From: Anders Sandberg (nv91-asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Tue Dec 24 1996 - 16:05:04 MST
On Sun, 22 Dec 1996, Chris Hind wrote:
> Ughh! I don't want to become a borganism.
I'm not so sure it would be bad, if you could decide for yourself what
kind of borganism you would become. I think most of us regard the classic
"resistance is futile, you will be assimilated" as bad, but there are
nice possibilities for borganisms too:
I have always wanted to do a lot of things: to learn to write calligraphy
*well*, to develop huge artificial life simulations/entire universes,
explore the Earth and the universe, teach and interact with children,
compose grand symphonies, invent better ways to think and perceive the
world, cook and eat delicious food, gather information into useful
patterns, dedicate myself to studies in the occult, medicine, theoretical
physics and...
Obviously I can't do all this; even as a tremendously augmented
transhuman I have just a single channel of consciousness, and many of
these activities takes enormous amount of time and training. The only way
I could ever get close to my wish would be to split into a lot of
clones/copies/xoxes, and then each of them would face the same problem
again: my calligraphy copy would soon want to *experience* the wonders
the mystic copy did, who in turn would like to be able to cook the great
food my cook copy created.
The solution seems to be borganisation. If I could create/become a
copy-clan where each dividual was an individual derived from me, and at
the same time was linked into a kind of collective consciousness where
skills, experiences and ideas could flow freely, then I could do
everything (well, almost everything; I would have to wait for the Far Side
Party to learn what my space selves had done).
This multi-Anders would be a metaorganism, presumably with its own
personality and goals derived from the interaction and multiplication of
my current goals. Probably it would be intensely curious, sending out
dividuals to study everything new and unusual, and very fond of
interacting with other kinds of beings (on all orders, from the ants to
other metaorganisms).
So, to me being a borganism sounds like a great idea. As long as you can
choose what kind of borganism it is and who it contains.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
nv91-asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/main.html
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