[ExI] a fun brain in which to live

[Alan Grimes]

spike wrote:

> Of course, all the time.  In the long run, I see that as the only reasonable
> future of mankind. 

Byte me.

> Eventually in some form, software will write software,
> and the result will be recursive self-improvement, and my fond hope is that
> the result will want to upload us.  I am one who is convinced that
> consciousness is not strictly substrate dependent.  Once we exist as
> software, the things we can do with our brains will be astonishing in
> variety.

I, on the other hand, am a monist.

> An example is one I brought up before.  I want to be able to view the world,
> at least temporarily, through female eyes.  That would allow me to
> understand the things women think, and that would make me a better husband.
> Some things I just utterly fail to understand, starting with what in the
> heck to women see in us? 

Uploading doesn't let you do that due to the numerous structural
differences between the two brain types. I don't think such dimorphisms
are very positive for humanity, I'd like to develop a hybrid design that
has the best of both, but anyway.

> Imagine that we can unify two or more different brains, and have a being
> that is the superset of each individual.  Then you might choose a person who
> is wildly different from you, with which to temporarily unify.  I don't know
> what happens when people merge their consciousness, but we can't do it now.
> We might be able to in the uploaded condition.

Funny, I just read an interview of a woman working on doing that with
neural interfaces. -- A prospect I actually find interesting up to the
point of proclaiming it the ultimate future of humanity, at which point
I switch to strong opposition for the same reason I oppose uploading.

> I don't know.  I want a shot at it, which is why I am probably going to go
> in for cryonics.  I actually don't think the singularity will happen in 30
> years (it might) but rather about 50, at which time I would be 100.  I might
> not make it that far.

Then cause it to happen sooner.

> Ja.  I still just don't know with so much of this.  I will sadly confess
> that fifteen years ago I thought we would be farther along by now than we
> are.  But the singularity is still coming eventually, and when it does, I
> can imagine no logical stopping place for it short of all the metals in the
> solar system converted to computronium to form an MBrain, with humans
> uploaded.

If that is true, then it is imperative that the singularity be
prevented. =|

-- 
DO NOT USE OBAMACARE.
DO NOT BUY OBAMACARE.
Powers are not rights.