Memories on a Chip Options

[kryton]

I'm contemplating adding a data jack mod for a game I'm writing an adventure I started thinking about memory in the 2070’s. Something that would allow the data jack to access long term memories stored. I'm not sure there's precedence yet for there. You can access internal memory but not the wetwared brain gray matter. Additionally from what I read in the cannon companion simsense is more of a full sensory movie rather than memories.

What would happen A. if you could sell your memories and B. what if you could buy them and have them implanted via your datajack and an essence modded jack? With the reprogramming techniques you could literally pay to have memories erased, and then pay to have pleasant false memories written in. Of course the faces will be off but there's a certain "pleasure" to nostalgia.

This comes from Blade Runner, Final Cut, Nirvana (Italian film), Twilight zone (1985), and the Eternal Sun Shine of a spotless mind.

As long as the memory was stored in say memory or on a chip via a chipjack you can access and recall the memory? Maybe you could even send your parents memories of your childhood? (Possibly with a little editing you could have your parents edited into a purchased memory?)

The philosophical question being when you loose those memories you have do you loose a part of yourself? IE good and bad memories are who and what we are? Without those we loose something internal to ourselves. There's a certain existential quality to memory....Any thoughts on this conundrum?

[hyzmarca]

It can already be done to a limited degree with P-fix chips and a brainwashing machine from Cannon Campanion.

[eralston]

Definitely cannon companion for reference on this. Look through the stuff on simsense recording/playback.

Cyberpunk has excellent precedence for the terrain of memory serving as a setting for action, you're on to something. Memories also structure who people are so there are some straightforward plot ideas for this:

1) Characters acting on what they thought were "real" memories, but later find out were false
2) Characters being given memories for some sort of advantage in a campaign (something more meta than just knowsofts, something like all of the memories of an enemy, causing them to sympathize with or further hate them )
3) Characters having to deal with others equipped with false memories

[kryton]

The technology I'm not so worried about. What I'm getting at are the philosophical and psychological aspects to have memories that can be bought, sold, and editied.

The "Mim-Syx Memorex Memory Controller" from Yamatsu, now in stores. Su-real technology that's so real, you'll never tell the difference? If it feels live it's Memorex. . . . . .
-Now Available at Doc's R Us, Best Buy, and Wet Wear Emporiums everywhere.

[hyzmarca]

Then Quiad will find out that his whole normal life is a lie and he really is a secret agent from Mars

[eralston]

Getchyourass to mars!

As I said, precedence

[Aku]

what are memories, other than remembered bits of senses though? you answered your own question i think, all you have to do is have people willing to record their everyday lives using SimSense, and sell them and you have it for false memory replacement.

[kryton]

I disagree if your selling your memories then aren't those memories less special? IE if you have a memory of something special to you and you sell it and it's a big hit on the black market doesn't that "detract" from it? Almost like being a prostitute?

Then again sharing a special memory of when you met your wife for the first time could be the most intimate gift say on a fiftyith wedding aniversery or if you die. Imagine if you could record all those little snipits of who you are onto fiberous silicon. You could preserve a part of yourself indefinately.....What if by having those memories played back on the viewer they internalize personality and other traits from merly watching or experiencing the memory. Sort of like a ghosting of personality. Subtle and mild but with massive use could be bad. Especially if your into snuff memories.....

Additionally say you have a bad relationship and you've been hurt, don't you need that pain so you don't get burned? If you have that memory erased don't you loose something? You loose the lesson, you loose the pain. Those painfull mistakes we make, make us stronger. Loosing those mistakes and memories means we loose part of ourselves........We then lend ourselves to making those mistakes again, being hurt again in the same way...So I disagree.

Memories form who and how we act. What's listed above is personality. Personality can be a powerfull thing but how much can it be wiped out? Can it be simply overwritten as with Babylon 5's death of personality? Or does changing those neurons cause secondary stress to the organism? IE if your a pedofile and your personality is wiped or your conditioned you still have those urges possibly? They may still exisist in your subconcious, in your dreams? When messing with the mind there are bound to be untold consiquences......

It would be foolish to discredit memories as being insubstantial whisps. Imagine if say in Johnny Memonic (msp?) you lost or erased your child hood for reasons of your own safety......You loose alot of special bits that made you who you are. Memories are more than old comic books that can be thrown away. They're essential the human condition.

[kryton]

I think the intrinisic flaw is that your extruding the emotional content that exists in memory.....

[James McMurray]

It wouldn't matter to me how many people shared my memory of event X. If it was important to me, it would still be important to me. And if it could make my life easier to share it, why not?

[kryton]

What if it were something you didn't want out? What if it was say an embarassing event? What if it's something that they didn't tell you about that was taken? Like the thrill of killing someone, maybe an enemy? Or the thrill of opening up an AK97 on security guards?

When you open your mind literally, your mind may be an open book?

What if they took a memory of you beating your wife? Or what if it was a memory taken out of context?

[Kanada Ten]

I've always thought this was a given. How are memories that far from knowsofts and activesofts; I'd say a knowsoft is identical, really. Is one's ability diminished because they sell it? Maybe, but the fat check really eases my conscience. As to the rest, just read the contract really well, before signing away (it's like reality tv).

[James McMurray]

Theft is different from sale. I'd be upset if anything were stolen from me: memory, wallet, pocket lint, etc.

[eralston]

Reality TV indeed. People would be fascinated by your memories for the same way. It's so insignificant, yet so important to you.

The important point of memory on a chip would be seperating memory from personality. Read-write access to someone personality is 1) far fetched even by shadowrun standards 2) less interesting from a plot point given therei sless mystery if you cna just ask the memories who they're from, etc

[kryton]

I think I agree with the personality overwrite. That's so many different areas of the brain that it becomes difficult if not impossible to change. Personality I think is a combination of up bringing, experience, and biology.

