Wetware (brain)
Encyclopedia
The term wetware is used to describe the embodiment
of the concepts of the physical construct known as the central nervous system
(CNS) and the mental construct known as the human mind
. It is a two-part abstraction
drawn from the computer-related idea of hardware
or software
.
The first abstraction solely concerns the bioelectric and biochemical properties of the CNS, specifically the brain
. If the impulses traveling the various neurons are analogized as software, then the physical neurons would be the hardware. The amalgamated interaction of the software and hardware is manifested through continuously changing physical connections, and chemical and electrical influences spreading across wide spectrums of supposedly unrelated areas. This interaction requires a new term that exceeds the definition of those individual terms.
The second abstraction is relegated to a higher conceptual level. If the human mind is analogized as software, then the first abstraction described above is the hardware. The process by which the mind and brain interact to produce the collection of experiences that we define as self-awareness
is still seriously in question. Importantly, the intricate interaction between physical and mental realms is observable in many instances. The combination of these concepts is expressed in the term wetware.
, however, that the term found broad adoption. Among these first uses of the term in popular culture were the 1987 novel "Vacuum Flowers
" by Michael Swanwick
as well as several books from the hand of Rudy Rucker
, one of which he titled "Wetware
". "... all sparks and tastes and tangles, all its stimulus/response patterns – the whole biocybernetic software of mind." Rucker did not use the word to simply mean a brain, nor in the human-resources sense of employees. He used wetware to stand for the data found in any biological system, analogous perhaps to the firmware that is found in a ROM chip. In Rucker's sense, a seed, a plant graft, an embryo, or a biological virus are all wetware. DNA, the immune system, and the evolved neural architecture of the brain are further examples of wetware in this sense. Rucker describes his conception in a 1992 compendium "The Mondo 2000 User's Guide to the New Edge," which he quotes in a 2007 blog entry, Also early cyber-guru Arthur Kroker used the term in his text 'RU wetware?' in a text on his "ctheory" website in 1993.
With the term getting traction in trendsetting publications, it became a buzzword in the early 1990s. In 1991 Dutch media theorist Geert Lovink organized the 'Wetware Convention' in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, which was supposed to be an antidote to the "out-of-body" experiments conducted in high-tech laboratories, such as experiments in Virtual Reality. The writers' collective Lovink was part of wrote a text about wetware that can be found here: "Illegal Knowledge"
Timothy Leary
, in an appendix to Info-Psychology originally written in 1975-1976 and published in 1989, used the term "wetware", writing that "psychedelic neuro-transmitters were the hot new technology for booting-up the "wetware" of the brain". Another common reference is the saying, "Wetware has 7 plus or minus 2 temporary registers." The numerical allusion is to a classic 1957 article by George A. Miller, "The magical number 7 plus or minus two: some limits in our capacity for processing information
", published in Psychological Review in March 1956, volume 63, issue 2, pages 81–97.
that include in their technical terminology. Wetware refers to "that aspect of any living system that can be treated as an information system".
and in hacker culture
. Also known as liveware, meatware or the abbreviation PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair), it is a term generally used to refer to a person
operating a computer
. It refers to human
beings (programmers, operators, administrators) attached to a computer system. In this context the term is often intended for humorous effect; for example, in the frequently wry humor of technical support
staff, a wetware-related problem is a euphemism
for user error.
, a novel by Orson Scott Card
, published in 1986. The AI
character Jane uses it to refer to a human character: "I don't expect wetware to work as logically as software".
An alternative meaning of wetware, found in some contemporary science fiction
novels such as Peter F. Hamilton
's neural nanonics and wetware and Richard K. Morgan's wetwire, is the cybernetic augmentation of human beings.
