[ExI] Mind Upload problems

[Keith Henson]

On Thu, Mar 14, 2024 at 2:24 PM BillK via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> 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.

If humans maintain being social, then there is a problem with a
community getting too large, communication gets very slow.  There is
also the problem that thinking fast takes power and generates a lot of
waste heat.  I confingered the community as a 300 meter sphere sunk in
the deep ocean for cooling.

> 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'?

Depends.  Thinking really fast would not be an asset if you were isolated

> 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.

If what we see at Tabby's star are alien megastructures, that's
getting close to planetary geoengineering.  The largest light blocking
structure so fare is over 400 times the area of the earth and out
about 7 AU.  I posted the math analysis some months ago.

> 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.

Perhaps.  The speed of light might also be an explanation/

Keith
>
> BillK
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