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 Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 8:59 pm
writercxvii So...a super flu thingy that makes people zombies...I could see that (then again, if I'm not on Naproxen for my headaches, I can imagine just about anything...) Hey, a high enough fever would have about the same net effect. That, and not enough coffee... ninja
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Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:12 pm
faolan writercxvii So...a super flu thingy that makes people zombies...I could see that (then again, if I'm not on Naproxen for my headaches, I can imagine just about anything...) Hey, a high enough fever would have about the same net effect. That, and not enough coffee... ninja
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Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:48 pm
writercxvii faolan writercxvii So...a super flu thingy that makes people zombies...I could see that (then again, if I'm not on Naproxen for my headaches, I can imagine just about anything...) Hey, a high enough fever would have about the same net effect. That, and not enough coffee... ninja Heh. Two more Michael Crichton books come to mind... The Terminal Man, in which a man who'd sustained a frontal lobe injury had experienced such a drastic change in his personality and had become very violent and antagonistic that he underwent an experimental medical procedure... a microchip was implanted in his brain, and when he started becomming enraged the chip emitted a small electrical impulse at a point which would make him feel good, or happy, or whatever. Then he started working himself up just to feel the jolt... it was very bizarre. The other one is a much more recent novel, Prey... these little nanochip thingies are... like a swarm of bees. Each one is independently powered, programmed, etc, but they're programmed to work together, like a tiny little network of millions. Well, one of the swarms gets out of the lab, which is a pain, but not the end of the world. It spends a few days running around as a swirly cloud, like a little tornado, and even kind of teasing and playing with the scientists there. And then it starts to swarm in shapes of objects and things that it sees. LOL I'm reluctant to tell you more because I know I won't do it justice -- read it, honestly! rofl
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Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 10:21 pm
faolan writercxvii faolan writercxvii So...a super flu thingy that makes people zombies...I could see that (then again, if I'm not on Naproxen for my headaches, I can imagine just about anything...) Hey, a high enough fever would have about the same net effect. That, and not enough coffee... ninja Heh. Two more Michael Crichton books come to mind... The Terminal Man, in which a man who'd sustained a frontal lobe injury had experienced such a drastic change in his personality and had become very violent and antagonistic that he underwent an experimental medical procedure... a microchip was implanted in his brain, and when he started becomming enraged the chip emitted a small electrical impulse at a point which would make him feel good, or happy, or whatever. Then he started working himself up just to feel the jolt... it was very bizarre. The other one is a much more recent novel, Prey... these little nanochip thingies are... like a swarm of bees. Each one is independently powered, programmed, etc, but they're programmed to work together, like a tiny little network of millions. Well, one of the swarms gets out of the lab, which is a pain, but not the end of the world. It spends a few days running around as a swirly cloud, like a little tornado, and even kind of teasing and playing with the scientists there. And then it starts to swarm in shapes of objects and things that it sees. LOL I'm reluctant to tell you more because I know I won't do it justice -- read it, honestly! rofl The idea alone of nanotech scares me a bit. Maybe it's because I've seen too much science fiction, or something, but I really have a problem trusting machines.
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Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 5:08 am
writercxvii CleverScreenname writercxvii CleverScreenname writercxvii CleverScreenname I think it's pretty infeasible to have a virus, which is a relatively simple organism that's not exaclty alive anyway, actually be advanced enough to control your urges. Especially one so complex as to continue to spread the virus. That kind of ability, to me, implies intelligence, which viruses do not have. They take over the host, yes. As in, they take over the major body organs that are mostly controled by the autonomic nervous system. I highly doubt anything can be created that is like a virus or a parasite that could actually control our impulses that are normally in the realm of voluntary. I don't think that's the "intent" of the parasite so to speak. The parasite probably stops the bug in its tracks just from taking over so many of its other bodily functions that don't have as much to do with its consciousness (however much of that it has.) Also, a human is much more complex than a fly. Well hypothetically we can learn how to defy gravity. Anything is possible hypothetically. However, to answer your question, no, I don't think it's that feasible
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Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 1:10 pm
CleverScreenname [quote="writercxvii'] Theoretically, though, do you think it would be possible to engineer a parasite that could do this? With today's science, we could even (hypothetically) use nanotechnology to do this.Well hypothetically we can learn how to defy gravity. Anything is possible hypothetically. However, to answer your question, no, I don't think it's that feasibleBut what makes this so unfeasible? It's actually one thing that I wouldn't be surprised to hear about in the near future.
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Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 9:00 am
writercxvii CleverScreenname [quote="writercxvii'] Theoretically, though, do you think it would be possible to engineer a parasite that could do this? With today's science, we could even (hypothetically) use nanotechnology to do this.Well hypothetically we can learn how to defy gravity. Anything is possible hypothetically. However, to answer your question, no, I don't think it's that feasibleWhat makes it so unfeasible is, well, it's a very complicated action to create an "urge" to do something. Especially something so complex as to recognize a virus as a virus and as something you want to spread. That involves altering people's intelligence. The act of walking alone, which is mostly controlled by our autonomic nervous system, takes up so much brain power that humans have little capacity to perform any other tasks while doing it. So imagine creating something that could just make people walk. That could just make certain muscles contract in a specific sequence. That, in and of itself, is extremely impressive. So I would imagine that controlling urges, which then gets hormones involved in the mix, would be consideribly more difficult. Sure, maybe someday it can happen. After all, anything can happen. But it really isn't that feasible, given the present technology. Not to mention, our relatively huge lack of understanding of the human brain and how exactly it functions. I can't put this in simpler terms than I already have without explaining exactly how "urges" work. And the only urges I can explain are the simple ones: hunger and sex. I couldn't explain why someone urges for pizza instead of salad or why someone lusts for men instead of women. And that's more in the realm of what you're getting at, a complicated, specific, directed urge carried out by a foreign body (not even the brain! That makes it even MORE complicated!)
