Cloudscape

As and when self-improvement, which has already been part of our society for thousands of years, will become more and more advanced, there will eventually arise competitive sports in which the use of supplements ("dope") is no longer secretly done by some of the athletes but openly by all of them, as well as other forms of enhancement such as genetic and robotic. The use of these supplements will be supervised by doctors, however, and supplements which could be harmful to the athlete could be either forbidden (so that, unfortunately, there would still be illegal dope) or advised against. This supervision would have to be very strict, much like the dope tests today, so that there would be no risk of an overenthusiastic athlete experiment recklessly with the wrong enhancements, that is to say, enhancements known or unknown to be dangerous.

This would also be interesting in that it would allow researchers to find the best way of improving the human body's performance. That doesn't mean the athletes would be used as test animals for new enhancements, but that once was known that they are safe, they could try to find the ideal combination of enhancements. The doctors would place a limit on the number of enhancements, so that they would not harm their health, depending strongly on the nature of the enhancements.

Because this enhancement is a complicated process, the sports would be as much a cognitive sport to the doctors (or the athletes, in case they also occupy them with this), as a physical sport to the athletes.

We study the small to control the large.

Many people lost their faith in God because of the Theory of Evolution. How ironic that this very same theory would indicate the existence of a God. Bacteria, animals, men, gods, God. It's only a next step. Everything grows over time, and in the Universe has existed for an infinitely long time; thus, it is only natural that the Universe itself must be perfect - we only do not see it.

The more memory capacity any computer has (be it a human or a machine), the less processing speed it needs: this is so because it can then simply remember a calculation, rather than repeat it.
An example is factorials. If a computer needs to calculate very large factorials over and over, it will take longer for it than to simply recall them. This is so because recalling what 12 x 11 x 10 x 9 x 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 is (that is, what 12 x 11 is, 132, what 132 x 10 is, 1320, what 1320 x 9 is, 11880, and so on), is considerably more demanding than recalling the cipher 479001600.
Therefore, memory capacity can reduce the need for processing speed, so that even when the latter would reach a limit, the speed of computation could still grow as the former does. As many computations are repeated, making use of otherwise unused memory space to store their results increases computational speed. If all unused memory space were used, computational speed could be furthered enormously. Almost all calculations could then be based on more basic calculations which could then be remembered rather than reiterated.

Unlike nanorobots, which used atoms in their environment as building blocks, picorobots would produce particles as their building blocks. One way to do this is hadronization - a process in which hadrons duplicate. This process arises when the quarks which constitute hadrons (such as protons and neutrons) are taken at a sufficient distance from one another. Because the strong force is proportional to distance (unlike other forces), the farther quarks are taken from one another, the more energy it takes to keep them apart. At some point, this energy will create new quarks between the other quarks. So if one tries to separate the quarks in a meson (which has two quarks, one quark and one antiquark), all one manages to do as one splits them in two is to create two new mesons. In this way, with enough energy input, one can create new quarks indefinitely: the energy is materialized.
Picorobots could also concentrate light by adding up the energies of their photons. In this way, two photons could be combined to one photon with double energy, and therefore double frequency. In this way, the photons could eventually be made so energetic that upon colliding with each other they would create matter, which the picorobots could use to create atoms. In this way, light could, in essence, be converted into matter. We’d long learned to convert mass into energy, but it wasn’t too long ago we’d learned to do just the opposite.

