In Response To: The Ambitions of an AI (Usul)
: This post was initally a response to a single sentence from Dark One's post
: here , but it seemed far too much of a tangent to post there. The
: question, "What can she gain from the Flood?" triggered it, as
: the same question has been bouncing around my head since November 10th.
: This is the picture the echoes have formed. Forgive the length.
: I've given thought to the "Gravemind is an old Forerunner AI"
: theory owing to his control over Halo's subsystems, and, as a result, he
: is of great interest to Cortana. She's nearing the end of her life,
: especially if you believe that her imminent demise has been hastened by
: the influx of information from the Alpha Halo.
: So, how to preserve herself? I think "reversal" of the process that
: intially created her. So, instead of a brain being used as a template from
: which she is created, she is looking to make a flash transfer of her
: thinking self, her consciousness to a fleshly vessel so as to avoid the
: computing issues that would eventually kill her. Her data could still be
: accessed via electronic storage (or quantum, or however they store
: information), or it could even be contained within some bloated, organic,
: brainlike organ.
: My problem is that I'm no neuroscientist, but I've always been given to
: believe that the human brain is able to store vast quantites of
: information, not to mention able to make computations on par with those of
: a computer. Ever seen the movie Rainman ? Well, such stories aren't myth.
: There have been many throughout human history who have possessed remarkable
: abilities concerning rapid calculation. Take the anecdote from one of Dick
: Feynman's memoirs. In it, he describes a little mathematical puzzle (I
: don't remember the actual numbers, so I'll just use X, Y, etc.): two
: bicycles are heading towards from a distance of X miles at Y miles an hour
: apiece. A fly buzzes back and forth between their front tires at Z miles
: an hour. How far does the fly fly before he is crushed between the two
: front tires?
: Now the answer can be fairly simple through use of a common sense
: "trick" or fairly difficult using an infinite summation. The
: story goes, Feynman presented the puzzle a well-respected
: scientist/mathematician (I can't remember who...can anyone help me?)
: hoping to get a good tease out of him by watching him squirm with the
: infinite summation. Instead, the guy instantly responded, "Oh, the
: answer is such-and-such miles." Feynam frowned and said,
: "Dangit, you already knew the trick!" to which the guy responds,
: "What trick? I just did the infinite sum."
: Now that impressed even a mathema-physicist like Feynman, but there are other
: much more mind-boggling examples all throughout history, often involving
: "autistic savants" (Google or Wiki it, or perhaps the less
: politically correct "idiot savant"). People who instantly
: multiply ridiculously large numbers in their heads, or could tell you the
: natural log of a given number out to however many decimal places you
: pleased, etc, etc.
: What I'm saying is, the capability is there within the brain to perform the
: necessary operations as a computer. You combine a person with a
: photographic (or holographic) memory with the ability to perform thousands
: of small equations a second (that's the iffy part), you add a program, and
: what do you have? A computer.
: So, back on track. I've always thought of consciousness as the
: "software" that we run on our given "hardware" (or
: wetware, whichever you prefer). If that's the case, a different bit of
: software might use the highly malleable, adaptible hardware that is the
: human brain in a vastly different way. Cortana could very well use raw,
: organic material to create a fleshly vessel for herself to inhabit and
: control. Her old digitized self would be dead and gone, or course, leaving
: only the bio-Cortana. However, in every logical and meaningful sense, it
: would be her. Her biggest difficulty as an organic AI would be
: interfacing with those mechanical things on which she previously relied,
: but I assume she's still working out all the kinks in her plan (just as
: I'm working out all the kinks in this idea).
: The big question is, would such a smart AI running on organic hardware still
: succumb to the same issues as her contemporaries? On this point I admit
: I'm fairly ambivalent, seeing as I can argue both sides to myself at the
: drop of a hat. However, if we believe that Cortana has already succumbed
: somewhat to the madness within, then the logical viability of a fleshly
: incarnation is really a moot point, because her Rampancy (however partial)
: could very well cause her to ignore such self-doubtings.
: I admit there are several instances of the word "could" in there,
: not to mention several assumptions, and likely many other holes; and I
: know the idea could possibly use some more fleshing out before it can be
: taken seriously. I just figured I'd get it out there while it was all on
: my mind. Questions, comments, smart remarks, all are very much welcome. I
: figure if I can refine things at all, I'll send it to the Halo Story page
: and cry as Jilly rejects it out of hand.
: -Usul
: est. 1986
it could make sense, if she wants to be human she could learn from the gravemind on how to become essentially a human mind yet inside a flood controlled body, she has alot to gain from this 'thing' information on the flood, how to control a flood (be it 1 for herself to physically control or a million like her being the queen bee of floods and they all do her bidding.)
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