There is also a simple question of desire to consider when developing some form of superhuman intelligence. To perform at optimum levels, the subject needs to not only be highly motivated, but to be extremely interested in -- even consumed by -- one or more critical subjects. In other words, a researcher with phenomenal endurance involved in endurance-biking races and little else will be of little use to your research. But someone who can sublimate their usual interests/appetites and focus those drives on critical fields and specific tasks can become incredibly intense and focused. Given time, they *will* win their way through. I think Eclipse Phase may be full of people optimized for their own particular dead-end goals. The really unpredictable ones will be those whose purposes, if not transcendant, still have a wide range of applicability to life, even outside their narrow career paths. Hence the human/transhuman augmentation researcher or AI developer have lots of potential, but so does the scavenger or smuggler with a knack for dredging up and adapting tech for other uses, whether in a blasted Martian ruin or on a remote Hider habitat. The benevolent super-networker who constantly gets the fractious community to work together and move forward or the diplomat who can find common ground between just about anyone would be similar options. On the other hand, there would be perfectly acceptable career paths -- fashion designer of shoes, famed chef, mystery writer -- that would tend to have limited utility, but whose members could be incredibly skilled and devoted in their work.

Arenamontanus wrote:

A great example of this kind of focus is "Focus" in Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky". Tailored obsessions keeping people focused on particular tasks. Very convenient and creepy. It is not implausible that EP is littered with self-made obsessives. As a result of the Fall many might decide to retreat into a focused world where they do not have to think about the horrors they have experienced - or simply have been required to do it in order to survive.

Tailor-made obsessions might still be just out of reach of EP tech. Psychosurgery is still in its infancy, and it may be a while before someone produces some sort of temporary activated mental alterations. You might be able to get permanent tailor-made obsessions though (megalomania for corporate business types, obsessive compulsive disorder for the cleaning lady). Could be a possible psi chi sleight, though.

Arenamontanus wrote:

Hmm, why do you have that intuition? To me this seems eminently within what psychosurgery can do. Maybe I'm just psychotech focused in my gaming.

I just think it's not capable of it [i]yet[/i]. Psychosurgery is, at most, 30 years old by 10 AF, and it's still a very shaky process that neurotechnicians are still getting a grasp with (the intro to the psychosurgery section on page 229 emphasizes this). It may be possible eventually (kinda like how genetech didn't exist when the first Shadowrun books were released, nor did technomancy), and it probably will be (I also think that cyberbrains compatible with psi will start to exist as the plot develops). I just don't think it's possible [i]now[/i] (10 AF).

Arenamontanus wrote:

I similarly see focus as very doable, because it seems to be neurally relatively simple (compare to *implanting skills*, which I find very advanced and somewhat doubtful). It is essentially a variant of OCD with a predefined target, or perhaps could be done as an addiction (a very strong basal ganglia stimulus-action-expected reward loop). In fact, it could simply be treated as behavioural control boosting, encouraging or enforcing the desired activity.

Actually, I see it potentially being the other way around. Skillwares don't necessarily require any neural modification at all. They may simply be a factor of muscle memory recordings coupled with XP data from the mind of someone who actually has the skill. When you get a kinetic weapons skillsoft, you don't actually gain the skill per se... the skillwares take partial control over your body and adjust your actions according to the parameters of the skillsoft. When you take a knowledge-based skillsoft, it instead largely consists of XP memory data which is transferred to you when the skillwares detect that you need it. In this, the skillwares essentially act as a second AI that takes control of your body or sends you knowledge information as you need it on the fly. This would also explain why there is a limit on how many skillsofts you can have loaded up at any given time; a library of skill data that is too large takes too long for this AI to access, thus making it too slow to be of any use. As for actually causing disorders, I think that possible with psychosurgery now. I just don't think that [i]controllable[/i] disorders are yet possible (OCD I can activate and deactivate at will whenever I need the extra perception skills, or ADHD that I can use only when I need the ability to pay attention to all my surroundings at once, rather than focus on any one thing). Hell, you can already cause disorders while doing psychosurgery unintentionally, so I see no reason you can't do them on purpose.

Arenamontanus wrote:

In that case, why would there be an upper limit to how many skills you could have? Consider what skill really are: procedural memories. You need to connect the right situation with the right action, and be able to insert other relevant knowledge. That will not work with just a recording. BTW, "muscle memory" doesn't exist, it is largely a fiction. Out well learned skills exist as basal ganglia and spinal cord neural networks we no longer have to think about consciously, but they do reside within the central nervous system.

I answered why I think there's an upper limit previously, in reference to my theory that skillwares are an AI-driven body-puppeting technology:

Decivre wrote:

This would also explain why there is a limit on how many skillsofts you can have loaded up at any given time; a library of skill data that is too large takes too long for this AI to access, thus making its responses too slow to be of any use.

Muscle memory is still the oft-used label for what we now call motor learning, the process by which your mind remembers movements through repetition. It may be a misnomer, but the term is still used (like "heart" when referencing one's emotions). And I don't see why such skills wouldn't work through recordings. Record the action, record data about the situations that coincide with its use, utilize an AI to discern context on when these situations occur, then allow it to trigger the skillware's recorded action. That doesn't seem all that implausible to me.

Arenamontanus wrote:

This does not make much sense. An illiterate could hence be given the skillsoft for calculus and solve integrals without knowing what he is doing?

Why not? Someone could plug a skillsoft for surgery in, perform it, and remove the skillsoft while being completely incapable of understanding how or why they did what they did during the surgery. Why wouldn't it work the same for math? If a person is able to understand on an innate level the context of skillsofts, then skillsofts don't make sense at all; they should permanently enhance your skills, like some sort of mental upload. They don't, so that leaves me to presume that they don't directly affect the mind. Otherwise, skillsofts would operate like they do in the Matrix ("I know kung fu.").

Arenamontanus wrote:

I assume you mean now in the real world. Yes, it is true we can do it (usually in lab animals).

I actually meant in the context of the game as well. Any and all psychosurgery causes stress, and if you cause enough stress, you cause a disorder. Creating disorders is fairly easy with psychosurgery.

Arenamontanus wrote:

But you are OK with controllable inserted memories? Doesn't this strike you as a bit inconsistent?

Actually, I'm not okay with controllable inserted memories. As I said, I don't think that skillwares insert any memories at all... they control the body without inputting into the mind. Otherwise, why are you incapable of retaining a skillsoft permanently as an actual skill?

Whether or not installing an obsessive interest in and devotion to a particular field can be done in a single psychosurgery session in Eclipse Phase AF 10, I think it can be done pretty easily given time in that environment (to some extent, even in this one) assuming you have someone who already has a reason to be interested in the skill. Take several years, and alter stimuli (including next-generation motivators like Modafinil and next-generation nootropics) to give positive feedback whenever the subject is heavily engaged -- take this cluster of pills or this drink whenever you study or work in the field, for example. Change feedback and some contacts to offer a support group for the subject's efforts. Give them a significant motivation to succeed in their field (it's their job, their career and, post-crash, their lifeline). Rince and repeat. For, again, several years. If you look at the web, to a lesser degree, there's no shortage of obsessive niche hobbyists, fanatics, conspiracy theorists and fringe groups that have such members, even without the benefit of any of the above expect for some relevant web pages and forums. Role-playing gamers and transhumanists, for example. =) Throw in a muse deliberately sorting your priorities and information according to certain preset preferences and the technique has probably been unconsciously used to some extent by most of the Eclipse Phase population.