From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sun Dec 15 2002 - 13:36:31 MST
On Thu, 12 Dec 2002, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> What Robert was asking about wasn't whether some future technology
> could abolish death of some future super-technology could resurrect
> the dead, but how to keep the vision of dead transhumanists alive
> today. [snip]
I missed Anders' comments and Lee's response. Catching up...
I was *not* thinking about a Tipler-ian Omega Point kind of
scenario (with lots of math involved). I do think the idea
of keeping the ideas of transhumanists alive and extending
them is a very good one (it could help in the scenario I
was actually thinking of). What I was really going for was
whether the recreation of a resonable facsimile could be
managed? I could see a few possibilities. One would
be a nanotech based assembly of a body & brain. Difficult,
but not I think impossible. Another might be a nanorobot
imprinting/recreation of the specific neural network of
an individual. The third might be the recreation of the
individual in a VR that could interact with humans (ala
the Turing test). The fourth might be recreating the
individual in the uploaded world (e.g. the Matrix but
with no external instantiation).
Being the pack rat that I am I have a lot of "documents" (financial
records, *lots* of files of various projects I worked on, etc.) Other
people write a lot from a "professional" standpoint (speaking to the point
Anders and Lee may be making). Still others keep journals or diaries.
Now-a-days we certainly have the ability to sit down and do video taped
interviews. For example, Greg's recordings at the various Extro
conferences or as Natasha mentioned, Roy Walford's work documenting the
Biosphere experiences.
The point is that as we go forward during this century we are going to
have an increasing understanding of the fundamental processes for how
human minds work and a much greater capacity for simulating a human mind.
I was trying to get to the question of what more might be done to have a
sufficient record that it becomes feasible to really "recreate" someone?
At least to the extent that they walk, talk, act and may actually "think"
like the original. I can hear Damien B. screaming now 'but its not me!'.
True enough -- but it might be close enough that it could turn out novels
that Damien B. *would* have written. What problems does this solve? Two I
think. First it may provide some comfort people who lose a loved one.
Second, it may be able to effectively extend the work (knowledge base) of
the original in the event that they suffer an accident. That sounds
pretty difficult I know but considering the increase in computational
capacity we can expect it might be worth thinking about.
I won't provide any spoilers, but it is to some extent what StarTrek
Nemisis is about.
Robert
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