-->| We've put men on the moon; we've put a robot on Mars; we've positioned a camera near Saturn. We've beaten back polio and smallpox. We've launched the Internet. You will never convince me that diseases cannot be cured. But until corporate America is called to task, until mankind matters more than money, cures will remain illusive.. .always just five years down the road.
Chapter 16 Solutions
Pharmaceuticals must become participating citizens, not greedy corporate entities, and practice the Golden Rule as a part of humanity. |  The orthodox view is that a fat man's engine is stoked by a robot fireman, who swings his shovel at the same pace whether fat, protein, or carbohydrate is in the tender. This is true for Mr. Constant-Weight, but as he does not get fat anyway, it is only of academic interest to us. It is certainly not true for Mr. Fatten-Easily, with whom we are concerned. Mr. Constant-Weight has a robot stoker in his engine. The more he eats—of whatever food—the harder his stoker works until any excess is consumed, so he never gets fat. Recent research has shown that Mr. |  In his own lab, Benveniste conducted several experiments, by hand and by robot, to isolate what it was the woman was doing which prevented the experiment from working. Her scientific method was impeccable and she followed the protocol to the letter. The woman herself, a doctor and biologist, was an experienced, meticulous worker. Nevertheless, on no occasion did she get any results. After six months of such studies there was only a single conclusion: something about her very presence was preventing a positive result. | | The most favored idea is that there exists a genetic 'program' of genes operating collectively to determine shape, or, in the view of neo-Darwinists such as Richard Dawkins, that ruthless genes, like Chicago thugs, have powers to create form and that we are 'survival machines' ?robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.5
This theory promotes DNA as the Renaissance man of the human body - architect, master builder and central engine room - whose tool for all this amazing activity is a handful of the chemicals which make proteins. | | It might even explain the problems Benveniste had been having with his robot.
It seemed that we had an ability to extend our own coherence out into our environment. By a simple act of wishing, we could create order. This represented an almost unimaginable amount of power. On the crudest level, Jahn had proved that, at least on the subatomic level, there was such as thing as mind over matter. But he'd demonstrated something even more fundamental about the powerful nature of human intention. | | After a time, the evidence was clear - the robot was moving toward the chicks more than it would do if it were wandering randomly. The desire of the chicks to be near their mother was an 'inferred intention' that appeared to be having an effect in drawing the machine nearer.'2 Peoc'h carried out a similar study with baby rabbits. He placed a bright light on the moveable REG that the baby rabbits found abhorrent. When the data from the experiment were analyzed, it appeared that the rabbits were successfully willing the machine to stay away from them.
Jahn and Dunne began to formulate a theory. | | He might send his robot to a laboratory in Cambridge, and if they got poor results as a result of a particular person, the lab would conclude that the experiment itself was at fault, when the problem had to do with something or someone in the environment.
There is nothing subtle about biological effects. Change the structure or shape of a molecule only slightly and you will completely alter the ability of the molecule to slot in with its receptor cells. On or off, success or failure. A drug works or it doesn't. |  After that, the robot's experiments worked virtually 100 percent of the time.25
These anecdotal stories of the gremlin effect are not so far-fetched when you consider the mountains of data generated by the PEAR laboratory, demonstrating that human intention has the ability to make the random output of computers more orderly even when the intention is not conscious or deliberate. Living consciousness might have a major effect on microprocessor technology, which is now exquisitely sensitive. The tiniest disturbances in a quantum process can be highly disruptive. | | Over eighty similar studies, in which a lighted candle was placed on a movable REG, baby chicks kept in the dark, finding the light comforting, managed to influence the robot to spend more time than normal in the vicinity of their cages.13
The largest and most persuasive body of research has been amassed by William Braud, a psychologist and the research director of the Mind Science Foundation in San Antonio, Texas, and, later, the Institute of Transper-sonal Psychology. |  Though a separate book could be written on potential products, I propose development in the following areas:
Computers as caregivers
Though it may initially conjure up images of the robot maid on The Jet-sons, the notion of programming computers to offer caregiving assistance is not so far-fetched. |  Today a robot to do one job, such as tightening up a single screw on a production line, costs, say, $2000. To achieve the equivalent of what a machine spindle did (four funcrions), today's robot in, say, welding, would cost considetably more than a year's wages.
