(Leah has an interactive discussion strictly focused around a project involving the construction of a robotic Sirian arm. She starts with just a frame and simple control to an arm able to work in a radioactive environment. The purpose of the discussion is an example of how to build up the mental processes.) 

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Leah: hello.

Russ: hello Leah.

Leah: how's it going?

Russ: good my dear, yourself?

Leah: good, excellent.

Russ: glad to hear that dear.

Leah: uh-huh. It's nice having my little sister around for extra time.

Russ: oh yeah, I'm happy for you two.

Leah: uh-huh okay, what are we to talk about?

Russ: well I suppose I should probably get off the subject I'm working on because that'll just take up too much time but......

Leah: how much time do you have on your recording device?

Russ: oh I've got half, a little more than half a tape.

Leah: okay so we do have.....

Russ: I've got about probably looks like 30 minutes maybe?

Leah: okay.

Russ: theoretically.

Leah: uh-huh, theoretically. Okay, theoretical mind exercises for increasing thought processes......thought actions. Karra got me thinking about that.

Russ: okay.

Leah: being an engineer, I have to do a lot of skull work and how that works for me. Okay, skull work is where I take a problem and I try to work it through in my mind to see how it will go. For example, let us say I have to construct a replica of an arm okay?

Russ: replica of a what?

Leah: a replica of an arm.

Russ: arm, oh arm.

Leah: a Sirian arm.

Russ: okay.

Leah: okay? How would I do it? How would it work? Well, by applying pressure here and here to make it move like this, how do I do that? How do you make that work? And what I do to help in the thought process is first of all, I go and read on the arm, what does it look like? I'll pull up holos of the muscle structure, the bone structure and I will strip it down to its barest essence of just the bone and then I will add in things. Now having seen how this works, I won't get the hologram to manipulate it and make it move, I will try to figure out how it moves, why it moves and what muscles do what to make it move. Now, here's the entertaining part. Having figured out how this part, the upper arm and the lower arm work together to make it to do this to bend, okay now for the replica that I'm making.....the robotic replica of a Sirian arm, you've got to do the fingers. How do you do the fingers? How do you make them move the way that they do? Now I've only looked at this part, this is where it gets hard and entertaining, if you call it entertainment. What I do.....did I make his body move completely there?

Russ: uh-huh, a little bit.

Leah: okay, what I do is, I would make miniature replicas of the fingers.......or not the fingers, of the arm as fingers and connect them all together. Yes this is something I have done.

Russ: hmmm.

Leah: I made a robotic arm years ago.

Russ: now how's this have to do with the mental processes?

Leah: well because the first part is visual, this part, is done in here. I have to work out how to make these puppies work. Now constructing it is part of the mental process because you have to know where things are going to go. You have to have a pre-planned idea whether it is written down or held in your mind or stored as images is all controlled from here. You have to make the decisions and in building it, you have to.......you have to what? You have to....look at the images or decide where things go so that is done mentally which takes reasoning. If you were to let's say connect this muscle to here, it's not going to do this is it?

Russ: uh-uh.

Leah: because this muscle here has to tighten as this muscle loosens. I'm having difficulty with your language tonight, you might've noticed that.

Russ: no problem.

Leah: where do you attach the muscle to make it do that? Well if you attach it here and here, you can make it as tense as you want and with the one here and here, you can make it as loose you want. It's not going to do anything so what do you do? You have to attach it in the correct places which is done by making the correct decisions in your mind by doing the correct research and trying to figure things out.

Russ: and to see it all in your mind as one piece with all the interconnecting parts once you have it all figured out.........

Leah: uh-huh.

Russ: before it ever takes any physical form.

Leah: correct, that is part of increasing the thought processes is practicing to be able to see it in your mind. That to be able to hold it in your mind, look at it, spin it, rotate it, turn it and think through each process.

Russ: now apply that to life and what do you get?

Leah: that's the next stage.

Russ: right.

Leah: let us get back to the robotic arm.

Russ: okay.

Leah: what uses would a robotic arm do?

Russ: well it would work in a hazardous environment for uses where you could not use a regular arm.

Leah: uh-huh.

Russ: for example in micro engineering or just regular nuclear or biological work where a regular arm might be destroyed using it........

