[ExI] Bodies

Thu Mar 11 14:33:10 UTC 2010

As I thought, quality of life. That was exactly the term I was hoping you'd use.

This is demonstrative of why Transhumanist don't get it. They see the pieces but not the whole.

First let me start with the 'spike', it isn't and never will be. It's a world view of Transhumanist who don't fundamentally understand physics or cosmology. To borrow from Heinz Pagels:

The first law says you never get ahead
The second law says you can never break even
The third law says the first two always apply

There are entirely too many impossibility and exclusion principles to support the thesis of exponential growth, even over the short term. At best what you have is a tanh() curve of "current knowledge v total possible knowledge over time". At some point you asymptotically approach all that is possible to know. There are some calculus of variations issues related to the actual parameters of that curve for a given brain morphology but I'll forgo that discussion here. We're not interested in comparative intelligence.

Imagine the world when some kid, let's say the coming out is 12 years old or so, is given a generic set of nanobots at birth and at some point inherits the 'bots from both parents, and maybe other family and friends. They'll then work with those over their life whittling here and there to try and optimize their functionality and utility.

You mention work, pay? Step away from the crack pipe junior. There is no work or pay in that world. You're hungry? Order your gray goo to go to some area, say an empty pasture and assemble a nice plate and a steaming rib eye stake at your feet. When you're done the 'bots internal to your body parallel process the food and waste, converting and transporting the rejuvenated waste back into your blood stream for your cells to use. It's nearly a closed system, think of a re-breather if you want a pre-Wave (I call it The Wave because that will be what it's like, if you ever surf you'll understand) example. Whatever is left over they recreate in that same pasture as some other construct (could be plants, animals, physical structures, etc.)..

Intellectual property, physical property, conventional economics? Won't exist, it will become more akin to playing the IPD than a convention economic exchange. Why? Because the false layer of scarcity that human society has applied won't be utilitarian. Remember, economics and government are just technologies; really no different than a light bulb. We're just so ingrained to them we ignore them as something fundamental and necessary. They're not.

Reality? In that world the distinction you make is moot. You'll be walking around in the real world and the virtual world through immersive VR/augmented reality all the time. And you'll likely be doing it from multiple locations and the sensory and ideation streams of those instances will be combined, mixed, and mashed like a piece of Boudin sausage, and hopefully you'll be a good enough cook to make it taste as good. You'll live in a world of direct sense stimulation (like we live in solely at the moment) and a world of visual, aural, tactile, haptic, etc. augmentations. In that sort of connected world each individual won't die a single death, they'll experience death after death as the instances come to grief over time. The totality of the experience pool however will be nearly indestructible. As to what that psychology will be like? Insane by any and all frames of reference we can imagine to use.

People are social animals, they'll aggregate with those they share similar views and goals with. You can see that know by numerous studies of how neighborhoods change over time to be more homogeneous. What does this mean? Transhumanist culture has two term for this that I think are spot on. Arcology and Zaibatsu. This will become more important, see Brin's Transparent Society for a more in depth discussion of those factors. Like minded people (and I use that term in a much broader sense than what you initially read that as, refer to Brin's Uplift Series) will get together and pool their resources and defend the world views they hold near and dear from the other arcologies/zaibatsu who have conflicting views. The interface between those organizations will be very dynamic and quite confrontational in a non-war sort of way. War as we know it has no real context there, but I'll leave that aside as well since it's not germane to the main thread.

So, what does that give us? Groups of individuals and their constructs, actually using technology nearly at the limit of what is possible in theory, looking for means to increase their knowledge pool (you can think of traditional IP here as a good parallel) along with their natural resource pool.

Stop reading here and sit back and think about this question. Rheingold asked quite a while back as to what it would mean when each individual person was walking around with a smart phone that was the interface to a super computing cluster all inter-linked with database of facts, figures, and 'knowledge'? A parallel question becomes what does it mean when a group of people have such a level of --individual-- control of the physical and the imagined that they can make it happen --if-- it is possible to be done in theory?

<stop reading here for at least a couple of minutes>

The answer is they ask how they can change what is possible?

Fermi's Paradox is the key question here.

Does the set of possible applications of current natural laws allow the creation of a pocket universe?

If so, does it allow a suitable range of parameter setting of initial conditions and potential emergence paths (think of refutations of Newtonian - Laplacian Clockwork Universes here) that the resultant would be utilitarian?

Now consider the cosmological time line. Billions of years, billions of light years, billions of galaxies, billions of stars in those galaxies. However small the chance of multiple life, it will happen. The fact that it happened once means the odds are non-zero. How long does it take a typical sentient to reach the point of asking if the laws allow the creation of a pocket universe with custom made laws? A few hundred thousand of years if we're any example of the mean. Even if it's millions of years my point will still be valid over several orders of magnitude.

Why do we not see them? Because in the time between their starting to emit some signature of cosmological physics mastery to the point they create a better cosmos and move in is measured in that same time frame. Now consider the background radiation levels and how that signature is attenuated over distance compared to time. If you consider this and come up with any answer other than "Oh" then you need to do some more thinking about it.

The more fundamental question that was asked is what are Transhumanist missing? I've addressed that in the strategic sense. I'd like to add an example in the operational/tactical sense.

Let's take Rep-Rap manufacturing and self-assembly. What I see is the same old tried and true solutions repackaged. What I don't see in any of this are discussions of topology, polytopes, surgery (in the mathematical sense), and multi-dimensional multi-valued poly-time line cellular automatons, and origami. Here's a good question to ask to demonstrate my point. I'll once again ask you to stop reading after seeing it and think for a couple of minutes before you go on.

What is the difference between a Mountain fold and a Valley fold?

<stop reading here for a couple of minutes>

The traditional Origamist will say something about one goes down and the other goes up, or something along those lines. ^ (Mountain) versus v (Valley).

The more useful answer is that it represents your view of the fold. The question isn't about the fold, it's about the way you see it. You're context.

That is all.

---- Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote: 
> On 11 March 2010 13:59,  <jameschoate at austin.rr.com> wrote:
> > Can you articulate more clearly why you believe this? I suspect that I already know but I'd like to see your arguments in
> > support of your thesis.

> You just need to see how people play World of Warcraft.

Your presumption borders on insulting.

> I think the quality of life will be so high compared to the real world
> that people will flood in; it'll cheaper to live in, might require
> little or no income, will be easier (no disease! no aging!

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