OT: Hardware-to-Organism Interfaces (h2oi)

se5a · #1 June 16th, 2004, 08:54 AM

I dont think wetwiring is all that far off, I would jump at the chance to be able to sit in a chair and just "plug in"
but yes, as gandalf parker has stated - there are MASSIVE problems with people who cant control themselfs, hell we have enough couch potatos as it is!
the only way I can think of around that would be to have you strung up like a pupet and have you excersizing as you are 'playing' round in ciberspace...

and then there are problems like you had in the matrix, would you realy die if you died while you were in there?
I would not be suprised if that were the case, the brain is a powerfull thing and capable of deceving even itself.

dogscoff · #2 June 16th, 2004, 09:54 AM

Quote:

and then there are problems like you had in the matrix, would you realy die if you died while you were in there?
I would not be suprised if that were the case, the brain is a powerfull thing and capable of deceving even itself.

No, you wouldn't necessarily die. Do you die every time you get shot in {insert favourite fps game here} As long as you know it's just a simulation it would be no different to playing games today, just more realistic.

If someone were plugged in without knowing it was a sim, they might well be traumatised somewhat, and ppl with weak hearts etc might even get heart attacks etc, but thebrain stopping the heart becasue it "thinks you are dead" is stupid. Even the most suicidal brain wants the body to live, and the body itself will just keep on working and healing for as long as it possibly can, no matter what trauma- real or artificial- is inflicted upon it.

se5a · #3 June 16th, 2004, 10:21 AM

wasent there an experiment where they injected a guy on death row with water and it killed him?
or was that just one of those urbane miths...

Randallw · #4 June 16th, 2004, 02:06 PM

I don't know of the myth or not, but it would seem to me that injecting water is as bad as injecting air. It will kill you anyway.

Aiken · #5 June 16th, 2004, 03:21 PM

Distilled water is pretty harmless, it's often used as solvent(sp?) for injections. But if it was mineral water injected....

Jack Simth · #6 June 16th, 2004, 08:40 PM

It's hard to say if it is a myth or not, between the placebo effect and the note that the injection location is missing from the story. The brain controls a lot - if he truely believed he was going to die, he could have (especially as by the time many death row inmates reach the execution chamber anymore, they are old enough for heart attacks to be a serious risk). Injected into the right (wrong?) place, water could harm you - water injected into the spine (called a spinal tap) interferes with nerve function, and blocks pain. Injected into a place where it would interfere with the nerves going to the heart, and it might be able to stop a man's heart that way.

geoschmo · #7 June 16th, 2004, 09:00 PM

Typically lethal injection is a drug injected into the bloodstream. Injecting water, assuming it's just water with no contaminants, into the bloodstream isn't going to interfere with any nerve functions. Your blood is mostly water to begin with, the body already knows how to process it and take just what it needs from it. I suppose you could inject enough water in a short enough amount of time to dilute the blood to a point where the body can't get the things it needs to makes the cells function. If that happened your kidneys would probably fail before your heart from working overtime as one of their jobs is regulating the amount of water in your bloodstream. And I doubt it would happen in seconds or even minutes.

You could also die of internal bleeding if you thin the blood out too much. Parts of your circulatory system are wearing out and breaking all the time. The system is self-repairing and patching these tiny tears. If the blood gets too thin though it can't do this efficently. Actually this could trigger a heart attack if this occurs near the heart and the bleeding collects in the pericardial sack that surrounds it. The pressure would build and cause the heart to fail. Wouldn't happen instantly though.

If this story is true it's got to be a guy with a pre-exsisting heart ailment that was sent over the edge by the stress of the situation.

Geoschmo

[ June 16, 2004, 20:10: Message edited by: geoschmo ]