The general theory is that the brain would have a cybernetic interface to electronic components capable of controlling the body. Such cybernetic implants could control everything from muscle movement, making a person super-fast or super-strong (as in the case of Morgan's books), or to provide a direct connection to external computer processing through wetwired connections in the skin. There are examples of wetware devices in the novels of William Gibson
, in which certain individuals use a computer called a "cyberspace deck" to jack on to a brain implant which provides them with sensorial connection to virtual cyberspace
. Neal Stephenson
uses the term in his 1995 novel, The Diamond Age
, to describe the society of the drummers where nano-particles are exchanged through bodily fluids among individuals within the society for the task of parallel computing
. Note, however, that one of the originators of the term, Rudy Rucker
, does not use wetware in the sense of cybernetic enhancement. Throughout his Ware Tetralogy
, "wetware" is used to stand for the underlying program of any biological system.
Adam Warren
also uses the term in his American manga comic series The Dirty Pair
, whereby characters fitted with interface sockets in three locations on the neck can jack into computers, hardware, and simulation networks, two of which include Sim-Net and Yip-Man. The term "wetware" was also used in I, Robot
(2004) during a dialogue between Detective Spooner (Will Smith
) and Doctor Calvin (Bridget Moynahan
), the latter of whom claims to "specialize in hardware-to-wetware interfaces in an effort to advance [US Robotics]' robotic anthropomorphization program". Smith's character refers to this process as "making [the robots] seem more human."
In the Firefly
episode "The Message," the term wetware is used to describe a series of experimental, highly advanced synthetic organs. These require a human host, such as the character Tracy, for transport. The illegal use of such people as carriers is referred to as "wetware smuggling".
In an Andromeda
episode, Captain Dylan Hunt
happens upon the ship's
holographic AI arguing with Rommie, its android avatar. He comments that talking to yourself is a sign of insanity. They both immediately reply, "Only for wetware".
In the Babylon 5
episode "Ship of Tears
," a group of human telepaths are encountered that have been modified and cybernetically augmented to interface with and control semi-organic warships. After observing the erratic and violent behavior of one of the telepaths, Dr. Stephen Franklin
explains that "...somebody has definitely messed with her wetware."
Embodiment
Embodied or embodiment may refer to:in psychology and philosophy,*Embodied cognition , a position in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind emphasizing the role that the body plays in shaping the mind...
of the concepts of the physical construct known as the central nervous system
Central nervous system
The central nervous system is the part of the nervous system that integrates the information that it receives from, and coordinates the activity of, all parts of the bodies of bilaterian animals—that is, all multicellular animals except sponges and radially symmetric animals such as jellyfish...
(CNS) and the mental construct known as the human mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
. It is a two-part abstraction
Abstraction
Abstraction is a process by which higher concepts are derived from the usage and classification of literal concepts, first principles, or other methods....
drawn from the computer-related idea of hardware
Computer hardware
Personal computer hardware are component devices which are typically installed into or peripheral to a computer case to create a personal computer upon which system software is installed including a firmware interface such as a BIOS and an operating system which supports application software that...
or software
Computer software
Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....
.
The first abstraction solely concerns the bioelectric and biochemical properties of the CNS, specifically the brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
. If the impulses traveling the various neurons are analogized as software, then the physical neurons would be the hardware. The amalgamated interaction of the software and hardware is manifested through continuously changing physical connections, and chemical and electrical influences spreading across wide spectrums of supposedly unrelated areas. This interaction requires a new term that exceeds the definition of those individual terms.
The second abstraction is relegated to a higher conceptual level. If the human mind is analogized as software, then the first abstraction described above is the hardware. The process by which the mind and brain interact to produce the collection of experiences that we define as self-awareness
Self-awareness
Self-awareness is the capacity for introspection and the ability to reconcile oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals...
is still seriously in question. Importantly, the intricate interaction between physical and mental realms is observable in many instances. The combination of these concepts is expressed in the term wetware.
Origin
Though its exact definition has shifted over time, the term Wetware and its fundamental reference to "the physical mind" has been around from the mid-1950s. Mostly used in relatively obscure articles and papers, it was not until the heyday of cyberpunkCyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...
, however, that the term found broad adoption. Among these first uses of the term in popular culture were the 1987 novel "Vacuum Flowers
Vacuum Flowers
Vacuum Flowers is a science fiction novel by Michael Swanwick, published in 1987. It is an early example of the cyberpunk genre, and features one of the earliest uses of the concept wetware....