To travel back in time is to travel back in space. What appears to be the most esoteric of technologies, then, actually happens daily. Step backward in the selfsame way you stepped forward, and your body has traveled through time.
The same applies to a molecular, atomic or subatomic level: if two classical particles collide on a straight line, both will travel back in time as they rebound. If every quantum in the universe could move in exactly the opposite direction, it would regress to what it was earlier. Doing so in any closed system would cause the same for that system.
However, doing so would require to surmount the obstacle of Heisenberg uncertainty - at least, it likely would. If the movement of every particle in an isolated system would be reversed at the same moment, however, it’s possible that they’d move in exactly the same way, but in the other direction. This could be so if Heisenberg uncertainty is caused by the system itself. If it is not, Heisenberg uncertainty would violate causality, as it would mean that it is purely stochastic, independent of the state of the system.
It’s possible that one wouldn’t need to know the position and momentum of every the quanta in order to revert their motion, however: doing so would, in principle, require only one very simple alteration: changing the sign of their mass.
As kinetic energy is proportional to mass, if the mass will change sign, so will the kinetic energy. Therefore, its vector will change sign, which means that it will move in the opposite direction. If the mass of every particle in an object would change sign, then, the object would regress to its former state. This makes the manipulation of mass extremely important, as it may allow any lost information to be retrieved. Most notably, this technology could be used to revive people upon information-theoretic death. If this method would be applied on a large enough area, it could save anyone or anything from the worst cataclysm long after it has happened.
If we could also control the absolute value of mass, we could also control time in any way at all: that is, we could really manipulate time like we do in motion pictures, pausing, rewinding, going forward - even though we’d not need to know the past or future to do so: we could; we could slow it down or speed it up, raise it to infinity or stop it. And this all would in no way entail the absurdly high energies of ultrarelativistic speeds.
Another way of manipulating time without needing to reach the speed of light, however, is manipulating the speed of light itself, as lowering the speed of light could make it easier to travel through time: right now, we’d have to speed up to a speed of three hundred million meters per second, so that it would take a mass of two thousand tons an energy of 10^22 joules to slow down time thousandfold. But suppose that we’d have to speed to only three hundred millionths of a meter per second, then this would take only 10^–10 joules, 10^–32 times less.
Aside from time travel, changing mass would have many more applications. For instance, as E=mc^2, in accordance with the law of conservation of energy the speed of light should change if the mass of an object would change, which could make the applications in time travel said above possible.
Also, changing the mass of an object would automatically change its speed. In this way, though we cannot undo energy, we can undo its effects: for mass is what impedes energy it in its expression in movement. And if forces are mediated through exchange of momentum, then controlling mass, which will change momentum, could allow us to control the mediation of forces. If we could control mass, then, we could control the universe. The Higgs boson, supposed to be responsible for mass, fully justifies its apellation “God particle.”

An important reason why criminals need to be punished is that they lack the natural punishment of guilt.
. This issue was now resolved by simply inducing guilt in their minds through neurological procedures - something done by nanorobots present in their brain, which could there simply copy the guilt felt in a healthy person. This could resolve their psychopathy, and at the same time give them a more apposite punishment than one could imagine.

Walking on walls, falling from high heights without damage, flight without propulsion - it could be possible with magtech.

(Written from the perspective of the future)

Magtech is a branch of technology which made use of magnetic fields generated in our bodies. Our every cells are filled with nanorobots, and these can each create a magnetic field, so that so could our bodies themselves. If these magnetic fields are made strong enough, this can be used to repel or attract our bodies. This can be very useful, for instance to create artificial gravity, so that we can walk on magnetically charged walls, or on the contrary counter gravity, so that we can safely fall on a magnetically charged ground.
The important thing is that there is a gradient in the magnetic field generated by the foglets. Because electromagnetism is so much more dependent on distance than gravity, if the body's magnetic field were homogenous, the magnetic force it would experience would not be. So, if magnetic attraction was to be used as artificial gravity, the magnetic force has to be stronger at the head than at the toe.
Although this was first applied in spaceflight, today we use it in our daily lives. For instance, we can now actually walk on the walls of buildings - something now seen ordinary, but the mere idea of which would once have seemed surreal. In this way, the walls of buildings have also become walkways - walkways, as it were, to the sky.
Magtech can also be used to cause a magnetic object to fly: because nanorobots are spread throughout the atmosphere, and each of them can generate a magnetic field, they can do this to attract (or repel) another magnetically charged object or person as it comes close.

