[extropy-chat] What Human Minds Will Eventually Do

[Samantha Atkins]

On Jul 2, 2006, at 4:53 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote:

> On Sun, Jul 02, 2006 at 05:34:11AM -0400, Robert Bradbury wrote:
>
>>      Remember that once we get our own gram of civilization each, our
>
> A gram is not all that much. Even encoded optimally, it's only part
> of a seed, not a civilization. Single individuals can easily range
> from cubic um to km^3 and beyond. A km^3 worth of computronium
> contains a lot of bits which are uncompressible. But of course
> blue whales grow just fine from fertilized ova, too, and redwoods
> from small seeds.
>
>>      motivations and knowledge are likely to greatly change. I  
>> doubt that
>>      doing a Star Trek, conquer the universe will seem very  
>> attractive. If
>
> The motivation of life never changes: spread out. People have no  
> consensus,
> and self-replicating postbiology in deep space as native habitat  
> are not
> people as we know them, and many dumb critters in the literal sense.

Actually this is only one of the motivations of life.  The point is  
rather moot anyway as we sit here on the verge of being able to  
decide our working motivations.

>
>>      loss of the network may well be much more painful than  
>> gaining a new
>>      solar system to sit your gram in.
>>
>> Finally, somebody understands why Matrioshka Brains don't tend to  
>> colonize!
>
> All solid state cultures are alike on the really long run.
>
>> The probability that any civilization that could colonize would  
>> reach this
>> conclusion would tend to argue against the sending of seeds or  
>> very very small
>
> 'Conclusion' assumes intelligent thought. Postbiology doesn't need to
> be intelligent to exist. Phytoplankton never gets bored.
>

What is your point here?  Unintelligent post-biology is not capable  
of sending out seeds unless specifically designed to do so by  
intelligence and or tolerated by such intelligences as may come in  
contact with it in the future.


>> fractions of the MBrain to develop undeveloped solar systems.   
>> MBrains only
>> replicate by fission as bacteria do where the complete set of  
>> resources is
>> relatively equally divided between the two offspring.  One can  
>> only do this
>
> You're postulating stellar-system sized, homogenous individuals.  
> This strikes
> me as astronomically unlikely. Again: nonexpansive cultures are not  
> observable.
> Probability of all individual of a culture population to be  
> nonexpansive is
> arbitrarily close to zero.
>

I am not at all sure how individual individuals will be a bit down  
the pike but I have already taken your point.
>

>
> Given that we're an evolutionary system, and so far nobody has shown
> a plausible mechanism by which we will leave the evolutionary regime
> the burden of proof is on the side of those who postulate that a
> culture can become nonexpansive.
>

This is not a dichotomy.   A lot depends on what you mean by  
"evolution"?   Clearly we stand ready to form in large part our own  
notions of how we evolve/develop from this point onward.  We will to  
some significant degree define our own selection criteria and shape  
our own change mechanisms.   A culture or ecosystem generally reaches  
some balance between expansionist pressures and those forces  
countering expansion.  For intelligent beings those pressures in both  
directions are largely conceptual and intellectualized.   It is quite  
possible a large number of individuals, even enough to sway a  
civilization, will at some point decide the opportunities are so rich  
and life so good "at home" that there is relatively little desire to  
expand further for some time.

There is no "burden of proof" in such speculations as I suspect you  
well know.

- samantha