[extropy-chat] Timeshifting

[Adrian Tymes]

--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> But
> does raise the question of how much information
> about what
> a person viewed, liked, did, genes (as Spike pointed
> out)
> does one need before one gets something close enough
> to
> the original that the differences don't matter?

Core problem: predicting what influences each event
will have, and discovering those things that only that
person knew that ve had any experiences with - whether
deliberately hidden, or simply never mentioned despite
their potentially profound effects.

My initial take on that is that this is a significant
enough problem as to prevent the approach you mention
from ever being practical: one simply can never obtain
enough information to make even a somewhat realistic
full simulation, unless the person was very closely
monitored in life or helped create the system.  (You
can have quips and quotes in very limited fields, but
that's not the same.  You can also have expert systems
programmed in part by the ones they are based on, but
that requires those people to be alive during the
programming.)

> If I have the genes Damien has and know all of the
> books
> Damien has ever read -- how close can I come to the
> recreation of a Damien that writes like he does?

Much further away than, for instance, basing the
recreation solely on Damien's writings.  And even
then, that would only imitate Damien's writing style;
it would not closely replicate his knowledge base
(unless Damien kept a very detailed diary that, as a
"writing", was also provided to the replica...and
we're talking insanely detailed, with every detail he
recalls of every academic lecture he's attended, et
cetera).

> Another interesting question...  Does anyone on the
> list
> have something that at one time Sasha may have
> touched
> or otherwise may have picked up some of his DNA?

At most, this would produce a clone, who would then
have his own experiences - a son, at most.  Don't hold
out any hopes that this would create another Sasha.