[ExI] Mind Upload problems

[BillK]

On Wed, 13 Mar 2024 at 17:05, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I discussed this in The Clinic Seed and in my speculation article
> "Transhumanism and the Human Expansion into Space: a Conflict with
> Physics". Archived from the original on November 30, 2012.
>
> If we have million to one uploads by mid century, then by the end of
> the century those people will have 50 million subjective years.
> However, based on Tabby's star, I don't think people will run that
> fast.  The faster you run the smaller any communicating group has to
> be due to light speed.  The largest of those structures is 2.5 seconds
> across, so they might be running no faster than we do.
> _______________________________________________


I can't imagine that mind uploads that are running thousands or
millions of times faster than humans would voluntarily give up those
superpowers. Would they really say, 'Oh well, it was nice for a while,
but let's go back to thinking at the pitifully slow human speed'?
When uploads are living at those incredibly fast speeds, it effectively
makes them immortal and freezes the outside world almost to a stop.
Obviously they would need to plan ahead for security and to keep the
computer systems running. But at their thinking speed, that would be
like the timescale of humans planning billions of years ahead for the
death of the Sun.
Yes, light speed does mean smaller local groups communicating. But
once uploads are immortal and living in wonderful virtual worlds, then
large-scale planetary geoengineering will be forgotten. It would take
uploaded intelligences millions of virtual years to do anything in the
outside world.
That's a possible explanation for the Fermi paradox.


BillK