[extropy-chat] Consciousness vs. awareness [was: I keep asking myself...]

[Robert Bradbury]

On 4/7/06, Russell Wallace <russell.wallace at gmail.com> wrote (regarding my
proposal that the functioning of 'fundamentalists' be suspended):

> Cost? Money isn't the issue, the money can be found if there's enough
> motive to do so. The cost is that most of the world would see it as the
> equivalent of the Holocaust (and how sure are you that they'd be wrong? it's
> not proven that people frozen with today's cryonic procedures can and will
> be brought back); think about what the cost in lives would be by the time
> all the consequences, direct and indirect, had worked themselves out.
>

The more I've thought about it, the more I am convinced current procedures
will work -- though one has to be more in the "information" camp than the
"pattern" or "thread" camps.  (The pattern camp is probably a subset of the
information camp in that the information camp doesn't have to get back the
original pattern but simply be able to reproduce it (as a subset of the
patterns which could be generated from the information available for
reconstruction.))

I suppose I'm looking for solutions to a hard-takeoff (or semi-hard) because
if that happens I don't see how there aren't going to be real problems
(potentially making the Holocaust look like a minor warm-up exercise) as the
rapid change runs head long into memesets that cannot adapt fast enough.
(We have already witnessed this once in Afghanistan as the Taliban attempted
to "rollback" modern reality.)  Bear in mind Russell -- if the final point
is indefinite longevity we are *currently* experiencing the equivalent of
roughly 10 Holocausts (~60 million deaths) *each* year.  So for every year
future reality is delayed that is the cost that humanity is paying (whether
they are aware of it or not).

I'm guessing that we are probably less than 5 years, max 10, from robust
whole genome synthesis (i.e. being "gods").  Once that understanding becomes
more widespread there are certain memesets that are going to have real
problems.  You only see the tip of the iceberg in reactions to that in
things like the stacking of the deck in the President's Commission on
Bioethics.

Robert
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