I See You

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"I See You" is one of the lines in James Cameron's movie Avatar. While it doesn't have any TG in it, there are transformations both physical and spiritual. Gwen's recent admission that she'd seen the movie 3 times in 3D no less has made me admit that I've seen it twice, once in Imax 3D and once in only 3D. It is one heck of a visual treat, but for a story that many seem to put down for being simple and had already been done, it has made me cry. Twice. I knew that scene was coming but I still was reaching for those napkins I kept handy just in case.

Given the nature of this movie I fully expect to see fanfics that does have TG. I wouldn't be surprised if they were already in the works. Even my muse got a bit excited, but I've other stories I want to get out before letting her run amok!

Say a male sibling who has a scientist sister .... :)

Hugs!

Grover

Comments

I'm already crying and I haven't even seen it yet

Andrea Lena's picture

...vertigo keeps me from anything I-Max, which is a shame, but such is life. As long as neither the male or female lead stands on the top of one of those flying creatures and says "I'm King of the World," I'll probably like the film. I find anything James Cameron does to be outstanding, and I know that I have at least one person who agrees with me on that in James Cameron. :)


She was born for all the wrong reasons but grew up for all the right ones.
Possa Dio riccamente vi benedica, tutto il mio amore, Andrea

  

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena

I remember

something a while back about someone saying that a good storyteller could make opening a jar interesting. That just about describes James Cameron. As for vertigo, there are a few of the flight scenes that are amazing that I guess could cause dizziness. Not trying to talk you out of seeing it, but just concern for a friend!

Hugs!

Grover

Well I did enjoy it immensely

But unfortunately for everyone, TG meets a serious in-story block. Avatars, they were created based on Navi DNA and human DNA, and crafted to suit a single person. The reason was to have a completely matching nervous structure, so that remote synchronisation is possible.

The protagonist was chosen for a single purpose - he was the identical twin for his murdered brother, who was presumably extensively tested and analysed to map his nervous system to produce an Avatar for him - and was chosen only because of this identicalness, down to the mapping of the nervous system. A fraternal twin or a normal sibling generally lacks such a quality.

Faraway

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Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!

Faraway


On rights of free advertisement:
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Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!

Don't let this bother you as an author

Nervous systems of identical twins are not significantly similar so it is not a big stretch to use a differently gendered sibling as a replacement; the original story already bent their science enough by mixing DNA between species.

There is not enough information in your DNA to specify the neural structure in detail.

- Moni

Yeah

erin's picture

Identical twins do not have the same fingerprints or retinal patterns, though they may or may not be similar. Lots of chance in body development at that level. Some genetic similarities would exist, like whether you had the innervation necessary to do the Spock hand gesture or to roll your tongue but details would be different ab initio.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Ok, ok...

Well I never claimed being a certified neurologist specialising on hereditary characteristics. ;)

Oh, and... I actually can do both Spock hand gesture \\// and roll my tongue ^_^

Faraway

On rights of free advertisement:
Big Closet Top Shelf

Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!

Faraway


On rights of free advertisement:
Big Closet Top Shelf

Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!

There's DNA and DNA!

The geneticists who claim things like that humans and chimpanzees have 98% the same DNA have over-simplified things. Not all DNA is in the cell nucleus and confined to chromosomal strands. There is a considerable amount in the cell's mitochondria, but they have not included that in the %-age calculations. Also, quite a lot of genetic information is contained in RNA too. Whenever we claim that we have the Complete Genome of a species, we are kidding ourselves.

Also, we overlook viruses. These are independent bits of DNA and or RNA, that drift about until they invade and get included in the host organisms' sets.

The randomness is built in too - every time a cell divides to make two new ones by mitosis, bits of chromosomes get broken and untangled and reconnect up either on another strand or round the wrong way and next to something they were not next to before, or they can even just get lost. A sort of "somatic mutation" occurs. Which accounts for identical twins not being identical exactly.

We humans of the early 21st century think we know so much, but that is only because we still know so little that we just dont know how much we still dont know. And probably we never will learn much more than we know now - 80% of our total intellectual effort is wasted on developing new ways of killing each other in our favorite hobby, making war on each other, the rest on what we laughingly call 'making a living', which includes polluting our planet and overpopulating it, and in playing dominance games to win individual positions in whichever heirarchies we are engaged in being members of. Our limited brain capacity is such that without machines like computers we cannot absorb even a fraction of what we have already found out.

I dont think there is much of a future for this primitive species.

Briar

Briar

Limited brain capacity? Primitive species?

Uh, the only thing really limiting our brain capacity is ourselves.

Interesting fact 1: The human brain has an average of 85 million non-neuronal cells, an average of 86 million neuronal cells, and an average of a quadrillion synaptic connections.

Interesting fact 2: It is fueled by the human metabolic rate, which averages in excess of a thousand kcal/day, kcal means a thousand calories, so a thousand of those means one million calories a day - absolute minimum. The more lean mass someone has versus fat, the higher this rate. The more physically active a person is, the higher this rate. The healthier a person eats, the higher this rate. People have been known to have metabolic rates in excess of 2 million calories a day. That's a lot of energy.

Interesting fact 3: The human brain's function is largely only limited by the individuals own desire to think.

Interesting fact 4: The currently most advanced computer processor on the market is, (of course) a graphics processor, and has exactly 6 million transistors, which would be like a cell in the human brain. 1024 Shader Processors, capable of 8 single precision operations per clock per SP, or 8192; 128 Special Function Units, capable of 4 special function operations per clock per SFU, or 512; and 6144 Texture Filtering Units, which do fairly complex operations, but only one per unit per clock; adding up all those numbers nets just shy of 15 thousand operations per clock. You could equate these with synaptic connections... That wouldn't be precise, but it serves the comparison.

