Re: ; - )Neanderthal Miracles

From: Ira Brodsky (ibrodsky@ix19.ix.netcom.com)
Date: Tue Nov 05 1996 - 18:04:48 MST


Eugene Leitl wrote:

>Once the entire background situation changes qualitatively, sex is obsolete.

This is the point I tried to make earlier. Uploaded minds could easily
waste all of their time simulating physical pleasures. Unlike the human
body, computers could experience continuous orgasms or reset simulated
urges the moment they are satisfied and immediately restart the simulation
-- why stop? <g>

>Trying to perpetuate sex, particularly to drag along sex in an upload
>mind ecology all the way up to Omega, is, sorry to say it, simply
>ludicrous.

Hopefully, uploads will experience some desires -- the desire for
knowledge, the desire for progress, etc.

>(Caveat: An upload universe, unless unlimited-resource, will have
>darwinian evolution, will have death, and ergo, probably autoreplication.
>If the entire persona bandwidth is present, from the virus to god
>equivalent, some species will probably have some coitus procedure (unless
>there are no distinct personae, nor timespace as we know it, that is)).

I don't see how this follows. For example, genetic engineering is already
enabling us to do some of the gene manipulations that previously could only
be accomplished through natural reproduction. Resources may never become
unlimited, but they will surely become increasingly abundant.

Ira Brodsky
Datacomm Research Company
Wilmette, Illinois



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