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Off-Topic Discussion => The Classics => Topic started by: The E on October 29, 2009, 01:42:37 pm

Title: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: The E on October 29, 2009, 01:42:37 pm
At least, most of the time. (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/10/how_habitable_is_the_earth.html)

Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 29, 2009, 03:21:30 pm
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We are finely tuned survival machines that have evolved to survive in a niche on one particular planet in one particular epoch. Even our own planet is unimaginably hostile to our kind of life for most of its history.

This is one of the reasons that I find most SF in which mankind spreads across the galaxy remarkably silly.

We're an incredibly niche solution, even with the benefit of technology. Something much more rapacious and much more adaptive would probably do a lot better (something that needn't haul around a bubble of its absurd niche environment.)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on October 29, 2009, 03:27:17 pm
At least, most of the time. (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/10/how_habitable_is_the_earth.html)



Wow that's 5 minutes I'll never get back.

This is one of the reasons that I find most SF in which mankind spreads across the galaxy remarkably silly.

We're an incredibly niche solution, even with the benefit of technology. Something much more rapacious and much more adaptive would probably do a lot better (something that needn't haul around a bubble of its absurd niche environment.)

Humans are the most adaptive creatures known. We've colonised all four corners of the world and live for periods of time outside in orbit above the planet. There's no reason that humans won't spread across the known galaxy if it becomes both technologically possible and economically viable.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: iamzack on October 29, 2009, 03:29:29 pm
Yeah, I don't really get it. We're very resourceful and good at manipulating our environments to suit our needs.

I spose I'm just missing the point.

What's the point?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Colonol Dekker on October 29, 2009, 03:31:27 pm
We can't live anywhere unless we duplicate optimal conditions. Don't believe me? Sleep in your garden naked and don't go back inside for a week.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 29, 2009, 03:34:35 pm
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Humans are the most adaptive creatures known. We've colonised all four corners of the world and live for periods of time outside in orbit above the planet. There's no reason that humans won't spread across the known galaxy if it becomes both technologically possible and economically viable.

Ah, but the point is that we're very narrowly adapted to a very rare set of environmental conditions and we've only been around for a very, very, very, very, very small period of time. We're talking a blink here.

If you just measure success by 'how long you stick around', the dinosaurs are still outplaying us tremendously.

I'll quote myself:

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Something much more rapacious and much more adaptive would probably do a lot better (something that needn't haul around a bubble of its absurd niche environment.)

We're far from optimized for galactic domination. I'm sure there are designs out there that can do everything we can do, but do it better, and then do a lot more on top of it.

Saying that 'we're the most adaptive species known' is both silly (every other species we know is a product of the same environment) and dubious (cockroaches will probably survive a lot of things that we, as a species, couldn't.)

We can't live anywhere unless we duplicate optimal conditions. Don't believe me? Sleep in your garden naked and don't go back inside for a week.

Precisely! To get anything done, we have to drag a little chunk of our stupid home with us. Whereas Bob the Post-Singularity Xenomorph is a perfect, immortal machine, endlessly adaptable, at home in every environment from the cold of interstellar space to the accretion disk of a black hole. If it's got matter, and it's got energy (and arguably only one of the two is neessary) s/he/it can eat it and make more of itself!
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on October 29, 2009, 03:35:56 pm
Hmm. Okay then, what about the 70+ % of the Earth's surface that are completely uninhabitable? What about environments that do not have a Nitrogen/Oxygen/CO2 atmosphere at the right ambient pressure?
Remember, to survive, we need an atmosphere that has certain minimum and maximum criteria in terms of gases allowed. We need liquid water. We need an ambient temperature in a certain, rather narrow range. We need Gravity to be near or around 1g. We need radiation shielding. And then, of course, we need something to eat as well.

So, our adaptiveness stops when considering other planets in our solar system, or even a large range of environments on our own planet.

Recreating an environment that allows all those conditions indefinitely from scratch is a non-trivial exercise (as several large-scale experiments in the 90s proved).
For the very same reason, Space Colonisation is highly unlikely (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high_frontier_redux.html).
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Black Wolf on October 29, 2009, 04:47:21 pm
We can't live anywhere unless we duplicate optimal conditions. Don't believe me? Sleep in your garden naked and don't go back inside for a week.

I could do that - hell, the aboriginals did that for 40000 years. We don't all live in frozen wastelands you know :p

And what's with the hate-on for humanity here recently? We can and do live on all sorts of weird environments that most of us would consider uninhabitable, from the arctic to the sahara. They're not ideal, but we can live there. We have long term presences in Antarctica which could turn into permanant residences if there was a reason to make it so - only power would be a concern (and even that would only be six months of the year - full time solar for the rest) - otherwise, with enough impetus and enough associated funding, we could have a self sustaining antarctic settlement - something the often vaunted cockroach can not do (there are no cockroaches in antarctica).

In fact, the reasons we don't live in some of the ****tier places in the world is almost entirely because there're nicer places to live - it's not that we couldn;t do it, just that we don't have a good enough reason to. And as for the 70% of the world that's uninhabitable, tell that to the people who live and work on those massive ocean liners - relatively minor modifications - I'm mostly thinking about food supply and again, power - and you could have something completely self sustaining where someone could live for years at a time without ever needing to go onto dry land. But again, why bother when there are perfectly good places to live already on the land? Now granted, these examples still have the atmosphere, gravity, ozone layer and magnetic fields and whatnot, but I can guarantee you that if we found some way to move around at a reasonable speed and the only planets we found were as cold as Antarctica or covered with an ocean, we'd eventually find a way to colonize them. If the past 10000 years of human civilization (and the 50000+ year African diaspora) has proven anything it's that we can do anything we set our minds to as a species.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 29, 2009, 04:52:26 pm
Not a hate-on at all. Humanity is adaptable and amazing. But we need to keep our perspective here; we have no evidence that we're doing particularly well in the long-run, or that our highly cognitive strategy necessarily leads to a survival advantage.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Colonol Dekker on October 29, 2009, 04:54:22 pm
Early survival was based on factors like passed on knowledge and pre-established success. Like hunting routines and sheltered domicile. Even birds use nests. Imagine if a dozen people were miraculously beamed halfway across the galaxy to another slightly less habitable environment.........with zero support.



What would the odds be?

by the way, i'm not hating Humanity just being objective in expressing a viewpoint :)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on October 29, 2009, 04:57:09 pm
Seriously, this is not hating on humanity. Unless being aware of humanities' limitations is somehow hating on it*.

And seriously, unless you can have a 24/7/356, autonomous presence in Antarctica, the Gobi desert, and the Ocean floor, without the people living there having to get back to nicer areas of the globe every once in a while, I don't think space colonisation is really viable.


*Disclaimer: I'm an Extropian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extropian)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: mxlm on October 29, 2009, 05:50:11 pm
Not a hate-on at all. Humanity is adaptable and amazing. But we need to keep our perspective here; we have no evidence that we're doing particularly well in the long-run, or that our highly cognitive strategy necessarily leads to a survival advantage.

Yeah. The Industrial Revolution isn't more than a couple centuries old, and we can hardly say for certain it's going to be viable long-term. There're certainly a number of plausible scenarios (NBC apocalypse, anthropogenic climate change) in which it proves anything but.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Dark RevenantX on October 29, 2009, 06:08:53 pm
We need teleportation.  It's the only feasible way to get across these distances...
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Titan on October 29, 2009, 06:49:02 pm
*Disclaimer: I'm an Extropian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extropian)

See Scrubs, episode 1.

"That's modern medicine for ya, kid. Keeping people alive that died years ago anyway."
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on October 29, 2009, 08:26:46 pm
Bloody silly way of checking for inhabitability :p
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Bobboau on October 29, 2009, 08:45:10 pm
I don't see why our environmental needs are much of a handicap, we are extremely good at manipulating it.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on October 29, 2009, 08:55:51 pm
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We are finely tuned survival machines that have evolved to survive in a niche on one particular planet in one particular epoch. Even our own planet is unimaginably hostile to our kind of life for most of its history.

This is one of the reasons that I find most SF in which mankind spreads across the galaxy remarkably silly.

We're an incredibly niche solution, even with the benefit of technology. Something much more rapacious and much more adaptive would probably do a lot better (something that needn't haul around a bubble of its absurd niche environment.)


Actually it isn't so silly given that we can create our own artificial habitats, such as the International Space Station or in the not too distant future a real moon base. A more down to Earth example is modern nuclear submarines. They can stay submerged I've heard from 8-12 months (correct me if I'm wrong, but either way it is a very long time). Now, doing that is 100% unnatural, yet we do it anyway.

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And what's with the hate-on for humanity here recently?

Indeed. One thing the nature worshippers don't get is that "Nature" is not gentle kind and loving, but rather (if it can be anthropromorphized) it is a cruel sadistic ***** that's out to get us, and at one point  almost succeeded (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3340777/Humans-almost-became-extinct-in-70000-BC.html). 99.9% of all the animal species that have ever existed have been wiped out in one way or another. Of course I'm not saying that we should pollute our environment to death because it is still our life support system to a degree, but we should most definately NOT worship it or even respect it. We are at the apex of evolution on this planet, we shouldn't forget that.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Scotty on October 29, 2009, 09:06:10 pm
I'm okay with not worshipping it, but not respecting it is completely different.  Respect is not deference.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Rodo on October 29, 2009, 09:07:03 pm
So, what's to argue about this :P ? We are well aware of our limitations when it comes to survivability outside of our optimal environment, yet I think what makes us good candidates to conquer the universe is that, aside from all other known life forms, we are actually able to manipulate our environment and even taking it with us into space.

Yeah, we are lame, but we are still the best out there ^^
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 29, 2009, 09:17:22 pm
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We are finely tuned survival machines that have evolved to survive in a niche on one particular planet in one particular epoch. Even our own planet is unimaginably hostile to our kind of life for most of its history.

This is one of the reasons that I find most SF in which mankind spreads across the galaxy remarkably silly.

We're an incredibly niche solution, even with the benefit of technology. Something much more rapacious and much more adaptive would probably do a lot better (something that needn't haul around a bubble of its absurd niche environment.)


Actually it isn't so silly given that we can create our own artificial habitats, such as the International Space Station or in the not too distant future a real moon base.

Yet we can't build our own self-sustaining biospheres. In the future we probably will be able to, but the fact that we need to is itself a major handicap.

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We are at the apex of evolution on this planet, we shouldn't forget that.

Not yet. We're the current dominant species, but we haven't held that seat for very long.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on October 29, 2009, 09:22:19 pm
To be honest, the 'apex of evolution' is a very subjective thing, from the point of view of Evolution, probably the apex of its achievements would be things like Cyanobacteria, which were not only one of the first organisms on the planet, but are still here. They have evolved over time (strictly speaking, into practically everything) but the original one-cell design is still going strong.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 29, 2009, 09:24:02 pm
Well said.

Evolution is a big hedge, not a tree or a ladder.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on October 29, 2009, 09:25:35 pm
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Yet we can't build our own self-sustaining biospheres.

Why do we need that? If we were to setup an outpost somewhere a large part of our food would most likely be grown hydroponically (meat would be imported), the plants would also recycle the oxygen in the form of photosynthesis (and/or blue green algae if the plants aren't doing a good enough job), and the waste recycling system would be pretty much what we have on the space station now.

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Not yet. We're the current dominant species, but we haven't held that seat for very long.

I don't think there are any other animals capable of doing even half the things we do. For example Grizzly bears can't launch sattelites into space.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Ford Prefect on October 29, 2009, 09:29:17 pm
That's not in dispute, as far as I can tell. (At least, I wouldn't dispute it.) But that's a far cry from saying we're at the "apex of our evolution."
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on October 29, 2009, 09:30:26 pm
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but the original one-cell design is still going strong.

To be fair its simplicity gives it a big edge, although even it is kind of vulnerable to our technology (more specifically anti-biotics). :p


EDIT: People keep replying too fast. :p

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"apex of our evolution."

I never said the apex of our evolution, of course we are still evolving. With the development of genetic engineering and cybernetics, in the 21st century we will evolve in a very dramatic way (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0899298/).
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Snail on October 29, 2009, 09:34:26 pm
Humans are advancing at an amazing rate, though. 1,000 years is usually considered a cosmic blink, but that time in human history is actually enormous.

Humans are the supreme species on teh planet so let's go dalek this **** up and boogy.


Though to be perfectly honest I wouldn't be surprised at all if some virus mutates that kills the entire human population in a few days. **** happens, and often without warning.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Ford Prefect on October 29, 2009, 09:38:17 pm
I never said the apex of our evolution, of course we are still evolving. With the development of genetic engineering and cybernetics, in the 21st century we will evolve in a very dramatic way (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0899298/).
Oops, my bad; I imagined the "our" in there.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on October 29, 2009, 09:38:51 pm
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Though to be perfectly honest I wouldn't be surprised at all if some virus mutates that kills the entire human population in a few days.

It wouldn't happen, unless it came from outerspace or something like the Andromeda Strain. There are so many of us, and we are not exactly the same, even with HIV and Ebola, there's always at least a few that are immune.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Scotty on October 29, 2009, 09:43:44 pm
Cases in point:  Bubonic Plague, Spanish Influenza.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on October 29, 2009, 09:45:24 pm
Thing is, whilst it's difficult to describe evolution as having a goal or an apex, it's interesting to note how it tends towards systems of self-improvement, each 'great leap' (entirely the wrong term, but it'll do) in evolution has been based around a change in the creatures ability to co-exist with its environment, cold blood to warm blood, eggs to live-birth, all those changes were based around removing an evironment requirement from the creature, warm blooded creatures survive better in the cold, live-born young are less vulnerable to the elements and predators pre-birth etc.

It's interesting to note that one ratchet point of evolution was to evolve a whole new concept of dealing with the environment, humans. rather than a creature that was shaped to its environment, humans learned to do the opposite to a degree, to shape the environment to themselves. It was a unique evolutionary niche, and we flourished in it.

If you look at the cause of most extinctions, it's not hard to see what adaption to the environment played a key role in Evolution, but I suppose that also makes us, in a strange way, like one of those wierd evolutionary blips that pop up from time to time, in some ways, we are the Platypus of Primates ;)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 29, 2009, 09:49:32 pm
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Yet we can't build our own self-sustaining biospheres.

Why do we need that? If we were to setup an outpost somewhere a large part of our food would most likely be grown hydroponically (meat would be imported), the plants would also recycle the oxygen in the form of photosynthesis (and/or blue green algae if the plants aren't doing a good enough job), and the waste recycling system would be pretty much what we have on the space station now.

