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This is some amazing work; and it also raises my belief that a Langford Basilisk is neurologically possible by about 25%
by khafra 2y ago
This is some amazing work; and it also raises my belief that a Langford Basilisk is neurologically possible by about 25%
- reverius42 2y agoThanks for introducing me to the concept! Just read the short story I assume you are referring to: https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm
- Karellen 2y agoLooks like it, according to Wikipedia: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Langford%27s_basilisk https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Langford%27s_basilisk Just read the story, thought it was very reminiscent of one of the plot points in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (1992) - until I noticed the publication date of 1988, 4 years earlier!
- evanjrowley 2y agoYou'll also find a similar concept throughout David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest (1996).
- hobs 2y agoCharles Stross who for some reason posted on usenet about it in the wikipedia article uses a form of this to great effect in several books in The Laundry Files
- shagie 2y agoAccelerando : https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando.html https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/acceler... Not everything is sweetness and light in the era of mature nanotechnology. Widespread intelligence amplification doesn't lead to widespread rational behavior. New religions and mystery cults explode across the planet; much of the Net is unusable, flattened by successive semiotic jihads. India and Pakistan have held their long-awaited nuclear war: external intervention by US and EU nanosats prevented most of the IRBMs from getting through, but the subsequent spate of network raids and Basilisk attacks cause havoc. Luckily, infowar turns out to be more survivable than nuclear war – especially once it is discovered that a simple anti-aliasing filter stops nine out of ten neural-wetware-crashing Langford fractals from causing anything worse than a mild headache.
- Karellen 2y ago(2005)
- rozab 2y agoI hadn't heard of this one before, it's also similar to the crucifix glitch in Peter Watts' Blindsight
- haccount 2y agoHaving read both Blindsight and Echopraxia I have to say the most impressive neurological takeaway from the books was the ability of my own brain to suspend critical thinking for long enough to enjoy the books. In retrospect the core concept can be paraphrased as: Self-awareness and consciousness in pigs is the only thing that prevents them from flapping their trotters fast enough to fly(to the moon).
- jayGlow 2y agoI'm not getting your point? the book had some out there ideas but the core concept of consciousness not being necessary for intelligence seemed fairly reasonable.
- ToDougie 2y agoFantastic book. Really made me think in some new ways.
- shagie 2y agohttps://www.nature.com/articles/44964 https://www.nature.com/articles/44964 is also a fun read on the BLIT. I also recommend Different Kinds of Darkness. https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/different-kinds-of-darkness/ https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/different-kinds-o...
- shaganer 2y agoI'm interested to hear your reasons why you think it's closer to reality. I don't see why the discovery of the brain wastage system would help a brain crash from being possible. Edit: Just looked back at the post and that it involves an image causing the glymphatic system to react.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- haccount 2y agoIt's possible. But only for the brains of people with severe or undertreated epilepsy of carefully selected varieties. You can trigger a potentially fatal seizure by showing them an appropriately stimulating image. Which likely was a known concept to the author of the story. For the rest of us the negative feedback along the optical axis puts a stop to such shenanigans.
- candiddevmike 2y agoGenAI images sometimes do this to me. Not anything scary per say, but some of the faults make my brain feel weird as it tries and fails to interpret parts of the image that were "AI smeared".
- altruios 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCollough_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCollough_effect is evidence to the contrary. This seems to rewire something outside the optical pathway. The effect can last for months. Works on almost all brains, no epilepsy required...
- haccount 2y agoThat sounds more like a learned visual effect, something quite different from frying the brain of anyone with a basilisk. Experiments with cats( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1111849/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1111849/ ), and the outcome of patients with strabismus/lazy eye(effective blindness on defective eye), suggests that seeing (or not seeing) is a learned trait. Which is a few steps removed from being a backdoor to epileptic seizures or remote controlling heart activity
- altruios 2y agoExert from that same wiki page about the anti-McCollough effect, I may have the two confused. Given that AMEs do transfer interocularly,[8] it is reasonable to suppose that they must occur in higher, binocular regions of the brain. Despite producing a less saturated illusory color, the induction of an AME may override a previously induced ME, providing additional weight to the argument that AMEs occur in the higher visual areas than MEs.[8]
- theGnuMe 2y agoSure, we know imagery can cause fatal seizures so... yes.