Lupe and Fury Part 2 of 4

Yesterday, we set the stage for a little conversation between Lupe Bierak and her seven foot tall livetar named Fury. They were playing cards and Lupe suddenly became curious as to how a livetar could even see. In a previous article, I explored the concept of whether MINIMCOM could actually see. Here, Fury attempts a similar explanation:

     “As you know, my body is built from constructors which are basically modified VIRUS units. The VIRUS units themselves were adapted from your father’s star-probes. Each probe has a number of sensing modalities, one of which is light-sensitive.”
     “OK, so every cell in your body receives light. How does that work into vision?”
     “I’m sure both you, your brother and your parents have always believed that our eye slits were decorative, designed to give us a slightly more human appearance. That is actually not the case.”
     “Really?” Lupe asked thoughtfully. “So why are they there?”
     “We work backwards. We take all the light from all over our body and deduce what light should have fallen on the eye slits using a computationally-intensive algorithm. That image is analogous to what you see with your eyes.”
     “Huh,” Lupe said thoughtfully. “So you could have eyes on the back of your head, too, if you wanted them.
     “We actually do,” Fury added. “They just are not as accurate as the frontal vision because there is no gap in the shell.”
     “Wow.” Lupe grew silent. “Then how do you hear? You don’t have ear holes.”
     “Hearing is easier. Our entire body is vibration sensitive which essentially makes us a walking microphone. Very little processing power is required to convert the vibrations we feel into speech and other environmental sounds.”
     Lupe leaned back in her chair and thought about Fury’s words. Finally she asked, “Do you have a mind like ours? In fact, can you read my mind? Can I read yours?”
     Fury stroked her chin in a very human-like way. “I do not think we have a mind exactly like yours. We are digital in nature, not analog. That was why MASAL was able to merge with the Overmind, before the Robot War. But our physiology, if you wish to call it that, is so different from yours that I don’t think we would be able to interact mentally.”

Tomorrow, Lupe attempts to read Fury's mind.