And yet we can't do that. We've tried, but we do not at the moment have the ability to build a self-sustaining, stable ecosphere. Check out the 'Biosphere' experiments for an example. We do not have the ability to build self-sufficient colonies.

The ISS is a great example of this: Murphy's Law in action.

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Not yet. We're the current dominant species, but we haven't held that seat for very long.

I don't think there are any other animals capable of doing even half the things we do. For example Grizzly bears can't launch sattelites into space.

Absolutely. And yet we do not yet have evidence that our capabilities will translate into a survival advantage. We won't for many million years.

We're highly adaptable (incredibly so) and extremely capable at spreading, but we have not yet demonstrated endurance in the manner many species have.

The point isn't that 'humans suck'. The point is that there are probably many organisms Out There who outperform us at the game of Galactic Domination...and some of them may have stumbled upon solutions that we've missed.

That could change if we get our act together and become posthuman, of course.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Snail on October 29, 2009, 09:51:39 pm
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Though to be perfectly honest I wouldn't be surprised at all if some virus mutates that kills the entire human population in a few days.

It wouldn't happen, unless it came from outerspace or something like the Andromeda Strain. There are so many of us, and we are not exactly the same, even with HIV and Ebola, there's always at least a few that are immune.

Sure, even if some of the human population survived, I'm sure civilization would go to **** pretty fast.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on October 29, 2009, 09:56:46 pm
In essence, we are not the most numerous, we are not the longest lived, we are not the most immune to disease, we are not the fastest growing and we haven't been dominant for long.

Our niche is certainly being exploited to the full, but then, we've never really had a challenge for it, and any challenges are likely to come from without, not within. Oddly enough, maybe that's why we evolved into a warlike mentality? Because, at some level, humanity needed the drive to evolve, and if it were not an arms race with predators, it would be a mind race with other tribes? I hesitate to speculate because it's too easy to try and personify evolution and give it a 'purpose'...
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Snail on October 29, 2009, 09:57:38 pm
Oddly enough, maybe that's why we evolved into a warlike mentality? Because, at some level, humanity needed the drive to evolve, and if it were not an arms race with predators, it would be a mind race with other tribes?
That's a very interesting thought...
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on October 29, 2009, 10:39:54 pm
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And yet we can't do that. We've tried, but we do not at the moment have the ability to build a self-sustaining, stable ecosphere. Check out the 'Biosphere' experiments for an example.

Um, what I am talking about is quite feasible, and it is not related to the Biosphere experinments in any way. Hydroponic farming has been proven, as it is becoming a popular way to grow illegal marijuana and the waste recycling systems I'm talking about are already in place on the ISS.

The biosphere experiments were to create a a complete ecosystem, which is not what i am talking about.

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The ISS is a great example of this: Murphy's Law in action.

How so?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 29, 2009, 10:45:30 pm
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And yet we can't do that. We've tried, but we do not at the moment have the ability to build a self-sustaining, stable ecosphere. Check out the 'Biosphere' experiments for an example.

Um, what I am talking about is quite feasible, and it is not related to the Biosphere experinments in any way. Hydroponic farming has been proven, as it is becoming a popular way to grow illegal marijuana and the waste recycling systems I'm talking about are already in place on the ISS.

The biosphere experiments were to create a a complete ecosystem, which is not what i am talking about.

We do not have the capacity to create an environmental system capable of supporting a long-term colony on another world or in a hostile environment without outside support.

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The ISS is a great example of this: Murphy's Law in action.

How so?

The ISS cannot function without constant repair and resupply from groundside. The failures it has undergone are rapid, largely unanticipated, and symptomatic of our inability to generate and control self-sustaining life support systems.

In fact the waste recycling system broke down within a week of installation.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Black Wolf on October 29, 2009, 10:47:43 pm
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Yet we can't build our own self-sustaining biospheres.

Why do we need that? If we were to setup an outpost somewhere a large part of our food would most likely be grown hydroponically (meat would be imported), the plants would also recycle the oxygen in the form of photosynthesis (and/or blue green algae if the plants aren't doing a good enough job), and the waste recycling system would be pretty much what we have on the space station now.

And yet we can't do that. We've tried, but we do not at the moment have the ability to build a self-sustaining, stable ecosphere. Check out the 'Biosphere' experiments for an example. We do not have the ability to build self-sufficient colonies.

The ISS is a great example of this: Murphy's Law in action.

Why would we need to go biosphere on a planetary colony? We'd be exploiting the environment - if you assume we can magic wand the distance issue away (eg. we get a wormhole generator) then we're going to look for planets that are at least vaguely earthlike. Even if we don't get an earthlike planet, there'll be something there we can exploit, even if it's just drawing oxygen out of the rocks themselves (Of course, there'd probably be a lot more we could do - any martian colonies (and, following recent evidence, maybe lunar colonies as well) would be able to optain potentially huge amounts of water locally.


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The point isn't that 'humans suck'. The point is that there are probably many organisms Out There who outperform us at the game of Galactic Domination...and some of them may have stumbled upon solutions that we've missed.

Actually... I kind of think Fermi's Paradox implies that there aren't actually that many things better adapted than we are at all - certainly not within our local little region of space.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 29, 2009, 10:49:52 pm
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Why would we need to go biosphere on a planetary colony? We'd be exploiting the environment - if you assume we can magic wand the distance issue away (eg. we get a wormhole generator) then we're going to look for planets that are at least vaguely earthlike. Even if we don't get an earthlike planet, there'll be something there we can exploit, even if it's just drawing oxygen out of the rocks themselves (Of course, there'd probably be a lot more we could do - any martian colonies (and, following recent evidence, maybe lunar colonies as well) would be able to optain potentially huge amounts of water locally.

Sure, but I'm afraid we can't magic wand the distance away, can we?

Look at early efforts to colonize the Americas. That's what you'll see en masse in colonization. It will be a long, hard road before it goes right.

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Actually... I kind of think Fermi's Paradox implies that there aren't actually that many things better adapted than we are at all - certainly not within our local little region of space.

I wouldn't argue. But space is big. There's a lot out there. If anything, Fermi's Paradox suggests that civilizations like ours don't last long.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on October 29, 2009, 10:56:58 pm
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The ISS cannot function without constant repair and resupply from groundside.


Because it has no capability of growing food by itself? It was never intended to be that way. You're comparing two completely different situations.

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We do not have the capacity to create an environmental system capable of supporting a long-term colony on another world or in a hostile environment without outside support.

I also don't recall saying it would be 100% self supporting, just mostly self supporting. Spare parts would be imported, and as I already said meat would also be imported. Mineral resources get sent to space bound refining and manufacturing facilities, also whatever low g research that get s completed would go back to Earth.

At least that is the way it work initially.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on October 29, 2009, 11:16:28 pm
I kind of feel like the whole argument of humanity being not-so-great just by virtue of our relatively niche survival requirements is a bit silly to begin with.  Presumably, any species that hasn't advanced to the post-singularity, turn-ourselves-into-energy-beings stage would face the exact same issue, by virtue of the simple fact that they're biological life, so we're all in pretty much the same boat in that regard.  Sure, certain intelligent races out there may be able to survive in a somewhat wider range of raw conditions than we can, but they're still going to have some sort of limitations placed upon them, since that's how the game of evolution is played.  Now, if we do come across one of those energy-being races that happens to be hostile, we'll most likely be screwed, but until then, we should at least be able to acknowledge what our adaptability and ingenuity does allow us to accomplish survival-wise.  Supported from the surface or not, the ability to keep several human beings in a tin can 100 miles up alive for six months is no small accomplishment.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on October 30, 2009, 12:29:20 am
Yeah, since there are no other Earth like planets in this solar system, colonies would generally be interdependant, not just on each other but also interdependant with the Earth as well.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 30, 2009, 01:58:32 am
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The ISS cannot function without constant repair and resupply from groundside.


Because it has no capability of growing food by itself? It was never intended to be that way. You're comparing two completely different situations.

Precisely - the ISS cannot function on its own. We do not have the capability to build a facility that can. The ISS' constant system failures are emblematic of why we cannot.

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We do not have the capacity to create an environmental system capable of supporting a long-term colony on another world or in a hostile environment without outside support.

I also don't recall saying it would be 100% self supporting, just mostly self supporting. Spare parts would be imported, and as I already said meat would also be imported. Mineral resources get sent to space bound refining and manufacturing facilities, also whatever low g research that get s completed would go back to Earth.

At least that is the way it work initially.

We have no practical way to 'import' anything to a Mars colony at the moment.

This is all irrelevant, though; the point is that we are a highly adapted niche species and that our very need to go to such great lengths to drag our habitat around with us is kind of farcical.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: QuantumDelta on October 30, 2009, 03:17:45 am
Adapted is the wrong word.

Specialised is the correct one.


It's easy to use the word adapted, especially when talking about evolution because adaptation is where you get your specialisations from.
However, the (a) species ability TO adapt is what rates it as a success, if you had to give evolution a 'goal', rapid/successful adaptation would be it's aim (in actual fact the logic behind what would be argued as evolution is the reverse of this, but nevermind that).

Adaptation is something we're actually slightly less good at than most, currently speaking we're the most complex form of life on the planet, perhaps the most complex in it's history.

The argument would be that a more adaptable specie, perhaps something along the lines of what we may become (if we survive long enough) with advanced genetic engineering, for example;
Being able to glow in the dark in lightless environments (interior of asteroids/barren worlds).
Being able to breath different mixtures of gases.
Being able to survive without 1/3 the nutrients we currently do.
Being able to survive without bone or muscle degradation in lower gravity environments.
Being able to survive without support devices in high gravity environments (and honestly, this really only means .5G-2G, I would find any more in either direction to be unrealistic for us, even with bioengineering).


The idea that technology and our ability to think can do the job for us is flawed, it actually shows just how badly adapted and just how badly off we are in terms of evolution.

We're specialised to take almost full advantage of the current state of things, although this is the purpose of the biology of our species it is entirely luck that we as a species arrived here and not some other specie.
We are not special and it is not our manifest destiny to survive and colonise, we will have to make that happen and a true understanding of our we effect and control our environment would be a great start towards that, eventually however the only realistic way to make it happen permanently is either advanced in the extreme (genetic engineering), or total cyberisation.


The idea that we are the pinnacle of evolution (ever) is a complete joke.
The idea that evolution has a pinnacle is also likely to be seen as a joke.

The Earth is not our cradle, and we are not rulers of it, in fact we do not get along with more than the majority of the earth and more than the majority of the earth does not get along with us (talking biosphere).
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: NGTM-1R on October 30, 2009, 03:22:39 am
On the contrary; our lack of adaption to our environment is our only real strength.

Take the dolphins as an example. They're widely believed to be borderline intelligent. They're as old or older than we are. But dolphins have never explored the land as we have explored the ocean. Dolphins don't fly. Dolphins haven't been to the Moon. Dolphins don't even make or use tools, despite ample evidence they are intelligent enough to do so.

About the closest to being human dolphins get, sadly, is lynching porpoises.

The fact we are not adapted to most of our environments well is why we have had to create what we can create. Were we to encounter some other species that was better-suited to a wide range of environments or even their own home environment, we could reasonably expect their development in comparison to be stunted. Because they don't need it, and we do. A perfectly adapted intelligent species is one without a reason to do anything in regards to technological development. Posthumanism is the great trap, then, and ultimately the death of the species. When we no longer need to travel, why will we even try?

Also, Quantum and others here are drawing a strange, non-functional distinction between being able to accomplish something biologically and being able to accomplish it technologically. I would argue that, if you can accomplish one, being able to do it the other way is completely irrevelant. Explain to me, if you can, why it is not so?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: QuantumDelta on October 30, 2009, 03:32:22 am
As I stated in close, cyberisation would be fine for a final conclusion in adaptability, because a robot can survive virtually anywhere.

However, currently speaking we need to prepare for where we're going, if you get to the desert and haven't bought the ****e with you needed to survive, you're gonna die.
= Evolutionary failure.

If you're going to colonise space you need to build what ever you're going to use HERE and transport it there (in whatever form).
If you're going to live underwater you still need to build the technology first.


Tech is something you can use proactively, and that's lovely, but evolution is reactive, and in order for it to be reactive the first few generations have to be able to survive the environment in the first place.
Ergo, we fail at adaptability.
And ya know what? our technology is likely to make it worse, not better, significant evolution tends to only happen as a necessity.
If you remove that necessity the same way the dolphins have; by never leaving the water (read; taking your environment with you where ever you go) you're only going to damage that adaptability further.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on October 30, 2009, 03:34:14 am
Yet we can't build our own self-sustaining biospheres. In the future we probably will be able to, but the fact that we need to is itself a major handicap.

Indeed. It is a handicap of a sorts. But compared to WHOM?

Bob, the Singularity thingy doesn't exist..and probably never will.
Coakroaches will die with this planet - at least we can leave it and hopefully colonize. Not easy, not cheap, but we can spread beyond Earth by ourselves. Now we just need to discover subspace and we're all set.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on October 30, 2009, 03:44:34 am
Yet we can't build our own self-sustaining biospheres. In the future we probably will be able to, but the fact that we need to is itself a major handicap.

Indeed. It is a handicap of a sorts. But compared to WHOM?

That question is beside the point. WE are handicapped. The existence of a hypothetical non-handicapped species does not have an impact on OUR condition.

Quote
Bob, the Singularity thingy doesn't exist..and probably never will.

And you are sure about that? How would you determine "This point in time marks the Singularity?"

Quote
Coakroaches will die with this planet - at least we can leave it and hopefully colonize. Not easy, not cheap, but we can spread beyond Earth by ourselves. Now we just need to discover subspace and we're all set.

But unless we discover that sort of sufficiently advanced technology, it is still next to impossible.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: NGTM-1R on October 30, 2009, 03:47:54 am
And yet the means for taking the environment will be adapted and evolve. And if they no longer need to evolve, what else is there left for us to deal with? What will we have not conquered?

You argue a distinction that does not actually exist. Yes, we have probably substituted technological development for evolutionary development...but this was not a bad choice, as we have managed to adapt ourselves in so doing to environments no other organism we know can survive. We have, today, the means to leave our little planet and travel to the stars. Slowly, true. Dangerously, true. That we would not do it now, without some massive reason to invest in the means to do so, true. But we know how to do it, and much ink has been spilled on the means to abandon this island Earth using the means at hand. No other organism on this planet can do that, and if we are honest, no biologically adaptive organism we can realistically concieve of could.

We do not need to be biologically adaptable if we can make our technology meet the challenge instead. Indeed, technological adaptation has proved the better path. If you doubt this, look to the past, to the bones of species that have lived and died upon our own planet and never breached the barrier at 10,000 feet. They litter the world. You cannot put down a foot without stepping on something that was once part of them.