A. A Comparison between Schizophrenia and Autism

Although there is some similarity in the symptoms between schizophrenia and autism, there is also a dichotomy in their causes: schizophrenics are thought to have a lack of glutamate function, while autistics are thought to have an excess. Glutamate is implicated in latent inhibition, the blocking of seemingly irrelevant stimuli. Autistics will only assimilate stimuli which are most relevant to them, while schizophrenics will be flooded by an overflow of irrelevant stimuli.
Obviously, latent inhibition impairs concentration, but it also enhances abstract thought. This is why autistics can’t think abstractly, while psychotics think too abstractly, so that they both have trouble communicating with others. In autistics, high latent inhibition may also lead to fear of novelty, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and lack of imagination, while in schizophrenics, low latent inhibition may also lead to delusions, paranoia, and thought disorder.
Glutamate decreases serotonin, modulates dopamine (increases dopamine in some areas and decreases it in others), increases acetylcholine, decreases noradrenaline, and decreases melatonin - these changes are all found in autism except for increased acetylcholine, which is decreased - in schizophrenia, the exact opposite of the effects of glutamate are seen except for increased melatonin. Autism and schizophrenia may be considered to have opposite chemical causes, even though many of their symptoms seem similar. Autism could potentially be treated by glutamate antagonists, just like schizophrenics are treated by glutamate agonists (atypical antipsychotics).

B. More on Schizophrenia

Psychotic depression, a relative of schizophrenia, has a neurological pathology which is very similar to that of schizophrenia, but in a milder version . Psychotic depression, like schizophrenia, is characterized by delusions, paranoia, and often hallucinations. Both schizophrenic and psychotically depressed people often hear voices, which will either judge them or order them. In psychotic depression, these will always be persecutory, while in schizophrenia, they may sometimes seem benevolent. In both, these may criticize the patient or tell him or her to commit suicide.
Both syndromes are caused primarily by a combination of stress and diathesis, although the diathesis (the genetic and neurological susceptibility to suffer from a condition) is usually more pronounced in schizophrenia than in psychotic depression. Both syndromes are caused primarily by a combination of stress and diathesis, although the diathesis (the genetic and neurological susceptibility to suffer from a condition) is usually more pronounced in schizophrenia than in psychotic depression. Schizophrenia can therefore be interpreted as a severe form of psychotic depression. The hallucinations and delusions that characterize is are either a manifestation of stress (eg thinking that the entire world is against the patient, or hearing voices which criticize the patient or encourage him or her to commit suicide) or, conversely, as a defense mechanism against it (eg thinking that one is sent for a mission or an imagined friend).
All symptoms of schizophrenia are a manifestation of stress, even though stress that induces schizophrenia in one person needn’t do so in all people. However, all people have susceptibility to schizophrenia, each having a different threshold of stress needed to cause it. This threshold may or may not be altered by other factors such as substance, but it is inherently there in each of us.
Research has shown that chronic stress leads to an increase of serotonin and noradrenaline and a decrease in glutamate, which are all seen in schizophrenia. Thus, one could say that anyone who suffers for a long time will become slightly schizotypal, although this is usually in such a mild form that it is not psychotic. Psychosis is still so common not only because evolution has preserved it, but also because it is not fully evolutionary.

