Wetware

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For the Rudy Rucker novel, see Wetware (novel)

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.

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[edit] 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 wasn't until the heyday of cyperpunk, 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, "What is Wetware?" Also early cyber-guru Arthur Kroker used the term in his text 'RU wetware?' in a text on his http://www.ctheory.net 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 a text about wetware that can be found here: http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9606/msg00026.html.

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.

[edit] Alternative Definitions

[edit] Technical Usage

International Standards have been completed for telebiometrics that include "wetware" in their technical terminology. Wetware refers to "that aspect of any living system that can be treated as an information system".

[edit] Computer Jargon Usage

The term Wetware is used in conversation, notably USENET 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Science Fiction Usage

The term wetware appears in Speaker for the Dead, 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 USR's robotic anthropomorphization program".

In the Firefly (TV series) 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 the Andromeda (TV series), 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 "...somebdy has definetly messed with her wetware."

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