Comments on: Brainstorms About The Orphidnet. Visit with Greg Benford

By: Steve H

Steve H — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 21:23:32 +0000

Didja notice that if you google that NATURE EXPOSING HERSELF statue it’s stolen property? Maybe there are many copies, like The Scream?

By: Steve H

Steve H — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 21:56:34 +0000

Ugh. I suspect that having a clone in cyberspace wouldn’t be much consolation to me for being ‘put to sleep.’No way I’d choose death, just make another, bigger, me. If I vastened myself, the new me would spend all its time looking out for my real body - sure it would, or it wouldn’t be me.
It sounds good, but I’d much sooner live in a real biosphere where I could have actual experiences than be software simulating actuality. Sure, I could have a virtual dog, but it wouldn’t really be my dog, and if it crapped the rug it would be an ideal crap on a virtual rug. One of the great weaknesses of the human mind is its ability to live in a fantasy world; how many people could actually cope with an unreal existence?
I’d like to leave a virtual copy of myself behind when I go, all right; one that was capable of managing my affairs and offering some support to my living family.
Probably result in me having to work forever with no possible retirement. Let’s not tell the government about this for a while, fellas…

By: Bascule

Bascule — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 06:47:59 +0000

I wrote quite an enormous reply to your whole “Postsingularity” entry which I guess I tried to post to the wrong entry and ended up never posting at all.
My first thought was that it’s quite similar to what Eric Drexler proposed in Engines of Creation would be needed to protect the world from out-of-control replicators: an even bigger network of benevolently controlled replicators that could outconsume whatever destructive replicators were trying to wreak havoc. My second thought was they resembled what Kurzweil described as “foglets”
So that leads me of the question of whether or not you wanted them to be more than self-replicators, but full blown von Neumann universal constructors that can build *anything*.
When you have a nanomachine which comprises the von Neumann universal constructor, and a complex sensory node, and a computer, and a digital storage device, which can communicate via a mesh wireless network with innumerable copies of itself, you have the ultimate platform upon which consciousness can spread itself throughout the universe.
My real question becomes once we have such a device, loaded with benevolent strong AI who ensures that everyone is protected, why remain human at all? Wouldn’t there be a much richer existence if you could let the von Neumann universal constructor gobble you up and transfer your neural pattern into a distributed, computerized environment where you could think considerably faster, have instantaneous access to an incomprehensible wealth of information and sensory experiences (through the nanobots), and be rendered completely immune from death?
Bored? Why not put your conscious process to “sleep” and have yourself awakened in the future so you can have a whole new set of changes to begin taking in?
I suppose the debate between keeping your brain primarily biological and dumping your consciousness into a computer will be quite a contentious one. This question (whether to gain immortality as a machine or preserve your humanity) formed the central concept of Reiji Matsumoto’s Galaxy Express 999… (in the end, the main character chose to preserve his humanity)
( you can visit my blog at singularitynow.net )

By: gamma

gamma — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 22:22:22 +0000

what is it about yer pix that make me smile & CRY AT the same time together - increased intelligence?
solomon greater key of c#?
love 2 yu all - it was nice to see a pic of Greg - and i reread the CyberPunk thing in TRANSREAL