Worldbuilding

Questions tagged [brain]

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For creatures with a central nervous system, this represents the major organ of that system. For humans and other terrestrial vertebrates, the brain is housed in the head and encased in bone.

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3answers
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Would a human brain with 50% fewer neurons but 50% more dendrites be as intelligent in modern society?

Suppose advancement in medicine and using cutting edge technology we could remove (halve) the amount of neurons in a healthy brain and allow the left over neurons to somehow grows extra dendrites that ...
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What system would I build for the human brain to be able to experience 400 years of earth time events in only 4 hours? [closed]

preferably need knowledge about brain-computer interfaces brain neural enhancement brain in a vat the novel SHADOWS by John Saul perspective in which you see the computer as the thing which allows ...
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3answers
137 views

How would a biological brain be updated with its digital memory?

In my story characters can go into perfectly simulated virtual worlds where their memories have been replicated down to the individual neurons and their protien structures. In these worlds time passes ...
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2answers
226 views

How can a sorcerer avoid developing a mental disorder?

It is an undisputed fact among scientists that individuals, groups, and peoples are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection as plants and animals. Social Darwinism has proven that the ...
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4answers
105 views

How can an implant erase memories without causing irreparable damage?

The government has a procedure that employees undergo when working on special projects regarding experimental technology. These scientists are taken to a clandestine site where they will not be able ...
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31answers
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Why would my species expose their brains through a glass dome?

The species I have created looks eerily humanlike, practically indistinguishable from human except for a reptile-like tail and an exposed brain. The top portion of the skull is replaced with a glass-...
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4answers
190 views

Could a creature evolve a cubic brain?

One thing that is fairly common amongst nearly every macro-scale living thing on this planet is the brain. The brain controls when creatures breathe, move, talk, etc., but the brains of said living ...
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2answers
93 views

Overclocking VR

Set in the immediate future, social network evolves with the advancement of 10G network and a major breakthrough in medicine. Giant tech companies raced to develop state of the art VR technology which ...
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1answer
94 views

Selectively Shutting Down Human Emotion

I ran across an article briefly describing a woman suffering from Urbach-Wiethe disease (UWd). UWd leaves calcification within the amygdala and in this case subject lost all sense of fear (this case ...
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3answers
146 views

How to keep the emotions when the brain-in-a-jar is connected to a cyborg body

Let us assume that Science has discovered how to keep a brain alive outside the body, that mind-machine interfaces are advanced enough to connect the CNS to electronic hardware and communicate ...
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2answers
114 views

Is it possible to convert electric signals into brain waves?

In my world i want people to live in digital world (something like the matrix or sword art online), and I'm not sure if things I wanna achieve are even possible. I'm talking about a computer who's ...
6
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2answers
90 views

Is it possible to map the firing of neurons in the human brain so as to stimulate artificial memories to the amnesiac person?

As the title says, Is it possible to map the firing of neurons in the human brain so as to stimulate artificial memories to the amnesiac person? This is based on this similar question; Is it possible ...
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2answers
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is there a scientific way to extract memory from a person brain into video?

Just as the title, is there a scientific or possible way to extract past memory from a person brain into some record such as video or visual player ? I know some theory say that it possible to ...
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3answers
87 views

Adverse effects of reduced food variety on microbiome

We often see, in Sci-fi, food being produced from, say, algae or yeast. What could be the effect of such a limited diet on the gut microbiome? Would there be any believable side-effect that would have ...
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3answers
2k views

Read the Memories of a Dead Man's Head

Assuming you could "read" the memories of a once living person, how long after death could you read the memories stored in the human's head? How long does it take for the pathways (dendrite, axon, ...
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4answers
151 views

How to prevent theft in a world where dreams are shared?

Say we can influence our dreams to a certain extend and are able to participate involuntarily in somebody else dream, I am wondering is there a way to prevent leaking important information such as my ...
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2answers
136 views

It there any conceivable way nanomachines could turn a brain into a semi-organic grey goo, preserving the individual's consciousness?

