[extropy-chat] In the Long Run, How Much Does Intelligence Dominate Space?

[J. Andrew Rogers]

On Jul 7, 2006, at 5:47 AM, Robin Hanson wrote:
> I don't think you appreciate the possible complexities.   I'm saying
> that if I look at a complex future world, I'm not sure how to  
> divide it up into "individuals."


More generally, "individuals" are fictions that we arbitrarily  
delineate at communication bottlenecks (both latency *and*  
bandwidth).  As the communication topology changes with time, so will  
the effective definition of "individual", whether it is immediately  
recognized or not.

If inter-brain communication was within an order of magnitude of the  
technical specs of intra-brain communication, I doubt human organisms  
would have much of a concept of "individual" in the same sense that  
we do today.

J. Andrew Rogers