We did. We found a better way.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on October 30, 2009, 03:54:17 am


Quote
And you are sure about that? How would you determine "This point in time marks the Singularity?"

The whole concept of such a creature is redicolous.
If you belive in it, then let me introdue you to my pal, Joe, the rock-creature. You see, he's a perfect survivor. He doesn't breathe, doesn't eat and can endure all sorts of conditions. You attack him and you only get more Joe's. What a perfect survivor.



Quote
But unless we discover that sort of sufficiently advanced technology, it is still next to impossible.

We can always terraform Mars...
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: QuantumDelta on October 30, 2009, 04:02:48 am
The cessation of evolution is a dead end that leaves vulnerability on any scale, and we're always dealing with the unknown in a debate like this.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on October 30, 2009, 04:21:11 am
Quote
Precisely - the ISS cannot function on its own. We do not have the capability to build a facility that can. The ISS' constant system failures are emblematic of why we cannot.

You've missed the point entirely: At best we only need something that is semi-independant, not completely independent. The ISS was a test bed for a lot of these new systems, so of course it is going to have problems. You can't expect something to work perfectly that first time, since it usually doesn't. You're panning the ISS for not doing something it was never supposed to do to begin with.

Quote
We have no practical way to 'import' anything to a Mars colony at the moment.

That we don't have a Mars colony at the moment either kind of makes that a moot point. Even if it wasn't do you seriously believe that wouldn't be factored into colonization plans? And do you also believe that this wouldn't spur innovation to create faster and better propulsion systems? The reason we don't have anything better in place is because of a total lack of vision by our leaders until recently to invest the proper amount of resources into making them. That being said the VASIMIR  made a major breakthrough recently, theoretically it can go to Mars in just 39 days, and there's also various proposals for nuclear rockets that would also be significantly faster that proposals with conventional rocketry (Russians have made progress with that too).

The entire basis for your agrument is "we can't do it now therefore it can never be done", which has been disproven over and over again throughout human history. Most of what we have today was certainly science fiction in the early 20th century.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Colonol Dekker on October 30, 2009, 04:27:04 am
Did any of you guys see that episode of the outer limits with the Nanobots?
The guy who used them ended up covered in jellyfish stinging cells (gills too?), he had eyes in the back of his head and lost his humanity, couldn't go out in public. He got a bit down, and every time he tried to commit suicide the damned things pulled an M Bison and revived him.   
 
Relevance, maybe none but I still like the story. :)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on October 30, 2009, 04:29:14 am
Actually, we could probably do it now (mars colony).

Sure it would be horriby expensive, slow and not very efficient. But we could do it.
But why do it now when we can wait till we have the means to do it faster, cheaper and more efficient?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Colonol Dekker on October 30, 2009, 04:38:56 am
Because there's no necessity, no drive or overwhelming need. Look back through history and perhaps even your own lives. When it boils down to an absolute do or die incentive mankind can pretty much as a collective achieve it's targets. World wars, crash survivors, or playground fights. I'm not by nature violent at all and i'm betting no-one here is either. You'd never willingly punch an innocent. (cept a zod) but you've probably had moments in your life where you've kicked arse because you had to.
 
What i'm saying is, is that if something like twenty twelve was gonna happen and we had some warning you can guarantee that (hollywood aside) government would get off their arse and at least save themselves.
But at the moment there's no need.
 
Looking back that was a marginally relevant ramble to GBs mars post. :s
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 30, 2009, 10:36:54 am
Wow, this turned into an odd political debate.  :wtf:

It's simply an incontrovertible fact that we have no idea whether our current survival strategy is a good one in the long term. We might do a great job with it; we might not.

Everyone seems to be interpreting the OP as 'humans suck', when I'm not sure that was the point being driven at at all. Everyone's arguing that we could go colonize Mars or whatever, that we just have to try hard enough, but...well, the fact that we have to try so hard is kind of the point.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Ziame on October 30, 2009, 12:52:31 pm
Well, best Polish S-F writer Stanisław Lem wrote about years ago. It was about Iyon Tichy, astronaut who was invited to an university on a planet, far away. The topic of the lecture was "Why isn't the Planet Earth habitable" and said something along the lines of too rapid changes, low temperatures, lots of water and so on
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 30, 2009, 12:57:43 pm
Lem was fantastic. Years ahead of his time in terms of the ideas presented. Invincible was a fantastic story about human egocentricity: the crew assumed that the creature they were facing had to be intelligent due to its behavior, but it was simply very alien.

Quote
In particular, [Invincible] is an imaginary experiment to demonstrate that evolution may not necessarily lead to dominance by intellectually superior life forms.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: NGTM-1R on October 30, 2009, 04:27:31 pm
The cessation of evolution is a dead end that leaves vulnerability on any scale, and we're always dealing with the unknown in a debate like this.

But it never stopped. It just took a different form, one that's actually much more rapid in changing, much more adaptable. Technological evolution, biological evolution; they're not seperate things in effect. And technology does it quicker, better, because it's directed.

Everyone's arguing that we could go colonize Mars or whatever, that we just have to try hard enough, but...well, the fact that we have to try so hard is kind of the point.

Screw Mars. We could launch our first interstellar mission in ten years, if we wanted to. And how hard we have to try is irrevelant. We can. Nothing else on this planet, and nothing else we can reasonably describe with our knowledge of life, could. The argument is not about the difficulty; it is about the raw capablity.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Snail on October 30, 2009, 04:28:45 pm
Sudden realization, it's all relative.

In comparison to all other known planets Earth is the most hospitable.



I'm slow don hurt me plees.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 30, 2009, 04:32:32 pm
Screw Mars. We could launch our first interstellar mission in ten years, if we wanted to. And how hard we have to try is irrevelant. We can. Nothing else on this planet, and nothing else we can reasonably describe with our knowledge of life, could. The argument is not about the difficulty; it is about the raw capablity.

Well, how hard we have to try is relevant in that the probability of success would be close to zero, whereas the probability of success for another hypothetical organism might be higher.

What I drew from the article was the very real and relevant point that we should be very grateful for our technological adaptability and very aware that we need to drag our ecology everywhere in order to survive. As explorers, we have a really big logistical tail.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on October 30, 2009, 07:50:31 pm
Quote
Everyone's arguing that we could go colonize Mars or whatever, that we just have to try hard enough, but...well, the fact that we have to try so hard is kind of the point.


We used to have to try REAL hard to fly, now it is a common thing. Tech advancement gradually makes such tasks become trivial everyday things.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 30, 2009, 07:54:38 pm
I don't in any way disagree.

Nonetheless the fundamental need to drag around all this absurd life support suggests that there are far better ways to do it.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: NGTM-1R on October 30, 2009, 08:08:47 pm
Which, in themselves, obviate the need to keep pressing on. Paradox. :P
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 30, 2009, 08:16:24 pm
Clarify please?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: StarSlayer on October 30, 2009, 08:39:17 pm
I think he means that since our living conditions are so specific, our need to replicate them elsewhere is more important.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: NGTM-1R on October 30, 2009, 09:24:06 pm
Clarify please?

If you are perfectly adapted, like the dolphins, you stop adapting. It is because we are poorly equipped otherwise that we went the route we did. If we were naturally equipped to handle our home environment, would we have ever developed as far as we have? No. We wouldn't need to.

Not being strong has been our strength.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 30, 2009, 09:37:30 pm
Oh, right, I'd agree with that. But there's no reason to believe that our particular set of skills is the right solution to long-term survival.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on October 30, 2009, 10:08:13 pm
I don't in any way disagree.

Nonetheless the fundamental need to drag around all this absurd life support suggests that there are far better ways to do it.

Like what?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 30, 2009, 10:11:08 pm
Not be a fragile, bipedal ape who needs a very temperamental environmental and constant coddling to get by!

Be an uploaded intelligence instead. Or some species capable of easy long-term hibernation.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: BloodEagle on October 30, 2009, 10:23:53 pm
Did you just advocate Transhumanism?  :P
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: NGTM-1R on October 30, 2009, 10:29:42 pm
Transhumanism means we just stop again. :P I can't agree with that.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 30, 2009, 10:39:38 pm
Hurr? Transhumanism means unlimited freedom to adapt purely on the basis of conscious planning, instead of the half-assed consciousness we have right now.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Snail on October 30, 2009, 10:51:03 pm
-isms rule.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: blackhole on October 31, 2009, 12:16:47 am
No matter how ridiculously unsuited we are to galactic domination, we'll probably colonize the entire galaxy anyway. Why? Becuase we're stubborn little monkeys.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 31, 2009, 02:28:56 am
Yeah, but the deal is, there might be things out there that are a lot more stubborn.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mars on October 31, 2009, 03:19:26 am
There is no evidence for that.


We are far superior space colonizers compared to any other multi-cellular organism we've encountered.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 31, 2009, 03:25:13 am
Ex-****ing-actly. :wtf: Our sample size is one measly planet. We have no idea what's out there.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mars on October 31, 2009, 03:26:28 am
But we have no reason to compare ourselves to imaginary hibernating armored space bats.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 31, 2009, 03:33:55 am
Isn't that what we do, though? We think of things that don't exist yet? That's kind of our big adaptation as a species. This is a discussion about whether mankind is 'good at surviving', or whether we're maybe not as ideal as we think we are.

For example, we can compare ourselves to organisms that have survived for thousands of times longer than we have and that maintain the ability to travel between planets by crazy meteoric happenstance.

We have some of those living on Earth. They are very small, very old, and very hard to kill.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on October 31, 2009, 04:07:53 am
Hurr? Transhumanism means unlimited freedom to adapt purely on the basis of conscious planning, instead of the half-assed consciousness we have right now.


I am actually a big advocate for Transhumanism as well, but it still does have limitations. If we were able to upload our consciousness into a computer system of some sort, that system also needs to operate within a rather tempremental environmental limitations. Even though the limits are relaxed, they still do exist and we shouldn't forget that. We would still need some sort of life support to live on the moon, we would still need to develop some sort of FTL-ish space propulsion system to get to other stars in a reasonable amount of time.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Black Wolf on October 31, 2009, 05:46:21 am
Quote
Why would we need to go biosphere on a planetary colony? We'd be exploiting the environment - if you assume we can magic wand the distance issue away (eg. we get a wormhole generator) then we're going to look for planets that are at least vaguely earthlike. Even if we don't get an earthlike planet, there'll be something there we can exploit, even if it's just drawing oxygen out of the rocks themselves (Of course, there'd probably be a lot more we could do - any martian colonies (and, following recent evidence, maybe lunar colonies as well) would be able to optain potentially huge amounts of water locally.

Sure, but I'm afraid we can't magic wand the distance away, can we?

Look at early efforts to colonize the Americas. That's what you'll see en masse in colonization. It will be a long, hard road before it goes right.

You guys are arguing two different things. First you say colonization is impossible because we pathetic humans need such a precise environment to survive in and all attempts to replicate that environment have failed. Now you're saying it's a distance issue. Sure, distance is an issue. My point is that if distance is the big problem, then we've got a much smaller range of planets we can potentially colonize - Mars, Venus, the moon, maybe a few of the jovian/saturnian moons - but there're no massive barriers to surviving on those planets - for at least a few years - with current or near future technologies - they're just not economically viable. If distance somehow ceased to be an issue through FTL, we'd go looking for a better, more earthlike colony world and it'd become easier to do. The only barrier to colonies offworld is economics.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Colonol Dekker on October 31, 2009, 06:52:08 am
Bodysnatcher fungus wins.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: BloodEagle on October 31, 2009, 10:31:00 am
Ex-****ing-actly. :wtf: Our sample size is one measly planet. We have no idea what's out there.

The Truth is out there, silly.  :P

Hurr? Transhumanism means unlimited freedom to adapt purely on the basis of conscious planning, instead of the half-assed consciousness we have right now.


I am actually a big advocate for Transhumanism as well, but it still does have limitations. If we were able to upload our consciousness into a computer system of some sort, that system also needs to operate within a rather tempremental environmental limitations. Even though the limits are relaxed, they still do exist and we shouldn't forget that. We would still need some sort of life support to live on the moon, we would still need to develop some sort of FTL-ish space propulsion system to get to other stars in a reasonable amount of time.

I'm all for aiding the body with implantations (provided they work well and without side-effects), but completely replacing it? No. Just, no.  :no:
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 31, 2009, 10:32:47 am
We would still need some sort of life support to live on the moon, we would still need to develop some sort of FTL-ish space propulsion system to get to other stars in a reasonable amount of time.

Um, why? Just dial down your clock speed. Or shut off your boredom.

I'm all for aiding the body with implantations (provided they work well and without side-effects), but completely replacing it? No. Just, no.  :no:

The kneejerk fear of the dualist!  :p

The fact is that your body gets replaced all the time anyway. The matter that makes up precious ol' You cycles all the time. All that's preserved is the pattern of information.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on October 31, 2009, 10:52:51 am
Recommended reading:

Accelerando (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/accelerando/)
Glasshouse (http://www.amazon.com/Glasshouse-Charles-Stross/dp/0441015085/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257004269&sr=8-1)
Altered Carbon (http://www.amazon.com/Altered-Carbon-GollanczF-Richard-Morgan/dp/0575081244/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257004294&sr=8-1)

And, for the space travel part:

Saturn's Children (http://www.amazon.com/Saturns-Children-Charles-Stross/dp/0441017312/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257004337&sr=8-1)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on October 31, 2009, 01:46:52 pm
I'm all for aiding the body with implantations (provided they work well and without side-effects), but completely replacing it? No. Just, no.  :no:

The kneejerk fear of the dualist!  :p

The fact is that your body gets replaced all the time anyway. The matter that makes up precious ol' You cycles all the time. All that's preserved is the pattern of information.
Yeah, but at least the replacement material is just as warm and squishy as the original.  And I want to be able to scratch my own biological ass in Alpha Centauri, thank you very much. :p
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: StarSlayer on October 31, 2009, 03:32:22 pm
I'm Sorry Battuta

But Humans are SUPERIOR!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHsL_ZhhMhI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHsL_ZhhMhI)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: NGTM-1R on October 31, 2009, 06:22:47 pm
Hurr? Transhumanism means unlimited freedom to adapt purely on the basis of conscious planning, instead of the half-assed consciousness we have right now.

Anything which makes us less squishy lessens our need to develop or adapt, and thus I cannot support it. :P
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 31, 2009, 06:32:42 pm
Our current habit of wrapping ourselves in life support, implanting ourselves with devices to keep us living, wearing glasses, modifying our diets, culturing livestock and food products, and coddling the ill is 'making us less squishy' on a grand scale. We don't need to be forced to adapt any more. We have this mechanism called cognition that lets us do it on our own!
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on October 31, 2009, 07:25:03 pm
Quote
Um, why? Just dial down your clock speed. Or shut off your boredom.


It isn't just a problem of that, it would cause you to fall behind everyone else by a few thousand years. If we were to have colonies in other star systems, rapid communication becomes that much more important.

Quote
I'm all for aiding the body with implantations (provided they work well and without side-effects), but completely replacing it? No. Just, no.

Your brain is eventually going to fail when it gets old, one of the symptoms of this is dimentia, occasionally along with alzheimers, etc. What do you do about that? What about people like Steven Hawking?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: NGTM-1R on October 31, 2009, 07:56:27 pm
Your brain generally lasts as long as the rest of your body, and as it decays so does the brain. We're not talking about something that should suffer programmed cell death or anything Kosh. As long as the rest of your body continues to function well and you're not unfortunate in the genetic lottery, your brain can keep soldiering on forever.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on October 31, 2009, 08:14:59 pm
Quote
Um, why? Just dial down your clock speed. Or shut off your boredom.
It isn't just a problem of that, it would cause you to fall behind everyone else by a few thousand years. If we were to have colonies in other star systems, rapid communication becomes that much more important.

Actually, no. Unless you can find a way around c, bandwidth between any interstellar colony and Earth will be severely limited.

Quote
Quote
I'm all for aiding the body with implantations (provided they work well and without side-effects), but completely replacing it? No. Just, no.

Your brain is eventually going to fail when it gets old, one of the symptoms of this is dimentia, occasionally along with alzheimers, etc. What do you do about that? What about people like Steven Hawking?

You really need to read up on transhumanism. If we can find solutions for the problems posed by these degenerative diseases (including old age), we will have to see how well a brain ages.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: castor on October 31, 2009, 08:24:23 pm
As long as the rest of your body continues to function well and you're not unfortunate in the genetic lottery, your brain can keep soldiering on forever.
That is just a hypothesis though, we can't know for sure. The brain is constantly evolving.. can that process be sustained succesfully for extended periods? Maybe in mere thousand years it will entangle itself into a nonsolvable puzzle - and just freeze.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on October 31, 2009, 08:29:22 pm
That is just a hypothesis though, we can't know for sure. The brain is constantly evolving.. can that process be sustained succesfully for extended periods? Maybe in mere thousand years it will entangle itself into a nonsolvable puzzle - and just freeze.

Let's find a cure for old age and it's associated failure modes and find out. Or better yet, find a method for uploading minds....
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: SypheDMar on October 31, 2009, 09:05:50 pm
You guys are arguing two different things. First you say colonization is impossible because we pathetic humans need such a precise environment to survive in and all attempts to replicate that environment have failed. Now you're saying it's a distance issue. Sure, distance is an issue. My point is that if distance is the big problem, then we've got a much smaller range of planets we can potentially colonize - Mars, Venus, the moon, maybe a few of the jovian/saturnian moons - but there're no massive barriers to surviving on those planets - for at least a few years - with current or near future technologies - they're just not economically viable. If distance somehow ceased to be an issue through FTL, we'd go looking for a better, more earthlike colony world and it'd become easier to do. The only barrier to colonies offworld is economics.
In the article, it says that colonization is practically impossible because of the environmental requirements, distance, and economics in real life conditions. I take it that is the misunderstanding?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on October 31, 2009, 09:24:52 pm
I concur.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on November 01, 2009, 06:24:15 am
Transhumanism is a big load of monkey poo.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on November 01, 2009, 06:51:36 am
Transhumanism is a big load of monkey poo.


Fine, we'll make sure you don't get any. :p
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Colonol Dekker on November 01, 2009, 07:13:21 am
Monkey poo? ;7
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 01, 2009, 09:29:24 am
Transhumanism is a big load of monkey poo.


Fine, we'll make sure you don't get any. :p

Quite right, you don't have to get any again.

Though, again, you're demonstrably wrong, since you're surrounded by transhumans.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Ghostavo on November 01, 2009, 09:35:33 am
I have glasses, which means I'm technically a CYBORG!

 :nervous:
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Colonol Dekker on November 01, 2009, 09:54:58 am
 :cool:

^like that?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Ghostavo on November 01, 2009, 10:03:34 am
Like that, only much more awesome.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 01, 2009, 01:42:02 pm
Quite. And people with pacemakers and bone implants and artificial organs.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: BloodEagle on November 01, 2009, 06:10:02 pm
I want a graphing calculator wired to my brain. :/
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: NGTM-1R on November 01, 2009, 06:18:32 pm
That IS your brain. For someone of us.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on November 01, 2009, 07:23:03 pm
Quote
Actually, no. Unless you can find a way around c, bandwidth between any interstellar colony and Earth will be severely limited.


Sorry I missed this one: This is why I stated earlier we need to find a FTL-ish method of travel.

Quote
That IS your brain. For someone of us.

I'd be happy with a math co-processor thankyou very much.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Scotty on November 01, 2009, 09:12:05 pm
SOME OF damn capslock.

Some of us are still waiting for the "abacus" update.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Topgun on November 01, 2009, 09:14:35 pm
soo....
do you think I should update my brain to windows 7?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Scotty on November 01, 2009, 09:15:05 pm
Only if you go with the 64 bit.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on November 02, 2009, 12:58:09 am
Windows has too much overhead. :p
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on November 02, 2009, 01:17:02 am
Though, again, you're demonstrably wrong, since you're surrounded by transhumans.


Eh? I haven't seen people who uploaded their conciousness into computers to live forever yet. Dang, I must be out of the loop.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on November 02, 2009, 01:22:52 am
So your argument is "because we haven't done it yet that means it will never be done"?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on November 02, 2009, 01:27:01 am
No, it means: "I don't belive it will ever be done, but even if it does, it will be a total waste and won't work like some people hope it will work."
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 02, 2009, 02:05:20 am
Read the ****ing thread. Examples have already been posted.

Technological augmentation of the human condition has been underway for years.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: High Max on November 02, 2009, 02:11:39 am
*_*
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Liberator on November 02, 2009, 02:49:00 am
go wiki Edenism

Everyone is assuming that our technology will remain wholly digital in nature when in all likelyhood we'll end up with a combination of the two as biotechnology matures.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on November 02, 2009, 04:38:15 am
Still doesn't matter. A copy is a copy. It's not you, it's a copy of you.

You don't lie down on a table, go to sleep, and wake up in a computer.

You lie down on a table, go to sleep, and wake up with a copy of you on a computer. Then you die and your existance ends. THE END.
From your POV nothing changes.

The You2 is not you, won't be you and won't even really think it's you, cause it's knows it's a copy. That knowledge by itself may even be enough to throw it into a existential crisis.


Read the ****ing thread. Examples have already been posted.

Technological augmentation of the human condition has been underway for years.

the end goal will never be reached.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on November 02, 2009, 05:36:54 am
Quote
Still doesn't matter. A copy is a copy. It's not you, it's a copy of you.

You don't lie down on a table, go to sleep, and wake up in a computer.

You lie down on a table, go to sleep, and wake up with a copy of you on a computer. Then you die and your existance ends. THE END.
From your POV nothing changes.

The You2 is not you, won't be you and won't even really think it's you, cause it's knows it's a copy. That knowledge by itself may even be enough to throw it into a existential crisis.

You know this how?


Personally one of the more interesting proposals I've heard is to design a kind of nanite that can replicate the function of a neuron. Then once inside the body it will seek out the brain, then latch onto the neurons effectively replacing them as well as allowing for a (theoretically) seemless transition to an artificial brain.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: QuantumDelta on November 02, 2009, 07:30:02 am
Windows has too much overhead. :p

(http://animewriter.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/rikuo-and-the-android-sammy.jpg)
Too much overhead? ;D
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 02, 2009, 10:22:02 am
Still doesn't matter. A copy is a copy. It's not you, it's a copy of you.

You don't lie down on a table, go to sleep, and wake up in a computer.

You lie down on a table, go to sleep, and wake up with a copy of you on a computer. Then you die and your existance ends. THE END.
From your POV nothing changes.

Teehee. Actually, this has already happened to you hundreds of times.

Yet you believe you're you! Even though, materially, you're really just a copy of you, and all that's been preserved is the information.

It's funny that you'd be afraid of something that has already happened to  you countless times.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: StarSlayer on November 02, 2009, 10:40:52 am
Still doesn't matter. A copy is a copy. It's not you, it's a copy of you.

You don't lie down on a table, go to sleep, and wake up in a computer.

You lie down on a table, go to sleep, and wake up with a copy of you on a computer. Then you die and your existance ends. THE END.
From your POV nothing changes.

Teehee. Actually, this has already happened to you hundreds of times.

Yet you believe you're you! Even though, materially, you're really just a copy of you, and all that's been preserved is the information.

It's funny that you'd be afraid of something that has already happened to  you countless times.

We can have internet piracy... of people!  I'm totally torrenting Lucy Liu.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: castor on November 02, 2009, 11:19:21 am
Still doesn't matter. A copy is a copy. It's not you, it's a copy of you.
I have to agree, sort of. Let's see..

Assume I upload myself into a "box". Immediately the boxed me and the original me start to differentiate, as they have thought processes of their own. So, as long as the original "me" exists, there are now *two* of me. But that doesn't make sense, does it? I can only be *one*. So actually, those two now *form the one*, who is me.

Ok? Now, if the original half gets destroyed, the remaining half is not the *whole* me anymore :(
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on November 02, 2009, 11:27:07 am
Geez, you people are really not up to speed on that whole uploading deal. Most of the (so far, fictional) implementations necessitate that the original is destroyed in the process (See John Scalzi's Old Man's War, or Charlie Stross' Accelerando). Thus there is only one of you around. Keeping both alive opens the door for potential abuse.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 02, 2009, 11:35:03 am
Ah, this is a classic thought experiment! And it has an easy solution. The solution is to get rid of a silly assumption, namely that

Quote
that doesn't make sense, does it? I can only be *one*

Let's say you get a copy made at time X. The copies will immediately begin to diverge, as you suggest. Both of them, however, will be 'you', complete with your unshaken conviction that you are you and that the other one is just a copy. So, while you can be only *one*, there are now *two* of you, and both of them are the 'real' you.

This is because the process that made the copy is no different from what happens to you every day of your life: different material cycles through your body, but the overall pattern of information remains the same.

Here's a thought experiment that helps illustrate that: you have created a copy which is linked to you by a neural bridge. This bridge keeps the copy in perfect sync with your thoughts. It will only begin to diverge when the link is broken.

You are hit by a car and you die. What do you experience?

Well, one minute you're walking along. Suddenly, WHAM. You wake up in a lab in your replacement body. "Holy ****," you say. "I'm glad I had that copy."

Meanwhile, EMTs resuscitate Old You. What does Old You experience? Well, from Backup's POV, Old You walks in and looks you over and says 'wow, that's a good copy.' You think that it's going to be really awkward explaining this to your wife.

From Old You's POV, you walk in to a room, find your copy, and say 'Wow, good copy.' You think to yourself that it's going to be really awkward explaining this to your wife.

You've forked. But both of the forks are the real you. They will now develop into different people - just as you are different from the person you were five years ago.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: castor on November 02, 2009, 11:54:43 am
Ok, that makes sense. Everytime you're about to die, fork! (like in FOSS development...)
It sounds tough, though. To not "lose" anything (keep the *me* intact), we must be able to fork from the very last mental state at the edge of alive/dead.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on November 02, 2009, 11:59:49 am
Still not understanding. It doesn't matter when you fork, both copies will always be you. The 'me' is intact, no matter when you do it.

Oh, and forking, and the associated issues with it, need to be resolved before you do it. Just ask yourself, since both forks are you, which fork is the one with the right to access your bank account?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 02, 2009, 12:02:40 pm
Right. While forking is not particularly hard to understand from a biological or physical standpoint, the legal and social implications are mad!

(Which is probably why so many people find it so counterintuitive.)

And The_E's right, even if your last fork is from, say, a day or a month before your accident, the backup will still be 'you'...as much as the person you were a day or a month ago is you.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on November 02, 2009, 01:02:31 pm
It's not YOU because you can only be you form one point of view. It doesn't amtter what happens to the other you if the first one gets destroyed. You're the original. The only sense of "self" you have is the original.

It doesn't matter that the other you lives on and does ****. From your point of view, you're dead. Don't you get it?
your life experince is over. The other you is his own person, not "you" you. Bob2 lives on - good for him. But you're Bob1. You're dead.


And I dont' really think the backup will be really a perfect copy of you. He will have your memories, but he will know it's not him that actually made those memories. Bob1 is the one that kissed Lucy, got the promotion and had 4 kids. Bob2 is just a copy with the memories, and he knows it. Even if you somehow automagicly copy the whole though patterns, the knowledge of being a copy is there.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 02, 2009, 01:34:25 pm
Nope, you're still missing it.

Bob1 and Bob2 are identical in the same way that you, TrashManNow, are identical to TrashManFiveYearsAgo. Actually, they're more similar. You didn't kiss Lucy five years ago; TrashManFiveYearsAgo did. And all that you share with him is that you're a copy made of new material but with the same memories. You're not the one that made the memories; TrashManFiveYearsAgo did.

The material used to make the body is different. The pattern of information is the same.

*shrug* You do this every day. It's why you're not dead even though the atoms in your body are now utterly different. You really have nothing to worry about because you've 'copied yourself' a million times.

It's the same reason the transporter in Star Trek doesn't kill you.

An easy way to untangle your misunderstanding is to say 'the copy is now BoB1', and the 'old you body' becomes BoB2, in the same way that 'you five years ago' is no longer TrashMan.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: High Max on November 02, 2009, 02:21:14 pm
*_*
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 02, 2009, 02:30:31 pm
There are testable, empirical theories, and then there is everything else, a category that contains everything from God to the Easter Bunny to the Greek pantheon and ancient fertility gods and my childhood belief that I was a shapeshifter from Pluto.

Please don't presume to know any science when you spout ideas like 'memory being contained in DNA'. A basic knowledge of biology would tell you why that doesn't make sense.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Turambar on November 02, 2009, 02:31:18 pm
There's only one way to really find out.  Someone's got to actually do it.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 02, 2009, 03:27:54 pm
You volunteering? I'll grab the anesthesia! :p
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Scotty on November 02, 2009, 04:33:26 pm
Trashman's argument earlier is that no matter how many copies you make, not matter how "you" they are, when one dies, he is dead.  There is no prolongation of consciousness.  For all practical intents and purposes, You #1 is just as dead as if he didn't have copies.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 02, 2009, 04:38:26 pm
Sure, but since You #2 and #3 and #4 are all also equally you, consciousness is still prolonged. To you, the guy who died was the copy, and you're the real you. All the yous feel that way.

He's missing the concept of the fork. He thinks that 'the real you' somehow only goes into one branch. But all the branches receive 'the real you'.

It's based an illusion of continuity. You can easily think your way around it if you realize that the difference between You and Clone You #1 is smaller than the difference between You Today and You A Year Ago. And yet I don't think you believe that You A Year Ago was a different 'you', do you?

It's an easy and seductive argument for those new to the concept, but you pretty rapidly learn why it's wrong. It's like stepping up from Newtonian dynamics to special relativity, and learning that there is no one 'correct' reference frame.

The trick Trashman's still struggling with is realizing that there can be more than one 'real you'. That's the whole point of the process. And just because one 'real you' dies - which he does! - doesn't mean that the other one is a fake.

Of course, from the perspective of any given copy, all the other copies are basically just identical twins with the same memories after the point of divergence - but all the copies think that, and they're all correct. No reason they can't be!

(If you go back in time to hang out with yourself, which one is the real you? Well, you both are, right? Same idea.)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Colonol Dekker on November 02, 2009, 04:40:23 pm
As long as one of my copies remembers what the heck i did, i don't really care one way or the other...


To quote Freddy Mercury and the unkown Sergeant form Starship Troppers (original 50's novel) YOU/WHO WANT'(s) TO LIVE FOREVER? (DAMN DIRTY APE?_)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on November 02, 2009, 04:41:52 pm
Again, I recommend some additional reading. Altered Carbon, by Richard Morgan, in particular.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 02, 2009, 04:45:11 pm
Here, for Scotty and TrashMan: think of it this way to work yourself out of the logical trap.

You have two brains in your head. One's your backup brain, which just copies your real brain exactly. In fact, you can switch between them in real time if you like! It's great. Totally awesome, no difference at all.

One day, you die. As you've arranged, your brain gets pulled out of your head and put in a new body. You wake up. "Whoa!" you say. "Pretty ****ing weird. Lucky I got pulled out."

Remember, the two brains are interchangeable, now. Totally the same.

So you go on your way, confident that you're the real you. And you are. I don't think anybody would argue it. You live in your brain, right? And now your brain is just in a new head. It's all good.

But then, your other brain miraculously comes back to life! And now there are two you. You look back at your old body and you're like 'whoa, not me any more.' And meanwhile, you're looking at your new body and being like 'whoa, not me any more!'

Crazy, huh? And yet they're both equally you.

(You'll note that at no point did I specify which brain gets pulled out and transferred...because it doesn't matter! They're interchangeable.)

Again, I recommend some additional reading. Altered Carbon, by Richard Morgan, in particular.

Hell yeah. Great book. I wish I could spoil the awesome sequence

Spoiler:
where there are two of the main character, and they talk about just this dilemma.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 02, 2009, 05:40:54 pm
But then, your other brain miraculously comes back to life! And now there are two you. You look back at your old body and you're like 'whoa, not me any more.' And meanwhile, you're looking at your new body and being like 'whoa, not me any more!'

Crazy, huh? And yet they're both equally you.
So here's the real question, then...if You #1 and You #2 get wasted and wind up "experimenting," does it just count as masturbation? :p
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: BloodEagle on November 02, 2009, 06:12:08 pm
The word 'fork' is being used way too much in this thread.  :P
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 02, 2009, 07:52:07 pm
So here's the real question, then...if You #1 and You #2 get wasted and wind up "experimenting," does it just count as masturbation? :p

The word 'fork' is being used way too much in this thread.  :P

Nah, man, you're just forking yourself!
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Ford Prefect on November 02, 2009, 08:00:35 pm
[buddhist]There isn't even one "you," never mind multiple yous.[/buddhist]
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on November 02, 2009, 10:09:51 pm
Right. While forking is not particularly hard to understand from a biological or physical standpoint, the legal and social implications are mad!

(Which is probably why so many people find it so counterintuitive.)

And The_E's right, even if your last fork is from, say, a day or a month before your accident, the backup will still be 'you'...as much as the person you were a day or a month ago is you.

Instead of forking is there some way to effect a total transfer?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on November 02, 2009, 10:20:38 pm
Depends on the recording technique being used. There are theoretical models that rely on the meat brain being replaced neuron by neuron with microprocessor equivalents.

But, once you have a process of converting a human mind into digital information, copying it is a trivial exercise. Downloading that information into a body is only marginally more complex than uploading it, so sooner or later, someone is going to take the Agent Smith approach to manpower requirements.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 02, 2009, 11:37:54 pm
But, once you have a process of converting a human mind into digital information, copying it is a trivial exercise. Downloading that information into a body is only marginally more complex than uploading it, so sooner or later, someone is going to take the Agent Smith approach to manpower requirements.
Oh goody, that's just what we need. :p
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 12:45:52 am
Right. While forking is not particularly hard to understand from a biological or physical standpoint, the legal and social implications are mad!

(Which is probably why so many people find it so counterintuitive.)

And The_E's right, even if your last fork is from, say, a day or a month before your accident, the backup will still be 'you'...as much as the person you were a day or a month ago is you.

Instead of forking is there some way to effect a total transfer?

Huh? What's the difference? Each 'fork' is complete. You could kill one of the forks and call it a 'total transfer', but what's the point? There's not actually anything more being moved...

It sounds like you're still missing something.

And yeah, The_E is correct.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on November 03, 2009, 02:54:07 am
An easy way to untangle your misunderstanding is to say 'the copy is now BoB1', and the 'old you body' becomes BoB2, in the same way that 'you five years ago' is no longer TrashMan.

Which is where you are wrong. Bob1 does not become Bob2. Bob1 is Bob1 and Remaion Bob1 regardless of how many Bobs are out there.
Do you just assume that your concicness jumps into another body? But how can that be if two or more active bodeis exist at the same time? Each Bob has his own experience and regards himself as "self". Bob 1 isn't suddenly aware of what bob2 is doing or seeing.  Each Bob looks at things trough his own eyes.
When Bob1 dies, he doesn't suddenly switch to look trough Bob2's eyes. He's done. Done for. Gone.

Bob2 might be perfectly healthy and happy, but Bob2's essence of self is not Bob1's essence of self. You can't have 2 different point of views that are the same point of view.

I really don't know to put it any simpler. It doesn't matter how perfect a copy the other me is. There is only ONE sense of "self" one has. Why should I care that the other me is still alvie and kicking? MY life experience has ended. *I* am dead. The other me is a seperate entity.

It really cannot be any simpler than this.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: NGTM-1R on November 03, 2009, 03:10:37 am
All of which is irrevelant to Battuta's points.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on November 03, 2009, 05:00:08 am
And all of Buttas points are irrelevant to that.
Your POV doesn't change.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: asyikarea51 on November 03, 2009, 06:20:38 am
This huge debate which I can barely understand just makes me want to re-watch that film where Jet Li fights himself.

Or the "governator" in the film about Saturday in the week... "OMGWTF FAKE!"... then comes the DUN-DUN-DUNNNNNN moment with that eye thing, :wtf:... "OMGWTF I'M THE FAKE?!?"

One of those 99.99%-chance-of-not-happening-situations-in-the-real-world when the truth in front of you is actually worse than any horror flick experienced before... total mind#@$% :doubt:
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on November 03, 2009, 07:16:35 am
Quote
Huh? What's the difference? Each 'fork' is complete.


I'd rather not have the original Kosh destroyed or allowed to die. I'm perfectly ok with making copies of myself but the original needs to go on somehow otherwise it is not true immortality. Even if Kosh1, Kosh2,.....,Koshn continue, me, Kosh prime, is still stuck in a meat based mind which is not something I find comforting. Personally I'd prefer moving to forking.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on November 03, 2009, 07:29:12 am
Not even teleportation helps here really.

Teleportation destroys the original. The one who teleported dies. For him, the whole deal SUCKS.
Sure, the copy won't notice...the other won't notice. But the original will. And if the original is you, than that's the only thing that really matters.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Turambar on November 03, 2009, 08:17:18 am
Not even teleportation helps here really.

Teleportation destroys the original. The one who teleported dies. For him, the whole deal SUCKS.
Sure, the copy won't notice...the other won't notice. But the original will. And if the original is you, than that's the only thing that really matters.

Yeah but the copy is "you" too, and from "your" perspective everything went great.  In this case, the copy isn't any less "you" than the original "you"
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on November 03, 2009, 08:36:14 am
But only the perspective of the one you who is You is important. What happens from the perspective of ANYONE else is irrelevenat.

If you are Bob1, then only what you see, feel and experience is important. When you die, you don't see, feel or experience what Bob2, or 3 or 57 does.
Each Bob copy is a SEPARATE ENTITY.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: übermetroid on November 03, 2009, 08:42:50 am
What if you fork, play around for a bit (explore, fight wars, go to school, ect...) and the recombine? 

What happens to your entity then?  I think of it like I am opening more tabs on my web browser and each one is gathering information.  Each tab is a new fork, and when the information is gathered (web page loaded), the fork is combined with the masses.

And you know acelerando is free, right?    Good read.  Glass house cost money, but it is good too.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Topgun on November 03, 2009, 09:12:05 am
My take on this is that we don't exist as our brain matter, instead we are the processes that occur in our brain. so, yes, I believe we can upload our minds into a robot or something. whether or not we get "forked", I don't know, but I think that we would only exist in one of the bodies, while the other body will be brain dead.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 09:38:32 am
Not even teleportation helps here really.

Teleportation destroys the original. The one who teleported dies. For him, the whole deal SUCKS.
Sure, the copy won't notice...the other won't notice. But the original will. And if the original is you, than that's the only thing that really matters.

Nope, there's no reason teleportation has to destroy the original.

And you undergo teleportation hundreds of times throughout your life. The material that makes up your body now is not the same as the original one. By your argument, you've been destroyed!

But only the perspective of the one you who is You is important. What happens from the perspective of ANYONE else is irrelevenat.

If you are Bob1, then only what you see, feel and experience is important. When you die, you don't see, feel or experience what Bob2, or 3 or 57 does.
Each Bob copy is a SEPARATE ENTITY.

Sure, but ALL OF THEM ARE YOU. How do you know that 'you' won't end up being Bob2? Or Bob3? Or Bob57? Oh wait, you will! You'll be ALL OF THEM!

An easy way to untangle your misunderstanding is to say 'the copy is now BoB1', and the 'old you body' becomes BoB2, in the same way that 'you five years ago' is no longer TrashMan.

Which is where you are wrong. Bob1 does not become Bob2. Bob1 is Bob1 and Remaion Bob1 regardless of how many Bobs are out there.
Do you just assume that your concicness jumps into another body? But how can that be if two or more active bodeis exist at the same time? Each Bob has his own experience and regards himself as "self". Bob 1 isn't suddenly aware of what bob2 is doing or seeing.  Each Bob looks at things trough his own eyes.
When Bob1 dies, he doesn't suddenly switch to look trough Bob2's eyes. He's done. Done for. Gone.

Bob2 might be perfectly healthy and happy, but Bob2's essence of self is not Bob1's essence of self. You can't have 2 different point of views that are the same point of view.

I really don't know to put it any simpler. It doesn't matter how perfect a copy the other me is. There is only ONE sense of "self" one has. Why should I care that the other me is still alvie and kicking? MY life experience has ended. *I* am dead. The other me is a seperate entity.

It really cannot be any simpler than this.

Look, mate, this is pretty ****ing elementary. Go back and read the example I posted with the 'backup brain'. (I take it you didn't.)

The easy thing you're missing is that it's just as true that YOUR EXPERIENCE CONTINUES, and the other you, the copy, died. That's true no matter whether Bob1 or Bob2 dies. Because they're EQUALLY VALID YOU.

You're acting as if something precious and irreplaceable stays with the Original You. But your question has already been answered in the simplest ****ing way possible. Just look at it from TrashMan2's POV. "I'm alive, I'm alive...okay, the copying just happened...hey, look, there's my copy! I guess that's the original body, but I'm the real TrashMan. Oh, ****, he died! But it doesn't matter, I'm still alive."

He's you! You wouldn't get all worried if the copy died every time and the original persisted, would you? Yet the two are ****ing indistinguishable! When the copy dies, that's you dying? And he doesn't care that you're still alive in your head, because he's dead! His life is over!

But I'm going to bet you're not worried, after all, because it's only the copy. But to the copy, the copy is you, and you're the damn copy!

One of you is going to die and end forever, yes. Completely true. But you're falling into the trap of assuming that that's always going to be you - because, while it's always going to be you, it's also going to always be not you.

This is a true statement as well, see: "I really don't know to put it any simpler. It doesn't matter how perfect a copy the other me is. There is only ONE sense of "self" one has. Why should I care that the other me is dead? MY life experience has continued. *I* am ALIVE. The other me is a seperate entity."

Quote
Huh? What's the difference? Each 'fork' is complete.


I'd rather not have the original Kosh destroyed or allowed to die. I'm perfectly ok with making copies of myself but the original needs to go on somehow otherwise it is not true immortality. Even if Kosh1, Kosh2,.....,Koshn continue, me, Kosh prime, is still stuck in a meat based mind which is not something I find comforting. Personally I'd prefer moving to forking.

You don't get it. The original Kosh has been destroyed hundreds of thousands of times. You are now a copy.

There is absolutely no difference between moving and forking, except that in moving, the original you is destroyed.

You've got to realize that in one sense TrashMan is correct: after the moment of the scan there will be two divergent entities, and if Kosh Original dies, then yeah, he's dead. But that doesn't matter. It's no different from simply destroying the original at the copy of the scan.

"Whoa," you're saying, "so the scan will kill me?" You are again making TrashMan's error of always assuming that the 'dead' guy is the original. You will just as equally be the copy.

Again, you've done this millions, billions of times before. You're just hung up on the idea that there can somehow only be One Camera of Me. All of the resulting You will have a camera, and you'll all be You. You'll also be all the dead ones too. There isn't some Precious Fluid of Koshness that will only end up with one of them.

Go back to the example with the two brains in one head. One gets plucked out and moved to the replacement. Up until the moment of the move, however, the brains were in perfect synchrony. I think you'd agree that your brain was moved into a different body you'd still be you, the 'original You' wouldn't be dead...and yet the two brains are identical, so whoever gets moved is inarguably you.

To think otherwise is a logical absurdity. We are what's in our brain. If there are two perfectly identical brains (plus relevant embodied cognitive elements), then it is us. The same person.

The essential thing to remember is that at the moment of copying both resultant copies experience complete, continuous consciousness which leads them to believe that they are the original. If it's easier for you to handle, think of both of them as a new you, and imagine that the old you is gone...and then reverse that. They're both the old you. The stream of continuous consciousness is clear.

I'll quote myself for TrashMan to read in case he's skimming the post:

Here, for Scotty and TrashMan: think of it this way to work yourself out of the logical trap.

You have two brains in your head. One's your backup brain, which just copies your real brain exactly. In fact, you can switch between them in real time if you like! It's great. Totally awesome, no difference at all.

One day, you die. As you've arranged, your brain gets pulled out of your head and put in a new body. You wake up. "Whoa!" you say. "Pretty ****ing weird. Lucky I got pulled out."

Remember, the two brains are interchangeable, now. Totally the same.

So you go on your way, confident that you're the real you. And you are. I don't think anybody would argue it. You live in your brain, right? And now your brain is just in a new head. It's all good.

But then, your other brain miraculously comes back to life! And now there are two you. You look back at your old body and you're like 'whoa, not me any more.' And meanwhile, you're looking at your new body and being like 'whoa, not me any more!'

Crazy, huh? And yet they're both equally you.

(You'll note that at no point did I specify which brain gets pulled out and transferred...because it doesn't matter! They're interchangeable.)

tl'dr version: TrashMan shouldn't be worried about something he's already done thousands of times. He thinks that he is the same person as TrashManFiveYearsAgo, even though he will never turn into TrashManFiveYearsAgo.

His brain right now is a copy of his brain five years ago, just a really bad synchronized one. If he got a brainscan at Moment A, he would immediately go flying into the brainscan and become TrashMan over there. He would then think of the original body as a copy which he had left, and be cool with it.

Meanwhile, he would also sit in his original body and look suspiciously at his new copy.

Unless TrashMan believes in the Precious Fluid of Trashmanness - i.e. he believes that there is a soul separate from the purely physical body - then he simply has nothing to worry about. So long as the brain is replicated in perfect detail, it must, by necessity, be him.

Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Black Wolf on November 03, 2009, 09:46:46 am
You know, calling the gradual change in the precise matter that makes up your body as exactly the same as a sudden jump from one body into another is just downright silly. There is a fundamental difference.

NB also, in the general concept of transhumanism, if you somehow took your mind out of the slew of chemicals in your brain and replaced it with a computer, you'd no longer be the same person, even if your thought patterns or whatever were identical, because it'd almost certainly not appropriately replicate the effects of biochemistry on emotion and mental state.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 09:49:05 am
You know, calling the gradual change in the precise matter that makes up your body as exactly the same as a sudden jump from one body into another is just downright silly. There is a fundamental difference.

What's the fundamental difference? At all? It's fundamentally the same process.

Would you be cool with it if the atoms of your brain were pulled out one at a time, replaced with new atoms, and used to build a perfectly identical brain next door? Because that's what's happening here. It's copying, it's just the original gets destroyed in our 'day to day copying', so we're okay with it.

Quote
NB also, in the general concept of transhumanism, if you somehow took your mind out of the slew of chemicals in your brain and replaced it with a computer, you'd no longer be the same person, even if your thought patterns or whatever were identical, because it'd almost certainly not appropriately replicate the effects of biochemistry on emotion and mental state.

The general assumption is that the whole body would be simulated, actually - trust me, people think about this all the time. It's called Embodied Cognition. I mentioned it in the last long post.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Topgun on November 03, 2009, 09:55:08 am
Think of it this way, between the the day you were born and the day you turned seven, pretty, much all your cells have changed. of course you are the same person, but your body is completely different. id imagine transferring your brain would work similarly.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 09:59:01 am
Right. People get hung up on the idea of there being more than one of you, though. (Nobody was worried about the Cylons in BSG dying and being replaced by cheap copies!)

Another useful thought experiment: Imagine that a tiny machine is placed in your brain that will gradually replace each one of your nerve cells with a little mechanical device that does exactly the same thing in every way. Eventually, your whole brain has become CyberBrain. It happens neuron by neuron over a period of years. You will never notice a thing.

Now, imagine that, instead of replacing the original neurons, it builds new mechanical ones just alongside them...completely identical, firing in synchrony. At the end of the process, you've got a second brain inside your brain, working exactly like the first one. Well, which brain are you? Where has the Magical Fluid of TrashManNess gone?

In the first one we all agreed it was still in Brain A. In the second I think people would still want to think it was in the original...but there's no difference between the first scenario and the second except the destruction of the original cells. You simply have to agree that Brain B is just as valid a home to the Magical Fluid.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on November 03, 2009, 12:02:45 pm
You simply have to agree that Brain B is just as valid a home to the Magical Fluid.

No, I don't haev to agree with anything.

You are simply, completely, utterly, totally 1 billion percent wrong....and apparently you don't read anything I post. You yell apples,  I say oranges.

The perfection or validity of the copies is irrelevant. The exprience and POV is relevant. Bob1, Bob2, Bob3, Bob4 all have different points of view and are all separate entities - they all feel for themselves, see for themselves, experience only themselves and have their own sense of self.
It doesn't really matter which Bob you are - if you die, you don't continue to live trough another Bob. Period.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 03, 2009, 12:41:16 pm
Aaaaand TrashMan misses the point yet again.

Unless TrashMan believes in the Precious Fluid of Trashmanness - i.e. he believes that there is a soul separate from the purely physical body - then he simply has nothing to worry about. So long as the brain is replicated in perfect detail, it must, by necessity, be him.
So if we do believe in the existence of a soul, we can keep worrying? :p
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 01:11:21 pm
You simply have to agree that Brain B is just as valid a home to the Magical Fluid.

No, I don't haev to agree with anything.

You are simply, completely, utterly, totally 1 billion percent wrong....and apparently you don't read anything I post. You yell apples,  I say oranges.

The perfection or validity of the copies is irrelevant. The exprience and POV is relevant. Bob1, Bob2, Bob3, Bob4 all have different points of view and are all separate entities - they all feel for themselves, see for themselves, experience only themselves and have their own sense of self.
It doesn't really matter which Bob you are - if you die, you don't continue to live trough another Bob. Period.

No, look, I see where you're missing it. It is a very simple, very seductive, and very understandable error. I am reading and understanding everything you said, because really, this is the objection everybody has.

Everything you said there is correct. If you go and get your brain scanned, you will sit down, get scanned, walk out, and not feel any different. If you're hit by a car, you're dead. Gone. You're utterly correct about that. You will not somehow wake up as your copy.

But that's assuming you stuck with Original-You POV.

Because it's just as valid to say that you sit down in that chair, get scanned, and wake up in a new body with the tragic news that Original You is dead.

"Wait!" you're saying. "That's not me. It's just, like, my twin. I am dead."

And you're right. The you that walked out the door is dead. But the you that was you up until the moment of the scan is still alive, completely continuous, in a new body.

At the moment of the scan, you forked. And one You is still alive. You're toitally right, the other one is dead and gone forever. But it wasn't the repository of some Special You Fluid that is now lost.

The mistake you're making is always taking the pessimistic fork. To work yourself out of it, try to think about it this way:

You are a brain. You are put in the Claw Machine. It does something very simple. It picks you up and moves you a few meters to the left. You're still the same person, right? TrashBrain? Good good. All you've done is moved, after all.

Now, you are put in the Blink Machine. It does the same thing, but way more high-tech. It scans you, dematerializes you, moves you a few meters to the left, and reconstructs you. But you're still the same person, right? You felt a weird blink, and technically you were dead for a few seconds, but all you've done is moved. Same as the Claw Machine.

Now, you are put in a faulty Blink Machine, Blink 2. It moves you via teleportation, just like the Blink Machine. But it leaves a copy of you back behind at the origin. "Whoa," you say, looking back with your brain eyes. "I've now got a twin. That's ****ing weird."

But you're still you, right? You've been moved. It's not your fault a copy got left behind at the origin.

That all makes sense, right? No problems there?

When I know you're with me I'll wrap it up.

As a metacommentary, I think part of the very reasonable trouble that TrashMan has with this is because people have this idea that there is a little them inside their brains which kind of sits back and watches. And if the brain was rebuilt as a perfect model right next to them, that couldn't be them, because the Little Man Inside My Head Who Is Me is still in their head, right? Not in this new model. But people need to remember that the Little Man is being transferred too.

It's really weird to think about. Clearly, if you get a copy made, and then you die in a fire, you're not waking up as the copy. You're just as dead as if you hadn't made the copy. But that's because you're past the fork. After you make that copy, you're on your own: you're a regular mortal. But all of you that was in existence up until the copy is going to be preserved and past on.

A HA PROFOUND MOMENT OF REALIZATION.

What TrashMan doesn't get, and what I think intrinsically terrifies all of us, is that we die every single moment of every single day. The person we were just a moment ago is irretrievably, intrinsically lost...unless, of course, he was backed up.

As soon as the scan finishes, as soon as you walk out of the room, you start dying again. And whatever comes back to life is going to be you from the moment of the scan. And that resurrected clone won't be you, you're sure, because you aren't just blinking at the moment the car hits and waking up in a new body, like the Cylons would.

We're not afraid of dying. We're afraid of discontinuity. And even though we die every moment of every die, we don't think we're dying, because we have continuity. That's why we're okay with having our brain pulled out and transferred into a new body. That's why we're okay with our brain being scanned and rematerialized in a new body, even though the original brain is being disintegrated.

And that's why we're not okay with our brain being scanned and remateralized in a new body if the original isn't destroyed. We believe there has to be one single cord of 'us' that flows continuously without branching...because if we believe that, then we don't have to face our continual, moment-to-moment extinction.

That's really rather profound. And beautiful. *sniff*

Of course, there's an easy way around this phobia, which I think most people (like Kosh) find totally acceptable. Even TrashMan probably wouldn't mind it. If you have awesome neural implants, and an awesome connection, just have yourself be scanned constantly. Maintain a real-time replica of your brain at an outboard location. If you die in your real body, you instantly 'snap over' to your backup, just as you were.

It preserves the illusion of continuity. It appeals to our own illusion that we haven't died a thousand times already.

To appeal to the nerd in you: we are fine with the Cylons dying and resurrecting in a new body. We believe it's the same person. But if that Cylon just downloaded without dying, and then there were two Caprica-Sixes, we would see them as two different people.

And yet the only difference between the two scenarios is that, in one, the original is destroyed.

Man, sometimes I ****ing impress myself.  :pimp:
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: castor on November 03, 2009, 02:36:36 pm
While the view GB and The E are advocating is plausible in many ways, I feel I must still slightly side with TrashMan on this one :)

This analogy somewhat describes my problem:
Assume two CPUs, both running a process with the exact same code. If you stop one of the CPUs, the instance of the process there will die. While the other process still runs on the next CPU, its not the *same process*, it is another instance completely -- it has nothing to do with the other process that died, it just happens to be similar.

You may argue that if the processess are identical, it doesn't matter if one of them dies - it means nothing. Well maybe, but how does it apply to following?
In theory, there could already exist exact copies of us, in an almost identical parallel universe. Now assume we here get crushed by a meteor, and the folks in the other universe won't (the meteor missess slightly, the only difference between these two universes), would this make *us* any less dead?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on November 03, 2009, 02:39:51 pm
Aaaand...I simply don't agree.

Only one Point of view matters - the one of the Trasman (or Bob) trough whom eyes we're currently looking at.

Bob2 might be the same as Bob1, but if Bob1 is dead then Bob1 wouldn't give a f*** about that fact.
You can only be one person at a time.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on November 03, 2009, 02:42:34 pm
And then we come to one of the awesomer points. What if someone would develop a technique to merge an arbitrary number of uploads of the same person back into one? So that you would effectively exist as a swarm of you for a given time?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Turambar on November 03, 2009, 02:48:33 pm
And then we come to one of the awesomer points. What if someone would develop a technique to merge an arbitrary number of uploads of the same person back into one? So that you would effectively exist as a swarm of you for a given time?

That's how it works in Naruto
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 03:10:49 pm
Aaaand...I simply don't agree.

Only one Point of view matters - the one of the Trasman (or Bob) trough whom eyes we're currently looking at.

Bob2 might be the same as Bob1, but if Bob1 is dead then Bob1 wouldn't give a f*** about that fact.
You can only be one person at a time.

Ah, but you do agree. You're right that you can only be one person at a time, but that in no way disagrees with what I'm saying.

You agree that you're still the same person after being operated on by the Claw Machine.

You agree that you're still the same person after being operated on by the Blink Machine.

You agree that you're still the same person after being operated on by the broken Blink Machine.

Right?

(Basically, you just want a strategy whereby no version of you ever has to die, even though in fact versions of you die every second. What uploading offers is a strategy where at least one of you will live...which, ironically, is the same strategy we embrace every day, at least until we die. You would, ironically, prefer a copying process that destroyed the original to a copying process that left the original!)

While the view GB and The E are advocating is plausible in many ways, I feel I must still slightly side with TrashMan on this one :)

This analogy somewhat describes my problem:
Assume two CPUs, both running a process with the exact same code. If you stop one of the CPUs, the instance of the process there will die. While the other process still runs on the next CPU, its not the *same process*, it is another instance completely -- it has nothing to do with the other process that died, it just happens to be similar.

You may argue that if the processess are identical, it doesn't matter if one of them dies - it means nothing. Well maybe, but how does it apply to following?
In theory, there could already exist exact copies of us, in an almost identical parallel universe. Now assume we here get crushed by a meteor, and the folks in the other universe won't (the meteor missess slightly, the only difference between these two universes), would this make *us* any less dead?

And yet we do not object to transferring our process from one CPU to another, and we consider it the same process. That's all the copying process is. It's just for some reason people freak out when it leaves a duplicate behind (as here), but don't care if it destroys the original (a la teleportation.)

You're right, though; as I said in my last post, once you pass the moment of backup, you're two independent forks, and if one dies, the other one can't do anything for you. Go back to my last post for a deeper exploration of this.

Here's a good example for those of you who are still hung up (TrashMan, Castor, maybe Kosh.)

Which of these two narratives is what really happens from your point of view?

Quote
I walk in to the office. I sit down in the chair. They put the helmet on my head. The scan is over in the time it takes me to blink. I get up and walk outside. A car screeches down the pavement and hits me. I fade away into nothingness.

Quote
I walk in to the office. I sit down in the chair. They put the helmet on my head. I blink. When I wake up, I am in a different room. "What happened?" I ask. "Did it work?" They tell me that it worked flawlessly, but that my other fork was killed shortly after the scan. I shrug. Like a good TrashMan, I can only be one person at a time, so I don't care what happened to the copy.

There's the error TrashMan's almost managed to correct. You can see it in his last objection:

Only one Point of view matters - the one of the Trasman (or Bob) trough whom eyes we're currently looking at.

Bob2 might be the same as Bob1, but if Bob1 is dead then Bob1 wouldn't give a f*** about that fact.
You can only be one person at a time.

Exactly. And because in the fork you become Bob1 and Bob2, just as every minute of the day you transform from TrashManLastSecond to TrashManThisSecond, you, the 'copy', don't care what happens to the original!

All reference frames are equally valid. Like you said, we only care about the whose eyes we're currently looking through - so why should we privilege the viewpoint of those who die? Or of the copy who remains in the original chassis?

You're now multiple people. You're just hung up on the idea that only one of them can possess the Magical Fluid of Selfness.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 03:51:15 pm
So, to sum up again, cause I know Trashman probably will skim all of that:

It's completely correct that Bob A and Bob B are now independent copies post-fork, and if one dies, the other can't do anything about it.

What's the problem with that? It doesn't change the fact that forking (or live-updating your backup, a la Cylon resurrection) allows immortality for you, the you you are right now, and not some weird copy of you.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Ghostavo on November 03, 2009, 04:01:51 pm
I think the problem is that you use the word you in a completely different way that TrashMan (and I must add, myself) uses the word you.

Following a class-object interpretation, the copy is just that, a copy. A new object that has every attribute you have at that time. But you (TrashMan's use), your instance, is no more less prone to death than before. When you die, what will remain will be another instance of the class that is you (GB's use).

So while you may identify yourself as a class, some of us like to identify ourselves as an object, an instance. And seeing ourselves as an instance, to slowly replace ourselves makes much more sense, as it's this instance that is being transformed, attribute by attribute.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 04:04:44 pm
Nope, you're still missing it. You will remain the instance. No class business required.

Would you be cool with Cylon resurrection (you die, the snapshot of your last brainstate is transmitted to a new body, you wake up)? Is that still the same instance to you?

Go back and read the example about the Claw Machine and the Blink Machine. Should help get you going in the right direction. (This is some deeply counterintuitive stuff, so it takes a lot of thought.)

The direction I was going to take that was: if you're okay with the Claw Machine, you must be okay with the Blink Machine, since there's no physical difference. And if you're okay with the Blink Machine, you must be okay with the broken Blink Machine, since all it does is leave a copy behind; no functionality was removed as compared to the regular Blink Machine.

But we can arbitrarily label the original 'the copy'...or label the new one 'the copy'...and that makes you think, right?

Any copying system is also a teleport. We just assume the teleport's going to destroy the original. Yet for some reason we're cool with teleporting, but not with copying.

And that's because we're actually deeply afraid that there's some Vital Soul Essence that will only end up in one body.

But let's stick to an incremental approach here. Is everyone cool with Cylon resurrection, bearing in mind that we do the same thing all the time, only muuuuuuuuuuuch slower (the template is transmitted and rebuilt piece by piece instead of all at once)?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Ghostavo on November 03, 2009, 04:11:04 pm
I'm not really sure what the Cylon resurrection entails, I've never seen much of BSG beyond season 1 I think.


Anyway, the original instance will not suddenly leap into the created instance's consciousness upon death. The minute the copy is created, the original and the copy slowly start to become different, in the same way twins become. Both have the original background the same, but the experience one has slowly makes them different.

If one instance dies, that instance dies. It doesn't become the other which seems is what you are inferring (whether you mean it or not, is another story). You view yourself as the collection of instances. We view ourselves as one of those instances.

Quote
Any copying system is also a teleport. We just assume the teleport's going to destroy the original. Yet for some reason we're cool with teleporting, but not with copying.

Not really, if our instance is being destroyed, we are not cool with teleport.


Quote
And that's because we're actually deeply afraid that there's some Vital Soul Essence that will only end up in one body.

It's not that we are afraid that there's some soul jar that can't be shared or whatever nonsense. The copying itself is not what we dislike. It's the idea we are being granted immortality through copying that we do not agree with, which comes from how we view ourselves.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 04:12:33 pm
Anyway, the original instance will not suddenly leap into the created instance's consciousness upon death. The minute the copy is created, the original and the copy slowly start to become different, in the same way twins become. Both have the original background the same, but the experience one has slowly makes them different.


Please read the thread. I've explicitly dismantled this more than once now.

Here's a decent and fairly recent start. (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=66326.msg1311142#msg1311142)

In terms of the instance argument (which is a good one!), you're assuming that the guy who gets up and walks out of the lab is the Original Instance that you're so gosh-darned concerned for. But you have no reason to assume that. Why should he be treated as the original, instead of as the copy?

All the forks are going to believe they're the Original Instance. And all are equally and totally correct.

So, rereading that last post (I edited an explanation in at the end), are you cool with resurrecting Cylon-style (even knowing that agreeing will of course be a part of my devious plan to blow your mind)?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Ghostavo on November 03, 2009, 04:17:25 pm
So let's replace copying with cloning, does that fit into your concept? After all, it IS you in a way.

Also, how many amoebas are there alive in your opinion?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 03, 2009, 04:18:23 pm
Battuta, the one real problem I have with the way you're phrasing the whole scenario is when you compare making a wholesale copy to the "dying" (as you put it) that occurs every day as our bodies replace little chunks of their constituent matter.  I think the latter far more closely resembles the classical paradox of the repaired boat (which may have a more formal title, but I don't know it).  In that tale, a sailor owns a wooden boat for many years and keeps it in tip-top shape, replacing every broken or damaged plank with fresh timber as soon as it's needed.  Over the course of time, there comes a day when the sailor has replaced every single last original piece of wood that the ship started with.  The question then becomes...is his boat really the same boat as the original?  Some would argue that it isn't, because it doesn't comprise any of the original physical material, but I'd be more inclined to say that it is, because of the continuity of form and usage throughout its lifetime.  In the same way, while our bodies may replace individual cells as they die, their consistent overall structure and purpose remains unchanged.  For that reason, I feel like it's rather a stretch to compare that process to something that would essentially involve constructing a new body completely from scratch at once.

Also, to throw a bit more of a monkey wrench into the proceedings, note that most of the neurons in the adult human brain do not ordinarily divide after maturity, so the idea of "replacement" isn't quite so strong in the critical area that we're all talking about.

(Note that I do completely understand your take on the copy idea as a whole; this is just a response to one small bit of phraseology.)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 04:24:55 pm
It's called the Ship of Theseus.

Rian was challenging me on that too. "How is an instantaneous reconstruction the same as a gradual progressive reconstruction?"

Well, are you cool with a nanoswarm in your brain gradually replacing each neuron with an exactly functionally identical machine that'll last forever? This process will take ten years.

I imagine you are.

Now, how about ten minutes?

Ten seconds?

Instantaneously?

I imagine you can't find a timespan at which it would become problematic to you.

Now, imagine that the nanoswarm builds each neuron alongside the old ones, and that you then have a second identical brain.

Have you not just built Theseus' Second Ship? And is it not in every way identical to the first? If you were content to use it as a replacement, how is it any different from your own brain?
So let's replace copying with cloning, does that fit into your concept? After all, it IS you in a way.

Also, how many amoebas are there alive in your opinion?

Cloning is not at all similar, nor is the reproduction of amoebas. That's the coarse transmission of the biological specifications of the organism - like handing off the blueprints.

A true 'copy' would be a full-body snapshot of everything at once, including your brain state. Ironically, this snapshot is exactly what's passed on from moment to moment in your current self, even as individual atoms enter and leave.

That's why I say we die every moment. Your snapshot from five minutes back is as irretrievably lost to you as your other copy after a fork.

Really, the only difference between your day-to-day existence and the instantaneous construction of a copy, as in the teleport, is a spatial discontinuity. Yet I cannot imagine you feel that if you were suddenly moved ten feet to the left by an act of god, you would be a new person, and the old you would be dead.

Should I explain that last paragraph further?

(We're setting aside engineering difficulties here, mind.)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 04:32:43 pm
Oh, also - posting this as separate in case you're drafting a post - I just want to ask.

Your reasoning seems to be 'we're not cool with the teleport if it destroys the instance'. Well, my whole point was that the teleport doesn't destroy the instance. It does nothing that doesn't happen to you all the time; it just happens a lot faster.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 03, 2009, 04:45:08 pm
Well, are you cool with a nanoswarm in your brain gradually replacing each neuron with an exactly functionally identical machine that'll last forever? This process will take ten years.

I imagine you are.
To be brutally honest, not really.  I have enough days where I feel like even the relatively limited number of years I've spent on this planet have given me all of the irritation I can bear, so spending an eternity dealing with its daily stupidities sounds like my idea of a living hell.  I suppose that sort of breaks down this whole concept as far as I'm individually concerned. :p
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 04:46:08 pm
Well, that's a separate objection.  :p Let's say your new Neuron Two Point Ohs were going to give you elite FREDding skills instead.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Ghostavo on November 03, 2009, 04:46:16 pm
So let's replace copying with cloning, does that fit into your concept? After all, it IS you in a way.

Also, how many amoebas are there alive in your opinion?

Cloning is not at all similar, nor is the reproduction of amoebas. That's the coarse transmission of the biological specifications of the organism - like handing off the blueprints.

But that's what you are doing on a more precise scale. You are leaving blueprints for other instances. Your idea of immortality becomes no more interesting than the idea of leaving offspring.

Quote
A true 'copy' would be a full-body snapshot of everything at once, including your brain state. Ironically, this snapshot is exactly what's passed on from moment to moment in your current self, even as individual atoms enter and leave.

That's why I say we die every moment. Your snapshot from five minutes back is as irretrievably lost to you as your other copy after a fork.

I agree, we are not the same person that we were the instant before, in a way. But by forking, you and your other fork (since you dislike the word "copy") are no longer the same by your own logic! They become different persons even if they start out the same (thus my mention of twins). This is also where we begin disagree. You consider yourself to be every fork, if either one of them dies, you assume yourself to the other fork. We view ourselves as only one of the forks. Hence if that particular fork dies, game over.

Quote
Really, the only difference between your day-to-day existence and the instantaneous construction of a copy, as in the teleport, is a spatial discontinuity. Yet I cannot imagine you feel that if you were suddenly moved ten feet to the left by an act of god, you would be a new person, and the old you would be dead.

Should I explain that last paragraph further?

Not really, we all understand what you are entailing. What you seem to misunderstand is our notion of immortality is different from yours.

Oh, also - posting this as separate in case you're drafting a post - I just want to ask.

Your reasoning seems to be 'we're not cool with the teleport if it destroys the instance'. Well, my whole point was that the teleport doesn't destroy the instance. It does nothing that doesn't happen to you all the time; it just happens a lot faster.

Quote
Any copying system is also a teleport. We just assume the teleport's going to destroy the original. Yet for some reason we're cool with teleporting, but not with copying.

Perhaps there is a problem with the explanation, because I'm getting more confused by the minute.

Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 04:53:54 pm
So let's replace copying with cloning, does that fit into your concept? After all, it IS you in a way.

Also, how many amoebas are there alive in your opinion?

Cloning is not at all similar, nor is the reproduction of amoebas. That's the coarse transmission of the biological specifications of the organism - like handing off the blueprints.

But that's what you are doing on a more precise scale. You are leaving blueprints for other instances. Your idea of immortality becomes no more interesting than the idea of leaving offspring.

No no. The resolution of the blueprints is such that it's no different from the 'blueprints' passed from one second of your existence to the next. If you're satisfied with those blueprints, then you must be satisfied with your scan. They're not physically different.

Simple reproduction just creates more cookies from the same recipe. Our example here reconstructs the cookie on the precise atomic level. Crazy!

You're hitting on the idea here that objects are really only patterns of information, which is a very good idea indeed. One proton is the same as the next. If we took all the atoms in your brain and switched them for new ones, you'd still be the same person.

Quote
I agree, we are not the same person that we were the instant before, in a way. But by forking, you and your other fork (since you dislike the word "copy") are no longer the same by your own logic! They become different persons even if they start out the same (thus my mention of twins). This is also where we begin disagree. You consider yourself to be every fork, if either one of them dies, you assume yourself to the other fork. We view ourselves as only one of the forks. Hence if that particular fork dies, game over.

Absolutely true for any given fork. Did you read the post I linked you to? I've explained all this a couple times already.

I said, explicitly, plain as day, from the moment you fork, you are on your own. If you die, your copy can't do a thing.

To resolve the dilemma you're wrestling with, answer this:

Which of these two narratives is what really happens from your point of view?

Quote
I walk in to the office. I sit down in the chair. They put the helmet on my head. The scan is over in the time it takes me to blink. I get up and walk outside. A car screeches down the pavement and hits me. I fade away into nothingness.

Quote
I walk in to the office. I sit down in the chair. They put the helmet on my head. I blink. When I wake up, I am in a different room. "What happened?" I ask. "Did it work?" They tell me that it worked flawlessly, but that my other fork was killed shortly after the scan. I shrug. Like a good TrashMan, I can only be one person at a time, so I don't care what happened to the copy.

Your issue, see, is that you want to minimize deaths.

I am guessing you would prefer this strategy:

"Every time I die, I wake up in a new body."

To this strategy: "I fork every year. If one fork dies, the other one will keep going."

Yet the two strategies are identical, except in the first case, you're destroying one tine of the fork.

Now, I know what you'll say here. "THAT'S MY POINT! Your crazy immortality requires me to die every time I'm copied!"

What if you had two brains in your head, each in perfect sync. Suddenly, one of them is shot! Do you die? Of course not! You're still running fine on that other brain.

Now, imagine you pull the two brains out and put them in two separate bodies. And you're absolutely right, from the moment the link is broken, they're separate people. And if Copy A dies, Copy A is gone forever. Copy B soldiers on, a different person.

You've died. And you've lived. Copy A is as much you as Copy B was.

That's what happens in the fork. Here, we've just eliminated the tricky, biased language of 'original and copy'.

If you take one point away, take this away: think about it not as 'copy' and 'original', but as 'copy A' and 'copy B'. That will help clear up some illusions.

Quote
Not really, we all understand what you are entailing. What you seem to misunderstand is our notion of immortality is different from yours.

Not at all. It's functionally no different from your belief that you are the same person you were ten seconds ago.

Quote
Oh, also - posting this as separate in case you're drafting a post - I just want to ask.

Your reasoning seems to be 'we're not cool with the teleport if it destroys the instance'. Well, my whole point was that the teleport doesn't destroy the instance. It does nothing that doesn't happen to you all the time; it just happens a lot faster.

Quote
Any copying system is also a teleport. We just assume the teleport's going to destroy the original. Yet for some reason we're cool with teleporting, but not with copying.

Perhaps there is a problem with the explanation, because I'm getting more confused by the minute.

