|
A term derived from a plot device used in a science ficton novel Aristoi by Walter Jon Williams. It is a subpart of one's augmented mind, a constrained personality with it's of quota of memory, autonomous, but controlled by your main Self, analogous to primitive daemons that execute various tasks in the background of the main processing loop of the operating system (the "mind" of your personal computer). Such entity can be summoned into foreground, that is given concious attention by calling it by it's true name, for consultation about some specialized task or to delegate some task you don't want to bother your main Self with and then sent into background again. One can assign a priority level to the summoning of a daimonion, the lower the priority, the more processing power resource of your augmented mind is assigned to it. Similarily to the operating system of a computer, which is "aware of existance" of all running processes, you are aware of the presence of your daimonions, but you don't have to give attention to them. As a result of close specialization of a constrained personality daimonions can be very useful devices for doing more work with less effort and better results, for example One can contain a daimonion who is a great companion at parties, another who is a perfect lover, other who is a paranoid merciless warrior, other who is an good actor, other who is a terrific writer of short poems et caetera. Daimonions have their own limited volition, constrained personalities, voices, personal quirks and assigned memory storage. Daimonions are capable to talk to each other, control your human body on your request, so One is capable to draw a painting, make love and compose an opera at the same time, while avoiding being confused by overdrive of sensory input. Daimonions in the novel are stabilized and run on a node of interstellar version of the Internet - HyperLogos, an computing device embedded as an appliance of advanced nanotechnology into your brain stem. In the book the device is called called RENO and one communicates with it simply by summoning it (thinking to it, "RENO, search HyperLogos for design plans of war spaceships, priority 3"). Constrained personalities are constantly generated by your mind under pressure of external envinroment, but without some Real World analog of RENO they are usually supressed after fullfilling their task and you are not aware of their presence. In schizophrenia we have the opposite - one can be posessed by wild daimonions, resulting in multiple personality disorder. Applying techniques varying from usage of psychoactive drugs (entheogens), by a deep meditation up to self mutilation (self imposed pain)) one can gain limited contact with an autonomous constrained personality and then stabilize it in your RENO. With a help of a daimonion one can safely fully immerse oneself in a virtual reality interface to the cyberspace, while your body is kept safe by a temporarily controlling it daimonion.
See also
|
