Re: BSG thoughts(spoilers for the most recent episode)


"Catman Andy" <alpe97@xxxxxxx> wrote in message news:1125804592.683528.19430@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Vorlonagent wrote: 
"Catman Andy" <alpe97@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1125633864.637161.272500@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>> Otherwise, a connection to just the spinal cord is not enough.  It
>> doesn't carry the information you are looking to tap into.
>
> Is there a better path to the brain? Nerves are the way we get commands
> from, and feedback to it. Blood supplies could get chemicals to the
> brain, but you'd still need precise control and a way to get data out.

The spine carries commands to the body and sensory information back from the
body. It does not carry "thoughts". It works fine as a highway to the
brain, sure. But a connection into the spine, even as high as the shoulders
or even up into the neck, is not going to exert control over what a person
sees or hears. You need to interact with the vision and hearing centers in
the brain. 

Exactly, and memory.  That would be the reason they need the organic
tech addition, assuming it isn't all done by TP.  It would hijack
nerves and use them as conduits in and out of the brain.  Without any
mods, our thoughts are converted to chemical changes that send a pulse
down specific nerves.  Other nerves bring feedback to the brain.  The
organic upgrade might be part transeiver and part Miracle Grow for
nerves- expanding, and making more direct connections.  Seems plausible
at least for cylon tech.

You are departing from show continutity back toward theories on the level of monkeys flyng our of Adama's butt.

Let me spell this out.

Somewhere, somehow the cylon networking device needs to tap into Baltar's sight and vision centers.

Those centers are in Baltar's brain.

You can't tap into sight and hearing centers just using the spinal nerves. Those nerves control heartbeat, respiration, skeletal muscles and transmit back the sense of touch and pain. In other words, they are connected to the wrong parts of the brain.

Spinal nerves have zilch to do with sight and sound processing, nor is it efficient that they ever would.

How does the cylon device use spinal nerves to serve up hallucinations when the normal nerve connections simply don't alow it?


To do everything Six has done, she does not need to be any stronger than a
commercial telepath. Think Talia or Lyta BEFORE they got modified. P4 - P5 

P5 is a commercial telepath and not able to control anyone directly.
That was the lowest useful level. The P5 can persuade by sending pain
though.  Talia isn't really a clear example because of her duality.
Remember in "Corps is Mother..." the roomate who had two personas? Not
only were his writing, voice and mores different, but he had 2 PSI
levels too. It's a good bet that Talia did too. Lyta was also a P5 and
not exceptional until changed.  A P12, like Bester and Byron, could
project hallucinations and did.  The grip on Baltar doesn't seem to be
as firm as Byron's on the welders, so I guessed a P10 is enough if he's
near the TP or a net relay/booster.  Now if we had Ironheart.....!


Or a Vorlon, or Shadow, or a technomage...

The threshold for being able to project a hallucination was never spelled out in B5 the show. When you are dealing with a mundane, I don't suspect the bar is very high.


> Even an organic receiver would show up in an MRI as a unique foreign > body.

Agreed. The acid test is whether you'd find such a structure in Boomer's
body. I'm guessing "no" because the organic Cylon brain has been structured
to look "normal". I went over most of this ground inside my own head pretty
fast after last week's show. That's why I suggested Baltar might be a cylon. 

Then how can you explain how the Boomer on Kobol knew what Adama had
asked of the dead Boomer on BSG?


I'm not sure what you're referring to.


Even if a stealth transmitter on BSG
relays 'everything' on BSG, Boomer still needs a way to download that
info.

The cylon network that allows a particular cylon to be reborn in a new body seems a likely candidate...

Didn't the BSG Boomer have a self control problem when she was
looking for water?  She saw the reading, then didn't, then was
confused.  Only her crewmate shouting he saw it on his gear woke her.
She seemed torn first by a grim disappointment, then joy/confusion.

That looked to be her surface persona conflicting with her covert programming.

Cylons (Hulons) are built to pass as humans. A Cylon brain may not show an appreciable difference in structure precisely because they were engineered not to. Doesn't mean the actual usage is identical. I would expect that if you ever mapped Boomer's brain usage and processing, you would likely spot some definate abnormalities. You might even be able to spot I/O processing off of the cylon net with practice.


The Cylons have have a thought network that works reliably and invisibly
over light-years and yet is compact enough to hide in a human body. That's
god-tech. I didn't say they had god-tech across the board. Just elements
of it in awfully convienent places.
--
John Trauger,
Vorlonagent 

God-tech like the WW2 plane that flew over a primitive tribe?  They
built a straw idol in its form and worshipped it.  Today, we are those
primitives.  The advanced tech may appear god like, but unlike that
tribe, we know that we can be fooled, as Elrich and others have said.


That comment came from my perspective as a viewer of a TV show.

--
John Trauger,
Vorlonagent

"Methane martini.
Shaken, not stirred."

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."

- Albert Einstein



.

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