Research questions for Science-Fantasy book

[slingblade]

Despite having decent writing skills, I have not yet written a book. I'm awful at coming up with workable plots, especially endings. After much thought and note-making, though, I think I may have come up with a good idea, at last.

I am, however, a little lacking in certain areas of scientific knowledge. I'd like to pick some brains, if I may. The questions I'll ask will quickly show my lack, so please bear with me as I stumble through this, and say ignorant things.

Though I'm asking specific questions, I know they can't yet be specifically answered, but please give your best guess, and please include anything you might think of that I have not.

1) Is it conceivable that, at some point in the future, the human memory could be recorded and stored, and made available for retrieval? Could this also be done with animals, such as dogs or cats? Could such a storage system be made manageable, meaning: could we get this into a device smaller than a few football fields?

2) Could a person be cloned, and kept in some sort of storage/growth medium, while those memories were slowly fed back into the developing brain? How would atrophy be prevented? How could muscle memory be stimulated so that the person could walk, talk, eat, breathe, etc., albeit weakly, upon awakening? Would a clone need a period of re-learning, much like physical re-training for stroke victims?

I envision a future in which people have their DNA encoded and stored, enabling multiple clones, into which one's memories are then fed (hardly an original idea, I know). At some point, the "original" person would be placed into a state of unconsciousness, at which time the creation of new memories ceases. All memories from the last cloning are then retrieved and made up-to-date, as it were, with the new memories gained since his last cloning added to the old. The person is essentially immortal, although he is aware he is no longer his "original self." The previous body is destroyed, and the new body, with memory intact, is awakened.

The subjects experience a continuous memory track. They know what's being done, and they undergo it willingly. They also know that their clones begin as we all do: as blastocyst, embryo, fetus, infant, and so on. The stored memories are then fed back into the brain slowly, and the clone experiences the sensation of "living" that life as the new body matures, while essentially unconscious.

3) Would such a person also experience the "fuzziness" of early memories that we tend to experience? Or would all of his memories, even from within the womb, be rendered part of his active memory, as sharp and as clear as more recent memories, because of the way they're re-integrated into the new brain?

4) How many years' worth of new memory would one be able to integrate? Say you desired your clone to be activated when it attained 30 years of age, and deactivated at 60 or 70, and you did this multiple times. Could you fit 50, 100, 500 years' worth of memory into that brain? How much memory can one brain hold? (I'm betting we don't really know that, yet, but please do take a best guess.) If I declared in my imaginary world that we had discovered the brain's capacity for memory is unlimited, would that be believable? If not, what would you estimate the maximum upper capacity to be? e.g., a person can remember 500 years' worth, but no more, unless he were willing to give up X amount of memory.

5) Might a person experience a severe mental shock at having some of his memories wiped, to make room for more, or would he simply be unable to notice such manipulation? What are the possible risks of memory destruction, as you see them? Would the brain destroy its own memories to make room?

6) What haven't I thought to ask or consider?

Thanks in advance for any help and advice.

 

[sanguine]

Thanks in advance for any help and advice.

Putting aside the exact technical issues, I recommend you read Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan, if you haven't already.

 

[Shalamar]

Peter F. Hamilton has dealt with this in a couple of his books: Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained. Not bad reads, and while not a major part of the plot, people 'backup' their memories into computers so they can be retrieved later in case of accidental death into brand new bodies.

 

[slingblade]

Thanks, Sanguine. I don't have a ton of access to books right now, but I'll see if my son can order a copy from the college.

...although, I hesitate to read someone else's ideas on the same subject, lest I inadvertently plagiarize it. But seeing how someone else handled the topic would be helpful.

ETA: Thanks, Shalamar, for your suggestions. My son will order the books.

I read a synop at wiki about Altered Carbon. Heh, I like the idea of "sleeves" and "stacks," and the memory being stored in the spine, although I'd have to read the novel to get a firmer picture.

The memory/clones are just part of my somewhat dystopian idea. [removed the rest, please pretend you didn't read it. ]

I'll check those novels; thanks for the suggestions!