Interesting fact 5: The above processor is fueled by a clock rate, which for this particular processor is 607 Mhz at the core - 607 million hertz, 1215 Mhz at the shader - 1.2 billion hertz, and 3414 Mhz at the memory bus - 3.4 billion hertz. Now, the math to determine from here the rate at which instruction and information can flow is much much more complex than I'm going to bother going into, but a REASONABLE estimate would be about 2 billion hertz. This might seem a lot more than our brain, but...

Interesting fact 6: 1.2 million times a quadrillion, 2 billion times 15 thousand. Which do you think is a bigger number?

Interesting fact 7: A graphics processor is limited to working only on one type of thing: rendering an animated sequence of images.

NOTE: This is by no means an exact performance analysis of the human brain vs this particular graphics processor, it's merely a rough comparison. Very rough. So rough that my fellow super geeks would probably tear me to shreds and gobble me up whole as I watch helplessly just for even putting such a half-arsed comparison online.

Someone once said that the human brain is the most complex computer processor in the known universe. This was true then, it's still true today, and it'll likely remain true for at least a very long time if not until we go extinct somehow. We're still evolving, our brains are more complex today than they were just a thousand years ago.

I can without a doubt tell you that there are people out there capable of feats of illogical mental prowess such that no computer will ever achieve, being, by nature, purely logical beasts. Human intuition, by nature, a purely illogical mental function, is actually our greatest mental gift, it's what allows us our sentience in the first place! Logic machines will never be sentient. Until and unless someone can manage to logically program illogic, robots will never achieve sentience. Either that or someone can manage to design an illogical system from the ground up...... Slightly more likely than using a logic system to program illogic. Marginally... Don't get your collective panties in a bunch, science fiction fans... It IS possible - but unlikely.

As for being a primitive species... That'd be a misnomer, as far as genetics and speciation goes, we're the most advanced species currently known. We ARE a primitive SOCIETY, though. That will lrtfalavltinuwges (likely remain true ... extinct somehow) as well.

EDIT: lost count of my count. lol. fixed.

Abigail Drew.

Why should it?

I was simply using an off the cuff example but the whole idea is kind of stretching science anyways. Like Moni said, you have to have identical DNA but there is already Alien stuff mixed in there already? I'm sure a close sibling would be just as good, and perhaps one could use artistic license and move up the tech a few years so that pesky identical thing wasn't an issue. Or you can simply ignore the pseudo science and just write your story. Hey Michael Crichton, never let something like science get in the way of his stories so why should any of us?

The question is how to catogorize this! :) Body soul/exchange? Bodysuits? Sci-fi? Certainly!
Just kicking around some ideas!
Hugs!
Grover

Yeah!!

Aljan Darkmoon's picture

Don't let this bother you as an author

Lay on, McDuff!
And damned be she who first cries, “Suspension of disbelief, enough!!”

XD

Count Me Out

Unless the main character is carrying a sword and shield or can disassemble and reassemble a Schmeisser in ten seconds while blindfolded, at night, during a howling rainstorm without mussing her flowing red hair, I won't be one of them.

Nancy Cole

Nancy_Cole__Red_Background_.png


~ ~ ~

"You may be what you resolve to be."

T.J. Jackson

A Wonderful Movie

joannebarbarella's picture

One of the most enjoyable interludes of my recent holiday trip was taking my grandson (aged 8, nearly 9) to see "Avatar" in 3D. I loved it and any critic would have been silenced by my grandson's reaction. He just couldn't stop talking about it afterwards and he, of course, doesn't give a hoot about James Cameron. He just thought it was really great as a story and the special effects blew us both away.

The story, in essence, has been done many times before, but if that were the criterion we would never have another romance.....Boy meets girl; boy and girl fall in love; couple lose each other; couple find each other and walk off hand in hand into the sunset. It's in the telling and the characterisation and "Avatar" succeeds like that IMHO.

I am bemused by the criticisms of the supposedly political stance of the movie and the reactions to Sigourney Weaver's character SMOKING....My God! Shock! Horror! It reminds me of some of the flame wars that develop on this site.

In the end, it's only a movie folks, but one which I can't wait to see again- in 3D of course! I found the use of that technique to be particularly well done without being obtrusive (it didn't come out and punch you in the nose).

Incidentally, the line "I see you" forms an integral and important part of S.M.Stirling's latest book "The Scourge Of God", an interesting synchronicity perhaps,

Joanne

I think I've been spending too much time at my computer

Andrea Lena's picture

...looking up all the info I can find for this movie...Grover, what do you think?


She was born for all the wrong reasons but grew up for all the right ones.
Possa Dio riccamente vi benedica, tutto il mio amore, Andrea

  

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena

About?

Spending too much time in front of the computer? Yep! I know I'm guilty of it of being glued in front of it far longer than I should.

About Avatar? If you think you won't be bothered by the flying scenes, I say go for it. For myself, I used to dream of flying all the time. I'm one of those nuts who on the roller coaster holds their arms out as if flying. However I know others does have problems with vertigo and balance. What does everyone else think? Does Avatar have a lot of vertigo inducing scenes?

Hugs!

Grover

PS: nice blue there! Besides doesn't everyone want to be blue cat-girls? :)

Vertigo? NAH!

I saw Avatar from the fifth row in Imax, 3D. No vertigo, no tears, good movie!

Mr. Ram

I See You

I have seen AVATAR. It is a dam good movie

    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine
    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine