)

A third set of Characters creating the conflicts in this novel-series might use a Template that was bigger, and required much more data to fill it up into a textured and nuanced picture of reality.

This third set might look at the natural growth stages of youth, look at the social networking scene, and use a Template which not only distinguished between data and information, but also distinguished between the Tool and the Tool User.

The first of the 3 sets of Characters (maybe 3 families?) would use a Template that arranges incoming data according to a picture of a well governed world where tranquility is the goal.  The way to craft such a world is, of course, to prevent children from experiencing strife and fighting their way to the top of the heap.  A fighter is relegated to the Template's compartment labeled Bully. All fighting is wrong and must be stopped by Authority (parental or governmental).  

Today, for example, there are a lot of STOP BULLYING campaigns. 

We all know (even the bullies) that bullying is wrong - but how many know why it is wrong?  How many know what in society has changed concurrently with the increase in bullying in schools -- and the advent of school-hall bullying leaping into Facebook and other social networks?  

Perhaps you know what is happening, but as a writer constructing a novel around a Conflict that is Resolved satisfyingly in the end (by Love Conquers All, to a Happily Ever After) you must also have a theory about why it is happening.

So lets back up to the science of what a primate is.  Basic Bonobo and Chimp behaviors include bullying.  

The most powerful and dominant male hammers his way to the top.  In other species, that dominant male acquires the top position by murdering the former top guy.

We adore werewolf romance where wolf physiology blends and sometimes dominates primate physiology, producing a pack led by an Alpha Male who recognizes and mates for life with an Alpha Female.

Romance loves a Bully!!!  

Why not raise our kids to be the best bullies on the block?  That's how you get to dominate the pack, how you get to mate and have lots of children, how we gain immorality -- by bullying, right?

But bullying is "wrong" and we must stop it.

Google up the plethora of images generated by the stop bullying movement.  It has become a cause -- alter human nature, don't master it.

We must expunge a behavior, not understand and harness it for the survival of the Group?  

Look carefully at the images you can find if you Google stop bullying meme.

They are about some figure with power and authority commanding those of lesser power or authority (adult to child for example) to go out and stop other people from bullying.  Or to alter your behavior so that I don't think you are a bully.  Nobody notices they are exhorting people to bully people into not bullying.

In that group of memes are also memes about those with issues pleading for others not to bully them because of those issues (weight, gender, ethnicity, a wide variety portraying their group as begging not to be bullied).

I see few if any memes noting that authority commanding bullies not to bully is bullying the bully into not bullying.  

What exactly is bullying?  And why is it wrong?  

The answers to those questions become your THEME.  There are hundreds of valid answers to both those questions.  If you are writing Science Fiction Romance using an Alien-Human couple, you have to invent the Alien physiology.  Consider primates incorporate the bullying behavior in all the species we know of -- what if your Aliens don't have the bullying gene?

At what age do humans begin serious bullying?

I'd bet it is sexual maturity.  Kindergarten kids jostle and fight for place in the pack, but until sexual maturity begins it isn't so much dominance behavior as it is currying favor with (parents, teachers) Authority.  

That jostling for position in the pack, tribe, or family becomes bullying when testosterone floods the virgin system.  Girls bully, too, but mostly other girls.  

In both male and female, bullying is a method of eliminating competition for a mate.  That's a THEME.  Or you could take the opposite statement as your theme -- that bullying has nothing to do with sex.

But consider that the worst bullies, alone or in packs, do it because they enjoy it, they get a physical endorphin payoff from making another human cower.  And they also love the feeling of power over others -- it is a rush.  

Some studies show how bullies become bullies by having been bullied -- as a way of getting revenge on their abusers, they abuse others who had nothing to do with abusing them.  

Thus, (THEME) parents who are too strict cause their children to become bullies because the parents have taught (by show don't tell) that Might Makes Right.

If you can force someone to behave as you prefer them to, then you are teaching them that in order to be able to behave freely, they must simply gain the strength to use that much force.  

One definition of bullying includes the idea that it is "bullying" only if the person who wields the most force (or authority) is using that superiority to alter the behavior of another, weaker person.  

PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE used to be the school-yard mantra that taught pre-teens not to bully.