 

[RationalVetMed]

I envision a future in which people have their DNA encoded and stored, enabling multiple clones, into which one's memories are then fed (hardly an original idea, I know). At some point, the "original" person would be placed into a state of unconsciousness, at which time the creation of new memories ceases.

Attention <Slingblade #62>, routine departmental scans suggest you may be experiencing a breakdown of conditioning. We have your location, please remain where you are, a termination unit will be with you shortly. Thank you for your co-operation.

Yuri #3 (over-manager of the Siberian vats)

 

[slingblade]

Attention <Slingblade #62>, routine departmental scans suggest you may be experiencing a breakdown of conditioning. We have your location, please remain where you are, a termination unit will be with you shortly. Thank you for your co-operation.

Yuri #3 (over-manager of the Siberian vats)

Not that kind of society, I'm afraid. Humans will be nearly extinct. This will be a community of scientists, for the most part. And I don't want to give too much more away.

...what's that van outside? I didn't order anything to be delivered....

 

[Piscivore]

Thanks, Sanguine. I don't have a ton of access to books right now, but I'll see if my son can order a copy from the college.

...although, I hesitate to read someone else's ideas on the same subject, lest I inadvertently plagiarize it.

That's exactly why you do want to read them. Nothing is worse than pouring your heart and soul into something an later finding out that someone else has already done your idea in more or less the same way.

 

[slingblade]

True, Pisci. Very true. I think I have a solid enough idea at this point that the danger of stealing someone else's work is minimal. I don't want to do it their way, and would avoid it.

 

[Rasmus]

1) Is it conceivable that, at some point in the future, the human memory could be recorded and stored, and made available for retrieval? Could this also be done with animals, such as dogs or cats? Could such a storage system be made manageable, meaning: could we get this into a device smaller than a few football fields?

I suggest you also watch "The 6th day" with Arnie.

The size such a device would need should not be much larger than a human brain, at worst. (Assuming that it is pretty much optimized as it is.)

2) Could a person be cloned, and kept in some sort of storage/growth medium, while those memories were slowly fed back into the developing brain? How would atrophy be prevented? How could muscle memory be stimulated so that the person could walk, talk, eat, breathe, etc., albeit weakly, upon awakening? Would a clone need a period of re-learning, much like physical re-training for stroke victims?

If the brain was trained accurately, it wouldn't need training beyond that for learning how to walk, etc. Muscles could be stimulated electrically.

I envision a future in which people have their DNA encoded and stored, enabling multiple clones, into which one's memories are then fed (hardly an original idea, I know). At some point, the "original" person would be placed into a state of unconsciousness, at which time the creation of new memories ceases. All memories from the last cloning are then retrieved and made up-to-date, as it were, with the new memories gained since his last cloning added to the old. The person is essentially immortal, although he is aware he is no longer his "original self." The previous body is destroyed, and the new body, with memory intact, is awakened.

Well, you should let your imagination decide what could and could not be possible I think.

The subjects experience a continuous memory track. They know what's being done, and they undergo it willingly. They also know that their clones begin as we all do: as blastocyst, embryo, fetus, infant, and so on. The stored memories are then fed back into the brain slowly, and the clone experiences the sensation of "living" that life as the new body matures, while essentially unconscious.

That sounds very interesting.

So, if I understand you correctly, they would be fed the memories not instantly, but still significantly faster than if they actually had to live them, right?

3) Would such a person also experience the "fuzziness" of early memories that we tend to experience? Or would all of his memories, even from within the womb, be rendered part of his active memory, as sharp and as clear as more recent memories, because of the way they're re-integrated into the new brain?

That will be for you to decide.

I am no expert, but I doubt that our brain works like a VCR or computer, i.e. there are no perfect memories stored in the subconscious mind.

4) How many years' worth of new memory would one be able to integrate? Say you desired your clone to be activated when it attained 30 years of age, and deactivated at 60 or 70, and you did this multiple times. Could you fit 50, 100, 500 years' worth of memory into that brain? How much memory can one brain hold? (I'm betting we don't really know that, yet, but please do take a best guess.)

Well .... MY brain holds around 5 minutes of inf..... oh, look: Shiny!