In schizophrenia, imagination and reality merge. It is as if their dreams impinge on their waking days, which is why schizophrenics have less dream recall. This may be attributed to a disruption in the circadian biorhythm: normally, we can only distinguish imagination from reality when awake, but not in our sleep. One could say that all of us are schizophrenic, but our schizophrenic episodes are all restricted to our sleep. This could be why chronic insomnia can lead to psychosis, something sometimes seen in the manic episode of bipolar disorder. And while mania is associated with elevated glutamate, manic psychosis as well as schizophrenia are associated with reduced glutamate.
Glutamate is a neurotransmitter which enables us to distinguish imagination from reality, but schizophrenics have a deficit of this neurotransmitter. Normally, glutamate cycles from day to night, but in schizophrenics, this cycle is disrupted. The glutamate is one of the neurochemicals involved in the day-night cycle, its rhythms not only caused by but also causing it , which is why administration of glutamate may increase both wakefulness and sleep . During sleep, glutamate is normally counteracted by adenosine , which triggers, so to say, healthy nighttime psychosis.
We are all somewhat mad, but our madness usually occurs only in sleep: our insanity is usually safely relegated to our dreams. Although dreams have many more functions, they can also be said to be a deposition of psychosis. Arthur Schopenhauer said that "Dreams are brief madness and madness a long dreams.” Actually, it may be that dreams and madness have the same duration, but occur respectively during night and day - in psychosis, the order is reversed.
The involvement of adenosine in the day-night cycle also explains why adenosine agonists can alleviate the symptoms of schizophrenia and why caffeine, an adenosine antagonist, worsens positive symptoms of schizophrenia . Although an acute administration of adenosine will cause a short-term decrease in glutamate, more chronic administration will cause an amplification of the glutamate rhythms. This is so because the adenosine agonist will have more effect if more adenosine is present. This principle applies to for every neurotransmitter: any neurotransmitter agonist will have more effect if it has more of the neurotransmitter to act upon.
Possibly, schizophrenia may largely be attributed to anomalies in circadian rhythms. In schizophrenia, this cycle is disrupted, so that restoring this cycle might reduce the symptoms of schizophrenia. Ironically, by by treating its nighttime symptoms, we may also be able to treat the daytime symptoms of schizophrenia. This is also one reason why melatonin has proven useful in the treatment of schizophrenia: melatonin is one of the most important chemicals involved in the biological clock. Melatonin is dubbed the “sleep hormone,” and low levels have been observed in schizophrenia as well as in depression. In addition to the voices, this is also a reason why schizophrenia have trouble sleeping. Furthermore, there is evidence that melatonin potentiates glutamate transmission.
An insufficiency of glutamate could cause both positive and negative symptoms, which are respectively delusions, paranoia, hallucinations, and thought disorder, and apathy, blunted affect, anhedonia (lack of pleasure) avolition (lack of will), alogia (saying little), and hypomimia (lacking mimic). The cooccurrence of these symptoms seems paradoxical because positive symptoms are caused by an excess of dopamine, and negative symptoms are caused by a shortage of dopamine. This apparent contradiction is resolved by the fact that glutamate is self-modulatory, meaning that the increase of glutamate in one brain area will cause a decrease of glutamate in another. As glutamate increases dopamine levels, this will likewise affect dopamine throughout the brain. This is clearly illustrated in how increased dopamine is found in the striatum and MPOA in schizophrenia, which is an effect caused by increased glutamate. The dichotomy of positive and negative symptoms in schizophrenia is proportional to the imbalance of glutamate.
The lack of dopamine in some brain areas which ensues from lack of glutamate can set in motion a vicious circle consisting of two separate cycles, together leading to the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. These cycles may occur as follows. (Mentioned symptoms may or may not be present, according to severity and type of schizophrenia.)

1) In brain areas where glutamate is decreased:

- glutamate ↓
NEUROLOGICAL:
→ dopamine ↓
NEUROLOGICAL:
→ GABA ↓
→ glutamate ↓
→ serotonin ↑
PSYCHOLOGICAL:
→ anhedonia
→ motor retardation
→ acetylcholine ↓
NEUROLOGICAL:
→ serotonin ↑
→ noradrenaline ↑
→ dopamine ↓
PSYCHOLOGICAL:
→ attention / concentration ↓
→ GABA ↓
NEUROLOGICAL:
→ serotonin ↑
→ noradrenaline ↑
PSYCHOLOGICAL:
→ hallucinations
→ anxiety
→ insomnia
→ serotonin ↑
NEUROLOGICAL:
→ glutamate ↓
→ acetylcholine ↓
→ GABA ↓
→ noradrenaline ↑
PSYCHOLOGICAL:
→ blunted affect
→ noradrenaline ↑
PSYCHOLOGICAL:
→ blunted affect
→ dissociation
→ inhibition
PSYCHOLOGICAL:
→ blunted affect
→ attention / concentration ↓
→ latent inhibition ↓
→ thought disorder
→ hallucinations
→ delusions
→ avolition
→ apathy

