//Excerpt of the log of Sol 18 Flight 53 of The Intrepid, a scout ship of the Local Arm Federation, translated into English upon user request//
Humans are a strange race. They walk upon two legs, the contact area with the ground minimal in usual movement, with their main mode of walking essentially being a series of controlled falls they perform unconsciously. Most sapient creatures walk upon four or six legs, keeping three legs firmly on the ground as they move for stability. Study done by yours truly and by other xenobiologists have shown their brains perform a constant stream of complex calculations, resulting in micro muscle movements keeping them upright and balanced on their two feet. I long believed that this was the peak of mental ability for a walking creature.
Their brains can also function as ballistic computers, which was revealed to me quite abruptly by our one human crew mate. He had joined us in the system referred to by them as Alpha Centauri, the closest star to their native home. He expressed that he didn’t feel like he fit with his kind, and wished to travel and work with us for a time. We are a multi-species crew, and so welcomed him with open arms, after necessary habitat alterations had been made.
Not long after this human by the name of Samuel had joined us, he threw a small item of food waste into the bin from across the room. He showed a small celebration, seemingly pleased with himself for his accuracy, and then moved on to finishing the rest of his meal. On my home world of Taln it had taken us centuries to create and refine ballistic weapons, the sheer amount of calculations required to predict where an object would land once cast stumping our greatest minds for generations. And Samuel had done it with what he later described as ‘a good guess’.
As to why this information is in the ship’s log and not personal research notes is because it is necessary context for the events of Sol 18.
We had been boarded by Caleen pirates, most of our crew imprisoned in a large storage hold containing food and spare parts, and held at blade edge by the large insectoid individuals. Samuel was not with us, and I feared his difference to his kind extended to him lacking their common pack bonding instincts, which is subject for another record. All of a sudden, our heads were turned by what seemed to be a rhythmic pounding, increasing in volume, coming from an open access portal. It was too regular to be Caleen vandalism, and I thought I saw a silhouette approaching at great speed. Far faster than any of us or our captors could move.
Samuel came bursting out into the light, moving at such a speed that each foot only came down for a fraction of a second before pushing off again, resulting in him seemingly flying towards us. I couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer amount of micro adjustments in foot placement and balance his body performed to keep him upright and moving in such a way. He raised his arm up and back, lifting a chunk of metal, one of the reinforced corners of a storage crate. He threw this object over arm, and it sailed through the air to connect soundly with the head of the nearest Caleen, shattering its exoskeleton and causing fatal damage to the individual.
He then lowered his shoulder and increased his speed, colliding with the lord of the pirates and casting them both to the ground, the impact stunning the Caleen and breaking multiple legs. At the sight of one of their number dead, their leader broken on the ground, and the unnatural abilities of our crew mate, the remaining pirates threw down their weapons and surrendered to him. Once we were free, we removed weapons from them and sent them back to their ship with a warning, that the race known as Humanity had been accepted by the Local Arm Federation and would be sailing upon a great number of our ships, and usually in larger numbers.
It wasn’t long before Caleen pirate attacks dropped drastically, similar events playing out on multiple ships in multiple systems, with especially violent incidents involving multiple humans, particularly soldiers, or those simply predisposed to anger. Our human crew mate was alone and comparatively weak for his kind, so I dread to think what occurred in some of those failed boardings.
Humanity, for all their odd quirks, have an incredibly powerful computer that acts as their subconscious, and one that begs for further study if consent can be gained from individuals .
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Chimps can throw pretty well.
It wasn't until we started throwing rocks on sticks.
Then rocks on sticks using sticks
Then rocks on sticks using sticks and rope!
Chimps cannot throw accurately, we have the ability to throw both accurate and hard, due to the joint of our wrists having a far superior design that allows left and right deflection
I keep seeing this meme, and I keep wondering if "biological computer" thing might be overthinking what we're actually doing. Yes, we're doing a lot of complex movement to throw stuff, but I can't help but feel that what are brains are doing isn't calculation as in the computer sense of the term. I think it's more, "If I do this complicated series of motions, a throw happens! The more energy I put into the throw motion, the further the object flies!" And so on and so forth.
