Guest Blog @BenWallace Books: Memory Mapping & Thinking Machines
The below content was prepared as a guest post for the Fascinations + Inspirations Blog at Benjamin Wallace Books. Reprinted here with permission. Enjoy! -Friday
Thinking Machines – Science Fiction or Science Fact?
by Marjorie F. Baldwin
When Ben Wallace invited me to do one of these guest blogs, I choked. I mean, I wanted the opportunity, but what the heck was I going to write about exactly? Then I recalled the words of the venerable John W. Campbell: Science fiction should be equal parts science and fiction—but do notice which word comes first! That’s when I knew. I’d just take one of the areas of science I used in my technothriller books (The Phoenician Series) and talk about that. Funny thing is, Ben sent me an email just minutes after this suggesting the same exact thing. Great minds think alike!
One area of science I’ve speculated on throughout all of the books in the series is “memory mapping.” I start out in the opening scene of the first chapter of the first book I’m editing with a reference to someone’s mind having been “Adjusted” (and I can tell you, it just gets more involved from there!) Not only do I explore mapping a human’s memory—and Adjusting it—but I delve into the age-old scifi dream of taking a human mind (every thought, every memory, every little detail about the person’s psyche that makes them unique) and putting that “mind” into another body, presumably a better body. I don’t use robot bodies, though, as they aren’t really better than a human, are they? Phoenician bodies, now, they’re better, but you’ll have to read the books to find out how and why.
Read more »
Thinking Machines – Science Fiction or Science Fact?
by Marjorie F. Baldwin
When Ben Wallace invited me to do one of these guest blogs, I choked. I mean, I wanted the opportunity, but what the heck was I going to write about exactly? Then I recalled the words of the venerable John W. Campbell: Science fiction should be equal parts science and fiction—but do notice which word comes first! That’s when I knew. I’d just take one of the areas of science I used in my technothriller books (The Phoenician Series) and talk about that. Funny thing is, Ben sent me an email just minutes after this suggesting the same exact thing. Great minds think alike!
One area of science I’ve speculated on throughout all of the books in the series is “memory mapping.” I start out in the opening scene of the first chapter of the first book I’m editing with a reference to someone’s mind having been “Adjusted” (and I can tell you, it just gets more involved from there!) Not only do I explore mapping a human’s memory—and Adjusting it—but I delve into the age-old scifi dream of taking a human mind (every thought, every memory, every little detail about the person’s psyche that makes them unique) and putting that “mind” into another body, presumably a better body. I don’t use robot bodies, though, as they aren’t really better than a human, are they? Phoenician bodies, now, they’re better, but you’ll have to read the books to find out how and why.
Read more »
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