You might want to think about memory vs. knowledge. The things we learn early on in life are important - are they stored seperartely from the lost memories of that same time?

If I declared in my imaginary world that we had discovered the brain's capacity for memory is unlimited, would that be believable? If not, what would you estimate the maximum upper capacity to be? e.g., a person can remember 500 years' worth, but no more, unless he were willing to give up X amount of memory.

Unlimited would not be believable. But you could stretch out the capability quite a bit, or introduce a cybernetic gizmo that allows people to extend the storage capabilites of their brain.

5) Might a person experience a severe mental shock at having some of his memories wiped, to make room for more, or would he simply be unable to notice such manipulation? What are the possible risks of memory destruction, as you see them? Would the brain destroy its own memories to make room?

It depends on how advanced you want the technology to be.

You would notice certain gaps, because the things we remember relate to other things we remember. (So you might remember a conversation about a event that you and the person you are talking with both went to, but you forgot the event itself.)

6) What haven't I thought to ask or consider?

Thanks in advance for any help and advice.

If 'I knew that I would be the one writing a book

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Despite having decent writing skills, I have not yet written a book. I'm awful at coming up with workable plots, especially endings. After much thought and note-making, though, I think I may have come up with a good idea, at last.

I am, however, a little lacking in certain areas of scientific knowledge. I'd like to pick some brains, if I may. The questions I'll ask will quickly show my lack, so please bear with me as I stumble through this, and say ignorant things.

Though I'm asking specific questions, I know they can't yet be specifically answered, but please give your best guess, and please include anything you might think of that I have not.

1) Is it conceivable that, at some point in the future, the human memory could be recorded and stored, and made available for retrieval? Could this also be done with animals, such as dogs or cats? Could such a storage system be made manageable, meaning: could we get this into a device smaller than a few football fields?

It's always possible that the human brain will turn out to be more complicated and subtle than we think. Or rather, given that it always has been before when we thought we knew what it was doing, it's probable that our current understanding of the brain is wrong in some ways. So to some extent you can make up whatever you like as long as you insert technobabble about quantum effects and whatnot.

Storing the human memory is no problem, as I understand it, given reasonably projected costs and sizes for computer memory. I think (don't quote me) we could already store our best-estimate for the total amount of information in a human memory if only we could access it.

Accessing it is the problem, which you will probably need to technobabble away. Even if we could peer at our brains at the cellular level we still have no idea how the cells code for the image of a cat, or the smell of a perfume, or the knowledge of the quadratic equation.

2) Could a person be cloned, and kept in some sort of storage/growth medium, while those memories were slowly fed back into the developing brain? How would atrophy be prevented? How could muscle memory be stimulated so that the person could walk, talk, eat, breathe, etc., albeit weakly, upon awakening? Would a clone need a period of re-learning, much like physical re-training for stroke victims?

Bruce Sterling's book Holy Fire had something similar done with nanomachines, that could crawl into the brain and drag molecules around to fix the effects of aging, while the subject was in a hibernation-like state to keep them still. Your ones would probably have to crawl around dripping signalling chemicals on to the brain cells to trick them into forming the right connections, but I don't think that violates any laws of physics.

I think "muscle memory" isn't actually in the muscles, it's just a misnomer, but in either case convenient tiny machines could make the muscles contract the correct amount to train them up.

I envision a future in which people have their DNA encoded and stored, enabling multiple clones, into which one's memories are then fed (hardly an original idea, I know). At some point, the "original" person would be placed into a state of unconsciousness, at which time the creation of new memories ceases. All memories from the last cloning are then retrieved and made up-to-date, as it were, with the new memories gained since his last cloning added to the old. The person is essentially immortal, although he is aware he is no longer his "original self." The previous body is destroyed, and the new body, with memory intact, is awakened.

Sounds like a process that can go wrong in all sorts of ways that could make a story.

3) Would such a person also experience the "fuzziness" of early memories that we tend to experience? Or would all of his memories, even from within the womb, be rendered part of his active memory, as sharp and as clear as more recent memories, because of the way they're re-integrated into the new brain?

