Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: mikep@hpmwtd.hp.com (Mike Powell) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Competition is cognition (was Re: Some problems of super-intelligence) Message-ID: Date: 20 Dec 90 19:36:00 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: HP Microwave Tech. - Santa Rosa, Ca. Lines: 34 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu Great idea about being able to speed up or slow down the brain in order to keep from going crazy... But the mention of sliding on the ice, and kicking into high speed made me think of a nasty possibility here.... Imagine being in slow gear, walking across the street. You look over your shoulder to see a large truck is about to hit you. You shift your brain into high gear... What would have been a second or two of terror followed by the bliss of being knocked out cold (or possibly death) has now been replaced by minutes or hours of extreme horror.... the only possible salvation being to shift back into low gear to get it over with, thereby avoiding the intense mental stress... but who could allow themselves to 'downshift' in such a situation, bringing the inevitable injury 'sooner'. It could amount to long periods of panic for people who are thinking at such high speeds... Wouldn't this be potentially more damaging then being hit by a truck? -Mike P- [I'll bet you the truck problem gets solved first (i.e. supermedicine) before the hi/low brain gets invented. It's hard to inagine an everyday type accident that total molecular analysis and reconstruction couldn't cure you from. --JoSH]