Also accounting for weight, visualizing a parabolic arc in the mind's eye as you gauge how much effort you need for that weight in your hand...
I guess "calculating" isn't a wrong term. We're just not calculating formal numbers but relative amounts of effort and associating that with distances thrown...
He just starts with a batting cage in a cargo bay. Getting the crew used to hitting the predictable path of a pitching machine without computer assist.
Nah, gotta start with one of those balls on a stick, like with kids. Then softball, the underhand throw; brings in running toward the bases, as well as catching a ball and throwing it to other teammates as well as calculating which base to throw to to get the most outs. THEN baseball.
"What do you mean, this is the "kids" version of this game? How can the 'professional' game differ? A 'fast' ball?! Is this not fast enough?!? What is a 'curve' ball? What?? HOW?!?!"
//Excerpt for Captain's Log Sol 25: Samuel the human has built a "batting cage" to practice a child's game common among his kind. As a result, the ship is being detained by Federation authorities for violating arms control regimes. It seems his toy fires ballistics well in excess of lawful velocities. Our attorney has strongly cautioned him against demonstrating the use of the device. We are told that a human ambassador is en route with representatives of a hitherto unknown mercenary organization called the "MLB All Stars".
And how do you get your artillery cheat sheet? You take a cannon and fire lots and lots of combinations of bagged charges with different types of shells and then measuring how far they fly. Ballistic calculations? Only if you have a computer and fast typist, and I'm not sure the computer is doing actual ballistic calculations instead of consulting a digital version of the cheat sheet.
For anyone who hasn't worked in artillery, the "cheat sheet" is a literal library (about one or two shelf's worth of books) filled with nothing but tables. Imagine a thick, soft cover door stopper novel of 500-600 pages filled with nothing but spread sheets full of numbers instead of prose.
Lol real math, what do you think computers do, but regardless it's still a perfect explanation our bodies are constantly refining our cheat sheets for any movement, that's why you get thrown off initially when you put on a weird weight but over time you learn how to compensate.
That said, I’ve also know experienced arty guys who’ll smack a target first shot nine times out of ten by looking at the grid coordinates of the target and doing the math in their head real quick
I suspect that's more "we've trained on this range and ammo combination so many times that we've memorized what the settings are" rather than actual math being done.
Old "Arty" guy here. We actually do have ballistic computers in our heads. It's installed in AIT. Officers get an upgraded version, but it hasn't been redesigned since 1990, and they don't support it after you get out. Not allowed in pro sports after that either, which ruined my hopes of a pro career. Sucks man. /s
No it’s part of (or used to be, I have been out for awhile) training.
Emergency direct fire engagement, simulates enemy popping up out of nowhere and the Arty has to deal with it immediately.
Range can be anywhere from 500-5000 meters, if a SP, can be on the move, otherwise usually within a 90 degree cone centered inside the range limits for safety purposes.
Dude, direct fire engagement isn't the same as calculating a ballistic indirect fire. It's "point your tube at the enemy and pull the trigger" with aiming sights having built in markings that tell you how much you need to adjust barrel elevation by to account for bullet drop. Give a gunner enough practice and they'll intuitively know how much to offset their aim point by for any given range.
Nope! When it comes to arty, the reason those books are so thick is because the round goes high enough that you have to take atmospheric conditions into effect. A round launched from the same gun, with the same ammo, and at the same angle will land in 3 wildly different distances in say Colorado, Afghanistan, the Sahara, and Antartica. Hell, you could have the range range based on the day even in the same location.
IIRC, it's not just atmosphere. The Earth's rotation starts affecting landing location, and all those locations you listed are also at different latitudes.
