[ExI] ETs/Aliens

[BillK]

On Fri, 30 Aug 2024 at 10:19, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> We can't assume that aliens would have the same psychology as humans ("The thing about aliens is, they're alien"), and we can't assume that uploaded humans would remain the same, mentally, as biological humans. In fact I think it would be extremely surprising if they did. So what might be 'sufficient' for a biological human (or alien) almost certainly wouldn't remain the same for an upload.
>
> To me, at least, the whole point of uploading is to break free of the constraints of biological life, both physical and mental. For an upload that managed to maintain the same psychology as it's original biological form, I wouldn't be surprised if a few thousand years would be 'sufficient', and a few million might be unbearable. But I think it's extremely unlikely that an upload would remain the same, mentally.
>
> I don't think we can really even guess what 'sufficient' would mean to an upload, alien or human, in terms of subjective lifespan.
>
> Ben
> _______________________________________________


Yes, aliens are alien.  :)  But then there is convergent evolution to
consider. Extraterrestrial life forms may share some similarities with
Earth-based organisms due to adapting to similar environmental
challenges.  Unless they are trapped in, say, an ocean world under an
obscuring atmosphere, they will have to deal with the same physical
environment as humans. For them to be contactable by humans, they
must be looking out into the same wider universe.

I don't think biological aliens or humans will be travelling between
stars or galaxies. The restrictions imposed by extreme time delays,
resource limitations and biological ageing are too great. That applies
whether the body is human, insect, or octopus in form.
What will be able to travel between the stars will be uploads,
(from humans or aliens) or AIs.

Uploads from any species will inevitably become aliens compared to
their origins that were limited to a physical body. Uploads will have
faster processing speed, greater memory, parallel processing, etc. so
that the physical world will be experienced as "frozen" to them. What
uploads will decide to do with the infinity of time available to them
is probably unimaginable to us.

However, whatever they choose to do, it either doesn't involve
reconstructing the natural universe (as we see no signs of non-natural
events) or uploads just haven't happened yet (which I think is
unlikely given the age of the universe).

BillK