The statements made at the end of the last section would seem to be unrealistic. The conventional use of text documents gives no hint or suggestion that they could acquire an intelligence or could take control of anything.
Leaving aside for the moment the question of intelligence (until later chapters), just consider the element of control.
We have seen already that text documents can act like viruses and use the cell's built in code engine to create objects of any design and install them into the RAM space of a biotelemorphic cell.
Now think what would happen if one document could call another and that document could call yet another. Imagine a whole sequence of different documents being called upon to add their input to an avatar being created in the biotelemorphic cell.
This process could go on indefinitely to produce any desired order of object oriented complexity within the cell.
We are now going to demonstrate this principle; nothing complicated: just enough to show you a proof of concept. We are going to get a few documents calling each other to create objects which communicate with each other and the computer screen. The documents will then hand back control to the human who initiated the process.
Figure 2.11 show the schematic of what we are going to do. We are going to send ourselves a set of emails which can be used to manipulate the cell's code, create and communicate with objects in the cell put a few messages on screen before handing back control.
Figure 2.11
Documents calling each other and setting up objects to control a biotelemorphic cell involving sending messages to the screen
In total we are going to use five emails. Always, the first document has to be called and activated by the human user.
This first human activated document (the email shown in figure 2.9 of the previous section) carries the message to activate the humanOverRide object which then acts on the message to read in the parsed text of a second email. The text of this second email is shown in figure 2.12.
Figure 2.12
The second email sets up another object in the RAM space of the biotelemorphic cell and then sends a message to the humanOverRide object to read in another email
The second email is read in by the humanOverRide object which parses out any unwanted instructions or text. The instructions tell the cell's engine code to record the action details and the time in the "Input" field and then install a parent script called "Joker" into the "dummy" member's scriptText and from this create an object named joker.
As you will see from the script in figure 2.12, the joker object is capable of answering just one joke, the answer of which it returns to whatever object or document asked the question. Also, every time the joker object is asked to answer a joke it will send a message to the cell's engine to record that it was in action and the time it was in action in the "Input" field displayed on screen.
Now here is the cunning trick which maintains control with the documents. The last line of the text document sends a message to the humanOverRide object and tells it to load in another text document for more instructions.
The second email effectively transfer control to the third email which is shown in figure 2.13.
Figure 2.13
The second email hands over control to the third email which sets up a global called "pocket" and another object called "clock"
The third email's text is read in by the humanOverRide object and the parsed instructions sent to the cell's code engine.
These instructions set up a global called pocket and installs another object in RAM named clock.
The presence of the third email is then noted in the pocket global and then the humanOverRide object is then sent a message to transfer control to the fourth email.
The text of the fourth email is shown in figure 2.4.
Figure 2.14
The fourth email sets up an object "answerMan" which has a communication link to the Joker object. It then asks the clock object the time before recording its presence in the cell.
The fourth email contains the instructions which gets the biotelemorphic cell to install another object (answerMan) in RAM which can communicate with the Joker object.
This fourth document then gets the time from the clock object and records this time and details of its activity in the pocket global.
As before, this fourth object keeps the cell under document control by instructing the humanOverRide object to get further instructions from email document number 5 (see figure 2.15).
Figure 2.15
The fifth email uses all the objects placed in the cell by the other emails and puts the appropriate messages on screen. It then relinquishes control to the human
Instructions in the fifth email utilize many of the objects set up by the other emails. The log held in the global pocket is displayed on screen in the "Input" field.
A dialogue box with the question "What noise annoys an oyster?" is presented on screen (using the alert command contained in the cell's Lingo code engine). See figure 2.16.
Figure 2.16
The fifth email asks a question
The question is sent to the answerman object which gets the answer from the joker object. The return is displayed in another alert dialog box (see figure 2.17)
Figure 2.17
Objects, placed into RAM by other emails, combine to supply an answer to the fifth email's question.
The final appearance of the screen, recording the various activities and the final signing off are shown in figure 2.18.
Figure 2.18
Appearance of the screen after control is handed back to human control. It shows the actions of the various emails which have taken part in controlling the activity of the cell.
Although the activity and accomplishments of these five emails have been trivial, they should have been sufficient to give you an inkling of the potential power of biotelemorphic cells.
These are the salient points to note at this stage:
1) Apart from the small amount of programming involved in the "portal" document the cell was virtually devoid of any prior programming or set up.
2) Control over the cell, including the sophisticated use of its Lingo code engine, was arranged through ordinary text documents of the type which could be sent over the Internet or down-loaded from a Web page.
3) Once the "portal" document is set in place, all programming can be arranged without the need for any special authoring package or environment. This allows documents to be able to program and manipulate the cell.
4) Once the control of the cell is handed over to the documents they can keep control until they break the link themselves.
5) Through the single "dummy" cast member (the stepping stone) in the portal document, all kinds of objects can be introduced into RAM by the documents. Only the limitation of the RAM size of the biotelemorphic cell will limit the number and sizes of these objects (notice particularly that once an object is created in RAM there is no longer any need for its parent script to hang around, which can be written over or removed).
6) Objects in RAM, the text documents documents and the cell's Lingo code engine can all communicate with each other and send messages and other data to the screen.
7) The objects can be of any desired complexity, containing enumerable handlers to handle a variety of messages and carry out all kinds of computations, repetitions and logical operations.
8) Most important of all is that the center of gravity of what goes on inside the biotelemorphic cell is taken outside of the cell itself. The planning, the intelligence, the vectors of implementation and the control can be far away from the cell. The cell is used merely as a device to manifest whatever avatar phenomenon is propagated.
copyright 1997 Peter Small - No part of this document can be used or reproduced in any form without express permission
Details of book, CD-ROM and online continuation - peter@genps.demon.co.uk