(I'm sorry, it's late and I've skipped a couple of pages, so if I've repeated a point that's already been made, feel free to slap me, this is just too interesting not to comment on.)I can't help but wonder how effective an EJP would be while pregnant, after all, it's designed to activate the moment a person would die within the simulation. Would it have to be altered to help protect the child as well? I think that it would be a major issue for any mother to be as a child's development in a very delicate process, and so any damage could be critical.I doubt it would affect the baby much, since the wee one's nervous system is independant of the mother's and thus, it wouldn't have to be tinkered with to protect the child. If the mom's okay, the baby will be as well, most likely. However, since the baby shares the mother's bloodstream, increased adrenalin levels due to stress, etc. will probably affect the baby somehow. I'm still researching this and pursuing every angle possible.Also, as a point of interest, I don't believe that it's possible to become pregnant in the real after intercourse within the simulation, I used to believe it was possible, but now that I think about it, wasn't Persephone's original purpose to stimulate the human reproductive organs? It was a while ago, but I believe something was said about needing to take the two.. we'll say "componants," required, and mix them in a seperate location. This would imply that when the event takes place in the situation the placibo effect is not strong enough to actually make someone pregnant.Mm, this was discussed a little bit a couple pages back, and the matter of how the Machines keep their crops going was a major component of the Merv missions for... 8.2, if I remember correctly, but it's worth bringing up and I welcome your take on it!The mind may very well try to "make it real," but if it's too much effort for a human with complete faith in the reality of the simulation to actually become pregnant on her own, then no ammount of mental dicipline would be able to help someone who has had the truth revealed.Oh, I don't doubt the Machines wouldn't allow for this sort of thing to happen in a Bluepill, since it just wouldn't be efficient. There again, there *is* a rare real-world condition known as false pregnancy, where a woman's body -- usually due to a hormone imbalance or the woman is so dead set on having a baby that her brain tricks her body into thinking its pregnant -- will mimic some of the "symptoms" of pregnancy: menstrual cycle goes on "pause", mood swings, morning sickness, wonky hormones; there's a few rare cases where they've even gained weight, especially around the middle. Of course, there isn't a baby growing inside her, but this is close to what I think you have in mind, and it could be construed as a real-world example of your mind making something real.
(I'm sorry, it's late and I've skipped a couple of pages, so if I've repeated a point that's already been made, feel free to slap me, this is just too interesting not to comment on.)
I can't help but wonder how effective an EJP would be while pregnant, after all, it's designed to activate the moment a person would die within the simulation. Would it have to be altered to help protect the child as well? I think that it would be a major issue for any mother to be as a child's development in a very delicate process, and so any damage could be critical.
I doubt it would affect the baby much, since the wee one's nervous system is independant of the mother's and thus, it wouldn't have to be tinkered with to protect the child. If the mom's okay, the baby will be as well, most likely. However, since the baby shares the mother's bloodstream, increased adrenalin levels due to stress, etc. will probably affect the baby somehow. I'm still researching this and pursuing every angle possible.
Also, as a point of interest, I don't believe that it's possible to become pregnant in the real after intercourse within the simulation, I used to believe it was possible, but now that I think about it, wasn't Persephone's original purpose to stimulate the human reproductive organs? It was a while ago, but I believe something was said about needing to take the two.. we'll say "componants," required, and mix them in a seperate location. This would imply that when the event takes place in the situation the placibo effect is not strong enough to actually make someone pregnant.
Mm, this was discussed a little bit a couple pages back, and the matter of how the Machines keep their crops going was a major component of the Merv missions for... 8.2, if I remember correctly, but it's worth bringing up and I welcome your take on it!
The mind may very well try to "make it real," but if it's too much effort for a human with complete faith in the reality of the simulation to actually become pregnant on her own, then no ammount of mental dicipline would be able to help someone who has had the truth revealed.
Oh, I don't doubt the Machines wouldn't allow for this sort of thing to happen in a Bluepill, since it just wouldn't be efficient. There again, there *is* a rare real-world condition known as false pregnancy, where a woman's body -- usually due to a hormone imbalance or the woman is so dead set on having a baby that her brain tricks her body into thinking its pregnant -- will mimic some of the "symptoms" of pregnancy: menstrual cycle goes on "pause", mood swings, morning sickness, wonky hormones; there's a few rare cases where they've even gained weight, especially around the middle. Of course, there isn't a baby growing inside her, but this is close to what I think you have in mind, and it could be construed as a real-world example of your mind making something real.
It doesn't make sense for the machines to possess the technology to hack human brains directly, yet be unable to surgically remove their reproductive materials.
EndlessVoid wrote: It doesn't make sense for the machines to possess the technology to hack human brains directly, yet be unable to surgically remove their reproductive materials. If I remember correctly, this was Persophone's purpose when she was a machine program, no? She stimulated sexual desires in humans, and then sent their sperm/egg samples from their pods to be "grown" in the feilds and eventually placed in a pod of their own... I think.