Leah: correct.

Russ: but you need the tactile senses or the ability to use the digital qualities of an arm to manipulate the pieces that you're working with.

Leah: uh-huh, correct. Now having constructed your artificial arm, your robotic arm, you have to think of what uses as you've just pointed out. Now, the next stage from that because you have think, okay what's the next stage from the uses?

Russ: are we using tactile senses though with those arms or it's just a dead arm?

Leah: well it's a nonsensical arm at this point let us say. It's a dead arm, it has no senses.

Russ: okay.

Leah: the next stage is, okay how do we improve it and make it do what it's supposed to do?

Russ: add tactile senses.

Leah: correct. Now, having been able to get the tactile senses, how do we improve that?

Russ: you attach it to your brain.

Leah: correct.

Russ: so that you have the input that you need to make the correct decisions based on the tactile senses that you receive from those particular nerves or receptors.

Leah: uh-huh but let us say that that you are dealing with radioactive material.

Russ: uh-huh.

Leah: you can't go in there with your robotic arm and just pick it up and move around because the radiation is going to make your body decay correct? It's going to become radioactive.

Russ: it doesn't matter, it's a robotic arm.

Leah: yes but you're saying that it's attached to you.

Russ: from a set of leads that you're in a safe room.

Leah: okay, now we're getting somewhere. How is it attached?

Russ: well it's attached in the way that your helmets are able to input any thought.......through a helmet system where it's attached to your brain.

Leah: uh-huh.

Russ: having the leads going into your helmet.

Leah: okay, and it's attached to your brain.

Russ: just like the pilots fly the ships.

(the base pilots)

Leah: how's it attached to your brain?

Russ: how is it attached to your brain? It's attached to your brain through the helmet. The leads go into your helmet so you are able to use the arm and feel the senses as if it was your real arm.

Leah: okay, how?

Russ: well now see the helmets we're getting into a whole technological area that Kiri hasn't quite made common knowledge to me just as yet.

Leah: and for a very good reason.

Russ: well yeah correct, I mean I could make a number of hazardous guesses on how it works.

Leah: okay, let's hear your hazardous guesses.

Russ: well, the hazardous guesses I have is that the probes that are inserted into the brain once you have the helmet on attach themselves to various parts of your brain that have to do with motor control, sensory functions, endorphin and so on releasing of various chemicals in your body and so therefore one of the leads or many of the leads coming in from the arm would have to attach to the probe that directly receives sensory input.

Leah: so you're saying that you think that the......how it actually penetrates into the skull, through the skull into the brain.

Russ: correct.

Leah: hmmmm.

Russ: and you'd have to have some leads that went from sensory input to the brain and others that went to motor control in the brain so that you could control the actual arm movement going on.

Leah: I'll have to talk to Kiri about this but I don't think they work that way.

Russ: yeah like I say, Kiri's not been real open-minded about sharing all this information with me.

Leah: probably for a reason.

Russ: well of course, Omal would fire her little tush.

Leah: uh-huh. So.......

Russ: so under pain of having Kiri's tush fried, I have to make these radical, hazardous guesses.

Leah: hmmm.

Russ: but I know that I'm fairly well right because I've been to points where they've had helmets taken off and unfortunately they left rather nasty little pinpricks afterwards.

(from my flight training with Karra's son Nazreal in his search and rescue craft)

Leah: uh-huh.

Russ: where they were taken off suddenly let's say.

Leah: uh-huh.

Russ: so I'm assuming they do pierce the skin.

Leah: I think it's safe to say that they do pierce the skin, as for the skull, I don't think so.

Russ: maybe not the skull.

Leah: uh-huh, I don't think so.

Russ: but how they get through the sensory inputs through the skull to the brain itself without actually going through the skull, I have to assume is possibly nonmetals.

Leah: I've got Tia looking at me very concerned.

Russ: I can imagine we're deep into gray areas now.

Leah: uh-huh and I think.....

Russ: you start making hazardous guesses then we're both in trouble.

Leah: it would be best if.......I'm reading here.......if I.......if I..........

(I start laughing)

Russ: dropped the bloody subject.

Leah: if I.......oh, let it go, okay.

