[ExI] Life @ Playstation

[spike]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2012 2:02 PM
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: Re: [ExI] Life @ Playstation

"spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>>... What I have had rattling around in my brain for years, decades 
> actually since long before we had anything like the computing 
> horsepower we have today, is an idea for creating devices which 
> stimulate the minds of nursing home patients...



>...Spike, I've always liked your 'GeezerPod' idea, not least because it
neatly fits in with an idea that's been rolling round the back of my mind
for a while.

Cool good.  This is such an obvious idea, there must be others thinking
about it and working on it somewhere.

>...As these people are safely in their pods, all their physical needs taken
care of...This would need some tech. that we don't quite have yet, but I
don't think we're that far off it.  Artificial or hybrid bio/artifical
hearts, lungs, blood vessels, kidneys, bladders, etc. exist now, and it
won't be long before pancreases, entire digestive systems, livers, spleens,
bone marrow, lymph vessels and nodes, etc., etc., follow...

Ja, but when you start thinking about it, my request is that we focus on
tech that is currently available.  Then our task is systems integration.
Focus on stuff we now have.  For instance, I have imagined a way to allow
immobile patients dump the old back end.  We could imagine some sort of
device which goes up in there and inflates somehow, such that it stays in
place, then circulates warm saline to break up the solids and gently wash
them out.  We can imagine a seat filled with air bladders such that it
inflates here deflates there, to rotate pressure points.  We can imagine a
system that brings in water up to the waist, circulating, as the patient
continues on her adventures, to gently cleanse the lower half.

Of course this will all be expensive, but if you take up my challenge to
visit a nursing home, casually inquire as to the cost to stay there.  Then
consider what kinds of devices we can design and build with ONLY ONE TO TWO
MONTH'S nursing home costs.  Then imagine something like this in the home,
stretching the time the patient can stay there.

>...  I can see a situation where an old infirm person (as long as their
brains are relatively ok) enters a pod-existence, all their original biology
gets gradually taken over by the pod, then later actually replaced as the
tech. improves, all while they're having huge fun in virtual bingo-land or
wherever (or doing remote consultancy or cyber-babysitting, or ...), and
they come out the other end a few years later in a brand-new body, complete
with the latest enhancements and interfaces, so that the next time they wear
out, it's a lot easier to replace things...

Cool idea.  When you think future, don't forget to think now.  We need this
stuff now.  We need it yesterday.

>...Imagine if nursing homes, the places people go to await death, became
the gateways to a second (real) life!

Indeed, and they should be.  My fond hope for you is that you never need to
do the distasteful task our family faces today.

It might help the innocents here if they actually witnessed an AD patient
watching TV and actually becoming part of the scene.  For some reason they
lose the awareness of a mirror or a TV screen, and become part of that
scene.  We can take advantage of that, to let them enter a Second Life
alternate reality.

>...<insert obligatory Mad Scientist Laugh here>

What's so mad about it?  Seems perfectly sane to me.

spike

_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat