

Making Sense of Data Stored in Our Machines and in Our Heads - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/making-sense-of-data-stored-in-our-machines-in-our-heads

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Terr_
Speaking of supplemental memories, it reminds me of a plot-point in a novel:

> The chip itself was an immensely complex sandwich of organic and inorganic
> molecular layers about five by seven centimeters broad and half a centimeter
> thick, which rested in a vertical position between the two lobes of Illyan's
> brain. The number of neurological connections that ran from it made a jump-
> pilot's control headset look like a child's toy. The greatest complexity
> seemed to be in the information retrieval net, rather than the protein-based
> data storage, though both were not only fiendishly ornate, but largely
> unmapped--it had been an auto-learning-style system which had assembled
> itself in a highly non-linear fashion after the chip had been installed.

> [...] "Now I was under the impression the thing worked in parallel with
> Illyan's original cerebral memory. It doesn't actually replace it, does it?"

> "That is correct, my lord. The neurological input is only split from the
> sensory nerves, not shunted aside altogether. The subjects apparently have
> dual memories of all their experiences. This appears to have been the major
> contributing factor to the high incidence of iatrogenic schizophrenia they
> later developed. A sort of inherent design defect, not of the chip so much
> as of the human brain."

> Ruibal cleared his throat in polite theoretical, or perhaps theological,
> disagreement.

> Illyan must have been a born spy. To hold more than one reality balanced in
> your mind until proof arrived, without going mad from the suspense, was
> surely the mark of a great investigator.

\--"Memory" by Lois McMaster Bujold