17. The Whitney gin only answered the problem of the short-staple upland cotton, and was a substitute for the age-old roller gin of Asia called a churka in India and a manganello in Italy and Spain. |  Urban
Transportation
¦¦¦¦ When movies and TV shows want to depict a futuristic setting, they often show flashy transit systems: monorails, voice-activated personal-transit pods, maglev people movers. Like robot maids and space hotels, these sleek, pollution-free, hands-off transit alternatives seem to have a hard time escaping from their celluloid home. In reality, the automobile—and the infrastructure that supports it—continues to warp the face of our cities and the structure of our lives. | | Given how ignorant we remain about how nature works in the planet's marine depths, exploration of the oceans has changed from being merely a bold scientific adven-
The Technolocjy of Ocean Exploration
¦¦¦¦ robot submarines. Deep-sea sensors. Radio-tagged fish. DNA analysis. Satellite mapping. Not long ago, oceanography meant dipping a net over the side of a boat. Now, those days are long gone.
Oceanographers and ocean biologists now have technologies at their fingertips that rival those of space explorers. |  Such were his powers reputed to be that some even believed the Monkey Man a super-powered robot being directed by remote control, or maybe even an extra-terrestrial sent here to wreak havoc on any human unfortunate enough to cross its path.
Two men seeking an escape from the Monkey Man climbed to the roofs of buildings and jumped to their deaths. A pregnant woman sleeping on the terrace of her apartment was awakened one night by her neighbor's shouts of "The monkey has come!" In the effort to escape him she fell down a flight of stairs and died. | | Every few inches, the robot takes a reading of the carbon dioxide level in that particular spot and makes a vertical mark—corresponding with the C02 concentration—on the wall. The accumulation of green lines begins to resemble grass, its growth visible to—and entirely determined by—gallery visitors. The end result is a chart of the air quality in the space throughout the installation, and a reminder that, although we can't always see it, our lives are changing the air itself. | | Constant-Weight has a robot stoker in his engine. The more he eats—of whatever food—the harder his stoker works until any excess is consumed, so he never gets fat. Recent research has shown that Mr. Fatten-Easily's stoker is profoundly influenced by the kind of fuel he has to shovel. On fat fuel he shovels fast. On protein slightly less fast but on carbohydrate he becomes tired, scarcely moving his shovel at all. His fire then burns low and his engine gets fat from its inability to use the carbohydrate which is still being loaded into the tender. Mr. |  And when the robot industry really gains steam, it's going to be Honda, Toyota and other Japanese companies owning the global market. So what do we do to protect U.S. jobs in manufacturing industries? Forget about protectionism. What we need to do as a nation is invest in education so that we spur a new generation of smart, creative thinkers who can compete globally. It's a global market, after all, and if you're going to compete with programmers in India, engineers in Japan, and machine designers in Germany, you'd better get serious about national education reform. |  In contrast to the first series of experiments, the chicks in these studies had not previously been exposed to the robot. They had, however, been raised in the dark. The goal was to see whether groups of these young chicks could affect the path of Tychoscope II when it was carrying a lighted candle. Chicks do not like to be in the dark during the day. Could they "pull" the light-bearing robot toward them in order to have more light?
Eighty groups of fifteen chicks each were tested. In 71 percent of the cases, the robot spent excessive time in the vicinity of the chicks. | | There was less than one chance in a thousand that these results could have been due to chance.41
Based on these findings, Peoc'h and his colleagues undertook a new series of experiments, published in 1995. They developed a second-generation robot, Tychoscope II. This robot was remotely controlled to move randomly by a computer, which recorded and analyzed all its movements. In contrast to the first series of experiments, the chicks in these studies had not previously been exposed to the robot. They had, however, been raised in the dark. | | No machine short of a laser-controlled robot could approach a skilled woman in speed, accuracy, or reliability—as long as the supply of labor continues. One day, perhaps, the picking problem might be solved. If the process were mechanized, a great change could come over the industry. At least six American states would be able to produce tea of a high quality, as was once achieved in South Carolina. Only the high cost of picking prevents such a development today.