Russ: same "ting".

Leah: uh-huh.

Russ: nice try.

Leah: Tia was going......okay, she says if you want, she can go and get Kiri to....

Russ: no, I've already worn a helmet, I already know what they do.

Leah: uh-huh. Okay, but you see that by what we've just done.

Russ: right.

Leah: we've done the mind exercise.

Russ: right.

Leah: now the thing is, how to construct the helmet.

Russ: oh Tia's going drop, drop, drop, drop.

Leah: no, no, no, no, I'm taking it as a mental exercise.

Russ: okay, how do we construct the helmet?

Leah: yes, this is......and I'm not going to......I'm going to tell you how to go through the thought processes. Okay, first of all you visualize the outer shell.

Russ: uh-huh.

Leah: okay, you visualize and think about what you want it to do. Okay you want it to control an object.

Russ: I want to receive images and sensory input and control the object.

Leah: correct. Okay, I was going to get to that before you so politely interrupted.

Russ: my mistake.

Leah: okay, you have it doing what you have said. Okay, how do you get it to do that without causing irreversible harm?

Russ: well it has to act as a....

Leah: no, no don't interrupt, I'm being deliberate.

Russ: oh I'm sorry, sorry.

Leah: okay, how do you get it to do that without causing harm? How do you achieve that goal? And finally, which sucker do you get to be the test pilot? All very important processes in the thought process. Even before you build it, you have to know how you're going to build it, how it's going to work, what it's going to do. Because it's no good building something with no idea on what it's going to do, no idea on how it works. What's the point of doing it if you don't know that? You see?

Russ: uh-huh.

Leah: so how do you do these things? So you have to, when you're doing a thought exercise is, you see the end product and how it's going to look without seeing the internal mechanisms, you think about how you're going to build the mechanism. What materials are you going to need? How are you going to construct it? What's its function? How are you going to achieve that function in the safest possible way and who are you going to get to test it? Because it's useful to have the test pilot from the get-go. Because if you're going to build it, you want to custom make it so it fits snugly for them to start off with. Then you can mass-produce it from there.

Russ: in essence, let's take this cycle over here in front of me.

(an elliptical cross trainer in the room)

Leah: okay.

Russ: all right, I'm sure you see it on the monitor okay?

Leah: uh-huh.

Russ: all right, someone had to know what exactly they wanted to do with this.

Leah: uh-huh.

Russ: they had it in their mind, probably without the shell, they just had the basic function of what each item was going to do.

Leah: uh-huh.

Russ: and they had the end product figured out what it was going to do.

Leah: uh-huh.

Russ: from there, they had to construct each internal mechanism that would make it do the end product.

Leah: uh-huh.

Russ: once they had that down, then they had to figure out the external parts that would make the internal parts that would come up to the final function that they were talking about.

Leah: well from what I see on it is, it's basically a lever like this way, with a lever across, swinging bars and a bar on the bottom.

Russ: right.

Leah: okay, pivots, ratchets and so on, very primitive, very simple. The bars from the top with the loop arm and down and across are all cosmetic. You can do away with them, it's cosmetics.

Russ: sure.

Leah: but cosmetics are pleasing to the eye.

Russ: uh-huh.

Leah: so you have to factor in how to use the cosmetics for a function. You have to stand on them and use them as levers.

Russ: well as with your robotic arm, first off you have to see the end product. Before you can do that, the end product is all cosmetics.

Leah: uh-huh.

Russ: you've got to start with a framework.

Leah: correct. When I say the end products I don't include cosmetics.

Russ: right.

Leah: I see the end product as....

Russ: well I see it with the cosmetics, I see with the flesh and flesh color and fingernails.

Leah: that's unimportant, that's cosmetics.

Russ: I know, that's the end product though I see.

Leah: yeah that's not my end product. My end product is creating the arm and make it functioning, make it work as I want it to work. What you do with it after that is up to you. If you throw flesh, slap some paint on it, put finger...fingernails on there, fine but I've done my job which is creating a mechanism that works. However, if the cosmetics interfere and make it so it doesn't work, then I get involved again.

Russ: right.

Leah: okay, anything else?

Russ: that's it.

Leah: okay.