From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Sat Mar 09 2002 - 11:05:05 MST
Richard Steven Hack wrote:
>
> At 03:42 PM 3/9/02 +0100, you wrote:
> >Given what we know, absolute hard limits are given by amount of energy and
> >matter in the local solar system (anything else doesn't matter, as the
> >creation rate in a given volume soon outstrips transport rate through a
> >crossection, i.e. sufficiently large volumes are effectively isolated).
> >Before we reach them, we will have a period whether bit beings can
> >multiply faster than matter can be restructured into habitats (ms vs. hour
> >and day range). Depending on the level of technology, it can take hundreds
> >to thousands years to bring our local system to the hard limit.
>
> Once again, we're assuming the speed of light is an absolute limit. That
> may be true given current scientific knowledge, but that is not the same as
> being an absolute.
Actually, it is an absolute, since scientific progress shows no sign of
exceeding it outside of using loopholes like wormholes, etc. Experiments
in FTL all demonstrate that wavefront speeds are always restrained to
light speed.
>
> > > "rat race" only makes sense if there is no way to better the
> > > fundamentals of your condition beyond that of rats or of much more
> >
> >Last time I looked no one has found a way to strip Darwin in context of
> >self replication.
>
> A Transhuman has no need to replicate. Now, it is possible that it may
> turn out that replication is a good move for some other reason, but
> replication is not identity (barring some tech that enables it to be
> identity), therefore replication offers no survival advantage to an entity
> bounded by space-time.
A transhuman may indeed have a need to replicate in order to increase
its rate of experience. Producing 1000 copies of oneself increases the
rate of experience a thousand fold. Merging the experience back into one
individual allows a transhuman to gain far more experience while
minimizing the risk. Brin's new book on Dittos delves into the negative
aspects of this, though I believe Sheffield wrote a very interesting
novel on the positives.
>
> > > in-your-face scarcity. It pays not to mistake current context for laws
> > > of reality.
> >
> >Please show me a mechanism by which you're supposed to get out of
> >darwinian evolution sustainably. Proposing Eden without a mechanism how to
> >get there and to stay there is not scientific.
>
> As I say above, replication is not the issue. It is not clear that
> Transhumans need be competitive - that is *human* thinking (and low-grade
> human thinking at that).
The idea that human thinking is low grade is an artifact of primitive
religious superstition and statist disinformation. It is human thinking
that has gotten us as far as we have, so it obviously must be pretty
damn good.
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