The other three candidates for mechanization are withering to 50 percent moisture, rolling, and drying to 5 percent moisture. | | They developed a second-generation robot, Tychoscope II. This robot was remotely controlled to move randomly by a computer, which recorded and analyzed all its movements. In contrast to the first series of experiments, the chicks in these studies had not previously been exposed to the robot. They had, however, been raised in the dark. The goal was to see whether groups of these young chicks could affect the path of Tychoscope II when it was carrying a lighted candle. Chicks do not like to be in the dark during the day. | | To achieve the equivalent of what a machine spindle did (four funcrions), today's robot in, say, welding, would cost considetably more than a year's wages.
17. The Whitney gin only answered the problem of the short-staple upland cotton, and was a substitute for the age-old roller gin of Asia called a churka in India and a manganello in Italy and Spain. Whitney's invention had an output fifty times that of hand-picking, whereas that of the churka was only five times the output of the hand method.
For Sea Island, long-staple cotton, the Macarthy gin was developed about a hundred years ago. |  Instead of a drug molecule as messenger, we will use a primitive robot so stupid that all it can do is search tirelessly through the house looking for anything the exact size and shape of a thermostat. If the dumb robot finds a thermostat, it nudges the temperature setting upward. This is, in fact, how drugs work. Suppose the house becomes too cold. This seems like the perfect assignment for the robot, which circulates through the house looking for thermostats. Whenever it finds one, it will adjust the setting upward. Most of the time, this will warm up the house. | | This respect for technology, the ability to make other people's ideas work in their own context, this infertility of invention, has led the Japanese to be called copyists in the firsi: half of the twentieth century and to be feared in the second half as the industrial power which can turn ideas into hardware faster, more economically, and more profirably than anyone else, whether with the robot, the laser, or the chip. The Japanese have been the finest technologists in the world today, and they think practically, technologically, not scientifically. |  Her living eyes saw what her robot eyes sent them, showed her the image of her own inert body . . . Every morning she found herself caught by the strangeness of seeing herself from the outside, and every morning her imprisoned living eyes tried to look toward the very robot eyes they were seeing through."
Her artificial visage is shocking: "The head englobed in the black, beetle-like teleoperator helmet, thick black cables trailing off from it into the forest of machinery discreetly hidden away in the next room . . . | | The mind has been compared to a robot; what you tell it, it believes. We can learn to use this "robot" of the brain rather than have it use us. Positive thoughts can actually become a power to change our lives and our health.
Many great athletes are noted for their ability to stay mentally "on top". They refuse to allow negative thinking to interfere with their game or their ability. They use positive "self-talk" to keep from downgrading themselves. We also can learn to use positive "self-talk" to lift ourselves. | | Could they "pull" the light-bearing robot toward them in order to have more light?
Eighty groups of fifteen chicks each were tested. In 71 percent of the cases, the robot spent excessive time in the vicinity of the chicks. In the absence of the chicks, it followed random trajectories. There was less than one chance in a hundred that these effects were explainable by chance.42 is the world "thought hungry"?
The idea of nonlocal mind, as we've seen, usually triggers the image of an individual sending thoughts or intentions outward into the world, where they make something happen. | | After the conditioning, the chicks were placed singly in a transparent cage, from which they could see the robot moving around on the floor. The objective of the experiment was to see whether Tychoscope I would continue to move at random or if it would migrate toward the chicks who had become bonded with it. It was discovered that the robot spent two and a half times longer on the half of the surface closer to the chicks, compared to its motion when the cage was empty. |  In much the same way, we talk loosely of constructing a robot and then breathing life into it. A robot is presumably not constructed to bear such last-minute changes of design; it is a delicate piece of mechanism made to work mechanically, and to adapt it to anything else would involve entire reconstruction. To put it crudely, if you want to fill a vessel with anything you must make it hollow, and the old-fashioned material body was not hollow enough to be a receptacle of mental or of spiritual attributes. | | Note that the robot is very simple and reliable—just like a drug molecule. It has a remarkably consistent effect. It will find every switch it can and make exactly the same change each time. But the control system it is interfering with is not at all simple, and the switch settings are being changed all the time. The drug is changing settings with blind robotic consistency in a system that is designed to operate with all kinds of sensors and feedback mechanisms to keep everything in tune. This is inherently dangerous. | |
Email this page to a friend