I'm working on a scenario operating on Clarke's Third Law, with nanotechnology percieved as magic to humanity, and I want to create a non-spiritual afterlife for humanity. My intention was to simply ...
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2answers
160 views

How to connect Brain to computer? [closed]

I'm not talking about mind-uploading, but rather about connecting your consciousness to the computer to be able to live inside it.I'm talking rather about advanced bci, so you have all the experiences,...
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3answers
266 views

Is it possible, given modern technology, to fake brain damage?

I'm writing a story, in which it's in a character's best interest to fake a brain-damaged state -- just for a week or two. I know MRI's are available to access brain activity, but would my character ...
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2answers
180 views

Reality check - cognitive cyborg with an advanced brain-computer interface

I am going to finally create a human cyborg with super-intelligence to beat an AI. It's mid 2050's and my company Neuroconnect has produced a nanotechnology BCI (brain computer interface) capable of ...
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9answers
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What kind of world would drive brains to evolve high-throughput sensory?

Here on "Earth" organisms tend to evolve only enough mental processing power to handle sensory inputs in modest amounts. Taking "human" brains for a quick example, even though we have millions of ...
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1answer
119 views

GMO brains / Basic emotions

I am writing a dystopia and in this world people have been genetically modified for decades to a degree that their emotional abilities are super basic and especially the ability to feel pain is ...
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7answers
320 views

How can high-level awareness resulting in telepathic radar be made possible in the human mind?

The humans in this setting are telepaths who are able to communicate with each other through their minds. This form of telepathy transfers simple phrases, symbols, or emotions to the designated person ...
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4answers
266 views

How to keep the brain alive?

So, let’s say Bill wants to gain immortality. Bill is a billionaire, and so invests a large portion of his estate to Brain Transplant research. After a bit, the doctors vivisect him, and encase his ...
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2answers
229 views

Brain Micromanagement

Imagine a creature much like ourselves that can control the usage of their own mind. For example, a dying ancestor may tell some parting words which are so important that the individual explicitly ...
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4answers
190 views

Logical explanation for why Brainbots would not retain their original identities memories

So, my setting is a post apocalyptic one, 197 years after WW3 kicked off and destroyed pretty much everything. The current date is 2259. Before WW3 started, the USA was experimenting heavily with ...
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4answers
538 views

Uplifted animals have parts of their “brain” in various locations of their body. Where?

Looking at the case of Mike, I realized decentralizing the brain might not be infeasible. The idea is if Horus, the brown falcon, doesn't have enough room in his skull, then why not move various ...
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4answers
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Is it possible to map the firing of neurons in the human brain so as to stimulate artificial memories in someone else?

My question is based on the following excerpt from an article I read recently: Since the early neurological work of Karl Lashley and Wilder Penfield in the 1950s and 1960s, it has become clear that ...
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10answers
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How much mayhem could I cause as a sentient fish?

On our world, human minds can be transferred intact into animals. It was originally intended for people with medical conditions, but some genius thought it would be clever to store violent prisoners ...
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2answers
210 views

Could implanting false memories change someone's perception immediately? [closed]

This question is about how the brain works in that aspect, if it's even known. I mean with the question that a person might react to something with fear, happiness, disappointment, or whatever other ...
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2answers
263 views

Brain Tick, how could it take over a host's brain?

There was once 12 kingdoms in the ancient days until the kingdom of Eo was devoured by the very forests it called home. The people of Eo have been turned into beasts wandering the woods and preying ...
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4answers
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Ways other than sleep to restore cells/neurons

So I have a planet with multiple species on it. My planet is tidally locked. I know it is generally thought a tidally locked planet couldn't harbor life because of the extreme temperatures, but my ...
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1answer
209 views

What changes to the brain would occur in a werewolf transformation?

