the distinction does not seem so clear in your mental processes
Well, in certain ways it exists. If I’m trying to figure out how to fix a broken thingy, my imagination tends to stick within the realm of the plausible. But in other ways, not necessarily—for example, I don’t see much, if any, difference between imagining a deer standing in the middle of a forest meadow and imagining a unicorn in the same place.
I guess you can even conceptualize progress as movement of “things” from the realm of the fantastical into the realm of the plausible.
For me, there is a big difference. It’s something like a mode of thinking—“is it plausible? could it happen? push toward the real” vs “is it interesting? is it exciting? freely explore the space”. The first mode of thinking sees the unicorn and starts thinking: This does not seem very plausible as a genetic modification. Is the horn grafted on, perhaps? Does that work with the skull structure of a horse, or is there not enough foundation to stick it to? What about the skin healing, next to the horn? How does that work? Would it heal over properly, or remain like an open wound?
The second mode says—just how magical is this unicorn? There are a lot of levels to this. It could be anything from a horse with a horn to a godlike thing which can zap stuff in and out of existence. If it’s the godlike thing, it probably isn’t very smart or goal-driven; otherwise it would reshape everything to its whim. Maybe it only uses the powers in defense, and occasionally on a whim.
I think it’s implausible with current or near-future genetic engineering. I am far from an expert on this, but I believe we can transfer chemical/metabolic capabilities between organisms, and I believe we can transfer many trats haphazardly, but to put a horn in a specific place and leave everything else untouched? This would involve designing a whole new growth point (“growth point” may not be quite the right concept). You’d have genes that activate only when on the forehead, in a very specific pattern which does not presently exist. Sure, if we could manipulate genes like code we could take the code for this from another animal—all the activation patterns needed to grow a horn. But then we’d need to find a way to turn them on only at the specific point desired.
The easiest way might be to try and cross in rhino genes. This could produce a hybrid animal with some horse features and some rhino features. It would have many aspects of the rhino shape all throughout the body, and eliminating these without reducing the horn would be difficult. And a rhino horn isn’t really like a unicorn horn.
Perhaps narwal genes, but that sounds even more haphazard.
Current genetic engineering, yes, but 50 or 100 years from now? Remember, we’re talking not about what’s viable now, but rather what’s plausible and a unicorn is very plausible biologically—it’s merely technical difficulties which prevent us from creating one.
I take this as a statement that the distinction does not seem so clear in your mental processes.
Which is interesting.
Yeah… I am now of this position as well.
Well, in certain ways it exists. If I’m trying to figure out how to fix a broken thingy, my imagination tends to stick within the realm of the plausible. But in other ways, not necessarily—for example, I don’t see much, if any, difference between imagining a deer standing in the middle of a forest meadow and imagining a unicorn in the same place.
I guess you can even conceptualize progress as movement of “things” from the realm of the fantastical into the realm of the plausible.
For me, there is a big difference. It’s something like a mode of thinking—“is it plausible? could it happen? push toward the real” vs “is it interesting? is it exciting? freely explore the space”. The first mode of thinking sees the unicorn and starts thinking: This does not seem very plausible as a genetic modification. Is the horn grafted on, perhaps? Does that work with the skull structure of a horse, or is there not enough foundation to stick it to? What about the skin healing, next to the horn? How does that work? Would it heal over properly, or remain like an open wound?
The second mode says—just how magical is this unicorn? There are a lot of levels to this. It could be anything from a horse with a horn to a godlike thing which can zap stuff in and out of existence. If it’s the godlike thing, it probably isn’t very smart or goal-driven; otherwise it would reshape everything to its whim. Maybe it only uses the powers in defense, and occasionally on a whim.
Given narwhals, I don’t see much in the way of biological problems with unicorns.
I think it’s implausible with current or near-future genetic engineering. I am far from an expert on this, but I believe we can transfer chemical/metabolic capabilities between organisms, and I believe we can transfer many trats haphazardly, but to put a horn in a specific place and leave everything else untouched? This would involve designing a whole new growth point (“growth point” may not be quite the right concept). You’d have genes that activate only when on the forehead, in a very specific pattern which does not presently exist. Sure, if we could manipulate genes like code we could take the code for this from another animal—all the activation patterns needed to grow a horn. But then we’d need to find a way to turn them on only at the specific point desired.
The easiest way might be to try and cross in rhino genes. This could produce a hybrid animal with some horse features and some rhino features. It would have many aspects of the rhino shape all throughout the body, and eliminating these without reducing the horn would be difficult. And a rhino horn isn’t really like a unicorn horn.
Perhaps narwal genes, but that sounds even more haphazard.
Current genetic engineering, yes, but 50 or 100 years from now? Remember, we’re talking not about what’s viable now, but rather what’s plausible and a unicorn is very plausible biologically—it’s merely technical difficulties which prevent us from creating one.
Touché!
It seems worth considering that I might benefit from specifically practicing being imaginative, or otherwise modifying my “two modes” thought pattern.