Why wouldn't a natural bully actually bully?  Because early in the impressionable teen years when social acceptance becomes the major goal of life, PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE was shouted at them by mobs of other children, dripping contempt for punching down.

Fighting, and violence are just fine as long as it is kept between equals, each with the same chance to damage to the other.

Thus, if two toughs square off in a back alley, one with a gun and the other with a knife, they both throw their weapons aside and go at it bare knuckled.  The winner is honorable and the loser concedes.

Go read those articles on testosterone mentioned in the previous posts on turning a Hunk into a Father.  After certain definitive experiences, a man's testosterone level subsides -- losing a fight is one of those experiences, and losing a fight to a woman is emphatically more-so.

So the "bully" is formed from the childhood experience of fighting to the top of the pack in class, on the streets of the neighborhood, or just in the family or the orphanage.  The urge to keep on fighting a fight that's already been won is intrinsic in human nature.  So when testosterone surges in the teen years, it fuels the aggression of the male and sizzles through all the nearby females.

If the child has not grown up surrounded by other children who insist that a powerful person must never "pick on someone weaker" -- but may hammer it out with someone "the same size," -- then testosterone focuses that campaign for dominance on the weaker targets, the easier targets.  

Thus, with the understanding of how testosterone works in humans, we can understand why the oldest wisdom about stopping bullies simply is to stand up to them.  Beat the bloody hell out of a bully, and they will never touch you again -- if the bullying is testosterone driven.  

If the bullying is merely verbal - speak up, speak out.  

If it is physical, deck them. 

There is also the case of the weakest in a family or class learning the art of passive-aggressive bullying, playing the victim, framing others for their crime.  Wonderfully complex themes about the use and abuse of power lie in that.  

But consider carefully, how the world has changed, and the trajectory of change in the near future.  

Should today's parents ban the ball point pen of this age -- social media?

Are total permissiveness and total banning the only possible parental responses?  

They are the only possible choices for those who do not understand why teenagers are the way they are.  

Social media will have a worse impact on an 18 year old who moves out, goes to college, or joins the army if they have never been exposed to it during teen years.  But since social media never existed when these parents were growing up, they have no clue how to step their children through this adaptation.  

Think about what the teen years actually are for.  Watch elementary and middle school children in the school yard.  Watch the 7th graders and compare to the 4th graders.

The 4th graders run around, organize sports contests, climb and swing on the slides and monkey bars, and generally compete with each other to perform spectacular feats.

The 7th graders begin to spend their yard time standing around in circles, talking, sharing.  The girls start standing around in groups at a younger point than the boys, but they all end up grouping.  And then groups become rivals.

The early years are to develop a sense of self, of "I can do it," and the teen years are to develop socialization -- "Who Am I Among This Group" -- status, clothing, hair, sexual attractiveness, other-oriented thinking develops.

Young children have a circle of acquaintances, maybe from pre-school play-dates, through kindergarten, and then classes of 10 or 20 other kids the same age.

Generally, we now divide schools into elementary and middle-school to keep the naturally separate ages apart.  It's not developmentally healthy to mix too wide an age range -- never mind our great-grandparents grew up in the one-room school of all ages and one teacher.

So by the end of middle-school, children have a social circle of a few dozen people their own age, and even fewer than that older and younger.

The human brain develops gradually through the teen years, but critically.

A young teen can't do what an 18 year old can -- and the 18 year old is a crippled baby next to the 25 year old.

The purpose in the teen years is socialization, readying to join civilization.

The brain is being conditioned to the modern world (pre-agriculture, societies required different brain synapse configurations -- a person might never know more than 200 people in a lifetime).  

The teen brain is being wired to function, to adapt to, modern social requirements.

But the teen is driven by testosterone flooding a virgin system, prompting that system to develop aggressive tendencies.  (teens rebel against parents - it's what they do!)

So if you present your 12 year old with a smartphone, in about an hour or two, that 12 year old's social circle will have gone from 150 people total, of all ages, to hundreds of millions on Facebook.

That is way too big a shock for the human brain to adapt to.

Thiis is especially true if this teen boy has not had all his contemporaries circling around him shouting, "go pick on someone your own size." 

Not "don't pick on anyone, ever" -- but pick only on someone who can fight back in a way that will hurt you as much as you hurt them.