Up to you I guess, if the memories are being popped in by machine they could be new or fuzzy.

4) How many years' worth of new memory would one be able to integrate? Say you desired your clone to be activated when it attained 30 years of age, and deactivated at 60 or 70, and you did this multiple times. Could you fit 50, 100, 500 years' worth of memory into that brain? How much memory can one brain hold? (I'm betting we don't really know that, yet, but please do take a best guess.) If I declared in my imaginary world that we had discovered the brain's capacity for memory is unlimited, would that be believable? If not, what would you estimate the maximum upper capacity to be? e.g., a person can remember 500 years' worth, but no more, unless he were willing to give up X amount of memory.

I don't think unlimited memory storage in a finite brain makes any scientific sense at all, but depending on how long people have been doing this thing, they might not have reached the upper limit of human memory space yet, especially if they were willing to recruit chunks of the brain normally used for other things to stuff in more memory.

What seems most plausible is that the new body would eventually forget things the old body knew, if it didn't think about them and keep the memories refreshed, just as it forgets its own memories.

Then again, some things we just never forget. If we figured out how the brain stores such memories, presumably we could encode new memories in such a way that they were never forgotten.

Someone else might be able to answer the question of what the top end storage capacity might be, I've got no idea.

5) Might a person experience a severe mental shock at having some of his memories wiped, to make room for more, or would he simply be unable to notice such manipulation? What are the possible risks of memory destruction, as you see them? Would the brain destroy its own memories to make room?

I'd say ask an amnesiac. My impression is that they don't know they don't know until they think to try to remember, and that the only traumatic part is stressing about it.

The risks of memory destruction, well, philosophically memories are a big part of your ongoing identity. Destroying all of your memories would be close to suicide.

6) What haven't I thought to ask or consider?

Why kill the old body? Why not just anoint the new body a legal successor and let the old body retire?

If we can make one copy of someone, why not hundreds? I think the world needs four or five of me at least, because I'm awesome.

If we can give people their own memories, why not those of someone else, preferably someone really useful like a brilliant scientist or a virtuoso musician?

Do the people who control this technology need the rest of humanity any more? Once you figure out how to make people with the skills and memories you want, why not make an army of loyal slaves and live like an emperor?

 

[quixotecoyote]

Permutation City handled the philosophical implications of human memory/personality storage and retrieval better than most other books I've read, even if I had to re-read the thing three times to fully get it.

I envision a future in which people have their DNA encoded and stored, enabling multiple clones, into which one's memories are then fed (hardly an original idea, I know). At some point, the "original" person would be placed into a state of unconsciousness, at which time the creation of new memories ceases. All memories from the last cloning are then retrieved and made up-to-date, as it were, with the new memories gained since his last cloning added to the old. The person is essentially immortal, although he is aware he is no longer his "original self." The previous body is destroyed, and the new body, with memory intact, is awakened.

I wish I could remember the book, but I've read something that was very similar to this.

It was a science fiction detective story where people could make more or less intelligent clones of themselves with an overriding mission (from vacuuming the house to tailing and reporting on a suspect) and then merge memories before the short-lived clones expired, should they please. It used a lot of terms like clay and kiln. Eventually the story shifted to a clone that went 'frankenstien' and deviated from it's mission to ponder the meaning of it's life before it wore out and died in a day or two.

Can anyone remember what this was?

 

[The Man]

Reminds me of a number of movies like The 6th Day or Blade Runner which is based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. An older variant that comes to mind and seems most closely applicable is the 1962 film The Creation of the Humanoids, but I’ll not give away the ending of that one for those that have not seen it or read Jack Williamson's novel "The Humanoids" that it is based on. Those are just off the top of my head that directly relate. Other movies like Freejack employ the concept of downloading memory to a computer system. The point being that such scenarios have been a staple of science fiction for some time. It would be difficult to come up with a new angle that would be considered original and certainly even if you did not read or watch any of the previous stories you will still find your work compared to them. I might suggest it as just a background aspect of a story that eventually gets its drama and conflict from elsewhere, as a Hitchcock like Macguffin.

