From: Avatar Polymorph (avatarpolymorph@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Oct 16 2002 - 17:31:44 MDT
Brent
Hi, I read your story on the Titanic, very interesting. I imagine you're
familiar with Frank Tipler's The Physics of Immortality where he postulates
using light trails to reassemble quantum duplicates (Omega Point theory) (in
this theory this occurs after/during conversion of the universe by
nanoprobes into a giant energy-computronium turing machine/virtuality
computer). Personally I do not wish to intrude into people's privacy except
to create sysop (protective shielding) and as you speculate do what may be
necessary to ensure transference of the apparently dead as soon as possible
(numbers: for humans, by some estimates, 100 million anatomically modern
humans have existed, by others criteria somewhat more).
===
I also had a look at your qualia stuff. Although very interesting I don't
think I agree with it. I would agree that we have internal maps/mirrors
within/forming our consciousness and that these will become more
sophisticated. Concurrently, however, we will have increased/changed sensory
input and new direct neurological interaction with other consciousnesses,
i.e. we will be able to hook in to a radio telescope as an "eye" and "talk"
to another being brain-to-brain. As to whether this is new "qualia" or not,
I am not sure, but I suspect we have lower-level cultural "qualia" change or
modification already (at least for 100,000 years) so this is a sign it is
possible to do it.
I am not convinced about the demerits ofduplication "uploading" rather than
upgrading, whether in some "switching" toggle or within a constructed
qualian spirit world. Personally I think continuity and neuron-by-neuron
upgrading make perfect sense, unless you are talking about Tiplerian quantum
duplication/splitting.
===
As an aside, you write: "Others theorize about small communicating nano
robots swimming through the blood supply to reach the required locations in
the brain where they can do similar things less invasively. With such
ability, Hans [Moravec] theorizes, such devices would be able to provide
enough information to enable the writing of a program that perfectly
simulates all the relevant behavior in the particular region of the brain.
Observations made by such devices could verify that the software simulation
was indeed behaving identically. Adjustments could be made ?until the
correspondence is nearly perfect?."
This should be clarified by the question of minimum size and computing
power. Drexler points out this is 60 to 100 supercomputers and repair/change
machines within each cell - and then there are intercellular equivalents
("floating" around). This is enough to control the genome and alter it, at
least.It is also enough to gather some information about current human-type
brain activitiy (chemical and electrical state of each neuron).Transmission
of such information may however be "slow", even if there are newly designed
specific cell or cluster-style broadcast nodes (and there may be heat
problems etc). Those parts of a brain or brain shell that are
augmented/upgraded into computronium and have quantum tunnelling /computing
facilities should be capable of faster broadcast linkage. Damien Broderick
has noted some speculation that individual atoms can be made to store large
amounts of information, so perhaps the upper limit is higher. I would note
that this sort of new-"composite" brain and new-symbiotic cells
formation/structure is a development of existing evolutionary trends, for
example the integration of mitochondria (self-directed evolution of course
takes us into new directions beyond these). ---- However, if you are right
about qualia and current style neurons being essential to the "experience"
of being human, then add-ons and cellular add-ins (molecular supercomputers
etc inside cells operate in the "dead" areas) are the go I guess!
Avatar Polymorph
Towards Ascension
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