" by Michael Swanwick
Michael Swanwick
Michael Swanwick is an American science fiction author. Based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he began publishing in the early 1980s.-Biography:...
as well as several books from the hand of Rudy Rucker
Rudy Rucker
Rudolf von Bitter Rucker is an American mathematician, computer scientist, science fiction author, and philosopher, and is one of the founders of the cyberpunk literary movement. The author of both fiction and non-fiction, he is best known for the novels in the Ware Tetralogy, the first two of...
, one of which he titled "Wetware
Wetware (novel)
Wetware is a 1988 biopunk science fiction novel written by Rudy Rucker. It shared the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988 with Four Hundred Billion Stars by Paul J. McAuley...
". "... all sparks and tastes and tangles, all its stimulus/response patterns – the whole biocybernetic software of mind." Rucker did not use the word to simply mean a brain, nor in the human-resources sense of employees. He used wetware to stand for the data found in any biological system, analogous perhaps to the firmware that is found in a ROM chip. In Rucker's sense, a seed, a plant graft, an embryo, or a biological virus are all wetware. DNA, the immune system, and the evolved neural architecture of the brain are further examples of wetware in this sense. Rucker describes his conception in a 1992 compendium "The Mondo 2000 User's Guide to the New Edge," which he quotes in a 2007 blog entry, Also early cyber-guru Arthur Kroker used the term in his text 'RU wetware?' in a text on his "ctheory" website in 1993.
With the term getting traction in trendsetting publications, it became a buzzword in the early 1990s. In 1991 Dutch media theorist Geert Lovink organized the 'Wetware Convention' in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, which was supposed to be an antidote to the "out-of-body" experiments conducted in high-tech laboratories, such as experiments in Virtual Reality. The writers' collective Lovink was part of wrote a text about wetware that can be found here: "Illegal Knowledge"
Timothy Leary
Timothy Leary
Timothy Francis Leary was an American psychologist and writer, known for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs. During a time when drugs like LSD and psilocybin were legal, Leary conducted experiments at Harvard University under the Harvard Psilocybin Project, resulting in the Concord Prison...
, in an appendix to Info-Psychology originally written in 1975-1976 and published in 1989, used the term "wetware", writing that "psychedelic neuro-transmitters were the hot new technology for booting-up the "wetware" of the brain". Another common reference is the saying, "Wetware has 7 plus or minus 2 temporary registers." The numerical allusion is to a classic 1957 article by George A. Miller, "The magical number 7 plus or minus two: some limits in our capacity for processing information
The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two
"The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information" is one of the most highly cited papers in psychology. It was published in 1956 by the cognitive psychologist George A. Miller of Princeton University's Department of Psychology in Psychological...
", published in Psychological Review in March 1956, volume 63, issue 2, pages 81–97.
Technical usage
International standards have been completed for telebiometricsTelebiometrics
Telebiometrics applies biometrics to telecommunications and telecommunications to remote biometric sensing. With the emergence of multimodal biometrics systems gathering data from different sensors and contexts, International Standards that support systems performing biometric enrollment and...
that include in their technical terminology. Wetware refers to "that aspect of any living system that can be treated as an information system".
Computer jargon
The term Wetware is used in conversation, notably USENETUsenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
and in hacker culture
Hacker culture
A hacker is a member of the computer programmer subculture originated in the 1960s in the United States academia, in particular around the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 's Tech Model Railroad Club and MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory...
. Also known as liveware, meatware or the abbreviation PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair), it is a term generally used to refer to a person
Person
A person is a human being, or an entity that has certain capacities or attributes strongly associated with being human , for example in a particular moral or legal context...
operating a computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
. It refers to human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
beings (programmers, operators, administrators) attached to a computer system. In this context the term is often intended for humorous effect; for example, in the frequently wry humor of technical support
Technical support
Technical support or tech support refers to a range of services by which enterprises provide assistance to users of technology products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods...
staff, a wetware-related problem is a euphemism
Euphemism
A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...
for user error.