 

[The Man]

I wish I could remember the book, but I've read something that was very similar to this.

The movie Zardoz used a concept similar to that for its immortal ‘Eternals’.

 

[TraneWreck]

I'll help you out: light sabers, a race of green, sex-fiend amazons that look like megan fox.

I was gonna add more, but damn, that's about all you need.

 

[The Man]

It was a science fiction detective story where people could make more or less intelligent clones of themselves with an overriding mission (from vacuuming the house to tailing and reporting on a suspect) and then merge memories before the short-lived clones expired, should they please. It used a lot of terms like clay and kiln. Eventually the story shifted to a clone that went 'frankenstien' and deviated from it's mission to ponder the meaning of it's life before it wore out and died in a day or two.

Can anyone remember what this was?

That sounded familiar to me as well, a quick search turns up the Kiln People

 

[slingblade]

I suggest you also watch "The 6th day" with Arnie.

The size such a device would need should not be much larger than a human brain, at worst. (Assuming that it is pretty much optimized as it is.)

All right. I just wanted to be sure I wasn't proposing something so outlandish that many readers would toss the book at the wall in frustration.

If the brain was trained accurately, it wouldn't need training beyond that for learning how to walk, etc. Muscles could be stimulated electrically.

I had thought of that: of adult-sized vats in which the clone can be seen "walking," reaching, thrashing, etc., and of electronic stimulation of the muscles. But I do imagine the person would still be weak and wobbly at first, as we often are after just one night's sleep, on awakening, and would need a little PT time to get it all back to usual. After all, babies have to learn to suckle, to swallow properly. It doesn't take very long to learn, but there is a bit of learning to do.

That sounds very interesting.

Thank you! The whole idea, could I reveal it, is fascinating to me, many story opportunities in it. There will be more than one book. I plan a multiple-novellas-within-the-novel approach, unless that proves to be cumbersome. It could.

So, if I understand you correctly, they would be fed the memories not instantly, but still significantly faster than if they actually had to live them, right?

Exactly. It feels more right than a memory dump. And the more memories you have, the longer it would take, but it still wouldn't take you literally 30 years to integrate 30 years' worth of memory. In this tale, most people opt to activate between 20 and 30, and the brain must have time to mature anyway, which happens around age 25 or so. I imagine I'd increase lifespan and health accordingly, so that "old age" begins more around 100, 120, or so.
Hence, at 80, you're more like 40, or some such.

But, after integration, you remember what it's like to be 80, or 100, though your body is only 30. It's kind of the ultimate, "If I knew then what I know now..." except, you do.

Hmmm....is that crazy-making? I can't have a tech that makes people insane. It wouldn't be feasible to them to undergo it.

I am no expert, but I doubt that our brain works like a VCR or computer, i.e. there are no perfect memories stored in the subconscious mind.

My thought, inaccurate as I suspect it is, is that the memories are stored, not perfectly, but very well, in the brain, but the retrieval system is somewhat lacking. So, I'd imagine memories are pulled out of you, intact. If you reinsert them, it must be rather random as to how you then remember what, in your next life. The memory of you falling off your tricycle at 3, which you hadn't before retrieved was, in your next life, one you could remember. But your 5th birthday, which you never forgot in your "first life," was now one of the fuzzy ones.

I wonder if that would cause distress? Would people remember what they remembered remembering? And miss it? Gee...I dunno...I'm gonna have to decide that for myself, I suspect. It could be a plot complication.

Well .... MY brain holds around 5 minutes of inf..... oh, look: Shiny!

You might want to think about memory vs. knowledge. The things we learn early on in life are important - are they stored seperartely from the lost memories of that same time?

Well, I ...ooh, a butterfly!

I need to consider that. Is there a difference, or is it the perception of a difference? See, I have an unusually sensate memory. I don't just get images or thoughts--the best I can put it is that my memories have "flavors." I often get nearly the full range of senses I experienced as I lived. My memories are a lot more like flashbacks. It makes forgetting some things very difficult. I have a hard time putting the past behind me, as it often feels as if the past is almost as real to me now as the present.