With typical modern depictions of werewolves (ie: turning into wolf-human hybrids) the victim suffers temporary amnesia and a loss of personality while transformed, is put into a state of extreme ...
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4answers
226 views

What are the long term effects of increased neurotransmitters? [closed]

In my story, one of the main characters (Joe) has been born with a somewhat superpower: Any person near him will have elevated neurotransmitter levels. If their brain is releasing happy ...
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5answers
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Dragon shapeshifting and memory mechanism

Dragons are biologically immortal creatures that have evolved the most versatile sexual reproduction in existence, they can morph through a cocoon into any other species from the animal kingdom that ...
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1answer
133 views

Visual Cortex, superficial Brain Implant - Biological feasibility

In another question Everybody has a brain implant. What measures can a criminal take to escape justice? I assumed that a brain implant would be possible in the future for surveillance. In this ...
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11answers
969 views

Everybody has a brain implant. What measures can a criminal take to escape justice? [closed]

In the future everyone has a government implant placed in their visual cortex at a young age (let's say 8 years). There is no choice about this - except of course for the Big Leader's immediate family....
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4answers
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Adrenaline-fueled cognition

So, I'm currently toying around with the idea of a hypercarnivorous sapient race on a planet in my universe, and I'd like to make them scary, but without abiding only by the "rule of cool". (Also note ...
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3answers
218 views

Could a human brain downloaded into a robot have feelings? [closed]

Some of you may have seen the miniseries "YEAR MILLION" by National Geographic. It is a glimpse of how life will be in the future (despite the title, they don´t say specifically how many years from ...
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1answer
122 views

Ensuring Continuity of Consciousness When Transferring The Mind Into A Computer? [closed]

I had an idea for a world where brain uploading is a thing, but I have a problem. Besides slowly replacing the brain itself with nanobots and the like, what's the best way to make absolutely sure ...
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11answers
551 views

Is it possible for a character to live 17 million years?

I have a human character who had his mind transferred to a computer via a method where his brain was gradually replaced with digital parts to preserve his consciousness. (Depending on your view of the ...
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2answers
634 views

Can our brain access other dimensions/universes? [closed]

Following the Multiverse theory and a possibility that multiverses do not differ much when compared with one another, can we explain a person accessing thoughts or vision from a different multiverse? ...
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12answers
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How to explain why a mind reading superhero doesn’t hear everyone’s thoughts all the time?

So, in my story, their is a Superhero called “Mind Quad” aka John Paul “JP” Stevenson, a college dropout. Back when he was 23, a radioactive brain tumour nearly killed him, but thanks to an ...
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1answer
138 views

How Mind Uploading could be done without being invasive?

The timeline in the 22nd century section of FutureTimeline.net says that the brain will be replaced by robotic components until the brain is entirely artifitial and then be transplanted into a robotic ...
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1answer
55 views

Difficulty using an FMRI scanner with alternative neurochemistry? [closed]

FMRI machines are commonly used to allow direct observation of brain activity, and can be used for non-human animals. However in the case of an alien from a different planet, it's unclear how ...
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3answers
216 views

Massive Brain-Computer Interface devices

The world in my story is going past the smartphone era. To replace smartphones people wear a small device like a headphone. The device is not intrusive to their brain, it has nodes that read brain ...
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1answer
183 views

Body switch justification [closed]

The scenario is simple: A man switches body with another. Social implications are not the issue here, but the "collateral effects" of body switching. The Ghost Brigades is a book that touches in this ...
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8answers
2k views

Can the future theoretically be predicted through analyzing the exact patterns of the universe? [closed]

My neuroscience is a little fuzzy, so bear with me. If your wondering how this ties in with world building, it's for a science fiction novel I'm writing, in which there is no magic. I am hoping to ...
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2answers
539 views

Can you use VR on comatose patients to let them dream?

I have this sci-fi story concept where patients in a comatose state can have their brains stimulated with VR. For instance, the VR can be a dream "game" that helps the patient process trauma. I can ...
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0answers
129 views

Can the level of pain be measured? [closed]

Because of a recent question I ended up reading through the Painkill-discussion on meta and in the linked question the_OTHER_DJMethaneMan wrote in a comment Is there a way to "rate" the "level" of ...

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