Scholarly usage
Theorist Richard Doyle uses the plural, "wetwares" to describe the shifting experience and nature of embodiment in the context of proliferating information technologies.Science fiction
The term wetware appears in Speaker for the DeadSpeaker for the Dead
Speaker for the Dead is a science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card and an indirect sequel to the novel Ender's Game. This book takes place around the year 5270, some 3,000 years after the events in Ender's Game...
, a novel by Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card is an American author, critic, public speaker, essayist, columnist, and political activist. He writes in several genres, but is primarily known for his science fiction. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the...
, published in 1986. The AI
Ai
AI, A.I., Ai, or ai may refer to:- Computers :* Artificial intelligence, a branch of computer science* Ad impression, in online advertising* .ai, the ISO Internet 2-letter country code for Anguilla...
character Jane uses it to refer to a human character: "I don't expect wetware to work as logically as software".
An alternative meaning of wetware, found in some contemporary science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novels such as Peter F. Hamilton
Peter F. Hamilton
Peter F. Hamilton is a British author. He is best known for writing space opera. As of the publication of his tenth novel in 2004, his works had sold over two million copies worldwide.- Biography :...
's neural nanonics and wetware and Richard K. Morgan's wetwire, is the cybernetic augmentation of human beings.
The general theory is that the brain would have a cybernetic interface to electronic components capable of controlling the body. Such cybernetic implants could control everything from muscle movement, making a person super-fast or super-strong (as in the case of Morgan's books), or to provide a direct connection to external computer processing through wetwired connections in the skin. There are examples of wetware devices in the novels of William Gibson
William Gibson
William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:-Association football:*Will Gibson , Scottish footballer...
, in which certain individuals use a computer called a "cyberspace deck" to jack on to a brain implant which provides them with sensorial connection to virtual cyberspace
Cyberspace
Cyberspace is the electronic medium of computer networks, in which online communication takes place.The term "cyberspace" was first used by the cyberpunk science fiction author William Gibson, though the concept was described somewhat earlier, for example in the Vernor Vinge short story "True...
. Neal Stephenson
Neal Stephenson
Neal Town Stephenson is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction.Difficult to categorize, his novels have been variously referred to as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk...
uses the term in his 1995 novel, The Diamond Age
The Diamond Age
The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a postcyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. It is to some extent a science fiction bildungsroman, focused on a young girl named Nell, and set in a future world in which nanotechnology affects all aspects of life. The novel deals with themes of...
, to describe the society of the drummers where nano-particles are exchanged through bodily fluids among individuals within the society for the task of parallel computing
Parallel computing
Parallel computing is a form of computation in which many calculations are carried out simultaneously, operating on the principle that large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which are then solved concurrently . There are several different forms of parallel computing: bit-level,...
. Note, however, that one of the originators of the term, Rudy Rucker
Rudy Rucker
Rudolf von Bitter Rucker is an American mathematician, computer scientist, science fiction author, and philosopher, and is one of the founders of the cyberpunk literary movement. The author of both fiction and non-fiction, he is best known for the novels in the Ware Tetralogy, the first two of...
, does not use wetware in the sense of cybernetic enhancement. Throughout his Ware Tetralogy
Ware Tetralogy
The Ware Tetralogy is a series of four science fiction novels by author Rudy Rucker: Software , Wetware , Freeware and Realware . The first two books both received the Philip K. Dick Award for best novel...
, "wetware" is used to stand for the underlying program of any biological system.
Adam Warren
Adam Warren
Adam Warren is an American comic book writer and artist who is most famous for his adaptation of the characters known as Dirty Pair into an American comic book, and for being one of the first American commercial illustrators to be influenced by the general manga style...
also uses the term in his American manga comic series The Dirty Pair
The Dirty Pair
The Dirty Pair is an original English-language manga written and illustrated by Adam Warren, based on the Dirty Pair characters created by Haruka Takachiho....
, whereby characters fitted with interface sockets in three locations on the neck can jack into computers, hardware, and simulation networks, two of which include Sim-Net and Yip-Man. The term "wetware" was also used in I, Robot
I, Robot (film)
I, Robot is a 2004 science-fiction action film directed by Alex Proyas. The screenplay was written by Jeff Vintar, Akiva Goldsman and Hillary Seitz, and is very loosely based on Isaac Asimov's short-story collection of the same name. Will Smith stars in the lead role of the film as Detective Del...
