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On 28/03/2020 20:21, billw wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.28.1585426918.21400.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">What you are
describing is more or less Heaven on Earth, but without golf.
I have serious doubts that this will happen the way you say,
but who cares about my opinion? </div>
</div>
</blockquote>
I have no idea if things will happen the way I describe, but so many
people have what seems to me to be false (and frankly, ridiculous)
ideas of what uploading would be like. I wanted to give a more
realistic (in my view) description. <br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.28.1585426918.21400.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">As a libertarian
I'd let just about anything happen. Who besides some
religious people would have any objections? <br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Oh, you'd be surprised. Some people are dead against the idea on
philosophical grounds (quite aside from religious ones). Extremely
bad philosophical grounds, imo, but compelling to them. The worst
thing is that some of these people don't just want to avoid
uploading for themselves, they don't want <i>anyone</i> doing it,
they regard it as fundamentally evil or at least fatally misguided.
Talk about uploading enough, and you'll soon find them crawling out
of the woodwork. If you really want to expose yourself to this, just
ask the dreaded (and silly) question: "Will a copy of you really be
you?", then sit back and wait for the mouth-foaming to begin.<br>
<br>
If you want some solid ammunition against the usual objections, read
"A Taxonomy and Metaphysics of Mind-Uploading" by Keith Wiley.
Highly recommended. Very clear, excellent logical arguments and
well-written. For me, reading it was the culmination of a long path
that started with the first four pages of Linda Nagata's 'Vast'
(mentioned below), and its depiction of an uploaded spaceship pilot.<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.28.1585426918.21400.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">What will the
avatars be like? Human body, computer brains linked to
yours? Immobility would be a problem for me. I'd want an
avatar able to go anywhere as if I were there.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Same answer as ever: Whatever you like (with certain limitations
that have more to do with physics than anything else. Oh, and maybe
legal questions. I don't suppose many people would object to a ban
on avatars that guzzle woodland, belch out vast quantities of CO2
and manufacture nuclear weapons, for instance).<br>
<br>
Like I said before, forget 'human body', 'computer brain'. The
technology required to make uploading as I describe it possible will
render those terms meaningless. You could maybe say something like
'a synthetic body, with even greater sophistication than biological
bodies, containing a similarly sophisticated synthetic brain capable
of creating and linking to multiple virtual worlds'. We'd probably
need a shorter, catchier name, though.<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.28.1585426918.21400.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">Will uploads
vote? Will anyone accumulate wealth enabling living for
centuries?<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Will democracy still exist? Will living for centuries (let's say
millennia, shall we? Centuries seems a very modest goal) require any
special accumulation of wealth? These are questions we can't answer.<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.28.1585426918.21400.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">I'd like to read
a scifi book that has all this stuff in it.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
So would I.<br>
I know of none that has all of this stuff, but can recommend some
authors that I've found interesting and inspirational, at least in
parts:<br>
<br>
Greg Egan, Neal Asher, Linda Nagata (her 'Nanotech Succession'
books), Richard Hamilton, Alastair Reynolds, Iain M Banks ('Culture'
novels), Charlie Stross (Singularity Sky, Saturn's Children, etc.),
Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Robert Reed ('Great Ship' books:
'Marrow', etc.), Olaf Stapledon, among others.<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.28.1585426918.21400.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000"> There is very
often no progress in those books, no visions for the future.<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
Plenty visions for the future, not all good, but very few actually
try to chart an optimistic progressive path. Hardly surprising,
though. Wars, murders, conflict etc., make for much better stories<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.28.1585426918.21400.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">Very long before
what you describe happens, the human race with evolve itself
genetically, and quickly. Yes, why wait for regular
evolution?. It has already started on a very small scale.
That is what interests me more than the uploading, though of
course I am interested in that too.<br>
</div>
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</blockquote>
Time will tell.<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.28.1585426918.21400.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans
ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">It's a great
thing and a curse to have all my interests. bill w</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
I can only agree with that. I try to practice attentional triage,
but it's not easy...<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Ben Zaiboc</pre>
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