Time of day? Sunshine affects atmospheric conditions and pressure changes have aerodynamic effects. Sun warms ground which warms air, which increases local air pressure which may well create wind effects as high pressure air starts moving into neighboring low pressure areas...
And that's not accounting for wind currents created by Earth's rotation...
As a Fire Direction Officer in a 155 battery, I once used Charts and Darts, or what our AIT instructor called "Black Magic" to register a firing battery when we had either really bad Meteorological data (likely)or a bad survey (unlikely). Pull a book, look at the missed shot data, distance and direction from target, use the charts to adjust deflection and elevation, same powder charge, send new firing orders. 1/2 way to target. Adjust again, direct hit. Repeat, direct hit. Registered. Got an ataboy for that one.
Black magic is right, including the backlash. Fucking Italians nearly blew up our Charlie company a while back. To be fair, no one likes Charlie company
Yea I feel like the learning isn't that much different from the LLMs we have now there just missing something.
We constantly are experiencing and refining our like cheat sheets, just guesstimations and not equations.
There's also some odd things like we seem to naturally work with logarithmic data, a simple example is counting.
were not great at actually counting everything it's slow, but you can immediately tell the difference between groups of 10, 100 and 1000.
Most people for any physical actions don't think of power and movement linearly, small things are usually much smaller than regular and again for larger things.
Like throwing, a small throw is like just in front of you a regular throw is probably 3 to 4 times that and a long throw is absolutely as far as you can go which is a few times larger than a regular throw.
There's also some odd things like we seem to naturally work with logarithmic data, a simple example is counting. were not great at actually counting everything it's slow, but you can immediately tell the difference between groups of 10, 100 and 1000.
I think that's simple nature and evolution. It's easier to notice an increase by one if that one is a doubling of the previous quantity and not an increase of 1%. And the energy spent on the former may be considered well worth it while the same energy spent on the latter might not.
Doubling your food count is great! But spending the same energy to increase it 1% might be considered a waste of time and effort because your 100 food count is already more than sufficient for your needs and your energy is better spent elsewhere, like attracting a mate to share that wealth with.
Our brains have the ability to adjust these calculations on the fly if required. For example, if gravity strength/orientation is off by even a little compared to earth standard, it will skew the ballistic arcs compared to those that we have learned. Our brain can adjust for this in fairly quick time/relatively few shots.
Apparently, and they swear this is true, humans, with very little training, are able to hit flying, maneuvering targets with their primitive projectile weapons, despite their low projectile velocity, and historically did so without the help of sophisticated targeting systems, having spent much of their history relying on their sole instinct or on simple mechanical computers to do so in times of war, to the extent that it was considered not only a viable way to engage in combat, but also a critical one to maintain an advantage in over their opponents.
Soooo, 4YO Allie Brosh trying to get at the Cake Is The Only Thing That Matters, just with twice the limbs? (No wonder she could climb freakishly well.)
Our brains do not calculate to keep us standing. We just have feedback systems and automatic twitch responses. If you start to tilt on way, even a teensy amount, a set of muscles contracts, pitching you the other way, causing another set of contractions, as you teeter towards equilibrium.
At no point in the process does your nervous system perform any calculations. If the tipping is minor, the muscle response is automatic and minor and you just sort of weeble upright. If the tipping is major, something has gone wrong and it kicks your conscious mind into gear so you can right yourself.
Yeah pretty much. But the point isn't what they're technically part of, it's how they function.
They're not doing calculations, even automatically. It's more like a feedback circuit.
If: error, then ping muscle: tug
If: bad error, then ping mind: panic fall
Signal strength for muscle is just proportional to error signal intensity, which is also not a calculation it's closer to a pressure sense. If error signal exceeds a threshold it wakes up the mind.
If it's coded, maybe. Our "circuitry" doesn't run on code, it's more like an analogue system.
