From: Phil Osborn (philosborn@altavista.com)
Date: Wed Sep 05 2001 - 21:36:12 MDT
Time is relative. What difference does it make what rate progress occurs? If our minds are similarly accellerated???
Some of the interesting questions to me are those of evolution, economics and survival. There is a kind of implicit assumption I thing, by many transhumanists, that survival in a kind of default paradise is the fate of those who "make it thru the singularity." Interesting concept, that, as well - "making it thru..."
Why should there be this Omega point? And if there is, doesn't time effectively stop for us all? 'What point in DOing anything? If you've already arrived, where is there to go? If everything possible is available at a whim, what basis for choice?
All these problems and more could be applied to the Christian God, of course, and perhaps the scholastics of the Middle Ages might have some things to say on these very issues. What DOES motivate a God, who can do and undo, reverse causality, build a mountain to high to climb and then climb it, all in a day's work?
Or a more mortal scale, unless the universe is infinitely finely grained in some respect, there will be limits down the road. When that singular wave peters out, we reach them, and I see no particular reason to assume that the old laws of economics, scarcity, etc., will not apply. Even if no one erases your cyberself all at once, there will be a limit to how much storage space and processing power you can afford. That limit will vary between individuals, and it will fluctuate.
You could find yourself dissolving like the Wicked Witch of the East (or was it West?), or simply dropping behind here and there until the leading edge of cybersociety was as far beyond your comprehension as a human from an ant. This will probably happen, and likely fairly soon after the singularity itself. What is the likelihood that you personally will be the one at that edge? Does it matter? Will the humans in such a future care about the ants or what happens to them? THAT might be worth considering, and discussions of a similar vein - would an SI care about humans, etc., have occupied significant bandwidth in extropian rantings.
In reality, of course, you are only directly aware of the immediate moment, right? So why bother worrying? ;)
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