[extropy-chat] What Human Minds Will Eventually Do (was String Theory)

Lee Corbin lcorbin at tsoft.com
Sun Jun 25 17:54:17 UTC 2006


Robert wrote

> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Robert Bradbury
> Sent: Saturday, June 24, 2006 9:54 AM
> To: ExICh
> Subject: [extropy-chat] String Theory: Not Even Wrong...
> 
> [The] Article points out how theoretical physics is "hitting the wall".  
> ...
> Similar problems became apparent when I realized the limits 
> that Matrioshka Brains would be running into and how quickly 
> they would reach them.  But rather than theoretical limits 
> these would be engineering and thought capacity limits.

On your page http://www.futurehi.net/docs/Matrioshka_Brains.html
you do imply that because of nanoscale engineering, human bodies
as we know them no longer exist. So I suppose that the humans you
refer to have already been uploaded.  No?

> It doesn't mean that advanced civilizations trip over into 
> the realm of "its so boring, please put me out of misery" 
> it means that they spend lots of time creating "unusual" 
> virtual realities or "playing" with real ones (planets, 
> solar systems, galaxies perhaps). 

People, of course, will be able to choose what is boring
to them. It won't be "natural" anymore, which, yes, I admit,
is hard to get used to.  But surely even before 1968 ("Do
Androids Dream of Electric Sheep") SF writers considered
that future tech would allow us to control our emotions
directly.

Will people really *choose* to be interested in games?
Why???  Instead, I have postulated that in the very long
run---assuming that physics gets worked out comparatively
rapidly---only two activities remain, however unpalatable
they now seem to most people now:  mathematics and
gratification research.

Mathematics is provably infinite in complexity, and surely
people will still want to enjoy life. There you have it.

Perhaps studying how to enjoy ourselves ought to be broken
down further, because the principle way that this is achieved
is to become more advanced, and so thereby more capable of
benefit.

Space exploration and colonization (i.e. expansion) will be
long since automated. After all, the idea is pretty simple:
bring as much life to the lifeless cosmos as quickly as
possible.

Lee




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