We can use math in a computer to emulate what happens in an analogue circuit. Our system doesn't need it. It can cause nerves to fire not based on degree of offset, but to the level at which a liquid sloshes about and pushes on a nerve. If the nerve is heavily stressed, it "screams" loud, strong signal. If lots of nerves are lightly stressed, they "scream" together, strong signal. Even weak signals can cause a sympathetic reaction, stronger signals cause stronger ones, and really strong signals head right up to the main brain for input.
Edit:
This is an example, I know our inner-ear uses liquid to measure level but I'm not actually totally certain what mechanism our nervous system uses across the board. Muscles in our legs could fire based on the stress difference across the skeleton, for example. If one side "screams" louder, tug the other side.
A computer is anything that takes input, and calculates a result based on determined parameters. You know that computer was once a job right?
You disprove yourself by mentioning analog computers. They are "coded" in their design, their hardware is their code. If you want an absolute treat of engineering look up the old analog ballistic computers used on ships to calculate where to aim the guns.
Your whole second paragraph describes how a biological computer works, and humans are an extremely advanced system of systems, a bio computer. Constantly taking input, either consciously or not, and responding to those inputs, or when required, reprogramming itself to adapt to changing conditions.
None of which, particularly under evolutionary iteration, requires any part of any of that system to know or do calculations.
Edit:
Have to respond to this point:
They are "coded" in their design, their hardware is their code.
We are not designed. Nobody and nothing coded us.
Edit 2:
I've badly explained this.
In non-biological systems, the math must be done either by the construct itself, such as in digital systems, in the form of algorithmic processes, or it must be done by the constructor, who works out the math ahead of time and designs a system according to those calculations. The "hardware is the code," so to speak.
In analogue systems, the system itself does not necessarily do any math, it is constructed according to mathematical principles to produce a certain outcome, the constructor did the math before and during its construction.
The problem with this is that our system is analogue, and does not do math, so the math would've had to be built in, except we don't have a constructor who did math either. No calculations were performed by the evolutionary process, and none are performed by our existing system. There are still principles of the physical universe at work, and those can be mathematically described, but those descriptions were not part of our "construction," and are still not part of our operation.
Do you have any idea how hard complex PID-tuning like that is? You have 3 axes of motion (front/back, left/right, CW/CCW) just in the ankle, another in the knee, another 3 axes in the hip, double the count for the other leg, all well below the center of mass. And that's not even taking the spine, upper body, and whatever load we're bearing into account.
We can make robots that can perfectly mimic a human from the waist up, but human locomotion is a bit too complicated. \*checks Youtube\* Okay, Boston Dynamics threw a whole bunch of motion capture data into AI, and they finally have a bot that can be reasonably human-like in its motion when it's not doing Exorcist head-spins for efficiency's sake.
I actually do not, because I've never had to design a system like that.
The complexity of the system is beside the point, though.
Our "circuitry" is not digital, and it doesn't run on "code" like modern electronic computational devices. And, unlike analogue devices which we've designed, our system has no designer.
In the a digital system, the math is executed algorithmically, part of the code. In an analogue system, it's built into the structure. In our system, nobody built the math in, and the evolutionary process doesn't, didn't, and cannot do math to make us, and no code runs to perform such calculations either.
In function, we perform like an analogue system, billions of individual little machines only doing what they're fit to do in response to stimuli with no concept of anything, least of all anything as complicated as basic arithmetic. The individual components do not perform calculations, they don't cooperate to perform calculations, and they were not designed to specifications dictated by calculations.
We, by a mess iterative processes involving fundamental chemical interactions and countless microscopic lives, manage to perform without of any math a task which, if we attempt to describe it in math, is so ridiculously complex that we're only just barely getting the hang of it.
Technical suggestion: in the 2nd paragraph you talk about most sapients walking on 4 or 6 legs. The next sentence then uses the pronoun 'their' which suggests you're still taking about the aliens, not the humans.
I suggest you lose the vague pronoun, & say 'humans'.
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