[extropy-chat] Bainbridg today in Transvision06 on personalitycapture vs info-resurrection

[John]

This is an idea that I've already spent a lot of time thinking about.

It's not just useful in terms of extending the lifespan of your 'empirical 
knowledge's essence', but it's practically useful too.

Humans = mass + lots (and I mean lots) of additional mass to support them in 
space

Space exploration needs high velocities to explore in short lifespans (and 
even if we manage to massively expand our own lifespans, we still won't want 
to spend 1,000,000 getting somewhere because everything will have decayed by 
the time we get back from the visit)

High velocities + high mass = insane amounts of energy 'wasted' during 
transit + immense complexity of craft design

It would be far, far easier to explore the universe by sending probes out 
with sensory networks on them that could be connected to our own nervous 
system and used as temporary bodies. Probes that didn't need food / water / 
heat / entertainment / room / positive pressure / etc during transit. That 
would also involve a large amount of communication lag (years using light 
and for just the closest stars) - you'd need to come up with some very funky 
method of experiencing consciousness & massive lifespan expansion to do it 
that way (if the human was still back on Earth in their normal body). There 
are also problems with even establishing communications over that range 
given signal divergence / distortion / absorption etc. Yes, technology gets 
better all the time, but some things are pushing the boundaries of what can 
actually be done according to physics, like keeping a laser beam converged, 
phased and out of the path of other objects over a few million years of 
travel is more than difficult. It's also an arguably inefficient use of 
time.

The ultimate would be to condense your consciousness into a form that didn't 
require a high mass to store it and support it.

I believe Arthur C Clarke mentions this idea either in 2001 or 3001, that 
humans eventually explore the universe as crystals of light - crystalised 
consciousness.

Given the developments in storage and holography, this is far from sci-fi!

Condensed matter states (bose einstien condensates etc) mean that we're 
approaching the potential of atomic level storage - slowing light to the 
point that it actually stops in the (none linear) optics. These technologies 
will develop themselves as part of the drive for better 'normal' computer 
storage here on Earth - there's no need for transhumanism to get too 
involved in that to get it moving, the big semi companies will do it 
themselves. Provided a full scale neural interface can be developed (which 
does need transhumanist help), the condensation capacity using this kind of 
medium for our own consciousness would be gigantic. Our entire physical 
presence could probably be reduced down to a few kilograms with it's support 
equipment. The actual 'crystal' of data would be pathetically tiny. Provided 
my back of the hand calculations are roughly right, there's potential for 
condensing an entire brain down to ~0.0000015mg of mass - including all the 
white matter in the core that doesn't do anywhere near as much as the cortex 
& the support tissues, like the blood supply (which won't be included in 
reality).

I suspect that by the time we reach that stage, we won't bother sending lots 
of individual crystallised consciousnesses out to a distant planet. We'll 
just send some form of amalgamation or exploration group out to collect 
experiences and bring them back. The mass of consciousnesses will probably 
just stay in one place, accumulate data, experience it and work on it whilst 
the 'scouts' are away experiencing new things to bring back.

For example, say you could record everything your nervous system experiences 
for an hour. You go to a concert and record it.

If you'd be happy to give away your experience for free (or even sell it) to 
a group of other people with such interfaces, they're likely to just enjoy 
your recording and not bother going to the concert themselves (just like 
people do with CD's and have done with tapes and records - that they have to 
pay close to ticket prices sometimes to get anyway - provided that the price 
of the recording isn't disturbingly higher than just going in person, but 
even still... sometimes situations will still make the recording the better 
choice). When that concert is two thousand years away, people are almost 
certainly not going to bother going in person. Especially if going to that 
concert makes it much harder (impossible) for them to buy any other CDs 
because they're so far from the store. Instead, people stay at home more 
often and buy a load of different CDs.

I think the same will hold true for space exploration.

Another point I've thought about is... it's a very human idea to think that 
we're instantly going to want to run off and explore the rest of the 
universe. We will have just dived into a world where we can manipulate 
everything about it and exist on an entirely different plane of 
consciousness. I suspect what we will discover is that most of the universe 
is pretty boring and not worth anywhere near the time, energy and effort it 
takes to go and look at. That we'll actually be able to explore as 
interesting things, or more so, without actually going anywhere. We'll send 
of probes or scout groups to go and investigate things that look moderately 
interesting and spend the rest of our time trying to go to some even higher 
plane within our own personal universes - e.g. perhaps we'll work out how to 
disperse our consciousness about the universe as discrete pockets that 
somehow stay in coherence with each other. When they get back, the 
information they've scooped up will probably be 50%+ practical - e.g. how to 
build a better method of storage / transport etc. By comparison with our own 
world's a lot of it will probably seem quite tame.

All the best!
John