[extropy-chat] What Human Minds Will Eventually Do

Samantha Atkins sjatkins at mac.com
Tue Jul 4 21:17:10 UTC 2006


On Jul 2, 2006, at 9:00 AM, BillK wrote:

> On 7/2/06, Eugen Leitl wrote:
>> The motivation of life never changes: spread out. People have no  
>> consensus,
>> and self-replicating postbiology in deep space as native habitat  
>> are not
>> people as we know them, and many dumb critters in the literal sense.
>
> That's the point!
> When posthuman intelligence lives in solid state computronium we are
> not talking about 'people'. Our present wishes and desires will no
> longer apply.
>

Actually we have no way whatsoever to meaningfully make such statements.

>
>>
>> Information and matter streams are not just common code, they're
>> individuals. At the boundary there are no neighbours on one
>> side by definition. Individuals wander off and colonize sterile
>> patches. There are already a number of people on this list and
>> elsewhere which would run far and wide, if given the slightest
>> opportunity. Assuming, you know who these people are, would you
>> want to keep them here against their will? Would you be able to?
>> I notice we didn't choose to remain in Africa, as a species.
>> Population and culture pressure drove Old World colonists
>> across the Atlantic, and the Pacific.
>>
>
> I doubt if there will be 'people' or 'individuals' (in our present
> meaning of such terms) in the computronium state. Pioneers, colonists
> or explorers tend to be misfits of some kind in their society. As soon
> as humans can control / design their intelligence such misfits won't
> exist any more. Probably before uploading to solid state arrives.
>

It is unlikely that outliers in any society that wished to avoid  
stagnation would much less should be eliminated.   Whether the  
"individuals" are as we think of them is another question.  They  
might be more like largely autonomous   POV clusters.

>
>>
>> You're postulating stellar-system sized, homogenous individuals.
>
> Yes! That's the future.

You have no way of being certain of this.

>>
>> If you've fallen into your own navel, and can't get out, then you're
>> dead to the universe. You will never meet anybody on your own but
>> expansive culture's pioneers.
>
>
> Correct. There aren't any expansive culture pioneers with the
> intelligence and resources to cross light years in an expanding
> universe. The growth of intelligence stops them. By definition, if
> they are expanding across light years then they are not intelligent.
> More like a virus or at least a psychotic intelligence. An M brain
> would either ignore them or use them for some nefarious purpose.
> Might even fix their intelligence so they don't want to be pioneers
> any more.  ;)
>

Such a universe is one you personally want to inhabit and help set up?

- samantha




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