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"[Science fiction is] nightmares and visions, always outlined by the barely possible."
- Gregory Benford
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| SimStim | ||
| Stimulation of the brain and nervous system of one person using a recording (or live broadcast) of another person's experience. |
This is a way of sharing experience, but in the world of Neuromancer, you are reminded of the early comments that the experts had about television: "it's an ideal teaching tool."
| Cowboys didn't get into simstim, he thought, because it was basically a meat toy. He knew that ... the cyberspace matrix was actually a drastic simplification of the human sensorium, at least in terms of presentation, but simstim itself struck him as a gratuitous multiplication of flesh input. |
| Technovelgy from Neuromancer,
by William Gibson. Published by Phantasia Press in 1984 Additional resources -
|
As far as I know, Gibson is the first person to explore both a business use and the extended entertainment version of this idea. Simstim can also be done live.
An earlier reference in science fiction to the idea of using some sort of technology to both read and record a person's thoughts is the espionage machine from Cordwainer Smith's 1958 story No, No, Not Rogov!.
A much earlier reference to the idea that one person can actually experience the transmitted experience of another can be found in the wonderful 1939 story Masson's Secret, by Raymond Z. Gallun. Read about the neuronic receptor-transmitter. See also the Life Chamber from The Chamber of Life, by G. Peyton Wertenbaker., published by Amazing Stories in 1929. Just found the psycho-phone from David Keller's 1928 A Biological Experiment.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Neuromancer
More Ideas
and Technology by William Gibson
Tech news articles related to Neuromancer
Tech news articles related to works by William Gibson
SimStim-related
news articles:
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- Implanted Biothermal RFID Chips May Warn Of Avian Flu
- Virtual Body-Swapping Tech
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| Cosplay Style Wings Could Work On Moon |
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'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
