Artificial Beings, but not robots?

[Lord of the Geeks]

uncontrolled fission.. or the ability to reintigrate the matter from a pure energy state. no saying impossible.. i think its highly probably..just will take time..

[tully]

We can already do that...it just takes a nuke to make it happen.

Fission controlled or uncontrolled won't allow for the type of work needed to be done by replicator-type technology. We're talking about a near-instantaneous reaction, so unless it can be held as a transitory state, any type of fission would render your matter useless.

Unless of course the technology advances to the point where usable pseudo-matter is found to exist in a fissionable state, but now we're just talking theoretics.

[tully]

I apologize...I'm going waaaay off thread-topic here.

Attempting to bring it back around...

While I'd like a holodeck for the settings it could provide, and the wealth of scenarios it could play out for me...I'd still like to have my robot. (Call me old fashioned)

I'd like for my companion to be able to leave the 'deck with me, after all.

[Lord of the Geeks]

i always assumed the process involved slowing pure energy down to the point it condensed into matter, then molding those sub atomic particles into the needed atoms, then those atoms into the proper molecules, and those into the materal. (granted slight imperfections would leave the resulting matter radioactively unstable..) rather than begining the process with some easily manipulated protomaterial. the energies involved are incredible, more on par with matter/antimatter reaction than a simple hydrogen bomb. seeing as for a deconstruction process you are turning (x)lbs of material into pure energy.. which is exactly what a m/am reaction does. and taking the same amount of energy... controling it to where you basically run the explosion backwards, reshaping the matter as it runs backtogether. i guesss you could start out with a supply of naked protons, and neutrons, it you can find them... add electrons after binding them, and you've formed the atom. but thats would be a protomatter... (didnt researchers do something similar awhile back, and turn lead into gold, by bombarding lead with high energy hydrogen, until enough of them were absorbed into the lead atoms to make them gold?) it is a start

[Lord of the Geeks]

and to bring it back to a reasonable facsimile of topic... with that kind of tech.. you could construct bots at a molecular level.. seemless. and freely replaced. something breaks... you simply dematerialize her, and reintergrate her back to original specs.

[tully]

i always assumed the process involved slowing pure energy down to the point it condensed into matter, then molding those sub atomic particles into the needed atoms, then those atoms into the proper molecules, and those into the materal.

That's one approach to the process, but the search is still on for the quintessential "God Particle" (no, not that God Particle, but another one) that would essentially be shaped by the energy applied, much like in the core of a star. The process you describe is far more practial, but the energy required to manipulate sub atomic particles (let alone "slow down" energy...but that's an entirely different discussion ) is prohibitive.

(granted slight imperfections would leave the resulting matter radioactively unstable..)

Actually, in theory, such a substance/atom would be perfect as it was directly engineered.

rather than begining the process with some easily manipulated protomaterial. the energies involved are incredible, more on par with matter/antimatter reaction than a simple hydrogen bomb.

See, that's where I find the process and theory absolutely fascinating! There's actual hope that be deconstructing anti/dark matter, we can learn more about strong and weak forces. We know it's out there, we're pretty such it's "everywhere"...we just have to get at it and figure out proper containment.

seeing as for a deconstruction process you are turning (x)lbs of material into pure energy.. which is exactly what a m/am reaction does. and taking the same amount of energy... controling it to where you basically run the explosion backwards, reshaping the matter as it runs backtogether. i guesss you could start out with a supply of naked protons, and neutrons, it you can find them... add electrons after binding them, and you've formed the atom. but thats would be a protomatter

True, but as far as we know there is no way to make this transition perfect, there's always some waste...which brings it down to another problem.

We already know the tremendous amount of energy that's contained in a very small amount of matter. Thus, it's going to take a tremendous amount of energy to create a small bit of matter...even a tiny amount. The biggest hurdle to overcome in this technology (as is the case in most technologies) is the power requirements.

... (didnt researchers do something similar awhile back, and turn lead into gold, by bombarding lead with high energy hydrogen, until enough of them were absorbed into the lead atoms to make them gold?) it is a start

Seaborg supposedly did it, but he was a chemist. I'm not familiar with the method that he would have used. The Soviets did it (by accident if memory serves), it's done today with particle accelerators. They and nuke reactors are used to transmute or create elements, but again, we're talking about minute amounts being generated by massive amounts of energy. Nowhere near practical.

I actually think (by way of our original discussion) that it would prove to be more energy efficient for our holodeck to use the "shaped energy/force filed" technology over replicators.

(Fascinating discussion!)

[tully]

and to bring it back to a reasonable facsimile of topic... with that kind of tech.. you could construct bots at a molecular level.. seemless. and freely replaced. something breaks... you simply dematerialize her, and reintergrate her back to original specs.

heh...then I'm a romantic...I don't think I'd want my robot to be "broken down" into her base elements and reconstituted again and again...it would be a great way to solve my parking problem, though.

But with this kind of tech...I suppose I could also have a "portable hologram generator" so my artificial person could walk off the holodeck with me, eh?

If I'm being honest, though...I think I'd prefer my "traditional" android.

[Lord of the Geeks]

the doctor on voyager has such a thing.

depends on the energy requirements for a cohesive forcefeild and how that energy is supplied as to how portable it could be. I agree that a forcefeild is far more energy practicle and would require less advancements given our understanding of electrostatic forces.

if they are theoretically possible.. we will have replicator type tech eventually... think of the power generating capibilities if you can transmute ANY matter into pure energy. a lump of lead could run a city for years. this tech also leads to energy transporters or (beaming) once they are prsice enough to exactly put a living thing together 1 molecule at a time.

I always thought they downplayed the medical ues of a transporter. if you have a broken arm, dematerialze you, and reintergate you with the arm not broken. and no injury could be so greiveus.. even death.. that dematerializing you and reintrigrateing you using a non-dead/injured pattern could heal it. if the body isn't wounded, no systems are failing.. everything is put back together right... there's no reason you couldnt be immortal. (granted.. unless they found a way to store the momories and retigrate those, you'd forget anything that happened after your last saved copy was made.... given as much as those people used the transporters.. the loss of a couple of days worth of memory is a good trade off for living. )(and yes.. it does open the possibility of copying a person exactly)

p.s.
if anyone out there has a job in, or knows of a job out there in cybernetics and/or this kind of stuff. there's a brilliant if not eccentric loose cannon type over here that would sell his left nut to get a job in the field.

[tully]

"Eventually"? Sure...it will happen eventually. Once the full transmutation problem is fixed, it will follow. I just don't think it's going to be in my lifetime, or a lifetime or so hence.

[Propman]

Actually i was going to write a VR story. I like the unreality aspect, and the machine approach to humanity.

[Pretty Sissy Dani]

Actually, as long as we're on this topic, anyone else familiar with "S1m0ne" (variously pronounced "Sim-1" or "Simone"), the 2002 film with Al Pacino and Rachel Roberts?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258153/