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

[Ben Zaiboc]

Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 9:04 AM, Ben Zaiboc <bbenzai at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> Was that "2 pounds of jelly.. off the top of my head" an
> intentional pun?

I was wondering if anyone would think that.
I admit nothing.

Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:

> "Better" is a tricky thing to evaluate in this
> context.  I think it s
> nearly certain that the uploaded state will be more
> attractive, if not
> we modify the unloaded environment till it is.  I
> expect the
> attractiveness to seduce people out of the real world as in
> The Clinic
> Seed story.  Once the population starts cocooning up,
> the process
> might run to completion or near completion in a couple of
> years.
> 
> It might be a very strange world, houses well maintained
> by
> AI/robots/bioforms even but no people visible in it.

Just because people's consciousnesses are housed in safer containers doesn't mean they'd automatically abandon the physical world.  Yes, VR will have its appeal, I'd be the first to admit, and I'd love to have holidays in fantasmagorical worlds, but I'd still want to work in the 'real' world, drive a set of synthetic bodies, be able to explore and work in environments that my original meat body would perish in.

I think it will be a strange world, but it won't seem uninhabited.

> 
> On the other hand, a body kept up by increasingly capable
> nano
> machines might be enough to keep people in the physical
> world.

Same thing, really.  What's the difference between a 'classical' upload, and a biological body that's been gradually transformed into something post-biological via increasingly capable nanomachines?  Your brain will still be made of synthetic materials, and will be capable of the same VR experiences, etc.  I view that as just another route to uploading (probably a preferable route, if you're willing to accept the risks involved in it taking longer than the destructive scanning method).

> 
> As a guess you are one of the people who recompiles linux
> just because you can.

Nope, but I do use as much open-source and free (as in speech) software as I can.  You certainly won't catch me using anything from Apple, and M$ as little as possible.

> 
> > Maybe, in the future, the price of freedom will be the
> willingness and ability to eternally rewrite your own
> systems software. ?Even so, it's better than being made of
> meat, imo.
> 
> If that's what's required the vast majority of people will
> stay in meat.
> 
> Running on beta software would be really scary.

For many, yes.  For others, the risk of thralldom to some company or other (or even some group of open source programmers), or the vulnerabililty to malware, will be even scarier.  The point is, people should have choices.  Just as in biology, variation will be important.

Ben Zaiboc