True in general, but the system at play here could be in tandem instead of simultaneous. It could be a dissonant-through-cyberware net-virus that merely sends control through the attached meat, which would then affect a degree of whatever was part of that person (like being Awakened).
Mirikon also pointed out something like that.
One thing there is still is that possessed TM can't use their abilities. It wouldn't do in the other direction, too, if it was really some kind of possession I guess. But it is metagame thinking. I guess that they would not want to break the parallels between magic and technomancy.
part of your personnality is genetic,
and part of your behavior related to the way your brain structures are organized, which is at first decided by genetics as well as informations acquired by environmental stimuli)
As this is part of my degree, I can tell you that genetics do not make the personality - although some people explain it like this, it's a grossly inaccurate oversimplification. More accurately, it forms some very wide borders on what our personality can develop, as well as occasionally facilitating certain personality development.
Well, I said parts, and I am very well aware of that. But as with examples like some people having an allele being completely immune to some kind of addictions while others are exposed to ten years earlier onsets, or the fact that borderline, schizophrenic, antisocial and thrill-seeking personalities are more bound to be driven in addiction, or that some gene alleles increase the risk of having some or other neurosis and so on, you can easily imagine that what is true for pathologies is true also for the basal working of the brain. And, also, that what is valid assessment for all cognitive processing like "music/face recognition", "memory reinforcement", "conditioning sensitivity", praxia, and so on, could also be for more "emotive" functions. In any case, our personality is also widely a product of our own personal abilities, because we are bound by our own abilities to interpret signals and stimuli of our environment.
So I would not set these borders as wide as you do. Tests showed that depending on individual abilities, there are schemes of learning that lead easily to improvement or frustration. And guess what? In some conditions, there are no taylored teaching, so a whole part of people in these conditions are literaly left apart (and potentially, driven in a state where they can't learn properly basics, be it reading, writing or so on, and it could apply also on "relational skills" and "personality"). Indeed, that's a combination of environment and background and genetics, but it means that genetics still play a good part, with alleles granting us some levels of abilities in differents mental tools. There is not so much of exceptional people because it usually makes them dysfonctional in some way, but evolution did, in some way, select a level of intelligence and abilities that is balanced for us being able to overcome problems with our smarts while not being overwhelmed by it. Because at times, you just have to be a grunt, fight your way, break things, steal the day without being too empathic, and get the girl.
So there are not a lot of variability for each tool and that flatten differences, which makes people relatively equal to become anybody depending on the environment, but as with combinations of variable things, sometimes differences add up in some directions and go beyond the regular boundaries.
At least, that's my theory, for the last part, the beginning being a lot of proven things by people before me.
It hope this is not too grossly and inaccurately oversimplified for you;)
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At first I came back to this thread in order to speak about something else:
reading Nath's unofficial Storm Front errata proposition on the board, the "Ada" name rang some bells.
Is there a link with Ada lovelace (
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace), or even better, with Gibson and Williams "The Difference Engine "
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Difference_Engine)?If there was, well, the topic being "computer science" and its potentiality, well I guess that it would fit to Sybil virus.
And Oh shit, as I write I guess I stroke some spot, because the history follows Sybil Gerard, a political courtesan and daughter of an executed Luddite leader (she is borrowed from Disraeli's novel Sybil).
And spoil about the history;[spoiler]she has multiple identities, there is some degrees of alternate reality involved and some very powerful computer mac guffing in the form of punched cards. Sybil's name is itself drawn from this book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_%28novel%29 where the story is about exploitation and society divides[/spoiler]
While the stories contents are not indeed the same than the storyline for Sybil virus, I guess there could be some degree of inspiration from these real facts, not that it will help more regarding Shadowrun to know what is really going on.
But I think there is really something.
Edit: my looking made me found so far some relationship of Ada to "Gödel's theorems (at least in Gibson/Williams book).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theoremThey are also known as "incompleteness theorem".
I wonder if now I saw some kind of relationship I am making all these up or if that makes sense for someone else?
Edit 2: I had another question; I was under the feeling that something in Wolf's entity post on Jackpoint was familiar, but I don't have a photographic memory anymore and not very used to english literature in original version, so maybe my feeling recognizes some meaning but not exact words because I read the translated version of the book where some sentence was picked up...
But there is more meaning to this than just a straight manifesto. There is more symbolism to it because of relationship with a previous work, I guess?
