From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Fri May 10 2002 - 22:04:18 MDT
Mike writes
> > I assume that you're describing your post-uploading experiences...
> > You're not, ugh, thinking of doing that in the flesh, are you?
> > Gross! What a waste of resources.
>
> Not at all. In fact, you greatly reduce your environmental footprint by
> doing such trips for extended periods. Most people have absolutely no
> idea of the amount of resources are consumed to live a modern lifestyle.
Yes, I was talking about how within a century we may expect that
all the resources making up the Earth will be used to sustain
computation, and that one would have to be crazy to keep any of
it non-converted. Rock climbing and camping are great fun, but
they'd be just as much fun after one uploads.
> While most of these are renewable (water, paper, plastic, glass, etc) it
> does take energy to renew these.
Actually, the resources are, strictly speaking, not *consumed* at all.
The atoms remain right here on Earth. While it does take, as you say,
some energy to re-use them, (a) we'll have plenty of energy in the
future, and (b) for the meantime, we are using pitifully small
quantities compared to what exists. So there's not really any worry.
> My other fantasies have been along the vein of the time travel into the
> past, with some modern computer technology and CD-ROMs of, say, the US
> Patent database, and gaining great wealth by introducing modernizing
> technologies. (this is also my current theory explaining the Rimbaldi
> character in the tv show ALIAS).
Would the people be real (i.e. emulated) or just portrayed for your
enjoyment. I often fantasize of speaking to Ben Franklin or John
Adams, attending one of Ben's "Philosophical Meetings" in Philadelphia,
and dropping a few extropian principles on them. Kind of shake things
up.
But I want them emulated, i.e., real, and I imagine that as you
introduce your advanced technology into early 19th century America,
you'd also gain some satisfaction from knowing that you were helping
the people too.
>> When you say, "That will almost certainly change", are you
>> speaking about the profound problem of how you are going to
>> deal with your "inborn affinity for thriving in nature"?
>> After you can edit your inborn affinities, which one are
>> you going to keep, and why?
>
> We can either edit nature, or edit our inborn affinities, or both. It's
> not necessarily an either/or proposition (nor a neither/nor).
Not sure that I understand. If we've uploaded, and the AI running
the show (even if he's a future version of you) is busy reforming
the solar system, then there is no nature as such---all that exists
from your perspective are your own experiences.
Of course, that's how it is now. Your brain, which operates on the
scale of micrometers, generates your experiences from an extremely
distant physical reality. Incoming photons and vibrations are
converted to meaningful sensations by your current highly evolved
virtual reality system (your brain).
Naturally, if you're talking pre-uploading or pre-Singularity,
then yes, your control over your property---be it inside your
skin or outside it---is paramount, and you should be able to
edit either or both, as you say, just as quickly as technology
moves forward.
Lee
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