Reinart Saelzar was born in Shekland, Shekland. He is well known for his work towards the development of the memoizer as well as cognitive sciences in general. He completed his undergraduate degree in advanced electronics manufacturing, he then went on to complete a doctorate in biochemistry. His thesis revolved around Generalized Consciousness Modeling (GCM), a theoretical method of abstracting human experiences to a “language” which could be analyzed
Career
After completing his doctorate Saelzar began work where he was expedited to Shekland Senior, and began his work on cognitive plastics. Initially he managed to develop a simplified General Consciousness Model that would allow for a half a dozen conscious states to be represented (Hunger, anger, cold, hot, soft, hard). These states could be represented and mapped to any valid location on the body (i.e. something soft on one’s hand). With this encoded representation Saelzar continued to develop cognitive plastics, a relatively simplistic gel inlayed initially with gold wiring. Applying currents and magnetic fields at different ratios allowed for “replaying” of these experiences that mimic neurotransmitters in the gel. Unfortunately these initial models were only possible to allow computer analysis, and had no way of interfacing with people. The initial prototypes were very similar structurally to human brains:
As time went on it more complex and efficient models were developed via the contributions of many researchers including Dr. Mark Seaborne. This allowed the devices themselves (now being called memoizers), to be made more compact
While the generalized model was Dr. Saelzar’s primary concern, the plastics could record states exactly. The initial research was primarily used to store patient data for medical diagnostics. If patients mental states could be fully stored it could give doctors a chance to test against the baseline for potential mental disorders. Likewise it would allow for a catalogue of patient data to be developed, which could be used in diagnostics in the future.
The ambitions of Saelzar were a bit more abstract. After Dr. Melinda Carthwright’s breakthrough’s, Saelzar recognized the technologies potential as a medium for communication as well as diagnostics. Unfortunately as time went on it became clear that experience engineering carried risks, both to the engineers, and the consumers of experiences. As such Dr. Saelzar began working on various safety mechanisms including serialized mood dampeners. These dampeners adjusted the brain responses, and provided profiles to make experiences more and less intense. For more extreme experiences the dampeners could be turned up to reduce the chances of harm.
His research continued, but he required several sabbaticals to manage treatment of neurodegenerative astrozyia. He later returned to his research focused on on synthetic experience engineering (experience engineering without people). This would allow the ability to avoid many of the issues associated with experience engineering, and it’s dangers at the time. Unfortunately only months after he returned he was killed. Dr. Saelzar died during the first shekland massacre of 6 gunshots.
Publications
List shortened for brevity
- Representing consciousness; An exploration into a standard (paper)
- Generalized Consciousness Modeling (GCM); A method for storing the mind (Paper)
- Saelzar-Seaborne GCM compression (paper)
- Cognitive plastics; Storing Cognitive States effectively (paper)
- Experience engineering; A sociological view at it’s consequences (paper)
- Thinking plastics (interview transcript)
- Mood Dampeners; A step towards experience safety (paper)
- Responsible experience development (Textbook)
- Synthetic Experience Engineering; A theoretical approach to generating experiences without the danger (paper)
- Cognitive plastics: A simple introduction (Textbook)