True, your 12 year old will "connect" first to others in his class, church group, family, people he knows -- but it is called a social network for a reason.  All the people in his class have relatives in other states -- in other countries, and they all have "liked" "pages" selling, purveying, explaining everything under the sun.

It is a culture shock situation -- overwhelming and horrible.  

It hits hardest on those teens who have been prevented from talking to strangers or otherwise walled and protected from the public square --- those without street creds.

THEME: proper parenting requires protection of helpless children even if that protection keeps the children from developing self-sufficiency, so children never grow up to become bullies.

THEME: proper parenting requires teaching children that they are responsible for the consequences of their actions.  Teach them to use tools, not to be used by tools.  The knife did not cut you; you cut yourself with it.

THEME: proper parenting requires gradual, stepped, programmed introduction of children into how to talk to, behave around, and interact with strangers, especially adults.  How to spot predators, how to disengage from seducers.  Proper parenting requires inoculation of children against predators gradually and systematically.

Now, consider all 3 sets of Characters with their different beliefs and different Templates sorting data into information.  All 3 sets of Characters identify their information as FACTS, and are dedicated to the reality of facts.

The three sets of Characters are fighting over control of a School -- say in a PTA Election, or a Board of Education Election (or even a Mayoral race).

Set just 50 years from now, you can weave in an Artificial Intelligence designed to run schools according to some world-wide agreed on (actually imposed by the U.N.?) nice-sounding but insidious curriculum.

How do the 3 sets of Characters vie for the attention of the A.I. -- how do they convince the A.I. the programming given to it is wrong, evil, monstrous, and setting humanity up for failure, death, extinction?

Worse, what if the A.I. already knows that's true, and is doing it to drive humanity (or at least the smartest ones) to extinction?

How can Love Conquer All and lead this group of 4 major conflicting elements (make it at least 4 long novels) to a Happily Ever After?  

Can the 3 groups (who loathe each other, of course) jointly convince this A.I. individual, and get this A.I. to go up against the swarm or gaggle of A.I.'s now running the world and enlighten them about why humanity is worth preserving (because we are capable of Love)?

Could the solution to countering a dictatorship of Artificial Intelligence be to directly connect human brains to machine intelligence, to communicate without words?  

To convince A.I.'s that humanity is worth saving, would you first have to expunge the bully-tendency from human nature?  Could that be possible?  Would you still have "humans" if they were incapable of bullying?  

Or are these Artificial Intelligences programmed in our image, to be bigger, stronger, faster bullies than we can ever be?

Presumably, an Artificial Intelligence would be the more powerful in a match up with a human, so any force the AI used against a human would (technically) by definition be bullying.

Would humanity, then, in logical self-defense adopt the passive-aggressive counter to bullying, sniping from the cover of being the victim?

Do we beg the A.I.'s to stop bullying us -- or do we beat the stuffing out of them?  

It is possible our entire food and energy supply will be run by Artificial Intelligence by then.  If we beat them into submission, they retaliate by turning off the food and energy we need that they don't?   White Mutiny?  Going on strike?  

Do the streets fill with robots demonstrating for equal rights?  

How can love conquer such a situation?  

Pick a theme.  Pick a time in future history.  Pick a Character and generate his opposition from his internal story.  What does he want to do, why does he want to do it, and who wants to stop him and why?

Can Love between a human and an A.I. actually resolve this problem?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Latest Cyborg Leap Forward

Medical researchers at Ohio State University have invented a device called NeuroLife, which enables a quadriplegic to move his hand:

Brain Implant

One end of the device is implanted in his brain, with external cables that run down to his hand, bypassing the damaged spinal cord. NeuroLife transmits nerve impulses generated by algorithms based on recordings of activity in the motor cortex (if I understand the explanation correctly). The experimental subject has regained enough precision control of his hand muscles to pick up objects and even play video games. I wonder whether he can use a keyboard; the article doesn't say. That would really be a leap forward. (I know about speech-to-text programs, of course, and many people seem to love them; if I were paralyzed, though, I would have a lot of trouble "writing" by dictation and would wish for the ability to type.)

This technique took a decade of development, and the patient had to undergo months of training to get the full benefit. So it won't be an instant fix, even when it becomes publicly available (and the article doesn't mention when that might happen). Still, it's a wondrous achievement.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt