[ExI] End Game (was Gene drift)

[Stuart LaForge]

Keith Henson wrote:

> What is the long-term future?

According to my calculations based on the FLRW metric, there is a net
outflow of matter from our causal cell. What this means is that unless new
matter is somehow formed, there will come a time when the only matter in
our causal cell are black holes, dark matter, and virtual particles.

Biological organisms are largely chemically-stored solar energy. When the
last star fades, there will be no way for our causal cell to sustain
biological life. Intelligent machines however might be able to sustain
themselves by extracting energy from the rotation of black holes and
perhaps from creating and harvesting Hawking radiation from miniature
black holes.

But the reign of wet carbon will be over.

> Do humans stay biological?  Or do we
> upload and become mostly machines?

John is right. Long term, there will be no choice.

> Do we spread into the universe or stay
> where the speed of light lets us communicate?  (Assuming no FTL.)

If we manage to survive, then chances are we will have done both. There
will likely be increasingly impractical attempts at centralized government
for the expanding interstellar Human or Post-human Empire but
fragmentation and diaspora will be inevitable in the long term.

But that will be a good thing, because if we can spread ourselves far
enough fast enough, then we will be nearly extinction-proof until the
black holes themselves have evaporated away. But our window to colonize
other galaxies is closing fast. At some point, without FTL we will become
trapped in our local group of galaxies.

Stuart LaForge