The Human Heart.......

[wornoutkeyboard]

Re: Re: Re: The Human Heart.......

Something happens to your brain when you fall in love. If you could duplicate that, you could make someone fall in love with you (as long as the current kept running)

Hmmm..... begs the question as to whether love is simply a series of duplicatable electrical impulses....or if it comes from a high source (eg- the soul).

I don't know that I have the answer to that one...but thought I would throw it out there.

~WOK

 

[Svenskaflicka]

That's if you reduce "love" to only mean the romantic/sexual attraction between two people.

To me, love is so much more. Love is what makes you get up at 5am to walk your dog in the pouring rain. Love is what makes you rub your lover's feet. Love is what makes you help your old, senile parents to wash themselves after going to the toilet.

 

[Guest]

Just to clarify a bit, and of course subjectively. Raff said "falling" in love - very different than the love Flicka notes.

I dread "falling in love", it's such an exhilarating and mind-fucking experience. As a girl I can remember praying not to fall in love. It makes one crazy and neurotic, unable to think straight, and often leads to an equally low depressing and desperate state. "Romantic" love is similar, and can lead to or come out of the "falling" stage. And of course there is so much of it attributable to a cultural evolution, even individually. It has taken me my 57 years to learn to love well.

As for inducing "love" of any kind, I can't comprehend the notion.

Perdita

 

[Icingsugar]

Re: Re: Re: The Human Heart.......

Something happens to your brain when you fall in love. If you could duplicate that, you could make someone fall in love with you (as long as the current kept running)

I think that you could stimulate a plethora of physiological, psychological and medical responses that would happen when you fall in love, without that really happening.

I guess it all boils down to philosophy here (or religion?). Are we synapses, or do we inhabit them?

On the other hand, as I said, I think that you coluld do all you need to do with suggestion technology instead of some magic button that induces emotions without reason.

 

[raphy]

I did, 'dita, although the two ladies above you were also bang on track..

Another snippet of dialogue from the novel:

"You think it's possible?" Marshall asked Dominique later, back in their hotel suite.

"What, bioscripting? I dunno, Marshall. Lotta things are possible, y'know?"

Marshall thought the whole thing was kinda freaky, and said so.

"Yeah. Computers with emotions. I don't know how you'd do it. I mean. What is an emotion? Is it just a neurological function? Just a triggering of certain electrical impulses in your brain?"

"Well, there's a physiological effect, that's for sure. Adrenaline. That butterfly feeling you get your stomach when you're in love. The shiver that runs down your spine when you're scared." Marshall got off the edge of the bed where he'd been sitting and started to pace.

"But which comes first? The neurological impulse or the physiological reaction?"

"Damned if I know."


What *is* an emotion? Either way, I think this is a fun topic to talk about, and one of the things I hope readers would do after reading the novel would be to talk about this exact kind of thing. After all, a science fiction novel that doesn't inspire its readers to ask questions like this is remiss in its duties, I think.

 

[Icingsugar]

I dread "falling in love", it's such an exhilarating and mind-fucking experience.

Yeah, ain't it cool?

 

[raphy]

Re: Re: Re: Re: The Human Heart.......

I think that you could stimulate a plethora of physiological, psychological and medical responses that would happen when you fall in love, without that really happening.

I guess it all boils down to philosophy here (or religion?). Are we synapses, or do we inhabit them?

On the other hand, as I said, I think that you coluld do all you need to do with suggestion technology instead of some magic button that induces emotions without reason.

Well, you'd have to see the climax of the novel, Ice. The code obviously doesn't get activated until the climax of the novel. It's not a running theme through the novel, with people experimenting with the technology. Marshall has a disk with a bioconstruct on it. It's the only one in the world, and three large corporations are trying to kill him to get it.

It's only as the plot develops that he first understands what the hell it is he's got, and secondly tries to figure out what to do with it so that he can get out of the situation alive.

Obviously, that path will involve actually activating the disk, so we *do* get to see it's effects, but up until the very penultimate chapter, the entire discussion is theoretical.

It may well work the way you describe it, emotion-suggesting technology - Ooh, I might have another rival corp developing Emotional Suggestion Technology (EST) as a direct competitor to bioscript.

Either way, even at the end, we don't get to see HOW it works, just what it does to the poor schmuck that's plugged into it.

 

[Uther_Pendragon]

I'm confused about the order.
Figuring out what travels over your nerves to convey the sensory
input is difficult enough. And then you have millions of
nerve pathways. You don't have one message which conveys
picture of a desk. You have a combination of individual
messages which, in total, means "desk."
Your emotions, OTOH, are conveyed by chemicals in your
bloodstream -- complex chemicals, of course.
Once upon a time, I got a shot for an allergy. I was scared,
not scared of the shot, the shot conveyed fright.
So, I can't see the complex problem of conveying sense
impressions being solved before the problem of conveying
emotions.

 

[raphy]

I'm confused about the order.
Figuring out what travels over your nerves to convey the sensory
input is difficult enough. And then you have millions of
nerve pathways. You don't have one message which conveys
picture of a desk. You have a combination of individual
messages which, in total, means "desk."
Your emotions, OTOH, are conveyed by chemicals in your
bloodstream -- complex chemicals, of course.
Once upon a time, I got a shot for an allergy. I was scared,
not scared of the shot, the shot conveyed fright.
So, I can't see the complex problem of conveying sense
impressions being solved before the problem of conveying
emotions.

Uther the signal from your eyes through your optic nerve to your occiput is just an electrical impulse. it's possible at this very present time to duplicate that impulse, albiet in a very very very unsophisticated manner.

But if you show your brain the picture of a desk, it'll think it's come from your eyes.