Lemon – a 100 word story
The yellow acid known as a lemon smashed through my mouth, distributing throughout my body. I should have known it would contain the virus. I could feel the nanobots working up and down my body, changing it. I knew what was coming. I’ve seen it happen to many of my friends before, too many. My body would change, my memories would fade and I would no longer be. Who knows which terrorist group released the virus, or, maybe it wasn’t them. Maybe it was a madman in a basement somewhere. The end result – we are all ending up as trees.
—–
Hi there and thanks for stopping by. I’m Guy, and you’re listening to my surreal sketchbook of reality.
—–
Episode 8, Nanobots Working Up
Nanotechnology is the ability to move atoms one by one and build new structures that way. A subfield of nanotechnology is programmable matter. This episode Is a semi-philosophical look at the effect programmable matter might have on the future of reality. I’m not a professional philosopher by any means and my approach can be quite absurd, illogical and not at all that serious, so – you’ve been warned. Do not take this podcast too seriously. If you tend to take things too seriously, this might not be the podcast for you. Seriously. I mean it. Find another podcast to listen to.
You’re still here? Good. Let’s talk about programmable matter. Programmable matter is the ability to move atoms one by one or as clusters of atoms by programing them to move a certain way. Right now this field is in its infancy and the basic blocks of programmable matter are much bigger than atoms, but those basic blocks are going to become smaller and smaller as this field of study advances and eventually, people are going to be able to program the atoms themselves. This is going to be one of the most influential fields in the future development of reality. When matter itself becomes programable the line between what’s real and what’s not is blurred considerably. How do you know if the table you are sitting at is really a table and not a cluster of atoms programmed to look and function as a table? How do you know the program for the chair you are sitting on is not going to be hacked by someone who would change the chair into some man eating monster? The possibilities are endless. I think I need to check what’s going on with my chair changing program in the other room. I’ll be right back.
—–
The Key Master – a 100 word story
A crack opened at the edge of the universe. I took out the key and closed it since that’s what I do. I track the cracks and close them with a matching key. I have a key for every crack. Once I close the crack I sniff the vacuum of space for another one. There is always another one. My job is never done. The universe is not merely curved, it’s cracked. Here – I can smell another one. Guess I have my work cracked out for me. Someone managed to hinder another part of this universe. Won’t they ever learn?
—–
Welcome back. Programmable objects like tables and chairs might seem like a harmless development at first, unless your chair tries to eat you. The real progress in this field though might come from video game developers. We seem to be coming back to computer games a lot in this podcast, and for good reason. Computer games are going to change our future. They are going to blend with the real world and programmable matter is one of the ways this is going to happen.
Computer games are the most complete form of entertainment in existence today. In fact, the art of creating computer games is the art of immersing the player into made up worlds or more accurately, virtual worlds. The problem is that those virtual worlds are currently separate from the real world, trapped inside your computer and that’s not immersive enough. In order to achieve even better immersion, games would have to invade the real world. Programmable matter can pave the road for that by placing game characters in the real world and since those characters would have substantiality in the real world you would be able to interact with them in a level not possible by today’s standards. We would have both humanoid looking characters and various objects and living creatures, programmed, but living in the real world through programmable matter. No one would be able to know what is real anymore and what is programmed to augment our reality. The game would be on for real. This concludes episode 8 of this podcast. Close the door on your way out and don’t forget – I’m just a figment of your imagination.
—–