Although with the write implants what if you could "modify" certain behaviors? Say if you have a propensity towards murder what if you could create something like "A clock work orange"

With magic maybe you could write a really nasty spell that changes and manipulates personality....Difficult though not impossible.

Maybe the effect isn't really permenate. Maybe it wears off or eventually drives you mad....

Thay had something like that in Earth 2. The only successfull subject was the subject who had they're mind wiped. He wouldn't kill a group of biologists so they wiped his memory and made him a criminal. All the other subjects who they did that too were really criminials and all went insane.

What if by trying to overwrite a personality you merely fracture it into two. So that the other personality is still they're? Similar to neurologically what happens to children who later develop multiple personality disorder. If you've ever lived or been near someone with that disorder it's facinating and sad. They litterally "click" from one personality. You can mention a particular personality and they "click" on. That type of affliction though results from severe negligence and trauma so the fracturing may not be possible?

[Bodak]

Has everyone seen Total Recall? That sounds like the kind of thing you're after. The 6th Day also had a technological way of reading and writing wetware memories, but it wasn't installed cyberware. More of a high-speed retinal imprinting system, which is great since humans rely on vision for our day to day activities... but olfaction is the sense most tied to memory in the majority of people.

[Kanada Ten]

There is also a datalock which prevents the user from retaining memories. It basically allows short term memory only, though the user has access to previous memories. It baiscally turns you into Dora from Finding Nemo. I remember the discussion on meat puppets and the use of datalocks on them; the argument was that it was kinder to the joytoy to let them forget what the Johns did to them.

[hyzmarca]

Its is more commnly used on bodyguards and assistants to important people so that they can do their jobs without retaining any sensitive information.

[kryton]

I don't think everyone gets it? I'm talking on a philsophical level.

Total Recall is just reprogramming....That's pretty standard....What I'm talking about is more elegant and simple. The thread title says it all....I'm looking to see how people view this idea on a philosphical and psychological perspective.

Think Blade Runner, Nirvana (Itallian Scifi), Final Cut (2004), "Plug Head..I'd rather Jack in than Jack.......", Free Jack and the Spiritual Switch Board, and Aeon Flux.

Think of these different technologies from a end user, from a Shadowrunners point of view? What if your character found out he really isn't the mogul of a giant corporation but just a clone that's been programmed. What if you could experience what it's like when your mother held you for the first time? What if you could view someone's live after they died? (Privacy issues when someone becomes a human camera when any memory can be recovered?) Don't look at the technology but the effect of the technology.....Look how cell phones and have changed the way we act? How the Internet has brought us closer and apart at the same time........Look at the Humanism in the Technology?

[kryton]

How would a female feel if she didn't know what had been done to her for the last ten years? Sure her credit's up there and she's well off, maybe she isn't well off who knows, but what sort of psychological scars might that have when you find out your arm was previously broken in three places and you have a kidney replaced from a stab wound?

[Kanada Ten]

Depends on how he was programmed to think about that, neh? It's no different than finding out that freewill is a lie, or that you're really adopted - or for the last five years you've been a fucking meat puppet with no memory of it or programmed to enjoy it. Sure their are philosophical questions about it - but you still enjoy it. Even if that makes you sick and depressed, a forced addiction of sorts.

I really don't see the difference between memories on chip compared to "full" reality tv. We're already moving that direction with mobile technology; you're sharing your experiences with people all the time. In some ways it feeds megalomaniac or narcissistic personalities. It builds on the instant gratification culture, too, since whenever your life is at a boring moment you can "live" a friend's life or that of an idol.

[KillaJ]

[Kanada Ten]

Hey, I just remembered: It goes

Denial - "My life can't be a lie!"
Anger - "Who did this to me?!"
Bargaining - "I'll do anything to get my life back... Please." or "I want to go back and take the other pill."
Depression - "Why did this happen to me? How can I go on living knowing it was all a lie."
Acceptance - "The past is behind me now; I can only affect the future."

The premise actually reminds me of Remmy from Virtual Realities. He was raised in the Matrix with no knowledge of his physical body or the physical world. Of course, once he found out he spent the rest of his days getting revenge (while using his l33t skillz to live comfortably). Hum, actually, this is sort of a Deus scenario, as well.

[e] I just had a run idea, that's sort of an extension of an earlier plot and similar to the classic "catch the reporter before the story breaks" line. Only in this variation the reporter is wired with simsense and has a couple subscribers on her feed. The corp killed her for snooping before they realized the feed was live... Oops.

Or, more on topic I guess, you could have a rock star fake his death in a staged assassination, but instead of doing it on stage, he uses snuff beetles to really drive the point home. "Today, millions of Speed Coma fans, who were subscribed to the bands live simlog, felt a jolt to the heart as Johnny "Fasthand" Psychotic was murdered outside his Portland studio. Illegal recordings of the tragic slaying have already saturated the matrix, even as MegaMedia agents tried to delete them..."

This post has been edited by Kanada Ten: Apr 29 2006, 11:21 PM

[James McMurray]

In the weeks following Johnny Psychotic's suicide several teens have been found dead of a apparent suicides using illegally modified simsense rigs to follow in their hero's footsteps by experiencing his death.

[Kanada Ten]

Several parents have filed lawsuits against Ersatz!, the company responsible for simlog technology, in relation to their children's recent suicides. A spokesbot for Ersatz! claimed that there was no link between the simfeed from Johnny Psychotic and that which was used by the victims. "These kids just got a hold of some nasty BTLs from the street. Teens experimenting with death is nothing new," it commented. A grand jury recently rejected criminal charges against the corp and MegaMedia, the holders of Speed Coma's contract.

You could also use false simsense to frame someone or give yourself an alibi.