From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Sun Oct 24 1999 - 21:10:27 MDT
On Sun, 24 Oct 1999, Clint O'Dell wrote:
Clint, while I agree with most of your response to Phil, I have to
contest a couple of points...
>
> What do you mean incrementally?
> [snip/edit - description of functional replacement from the outside in]
I think incrementally ala the Moravec suggestion of neuron by neuron
functional replacement [inside-out replacement]. I do not see how this
cannot work (given advanced technology) unless there is something very
unusual (magical) about neurons we currently don't understand.
Bottom-up functional replacement seems entirely plausible.
Top-down functional replacement seems much more difficult due
to the complexity. It is much easier to understand the functioning
of a single neuron tha billions of neurons.
> And figured out that complex information interchange was only feasable
> by software because wire doesn't grow and making it do so was to complex
> and would require to much thinking time in order to apply it within my life
> time.
I'd strongly disagree with this. We "grow" wires all the time when we
make computer chips. Growing is a fundamental attribute of "life".
I've have yet to see anything that seriously addresses the fundamental
limits to how fast things can "grow". Eric D. makes some stabs at it in
Nanotechnology in discussing how fast you can deliver materials and
remove heat. But if you have very efficient transport systems, modular
construction and very low heat production "assembly operations", then
you could assemble complex structures *very* fast. Highly parallel
structures can do the production of subunits in a distributed architecture
that doesn't tax the physical limits. I want to state quite strongly
that we *do not* have good theories on the physical limits of the rate(s)
to growth of various structures. I suspect people like Anders or Robin
could define some, but they are so far beyond our current capabilities
that trying to equate those rates with your life-time is a fruitless
exercise.
Always remember -- If Eric's nanotech growth rates are correct (and they
seem conserviative in my mind) nanoassembly allows you to grow to the mass
of the Galaxy M31 in 8 days. (Of course you can't do that because you
don't have the material or energy at available to do that). But growing
to the limits of your energy & material resources in a very short time
seems very feasible.
> So my point is, yea, you can work toward replacing the hardware of
> consciousness with another piece of hardware, but by the time that's
> done we'll all be dead.
Depends entirely on whether you are replacing it top-down (in which
case we have to understand complex things first) or bottom-up
(in which case we only have to understand much simpler things).
Robert
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