[ExI] Fwd: [Cosmic Engineers] Re: Sharing/engineering proposal

[Omar Rahman]

> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 06:04:01 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Ben Zaiboc <bbenzai at yahoo.com>
> To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Fwd: [Cosmic Engineers] Re: Sharing/engineering
> 	proposal
> Message-ID: <7795.12124.qm at web114415.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
> 
> Sen Yamamoto <sen.otaku at googlemail.com> wrote:
> 
>> (#-Assumes that uploading is somehow superior to natural
>> existance- i
>> cant argue this either way- simply something that i dont
>> often see
>> adressed.)
> 
> ???
> 
> The assumption (conclusion, rather) that uploading is inherently superior to 'natural' existence (biological existence) is one of the cornerstones of transhumanism, at least for many transhumanists (depending on their opinion on whether an upload can 'be' you. For me it's a no-brainer, but that's a separate argument).

The main question seems to be as you state is, 'whether an upload can 'be' you.' 

> 
> How's this for 'somehow' superior?:

All of what you say below seems to add up to bigger, stronger, faster. Generally this has yielded evolutionarily  successful results, except for all those organisms like lichen which went successfully down the smaller, weaker, slower path.

> 
> No susceptibility to biological/chemical attack (bacterial/viral infections and poisoning)

Susceptibility to computer viral attacks as Keith Henson points out below. And I'm pretty sure HydroChloric Acid would do a number on your processors, wires, etc. This is a change of degree not category.

> 
> Vastly more robust physical structure (potentially, anyway.  Nothing stopping you uploading into computational aerogel, though, if you really wanted!)

Agreed, but again this is an incremental change.

> 
> No deterioration with time (not strictly true, but the deterioration of the kind of hardware envisioned would be far, far slower)

As you say, far slower, so an incremental change.

> 
> Access to your own mental architecture, and the possibility of easily and reversibly altering it, opening up the way to improve your mental capacities, in whatever way is important to you

People access their mental architectures all day every day and change them, for the better generally through education, but sometimes they mess themselves up with drugs, cults, or disinformation. Again I would call this an incremental change.

> 
> Copying/Backing up your mind, with all that that implies

Recently, over 4 years ago, I began a project to replicate my physical structure and mind. My son Max is doing well and resembles me in many ways, but every day I am reminded that he isn't me. Same for the copies/backups. They will either have to be chained into emulating our biological brains or they will begin to diverge from us at the speed of theirs thoughts and experiences.

> 
> Access to virtual realities that are as real as anything you can experience now, and much more varied.

Again, this is incremental. We have VR now, it's not indistinguishable from reality but it is varied. About the indistinguishability, I would argue that the mere fact that it was a simulation would entail other variations in the simulation and these errata would yield to scientific inquiry and reveal the walls of the simulation.

> 
> Vastly reduced energy and material resource requirements

This one is completely wrong. Maybe, only maybe, if we stayed in our processors and pondered all day it would be true. But as you point out we will almost certainly like to undertake the kinds of activities you outline below. Multiple bodies multiply resource requirements. While we are talking about efficiency; what if the smallest part we have to replace/simulate/enhance isn't the neuron? Our cyber infrastructure might end up being more massive than our biological infrastructure. What if we need qbits on the order of the number of atoms in the brain to achieve our goals?

> 
> (Probably) Increased speed of cognition and/or the ability to speed up/slow down your mental processes

Again we can achieve this sort of thing now through the use of stimulants and/or meditation. Again a matter of degree not category.

> 
> Ability to transmit your mind to remote locations with suitable equipment to recieve and run it (effectively, travel at the speed of light)

We can go here and there and grab some gear and do this and that now. Copying and transmitting suffers from the same limitation as copying and backing up. That's not me. 

> 
> Reparing the hardware when and if necessary would be vastly easier, so lifespans would be unlimited, or at least indefinite, even if you decided to stay in the same hardware indefinitely (not very likely, I'd think)

Repairing arms and legs, etc is getting better all the time. Repairing brains is becoming increasingly feasible too, but this repair problem isn't going to go away. As our 'brains' increase in complexity the difficulty of repairing them will increase.

> 
> Ability to download into a variety of physical bodies (or simply remote-control them), to operate in different 'real-life' environments

Remote control is obviously available now, and again the download suffers from the 'that's not me' problem.

> 
> There's 11 reasons why being an upload is better than being 2 pounds of fragile jelly, just off the top of my head.  There are certainly more.
> 
> Ben Zaiboc
> 
> 
> Message: 9
> Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:40:00 -0700
> From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Fwd: [Cosmic Engineers] Re: Sharing/engineering
> 	proposal
> Message-ID:
> 	<AANLkTi=FJnNxXA7a5n14msvXspb-zmNgGv4O+snsPmFk at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> 
> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 6:04 AM, Ben Zaiboc <bbenzai at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> snip
>> 
>> No susceptibility to biological/chemical attack (bacterial/viral infections and poisoning)
> 
> Sigh.  The trade off for not getting the flu is that you are now
> subject to infection by some horribly evolved version of Stuxnet.
> 
> Perhaps that's the real answer to the Fermi paradox.  Technophiles
> always figure out uploading and are then eaten by some nasty computer
> virus.
> 
>> Vastly more robust physical structure (potentially, anyway. ?Nothing stopping you uploading into computational aerogel, though, if you really wanted!)
>> 
>> No deterioration with time (not strictly true, but the deterioration of the kind of hardware envisioned would be far, far slower)
>> 
>> Access to your own mental architecture, and the possibility of easily and reversibly altering it, opening up the way to improve your mental capacities, in whatever way is important to you
> 
> This is lethal.  At least nobody is going to recognize a person who
> mucks around with their internal state variables.  See Society of Mind
> for discussions of these points.
> 
>> Copying/Backing up your mind, with all that that implies
> 
> If offers some possibility you could be restored after mucking with
> yer mind or being eaten by a virus.
> 
>> Access to virtual realities that are as real as anything you can experience now, and much more varied.
> 
> You mean like WoW only even more addictive?
> 
> snip
> 
> Ben, I am not really pouring cold water on your ideas, which are very
> much in tune with those discussed on the early extropian list.  But I
> do urge caution.
> 
> Keith
> 
>> Ben Zaiboc
> 

 Ben, I also don't want to pour cold water, or hot water for that matter, on any of your ideas but what I'd like to get to is something revolutionary. All of this incremental progress is wonderful but what would be more interesting to me would be something that we can't do now. While the degree does matter, apes can do most (all?) of what we do mentally, but more slowly, what is more important than uploading to me as a biological entity is downloading. Sartre in one of his books, I forget which at the moment, talked about something that I have found philosophically important. Interestingly he used a German term, 'mit sein' which was translated as 'being together'. The ability to literally meet yourself and reintegrate and 'be together' is something that isn't possible now. You might say that empathic feelings indicate the same thing, but it isn't literally true.

Downloading is the key to something new.

Regards,

Omar Rahman

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