[extropy-chat] What Human Minds Will Eventually Do x

[Keith Henson]

At 04:14 PM 7/2/2006 +0800, you wrote:
>On 7/2/06, Russell Wallace wrote:
><snip>
> > A gram of smarts (enough for an entire upload civilization) in a hundred
> > ton probe (you need the mass anyway for shielding and braking) is
> > negligible baggage and more than pays for itself in ability to outthink and
> > outfight a dumb probe that got there slightly before you did.
> >
> >  The exponent in the rocket equation (and similar terms in non-rocket means
> > of transport) means ultra high speed probes take a lot of resources to
> > launch. Long-range colonization is done by big power blocs, not
> > lichen-equivalents.
> >
>
>Wait, slow down a minute.
>If a gram of smarts is enough for an entire upload civilization, then
>we won't be moving much outside our solar system.
>
>Everyone can have their own virtual civilization to live and play in
>and do whatever turns them on. Maybe spread out a bit to find a quiet
>place for your gram, in case the sun goes red giant.
>
>Remember that once we get our own gram of civilization each, our
>motivations and knowledge are likely to greatly change. I doubt that
>doing a Star Trek, conquer the universe will seem very attractive. If
>you want to 'chat' to the other one gram civilizations (AIs) then you
>certainly won't be dashing off at some fraction of light speed. The
>loss of the network may well be much more painful than gaining a new
>solar system to sit your gram in.

Plus the fact that uploading into faster hardware makes the stars 
effectively further apart.   At a million to one speed up (Drexler's 
expectation) travel time to the nearest star is millions of years.  Even 
planetary dimensions become a serious communication delay.

One way this could "go to completion" is for an uploaded civilization to 
"collapse" to one or a few physically small structures deep in the ocean 
(to get rid of waste heat).  Under such a situation the red giant stage of 
the sun is a *long* way off.

This is one of the possible answers to Fermi's question.

Keith Henson

Keith Henson