But I also imagine that the tech being used takes the brain's knowledge, entire. The learning and the experiencing. You need not relearn your alphabet, or that fire is hot, or that people lie, except a bit of retraining for unused muscles. For all intents and purposes, you continue to be as fully "you" as you are after waking up from a nap.

I also want to use an independent storage system, in that a power-outage wouldn't wipe people out. Once stored, the memory is fully, safely contained. Sort of like how you can't wipe a flash drive once you remove it from the computer. If it's on there, it stays on there, even if the power fails. It's protected from magnetic wipe, radiation wipe, etc. The biggest danger is in losing the ability to retrieve it and re-insert it.

Unlimited would not be believable. But you could stretch out the capability quite a bit, or introduce a cybernetic gizmo that allows people to extend the storage capabilites of their brain.

Like the spinal "stacks" in Altered Carbon. I need a different method, though. I don't think I want something you'd wear on your head, for instance. Nothing external. Maybe microchips inserted...where? The hippocampus?

Gee, I didn't know I knew the hippocampus played such a role in memory...I just tossed out the first "brain" word I thought of, then went to look it up, and it was the right one. Funny, that. Of course, what I read just raised more questions, and confused me a bit. More reading should fix that, though. I hope.

It depends on how advanced you want the technology to be.

It's going to have been very advanced when the novel's events began, and by the time we open, still advanced, but limited...at a point of trying to sustain what they had, and not a lot of innovation going on anymore. People won't be growing anymore; just trying to survive and not die out.

You would notice certain gaps, because the things we remember relate to other things we remember. (So you might remember a conversation about a event that you and the person you are talking with both went to, but you forgot the event itself.)

I know exactly what you mean. I have memories of certain places, but not why I was there, or how I came to be there. Of certain people, but no clue who they are, or how I knew them. That can be worked into the story, I'm sure, and will explain much that would otherwise be difficult to explain.

Thanks! That was a very great help!!

 

[slingblade]

Reminds me of a number of movies like The 6th Day or Blade Runner which is based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. An older variant that comes to mind and seems most closely applicable is the 1962 film The Creation of the Humanoids, but I’ll not give away the ending of that one for those that have not seen it or read Jack Williamson's novel "The Humanoids" that it is based on. Those are just off the top of my head that directly relate. Other movies like Freejack employ the concept of downloading memory to a computer system. The point being that such scenarios have been a staple of science fiction for some time. It would be difficult to come up with a new angle that would be considered original and certainly even if you did not read or watch any of the previous stories you will still find your work compared to them. I might suggest it as just a background aspect of a story that eventually gets its drama and conflict from elsewhere, as a Hitchcock like Macguffin.

Except, the story won't be about this. This is just a device used to explain certain things I want to do in the novel, like have a lead character who, 300 years from now, still knows our contemporary music and authors, so I can quote them, or have him use that info. He's a relic...who still sings "Wild Thang" while he mows the grass, because that was the music of his childhood...300 years ago. I want people right now to relate to a man 300 years from now, and this is the way I decided to do that. Better?

The novel is about something very, very different. This is just...background.

I appreciate your concerns, though, and you'd be right, if that was what I'm aiming for. I wish I could tell you....but then, someone else might write it!

 

[Piscivore]

...Blade Runner which is based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

Yeah, you'll want to be well and truly familiar with both of those, as it is inevitable the fans will be making comparisons to them ad nauseum.

 

[Piscivore]

Except, the story won't be about this. This is just a device used to explain certain things I want to do in the novel, like have a lead character who, 300 years from now, still knows our contemporary music and authors, so I can quote them, or have him use that info. He's a relic...who still sings "Wild Thang" while he mows the grass, because that was the music of his childhood...300 years ago. I want people right now to relate to a man 300 years from now, and this is the way I decided to do that. Better?

The novel is about something very, very different. This is just...background.

Ah, in that case don't worry too much about the tech. Suspension of disbelief is a wonderful thing.

 

[NobbyNobbs]

"Old Man's War" by John Scalzi is the first of a trilogy that deals with this sort of thing. It's also a fun read. Definitely check it out.