From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Thu Mar 15 2001 - 12:09:06 MST
In a message dated 3/15/2001 1:45:46 PM Eastern Standard Time,
talon57@well.com writes:
<< Well as the famous quote by some visionary goes, if a group of
distinguised scientists say something isn't going to ever occur,
bet on it happening....
Brian >>
Good quote, but it sounds more like one of Arthur C. Clarke's observations.
I would say that there are discrepancies in which researchers decide
something will occur and something will take a vastly, longer, time. Most of
the predictions of groups like the Hudson Institute, the Rand Corporation,
and the World Future Society tended to have greatly overestimated our
technological prowess in all areas, save one, digital computing and
telecommunication, which may be taken together as a single development. Why
this is, I have no idea, perhaps if a technologist did, he or she would sweep
past these invisible, intellectual bottlenecks.
My guess, also, is that if a simulation would be viable, the computer
network one would be downloaded into would have to contain the digital analog
of our entire nervous system. So our medulla oblongata, spinal cord,
Cerebrum,cerebellum, skin neural surface, etc, would all need their digital
analogs. Secondly, do we know enough about the electron patterns and they
jump around inside the brain, as well as the rest of the neurological system,
we call ourselves?
Are there electron patterns as such or is more of a chemical system, in which
case the chemical constructs would require a digital analog, somehow
downloaded in a computer network. If its just a copy and the original you is
dies in the process, (would we die or merely create a replica?) would it
function as a decent replica of a individual, human, personality, or would it
even fail to passa Turing test? Jeez and I thought my A+ Certification course
was a bit challenging.
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