[ExI] Ape suits, was hard science

[Keith Henson]

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 10:41 AM,  Ben <bbenzai at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Tara Maya <tara at taramayastales.com> wrote:

snip

>  >I don't see why. Amoebas are still wandering around in single-cell
> suits, despite being immensely older than 10,000 years, and despite the
> presence of our exalted selves.
>  >
>  >Not everything old is extinct. Not everything new displaces what it
> replaces.
>
> OK, what you say is correct, but not relevant to what I mean.  Let me
> rephrase:  I can't take seriously any kind of long-term projection where
> the major players are still wandering around in meat ape-suits.

I side with Ben on this issue.

If we are to be major players, we will have to upload just to keep up.
 And for physical reasons, you can't have a fast mind in a meat body,
the body just can't keep up.  I talked about this here:

http://hplusmagazine.com/2012/04/12/transhumanism-and-the-human-expansion-into-space-a-conflict-with-physics/

Recently I have been working on propulsion lasers, which have to be
out in space (GEO to be exact) and need GW of cooling.  Taking
thermodynamic at a local university to unrust my skills at this (steam
tables, oh my).  Deep ocean is still the best location for a large
compact community.

> I'm not saying that biological humans as they are now /couldn't/ be
> around in thousands of years (there are reasons why they might not be,
> but that's another matter), I'm saying that any that are would be
> extremely unlikely to have the same status as humans do today, and would
> be like amoebas in more ways than one, compared to the beings of
> interest that should be around then (unless, of course, something like
> Ian M Banks' idea of Sublimation is possible).

Biological human are _required_ if you want to write a story about the
future.  Otherwise, there are no characters to identify with.  Agreed
that they would have a status much like amoebas.

Keith