Mmm, medically, we've pretty much figured out everything we could most likely know about how reproduction works (sperm cells were discovered by Anton von Leywenhoeuck, the inventor of the first microscope in the 1600s; the ovum wasn't properly identified until the late 1800s but, well, those *are* a lot harder to obtain a sample of, we'll say...), but our own brains and how those work still mystify us, though by all accounts, we're coming a long way with that.
If my embryo fission theory and the possibility that the Machines collect zygotes from the coppertops from the time they sexually mature are correct, it's very possible that some Redpills who were awakened post-puberty might have offspring out there in the fields somewhere. No, don't worry, I won't be tagging anyone for child support. It's probably next to impossible to figure out who came from where at this point, though the Machines might keep a log on the best genetic lines they've run across. Who knows? That one guy or gal who drives you up the wall the most might just be the other parent to your offspring...
This might also explain miscarriage and/or sudden infant death syndrome among coppertops (since the world inside the Matrix mirrors the world of 1999, with all its flaws and good qualities, these problems would probably happen); could be something went wrong when the Machine was inserting a child into a pod/some desperate Redpill woman swiped a child off a fetal stalk/the kid just didn't meet Machine standards, etc. Or for that matter, maybe a Bluepill who chooses to have an abortion isn't fully choosing to do so, but the Machines detected something wrong with the fetus they selected and they're convincing her this is the right thing to do because they're terminating a weak fetus that isn't likely to produce the most energy for them.
Wow, this wound up being a deeper question than I initially thought! One year later, we're still discussing it, and the more we talk about it, the more ideas present themselves.
I wonder though why the machines would allow the creation of a handicapped person being born since they wouldn't fulfill their concept of what is "optimal"?You know i think i just answered my own question, i could see the Machines allowing the birth of a handicapped person even though it wouldn't be optimal because it would just add to the illusion of reality. If everyone was walking around in perfect health, no deficiencies people would start to notice that. probably one of the things that happened with the first Matrix.
CrimsonKiller01 wrote:I wonder though why the machines would allow the creation of a handicapped person being born since they wouldn't fulfill their concept of what is "optimal"?You know i think i just answered my own question, i could see the Machines allowing the birth of a handicapped person even though it wouldn't be optimal because it would just add to the illusion of reality. If everyone was walking around in perfect health, no deficiencies people would start to notice that. probably one of the things that happened with the first Matrix. True... but would a person whose mind or RSI are handicapped in some way have the same handicap in their physical body? I guess that's a topic for a whole other discussion (and one that's close to my mind and heart since I'm disabled myself), but I imagine that the Machines would use only the "best" humans or at least the ones with the fewest flaw as batteries, then edit some disability or quirk into their RSI to keep things from being too perfect for them.
MatrixRefugee wrote:CrimsonKiller01 wrote:I wonder though why the machines would allow the creation of a handicapped person being born since they wouldn't fulfill their concept of what is "optimal"?You know i think i just answered my own question, i could see the Machines allowing the birth of a handicapped person even though it wouldn't be optimal because it would just add to the illusion of reality. If everyone was walking around in perfect health, no deficiencies people would start to notice that. probably one of the things that happened with the first Matrix. True... but would a person whose mind or RSI are handicapped in some way have the same handicap in their physical body? I guess that's a topic for a whole other discussion (and one that's close to my mind and heart since I'm disabled myself), but I imagine that the Machines would use only the "best" humans or at least the ones with the fewest flaw as batteries, then edit some disability or quirk into their RSI to keep things from being too perfect for them.I thought of this a while back and you answered in along the same lines as I did.
Just looking at Neo's state when freed from his pod, I doubt that bluepills still in their pods would be able to successfully carry babies, as it would be far less efficient than harvesting eggs and sperm and growing the child in their own pod (which would act like an artificial womb). It doesn't make sense for the machines to possess the technology to hack human brains directly, yet be unable to surgically remove their reproductive materials.My guess is that normally, when a couple conceives a child in the Matrix, the machines harvest their genetic material from their pods and create a child, which is then "born" to them in the Matrix. This would account for the facts that people's RSIs look like themselves, and children look like their parents - the child's genetic information MUST come from the two parents (barring extraordinary cases where the Machines get the process mixed up and the 'wrong' child is born with a different identity - which I believe happened in one of the comics).The best way for redpills to become pregnant would be to have real sex with your real partner, in the Real.... And now I'm stuck picturing Keanu Reeves' naked backside during that 'Rave' scene.... And now you all are, too. };->- Void
Maybe we can see about getting an "infant" luggable that makes your RSI appear to be carrying a bundle of joy. It can give a 15% boost to the Extra Baggage trait and we can simulate scenes from Willow or pretend that it's Moses.
:: Laughs out loud:: Clever idea, though! I rather like it, kinda. :: Giggles::
And Void, the mental images you have caused in my brain are further proof that you are much more evil than two other guys on Recursion put together, but who will remain nameless, though like the guy in that Carly Simon song, they're so vain they probably think this post is about them.