(2004) during a dialogue between Detective Spooner (Will Smith
Will Smith
Willard Christopher "Will" Smith, Jr. , also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor, producer, and rapper. He has enjoyed success in television, film and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him the most powerful actor in Hollywood...
) and Doctor Calvin (Bridget Moynahan
Bridget Moynahan
Kathryn Bridget Moynahan , best known as Bridget Moynahan, is an American model and actress. After graduating from Longmeadow High School in 1989, Moynahan pursued a career in modeling. She was signed by a modeling agency, which led her to appear in department store catalogs and the covers of...
), the latter of whom claims to "specialize in hardware-to-wetware interfaces in an effort to advance [US Robotics]' robotic anthropomorphization program". Smith's character refers to this process as "making [the robots] seem more human."
In the Firefly
Firefly (TV series)
Firefly is an American space western television series created by writer and director Joss Whedon, under his Mutant Enemy Productions label. Whedon served as executive producer, along with Tim Minear....
episode "The Message," the term wetware is used to describe a series of experimental, highly advanced synthetic organs. These require a human host, such as the character Tracy, for transport. The illegal use of such people as carriers is referred to as "wetware smuggling".
In an Andromeda
Andromeda (TV series)
Andromeda is a Canadian-American science fiction television series, based on unused material by the late Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, developed by Robert Hewitt Wolfe, and produced by Roddenberry's widow, Majel Barrett Roddenberry. It starred Kevin Sorbo as High Guard Captain Dylan Hunt...
episode, Captain Dylan Hunt
Dylan Hunt
Dylan Hunt is the name of two fictional characters created for television by Gene Roddenberry.Both characters are men who unwittingly move forward in time by hundreds of years, finding themselves trapped in a post-apocalyptic "Dark Age"...
happens upon the ship's
Andromeda Ascendant
The Andromeda Ascendant is a fictional starship in the television series Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda.In the series, the ship is said to have begun her life in the Newport News Orbital Shipyards above Earth, where her keel was laid in CY 9768...
holographic AI arguing with Rommie, its android avatar. He comments that talking to yourself is a sign of insanity. They both immediately reply, "Only for wetware".
In the Babylon 5
Babylon 5
Babylon 5 is an American science fiction television series created, produced and largely written by J. Michael Straczynski. The show centers on a space station named Babylon 5: a focal point for politics, diplomacy, and conflict during the years 2257–2262...
episode "Ship of Tears
Ship of Tears
Ship of Tears is an episode from the third season of the science-fiction television series Babylon 5.-Synopsis:Bester returns to Babylon 5 and proposes an unlikely alliance....
," a group of human telepaths are encountered that have been modified and cybernetically augmented to interface with and control semi-organic warships. After observing the erratic and violent behavior of one of the telepaths, Dr. Stephen Franklin
Stephen Franklin
Stephen Franklin is a lead character in the fictional universe of the science fiction television series Babylon 5, played by the late Richard Biggs. He serves as the chief medical officer on the Babylon 5 space station.-Personality:...
explains that "...somebody has definitely messed with her wetware."
External links
See also
- Brain-computer interfaceBrain-computer interfaceA brain–computer interface , sometimes called a direct neural interface or a brain–machine interface , is a direct communication pathway between the brain and an external device...
- CyberwareCyberwareFor other uses; see Cyberware Cyberware is a relatively new and unknown field...
- Intelligence amplificationIntelligence amplificationIntelligence amplification refers to the effective use of information technology in augmenting human intelligence...
- NeurotechnologyNeurotechnologyNeurotechnology is any technology that has a fundamental influence on how people understand the brain and various aspects of consciousness, thought, and higher order activities in the brain...
- Meatspace
- CyberneticsCyberneticsCybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
- Wetware computerWetware computerA wetware computer is an organic computer built from living neurons. , at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is the primary researcher driving the creation of these artificially constructed, but still organic brains...
- LivewareLivewareLiveware was used in the computer industry as early as 1966 to refer to computer users, often in humorous contexts, by analogy with hardware and software....