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Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 10:26 am
CleverScreenname writercxvii CleverScreenname [quote="writercxvii'] Theoretically, though, do you think it would be possible to engineer a parasite that could do this? With today's science, we could even (hypothetically) use nanotechnology to do this.Well hypothetically we can learn how to defy gravity. Anything is possible hypothetically. However, to answer your question, no, I don't think it's that feasibleWhat makes it so unfeasible is, well, it's a very complicated action to create an "urge" to do something. Especially something so complex as to recognize a virus as a virus and as something you want to spread. That involves altering people's intelligence. The act of walking alone, which is mostly controlled by our autonomic nervous system, takes up so much brain power that humans have little capacity to perform any other tasks while doing it. So imagine creating something that could just make people walk. That could just make certain muscles contract in a specific sequence. That, in and of itself, is extremely impressive. So I would imagine that controlling urges, which then gets hormones involved in the mix, would be consideribly more difficult. Sure, maybe someday it can happen. After all, anything can happen. But it really isn't that feasible, given the present technology. Not to mention, our relatively huge lack of understanding of the human brain and how exactly it functions. I can't put this in simpler terms than I already have without explaining exactly how "urges" work. And the only urges I can explain are the simple ones: hunger and sex. I couldn't explain why someone urges for pizza instead of salad or why someone lusts for men instead of women. And that's more in the realm of what you're getting at, a complicated, specific, directed urge carried out by a foreign body (not even the brain! That makes it even MORE complicated!) Well-stated, I think... what comes to my mind is that if we're talking about a foreign entity (virus, bacteria, clown, whatever) controlling a person's mind and literally subsuming their consciousness, then we're talking about telepathy. And for the sake of argument at least, we'll assume that telepathy is real. Hypothetically speaking, suppose that many years from now, science discovers that telepathy has to do with a certain brain chemical, or the balance of certain chemicals, etc. From that standpoint, it could be possible to engineer some kind of microbe which would attack the brain and alter its chemistry such that the individual in question could then be "taken over" by something or someone... Hypothetically, of course. It's possble in my sci-fi oriented mind, but let's face it -- it's not feasible.
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Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 9:48 pm
Quote: Quote: -Could a bioweapon be made to do this? Not a chance. When a living creature dies, decay immediately starts to break down the body. Nervous paths, muscled, etc simply stop working and waste away. Without these, there can be no movement. Without the living biological processes that run our bodies, nervous signals won't be able to travel and muscled won't be able to move. Zombies are, quite frankly, impossible. Mmmm. But, think about this one - who says they need to be dead? A virus that generates, say, an intense urge to violence or to, say, bite or scratch other human beings. This would be a simple matter of generating an artificial hormonal imbalance to generate greater amounts of anger. This is much, much more plausible. Difficult, yes, but definitely plausible. Quote: Quote: -In the fourth game, there are parasites that take over the host. Is this feasible? This is more feasible. The problem would lie in controlling the host, as it is a rather complex process for things like "movement". But never fear, we have observed some parasite control in nature, and I'm sure the government is hard at work perfecting it. Note: the parasite thing is, again, only feasible on a living host. Now this one, this is actually a bit harder. Generating blind rage in the masses without actual physical control - this can be done from afar with a virus. More a bludgeoning tool than a precision weapon. To control people on a physical level through parasitic entities though... that's extremely complicated, hard to use on a mass level, and would be hugely expensive to design and unleash - hence, I prefer the bludgeoning-tool that the virus would be. That was my response in the ED thread, it'll remain my response here.
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Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 10:53 am
Emperor Fluffzorz Quote: Quote: -Could a bioweapon be made to do this? Not a chance. When a living creature dies, decay immediately starts to break down the body. Nervous paths, muscled, etc simply stop working and waste away. Without these, there can be no movement. Without the living biological processes that run our bodies, nervous signals won't be able to travel and muscled won't be able to move. Zombies are, quite frankly, impossible. Mmmm. But, think about this one - who says they need to be dead? A virus that generates, say, an intense urge to violence or to, say, bite or scratch other human beings. This would be a simple matter of generating an artificial hormonal imbalance to generate greater amounts of anger. This is much, much more plausible. Difficult, yes, but definitely plausible. Quote: Quote: -In the fourth game, there are parasites that take over the host. Is this feasible? This is more feasible. The problem would lie in controlling the host, as it is a rather complex process for things like "movement". But never fear, we have observed some parasite control in nature, and I'm sure the government is hard at work perfecting it. Note: the parasite thing is, again, only feasible on a living host. Now this one, this is actually a bit harder. Generating blind rage in the masses without actual physical control - this can be done from afar with a virus. More a bludgeoning tool than a precision weapon. To control people on a physical level through parasitic entities though... that's extremely complicated, hard to use on a mass level, and would be hugely expensive to design and unleash - hence, I prefer the bludgeoning-tool that the virus would be. That was my response in the ED thread, it'll remain my response here.
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Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 3:46 pm
Once you die, your ability to move stops.
Even if you've been dead and you get "brought back to life" by a virus, there is no way that your body could move, because you need blood flow and synapses from the brain to move your legs and arms.
*IF* such a thing could exist, the "zombies" would be like coma patients; "alive" and still rotting but unable to move or eat anyone.
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