2) In brain areas where glutamate is increased:

- glutamate ↑
NEUROLOGICAL:
→ dopamine ↑
NEUROLOGICAL:
→ melatonin ↓
→ GABA ↑
→ glutamate ↑
→ serotonin ↓
PSYCHOLOGICAL:
→ obsessive-compulsive disorder
→ latent inhibition ↓
→ thought disorder
→ hallucinations
→ delusions
→ acetylcholine ↑
NEUROLOGICAL:
→ serotonin ↓
→ noradrenaline ↓
→ dopamine ↑
PSYCHOLOGICAL:
→ blunted affect
→ ACTH ↑
PSYCHOLOGICAL:
→ anxiety
→ GABA ↑
NEUROLOGICAL:
→ serotonin ↓
→ noradrenaline ↓
PSYCHOLOGICAL:
→ auditory hallucinations
→ blunted affect
→ serotonin ↓
NEUROLOGICAL:
→ glutamate ↑
→ acetylcholine ↑
→ GABA ↑
→ noradrenaline ↓
PSYCHOLOGICAL:
→ paranoia
→ obsessive-compulsive disorder
→ anxiety
→ noradrenaline ↓
PSYCHOLOGICAL:
→ attention / concentration ↓
→ memory ↓
→ melatonin ↓
PSYCHOLOGICAL:
→ insomnia
→ anxiety
→ depression
PSYCHOLOGICAL:
→ anxiety

GABA, or gamma-aminobutyric acid, may have an important yet little recognized role in schizophrenia. GABA is implicated in the auditory pathways, and most hallucinations in schizophrenia are auditory. Also, it modulates latent inhibition : both an increase and decrease of GABA reduces it, which is why benzodiazepines, which act on the GABAA receptors, are weakly hallucinogenic. Moreover, withdrawal of Zolpidem, a benzodiazepine, may lead to both auditory and visual hallucinations. In schizophrenics as well as in people withdrawn from benzodiazepines (which can lead to delirium tremens) GABA receptors are decreased.

As any system inherently controls itself, any system can also inherently be controlled: we need only to know how it controls itself to control it. There must be some interaction between the system and part of the rest of the universe as the existence of the system would otherwise not be relevant. By controlling that part of the universe we could control that interaction, and in this way, interact with this system. If we find out how to do this, we can fully control the system, and any phenomenon that is part of it. With that knowledge, we can control anything. The only barrier to omnipotence, then, would be a barrier to omniscience.

It follows that anything in the universe can be controlled, merely because the universe itself can control itself, and we are part of that universe. If it is connected to our universe, it can be controlled - if it isn't connected to our universe, it doesn't really exist to us. There is therefore no limit to what we can achieve except for the limit to what the universe itself can achieve - that is, the limit to what exists in the universe. If the complexity of the universe is infinite, so the complexity of our knowledge of it will become, and therefore so will the complexity of our technology.

The idea that there is no limit to technology is known as the sans ceiling hypothesis.

For a discussion on whether or not the universe can be infinite in complexity, see the Infinity Principle:
http://cloudscape.blogspirit.com/archive/2008/04/28/the-infinity-principle.html

Related entries, on the eventual "theosis" (deification) of intelligent species such as ourselves:
http://cloudscape.blogspirit.com/archive/2008/04/28/god-theory-part-i-analytical.html
http://cloudscape.blogspirit.com/archive/2008/04/28/the-god-theory-part-ii-holistic.html