Eternal Inception of the Spotless Total Recall

No shit. I'm just saying that there won't be any Matrix style uploading and then instant abilities. Anything that requires precise movements (say surgery or flying a helicopter) you'll still need a fuckload of practice. By nice to get all the academic work out of the way and to know what you need to do, but the actual bit of knowing HOW to do it is 'muscle memory' and will only come from practice, practice, practice.

Welcome to the Dollhouse...

I imagine that one of the first things they'll do after they perfect being able to give you the academic stuff via brain transfer is to try and work out how they can give you the muscle memory, despite the fact that you're a different height, weight, gender, etc. than the person you're getting the upload from. It'd take numerous studies and lots of computer analysis to work it all out, but a few decades after they have the first, I'd be surprised if they didn't have the second.

Yes and no. Suppose somebody implants me with the martial arts knowledge and experience of Chuck Norris. I still won't have the matching physical strength and stamina, limbering, etc., to actually make those moves with anything close to his proficiency.

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Looks like John Castle beat me to it. I think the physical conditioning piece is at least as important as the knowledge and experience pieces. A three leg stool collapses if you remove one of the legs.
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I've already said and agreed to, that you can implant the martial arts knowledge and experience of Chuck Norris and not be able to do it if you're not in shape.

Where I disagree with Anc is that I believe that if you can download how to do something which in of itself is the first practice you can also download all the practices ever done and then you will have the "muscle memory" and provided you're in shape you will be able to do it once the download is complete.

Let's try another example that has less to do with physical abilities.....

Anc has training with the army on weapons use. So I download all his knowledge and all his practice time.

As far as my brain is concerned I've done all the training and I've also done all the, as Anc would say, practice, practice, practice or aka as he would also say "muscle memory".

My brain doesn't know that I've got Anc's skills. As far as my brain is concerned I did all the training and all the practice. I don't think "I just downloaded how to fire this weapon so I push x then y." I already know it.

So I'm not rusty nor do I need to catch up.

Now as to the question of upgrading intelligence itself -- that would require mapping brain function that might not be mapped yet and might not be reproducible.

But if/when functions other than memory can be mapped, and if/when they can be transferred, turning a Forrest Gump into a Stephen Hawking would simply be a matter of mapping and then reproducing Stephen Hawking's neural connections. "Reformatting" the brain, basically. Then we run into serious ethical issues.

Similar research now allows the erasure of memories associated with meth use.

Or educate the young.

what if "school" was nothing more than a two hour session in a chair-terminal once a month, and every child had the best high-school level education by the age of, say, 12 - PHD level data recall by the age if 16...and then human knowledge progressed from there with the most naturally talented minds having a head start on cracking the mysteries of existence?

Of course, the flip side of this is that indoctrination becomes simplicity itself. What if every child "remembered" that japan had already surrendered when Truman decided to be evil and drop the bomb anyway?

That's an extreme example but much more subtle manipulation would be very simple.




Another implication - custom memories if you could pay for them. Take, for example, someone like me. if i could remember, indistinguishable from a "real" memory, having grown up as a girl - my first crush, my first kiss, being taken to the prom, being a cheerleader, whatever - that would be almost priceless. Certainly there are tens of thousands of variations on that sort of theme.

Put two and two together.

erase all memories of enjoying the taste of, say, donuts, pies, pizza, french fries - replace them with memories of these things tasting horrible.

Behold the weight loss!

Possibly, but it wasn't long ago we thought that being able to know our genes and play with them meant we could do pretty much anything genetically.

Then we discovered DNA was a piece of the puzzle, a large piece, but a piece nonetheless.

Could be the same with memory/learning too.

Be cool if it wasn't though!

Just wait for the religious fundies to get ahold of it. Giving their daughters memories of false gang rape to give them phobias of men to keep them 'clean' until their wedding day when it'll be removed.

Fuckers will use this kind of tech as virtual chastity belts.

Of course, in retaliation, I'm sure it could also be used to make them phobic to religion.

the negative applications could, indeed, boggle the mind.

Take a nice girl and program her to be a slut? you'd never find a real professional who'd co-operate but if it ever became a publicly available technique?

Wow.

THAT would truly be an act of mutilation, superimposing a false idealization like that.

Besides, you know damned well they'd just turn it around and convince you you were happy as a man and save on a bunch of surgery.

Congrats, no need to pray when you can mind ray away the gay!

damn woman, are you drunk? sure seem willing to submit to mind control all of a sudden.

or did you finally break and read 50 shades?

You can always find a "professional" to do something like this. Just ask the mob.

In theory someone could try it, but I would argue that your memories don't control your identity, so what you'd have then was a person who suddenly decided at 50 that they should have been female, despite a head full of memories of being happy as a guy.

I'm sure that there would be those who'd insist in the attempt though - hell there would be trans people eager to try it hoping it would work.

I'm not sure I agree that it would be "mutilation" - would that word apply if a victim of sexual abuse as a child had those memories over-written by something more positive? And if it was, would it matter?

I'm thinking if I had the chance - and if I didn't have kids - I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I haven't read it but It's on my list when I can find it cheaply (pretty sure the library ain't got it!). There is more to say on this subject which I think would be Blue Room material so....moving on.

I was actually just spitballing some of the logical implications but, frankly, when you are staring 50 years old in the face and looking at 70 or more stubborn pounds around your waist that you've been carrying for decades and just can't seem to get rid of, you get desperate.

And I am. Desperate. Desperation can and does lead to stupid decisions sometimes, I won't deny it. But being this overweight at this age, beyond the aesthetics of it, is like BEGGING for an early grave or an even worse fate living but living in misery.

so yeah, if someone said "I can hypnotize you and change your appetites, your attitude towards exercise, and so forth and give you the tools to get your weight into a normal range." I would quote Khan:

"Let us BEGIN."

Judge that how you want.

Know any really skinny people, Nova? According to a podcast I was listening to the other day, cutting down on saturated fats (which are in just about everything) makes this more effective.

And we've got target memory erasure.

I wonder how long before this will become a common treatment, I've got a few exes I wouldn't mind having erased.