>El, on thinking about this, I'm going to have to disagree
>wholeheartedly

Well, you do take the opposing side on pretty much every philisophical debate we've ever taken part in, so it's not entirely a surprise... ;>

>Me, I'll take eyes and a datajack.

Let me keep the eyes. I like my eyes. Okay, I've got a slight vision problem that will get worse over time, I know. But one of my most distinct features when meeting me in person is my eyes, and I'm not so annoyed with my vision problems so that I'll want to tamper with them. I'll wear glasses, thanks.

>...jacking directly into a computer would affect
>you. The environment would be shaped to fit how humans interact with
>the world, a goal that GUI developers have been working on for about
>thirty years. Visual icons are easier to learn than text-based
>commands, and a full-immersion environment would be even easier to
>learn, and potentially much faster than even a command-line interface.

Again, much like the debate I've been having with Gryph: it's well within the realm of possibility that there'd be no effect on your thought processes whatsoever. But we're mucking about with serious stuff, plugging a human brain directly into a computer, and I'd not be so certain that there won't be any side effects. Even a sufficiently godlike and realistic GUI would have its own little quirks, its own ways of operating, and given enough time you'd start to act by those rules.

Though I finished the series a few months ago and my memories a bit fuzzy, I believe Tad Williams touches on this in his Otherland quartet. I know some of the characters mirror my own feelings on the situation, at least.
-Eliot "It's not my writing, so it's not a shameless plug" Lefebvre
-=()=-
We're only given a little time in our lives to waste. Make the most of it.
Electronic Transcendance Productions
Producer of, um, stuff for an unspecified time-period.