[ExI] Machines of Loving Grace

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 14/10/2024 19:25, Keith Henson wrote:
> I discussed why people would have to upload into a shared simulation here.
>
> https://web.archive.org/web/20121130232045/http://hplusmagazine.com/2012/04/12/transhumanism-and-the-human-expansion-into-space-a-conflict-with-physics/
>
> A fast-thinking brain in an android body would be like a fly mired in honey.

Yes, of course.

But I think you're stating it backwards. I'd say that people who want to 
think fast would need to upload to a shared simulation, not that uploads 
would have to think fast. Obviously there are advantages to thinking 
fast, but it's still a choice, not a natural law.

Think of a grid, with two axes: thinking speed (fast/slow) and uploaded 
(yes/no). The fast-thinking uploads would be in the data centres, the 
slow-thinking non-uploads already exist (us as we are now), the 
slow-thinking uploads would be the androids, and the fast-thinking 
non-uploads box would be empty because they don't and can't exist.

A consequence of this is that the androids would be separated from the 
fast virtual worlds and their inhabitants just as much as biologicals 
(but there's no reason that slow shared virtual worlds couldn't be 
created. We've already seen their predecessors (Second Life, etc.). 
There would also be slow personal virtual worlds (which is basically 
what we call imagination, but could be so much more vivid and extensive)).

I know you're probably going to say there are good economic and 
political reasons that would compel faster and faster thinking, but as I 
say, these don't equate to natural law. Maybe in the long run, everyone 
would be a fast thinker in a data centre (in the long run it might 
become necessary to dismantle a lot of planets. I wonder if Tabby's star 
has any planets?), but in the short-term, I think having the choice 
would be not only a good thing in itself, but would potentially help the 
development of uploading technology, if not from a technological 
perspective, then certainly from a sociological one.

Ben
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20241015/302c65b0/attachment.htm>