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<p><b>New page</b></p><div>{{Short description|Term drawn from the idea of hardware or software}}<br />
{{Other uses|Wetware (disambiguation){{!}}Wetware}}<br />
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'''Wetware''' is a term drawn from the computer-related idea of [[Computer hardware|hardware]] or [[Computer software|software]], but applied to biological life forms.<br />
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==Usage==<br />
The prefix "wet" is a reference to the water found in living creatures. Wetware is used to describe the elements equivalent to hardware and software found in a person, especially the [[central nervous system]] (CNS) and the human [[mind]]. The term wetware finds use in works of [[fiction]], in scholarly publications<ref>{{cite book |last1=Russell |first1=Stephen |last2=Abdelzaher |first2=Tarek |title=MILCOM 2018 - 2018 IEEE Military Communications Conference (MILCOM) |chapter=The Internet of Battlefield Things: The Next Generation of Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (C3I) Decision-Making |year=2018 |pages=737–742 |doi=10.1109/MILCOM.2018.8599853 |isbn=978-1-5386-7185-6 |s2cid=57377070 |chapter-url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8599853}}</ref> and in popularizations.<ref>{{cite AV media |last=Dennett |first=Daniel |author-link=Daniel Dennett |date=2015-05-13 |df=mdy |title=Information, Evolution, and intelligent Design |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZX6awZq5Z0&t=436s |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211221/AZX6awZq5Z0 |archive-date=2021-12-21 |url-status=live|time=7m16s |publisher=[[Royal Institution]] |access-date=2021-08-12}}{{cbignore}}</ref><br />
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The "hardware" component of wetware concerns the [[bioelectric]] and [[biochemical]] properties of the CNS, specifically the [[brain]]. If the sequence of impulses traveling across the various [[neuron]]s are thought of symbolically as ''software'', then the physical neurons would be the ''hardware''. The amalgamated interaction of this ''software'' and ''hardware'' is manifested through continuously changing physical connections, and chemical and electrical influences that spread across the body. The process by which the ''mind'' and ''brain'' interact to produce the collection of experiences that we define as [[self-awareness]] is in question.{{citation needed|date=May 2017}}<br />
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==History==<br />
Although the exact definition has shifted over time, the term ''Wetware'' and its fundamental reference to "the physical mind" has been around at least since the mid-1950s. Mostly used in relatively obscure articles and papers, it was not until the heyday of [[cyberpunk]], however, that the term found broad adoption. Among the first uses of the term in popular culture was the [[Bruce Sterling]] novel ''[[Schismatrix]]'' ([[1985 in literature|1985]]) and the [[Michael Swanwick]] novel ''[[Vacuum Flowers]]'' ([[1987 in literature|1987]]).{{citation needed|date=May 2017}}<br />
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[[Rudy Rucker]] references the term in a number of books, including one entitled ''[[Wetware (novel)|Wetware]]'' ([[1988 in literature|1988]]): <blockquote>... all sparks and tastes and tangles, all its stimulus/response patterns – the whole bio-cybernetic software of mind.</blockquote> Rucker did not use the word to simply mean a brain, nor in the human-resources sense of employees. He used ''wetware'' to stand for the data found in any biological system, analogous perhaps to the firmware that is found in a [[read-only memory|ROM]] chip. In Rucker's sense, a seed, a plant graft, an embryo, or a biological virus are all wetware. DNA, the immune system, and the evolved neural architecture of the brain are further examples of wetware in this sense.<ref>{{cite book |title=[[Wetware (novel)|Wetware]] |last=Rucker |first=Rudy |authorlink=Rudy Rucker |series=[[Ware Tetralogy]] |location=New York |publisher=[[Avon Books]] |date=1988 |isbn=0-380-70178-2 |lccn=87-91688 |ol=7432394M}}</ref><br />
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Rucker describes his conception in a 1992 compendium ''The Mondo 2000 User's Guide to the New Edge'', which he quotes in a 2007 blog entry.<ref>{{cite web |last=Rucker |first=Rudy |authorlink=Rudy Rucker |date=2007-08-25 |df=mdy |url=http://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/2007/08/25/what-is-wetware/ |title=What is Wetware? |department=Rudy’s Blog |website=Rudy Rucker Portal |access-date=2021-08-09}}</ref><br />
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Early cyber-guru [[Arthur Kroker]] used the term in his blog.<ref>{{cite web |last=Kroker |first=Arthur |author-link=Arthur Kroker |date=1993-08-22 |df=mdy |title=RU Wetware? |department=Reviews |website=CTheory |url=http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=8 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200528141529/http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=8 |archive-date=2020-05-28}}</ref><br />
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With the term getting traction in trendsetting publications, it became a buzzword in the early 1990s. In 1991, Dutch media theorist [[Geert Lovink]] organized the Wetware Convention in [[Amsterdam]], which was supposed to be an antidote to the "out-of-body" experiments conducted in high-tech laboratories, such as experiments in [[virtual reality]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2007-10-03 |title=Wetware Convention |url=https://monoskop.org/Wetware_Convention |access-date=2014-08-31 |website= |quote=Event for techno-artists in 1991 in De Melkweg Amsterdam, organised by Franz F Feigl and Geert Lovink.}}</ref><br />
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[[Timothy Leary]], in an appendix to ''Info-Psychology'' originally written in 1975–76 and published in 1989, used the term ''wetware'', writing that "psychedelic neuro-transmitters were the hot new technology for booting-up the 'wetware' of the brain". Another common reference is: "Wetware has 7 plus or minus 2 temporary registers." The numerical allusion is to a classic 1957 article by [[George Armitage Miller|George A. Miller]], ''[[The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two|The magical number 7 plus or minus two: some limits in our capacity for processing information]]'', which later gave way to the [[Miller's law#In psychology|Miller's law]].{{citation needed|date=May 2017}}<br />
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==See also==<br />
{{div col|colwidth=20em}}<br />
* [[Biological computing]]<br />
* [[Biopunk]]<br />
* [[Brain–computer interface]]<br />
* [[Cybernetics]]<br />
* [[Cyberware]]<br />
* [[Grinder (biohacking community)|Biohacker]]<br />
* [[Grindhouse Wetware]]<br />
* [[Intelligence amplification]]<br />
* [[Liveware]]<br />
* [[Meatspace]]<br />
* [[Neurotechnology]]<br />
* [[Philosophy of mind]]<br />
* [[Wetware computer]]<br />
{{div col end}}<br />
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==References==<br />
{{reflist}}<br />
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==External links==<br />
{{wikt|wetware}}<br />
*[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7559150.stm Rat-brain robot aids memory study]<br />
*[http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9606/msg00026.html "Illegal Knowledge"] A text about wetware written by the writers' collective of which Lovink was a part<br />
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wetware (Brain)}}<br />
[[Category:Brain]]<br />
[[Category:Central nervous system]]<br />
[[Category:Artificial intelligence]]<br />
[[Category:Biopunk]]</div>wikipedia>Omnipaedista