There is, my bad. The teleport does not destroy the instance. It moves it to a new location. It also leaves the instance behind. We just all assume it will clean up one end of the fork, but there's no reason it needs to.

This is why I don't like the term copy, see? It creates a nasty copy/original duality. Think of the teleport as forking you into two copies. Nobody has a problem with that, so long as the fork only ends up with one tine! Because that's what we're used to. We're always changing, leaving behind our previous states.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Ghostavo on November 03, 2009, 05:00:37 pm
So it's our notion of identity that's different then?  :P
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 05:03:03 pm
I don't think so at all, unless you think you die every time you're knocked unconscious.

Would you be cool with a system whereby your precise brain and body state was constantly, in real time, fed to a backup brain, and if you were abruptly killed, you would just hop on over to the new brain?

The only possible objection to this is "I still die. When I close my eyes for the last time, I'm gone. That thing waking up in Backup Bay 1 is precisely identical to me, but it cannot change the fact that I died."

And the answer is, you no more died in that situation than you die every time you fall asleep or get knocked out. Your consciousness vanishes, but you persist! Why? Because you are stored in the physical lattices of your brain, and so long as those boot back up, you're still around.

I edited my previous post rather extensively, too (expansions only, no alterations). Sorry about that.  :nervous:
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Ghostavo on November 03, 2009, 05:13:01 pm
I wouldn't be cool with a system like that.

What if we view consciousness as life? That would explain my hate for sleep.  :P
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 05:42:10 pm
I wouldn't be cool with a system like that.

****! There goes my commission!

I guess we're at an impasse if you're a sleepaphobe. We can argue about it some other time.

I'll just throw out my personal definition of immortality:

A system whereby my consciousness can continue indefinitely, without fear of permanent extinction, and without any interruption more significant than normal sleep or unconsciousness, and in which all my memories, both implicit and explicit (thereby including skills, cognitive structures) are preserved, along with my neural structure and embodied cognitive elements.

This definition stands fully aware of and embraces the issue of fork divergence, and nowhere does it forbid any of my forks from dying (which y'all seem so hung up on, you big sillies) so long as other forks continue, since each fork is fully me and can trace its full line of consciousness back to the moment of my birth.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Scotty on November 03, 2009, 05:57:40 pm
The fundamental disagreement here is that Battuta seems to be treating each copy, clone, call it what you will as merely a bottle for continued consciousness.  To be blunt, it doesn't work that way.  In a manner of speaking, your consciousness will continue, but it won't be you, as in the original consciouness in the first place.  The copy may start at the same place you left off, but it isn't you.  Say that Battuta Prime makes three copies.  Each of those copies starts at the point in Battuta's life they were made.  Then Battuta Prime dies.  Now Battuta Prime, as a conscious entity, has ceased to exist in our frame of reference.  Battuta Prime, I can guarantee you, will not give a damn about how well his copies are doing, because he will be dead.  His copies may continue on as if nothing happened, but the point is irrelevent, since it matters nothing to the original consciousness.  I rather enjoyed that example of two CPUs running the exact same process at the same time, since it illustrates nearly the same point.

(Next point)To clarify, since you seem to making a big point of all of this (ALL of you):  The difference between gradual replacement and this is that during gradual replacement, at no point does the entirety of the being cease.  Or even a tiny minority of the being.  A good example would be playing with legos.  Imagine you build a car/ship/what have you.  Now imagine that you are replacing all the pieces of the structure a piece at a time.  At no point in the process does the creation cease to be that creation.  Now completely dismantle it.  When you build it again, even if every piece is fundamentally the same, it is a different structure
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on November 03, 2009, 06:06:09 pm
You really should read the thread, Scotty. All your points have been adressed several times already.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: karajorma on November 03, 2009, 06:07:00 pm
I'm going to point out at this junction that I both fully understand and fully agree with Battuta.

Since I get the feeling he must be feeling like he's trying to explain how a card trick works to a dog at this point. :p
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Scotty on November 03, 2009, 06:08:49 pm
I did read it, and its the same thing being argued back and forth between the same people, with hardly a change except for the exact wording of the replies.  It's not like I took anything away from the thread.

There are two opposing viewpoints, both based on purely hypothetical inference and/or guessing, and neither willing to admit the other might possibly be right. :blah:

I understand what he's saying too.  I just disagree. :P
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 03, 2009, 06:12:34 pm
Is 'Me' a physical thing or a conceptual thing? Personally, I see it more as a concept than a physical entity, so to my mind, the recepticle for 'Me' is no more than some technology used to move my brain around, be it an organic construct or a non-organic one, the perception of 'Me' would not change as long as the mental identity has been transferred 100%.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 06:16:44 pm
I did read it, and its the same thing being argued back and forth between the same people, with hardly a change except for the exact wording of the replies.  It's not like I took anything away from the thread.

There are two opposing viewpoints, both based on purely hypothetical inference and/or guessing, and neither willing to admit the other might possibly be right. :blah:

I understand what he's saying too.  I just disagree. :P

Nope, your above objections have actually all been concretely dealt with.

I'll take them apart again if you want, though.

The fundamental disagreement here is that Battuta seems to be treating each copy, clone, call it what you will as merely a bottle for continued consciousness.  To be blunt, it doesn't work that way.

You've already taken a wrong turn here.

A copy is not a clone. If I made an instantaneous teleporter duplicate of you, you would be unable to determine which one was the original you.

You could not tell if the teleporter had generated a copy of you, or if you had been teleported, and a copy left behind.

How would you do it? How could you even begin? Answer that question.

Quote
 In a manner of speaking, your consciousness will continue, but it won't be you, as in the original consciouness in the first place.  The copy may start at the same place you left off, but it isn't you.

They will all start in the same place: at the moment of my birth. All the information that has come from that point up until the moment of copying is resident in all the copies. They are utterly indistinguishable to each other.

Quote
Say that Battuta Prime makes three copies.  Each of those copies starts at the point in Battuta's life they were made.  Then Battuta Prime dies.  Now Battuta Prime, as a conscious entity, has ceased to exist in our frame of reference.  Battuta Prime, I can guarantee you, will not give a damn about how well his copies are doing, because he will be dead.  His copies may continue on as if nothing happened, but the point is irrelevent, since it matters nothing to the original consciousness.  I rather enjoyed that example of two CPUs running the exact same process at the same time, since it illustrates nearly the same point.

There is a simple flaw in there. How did you determine which one was Battuta Prime?

They all insist, eagerly, that they are Battuta Prime, and that it is only a copy that has died.

Quote
(Next point)To clarify, since you seem to making a big point of all of this (ALL of you):  The difference between gradual replacement and this is that during gradual replacement, at no point does the entirety of the being cease.  Or even a tiny minority of the being.  A good example would be playing with legos.  Imagine you build a car/ship/what have you.  Now imagine that you are replacing all the pieces of the structure a piece at a time.  At no point in the process does the creation cease to be that creation.  Now completely dismantle it.  When you build it again, even if every piece is fundamentally the same, it is a different structure.  

Not at all. Accelerate the timescale of the gradual replacement to ten seconds. Then to one second. Continue to narrow the window of the gradual replacement towards the Planck time interval.

Tell me where it stops being gradual and starts being instantaneous.

Now, you might say, 'it occurs past that point, when the whole system is simultaneously disassembled.' To which I respond: 'why should that be any different? We could pause your brain, pull it apart, put it back together again, and you would notice not a thing so long as the atoms were restored to their proper place. In fact, we could even use new atoms and you wouldn't care, since they are as interchangeable as Lego bricks.'

And lastly, Scotty, the question nobody's even started trying to answer:

Which of these two narratives is what really happens from your point of view?

Quote
I walk in to the office. I sit down in the chair. They put the helmet on my head. The scan is over in the time it takes me to blink. I get up and walk outside. A car screeches down the pavement and hits me. I fade away into nothingness.

Quote
I walk in to the office. I sit down in the chair. They put the helmet on my head. I blink. When I wake up, I am in a different room. "What happened?" I ask. "Did it work?" They tell me that it worked flawlessly, but that my other fork was killed shortly after the scan. "Shucks!" I say. "I waste all that money and one of my copies gets himself run over?"

It does sadden me that the same questions keep coming up, because it indicates that I'm phrasing the answers too densely for people to get across.

But!

I'm going to point out at this junction that I both fully understand and fully agree with Battuta.

Since I get the feeling he must be feeling like he's trying to explain how a card trick works to a dog at this point. :p

Thank you, I appreciate it.

One more interesting thought experiment to ferret out the implicit dualism that is confusing people.

We all accept that we can be resuscitated after death so long as neural structures have not degenerated.

Imagine that you die and your brain rots into mush in a grave. However, someone applies an Anti-Entropic Field to your body, and you are regenerated back into perfect health.

Is this a new you, with the old you being dead? Or do you just feel as if you have been unconscious for some period of time?

If you answer the former, what is the latest point at which the Anti-Entropic Field can be applied to save 'the old you', as a resuscitation would?

Hopefully you'll see that no such firm mark can be drawn, and agree that even if the Anti-Entropic Field is used after you've been rotting for a hundred years, it is qualitatively no different from being resuscitated after an hour or after ten minutes, since in all cases you wake up with your brain more or less intact.

Now, ask yourself this: when I am reconstituted via Anti-Entropic Field, must the original matter in my body be used to remake me?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Liberator on November 03, 2009, 06:28:11 pm
Well, I'm gonna butt in here and ask the question no one seems to want to ask.

If the original is destroyed, what happens to the soul, the fundamental You?  Does it migrate to the copy?  Or is this just an elaborate suicide machine and the copy is in fact a different person that looks like, sounds like and thinks like/it is you?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 06:29:30 pm
That's the question everyone's been asking, really. That's why TrashMan is terrified that the 'real him' will be the one who dies and why everyone is so much more comfortable with transferring from body to body than with leaving copies even though the two processes are logically identical. If there's only one of them at a time, they can maintain the idea that their soul is just flitting from receptacle to receptacle like a beautiful bird.

And the scientific answer, at least, is that there is no soul, no fundamental You. It is all resident in the brain. There can be nothing else.

We're made of meat!
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 03, 2009, 06:31:03 pm
In order to do that, you'd need to define the 'soul', it's one of those things that cannot be detected or proved, so, unless the technique keeps failing without explanation, there's no real evidence that a soul is a physical thing that can be 'moved' or even truly exists as a single, unified part of the human body. Personally, I don't believe that's true.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 06:41:19 pm
I really urge everybody who's going to jump in with the same old points about how 'when Battuta Prime dies, he is dead' to please just read this post:

Think of the products of the copying operation as two (or more) forks. There is no 'copy' and 'original'. Each fork is now a separately evolving instance, but all are direct and fully privileged descendants of the copying operation.

Whenever one dies, you can think of it as the original dying, and point out that all that's left alive is a copy - as TrashMan has. You may just as correctly say it is the copy dying and rejoice that the original is still alive, NO WORSE OFF THAN BEFORE.

The life of any given fork will proceed exactly as your ordinary everyday life does, up until their death. But, if each fork continues to fork, then you can pick one long branching tine in which the resident 'you' has never died.

You can, with complete logical validity, assume that this is the original You, because all the forks are the original You. You have lived since the moment of your birth, you have undergone several bewildering blinks between bodies, and you have left copies behind who have gone on to die - but you are the original.

And you can, with just as complete validity, say that you will inevitably die, and someone else will live. Both are correct. You are immortal. You are certain to die. And y'know what?

THIS IS YOUR LIFE. The person you are right now will be dead in five minutes. A version of you will live on - someone with a great deal of continuity, but who is nonetheless different.

We don't want to die. But this strategy for immortality, while allowing immortality, also necessitates death - in the very same way that the You who existed yesterday is dead, mercilessly overwritten by new environmental input and memory traces, forever lost and ceased to function, never again to return.

It's just that this strategy makes that kind of death much more clear. Much more real. Much more the kind of death we're used to being afraid of. That's why Kosh wants a total transfer. He wants to get scanned right on over to a new body, with no messy leftovers. When death is concomitant with transfer, it is no different from our second-to-second extinction.

Once you realize that death is not a Hard Black Line, that you could come back from the rotted grave if someone just pieced your atoms together, you will find it easier to accept this form of immortality.

Alternatively, you can take the Cylon-style live-update approach, and reduce the trauma of each 'death' to something empirically less traumatic and momentous than being punched out at a party.

EDIT: If you don't believe me.

I will now show you how to transform into a copy of yourself, just as in the copying process. All you need is access to your brain's pause button (to mimic the scan) and a Scottycorp Lego Operation Rebuilding Gun (to mimic the construction of a new brain and body.)

Get up and walk across the room. You are now at new spatial coordinates, just as the copy would be. If you insist on rigor, pause your brain and have a friend drag you across the room to the new position. (This replicates the hypothetical incredibly precise transfer of neural states and structure to the new brain in the new spatial position.)

Shoot yourself in the head (or have your friend do it) with a Scottycorp Lego Operation Rebuilding Gun. In a picosecond, magical forces will swap out every atom in your body for a brand new one. It would tingle, if it caused any nerve impulses at all!

Unpause your brain, if you elected to pause it.

You are now an utterly new (matter-wise) copy that maintains precisely the same information patterns and is in a different location. You are functionally the same as the postulated copy in the forking operation.

I bet you do not feel like any part of you has died.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 06:59:47 pm
HOLD THE PRESSES.

I have figured out a way into the TrashMan/Scotty/Kosh argument that makes me agree with it in part and moves my understanding of the entire idea closer to a synthesis of the two perspectives. It makes me think we've been arguing the same thing from two different directions and that some of Ghostavo and Scotty's points have actually been more valid than I thought.

I will wait until one of them posts again to see if it's necessary, though.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Ford Prefect on November 03, 2009, 07:07:08 pm
To those arguing against Battuta, I completely understand your instinctual objection-- I think I'll always have a difficult time with it on the intuitive level-- but if it helps, the mode of conceptualization that helps me the most is to call into question the assumption of some nebulous, metaphysical connection between my present self and the self I remember from, say two years ago. Who is to say that this person from two years ago is not just as dead as the theoretical "Prime" individual in the thought experiment?

I was being half facetious before, but this really is the first thing that Buddhists believe must be dispensed with. This sense of continuity of self is something we cling to so powerfully that we don't even realize there is any other way to think, and becoming liberated from this assumption is something that people spend their entire lives doing. So, while I understand your frustration, Battuta, it is important to appreciate what a mind**** your argument is.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 07:09:09 pm
I'm not actually that frustrated. Just mildly peeved at myself for letting myself get sucked into another crazy debate so quickly!

I totally understand, it's a real mind-screw. Even I almost managed to talk myself around to TrashMan and Scotty's position just a second ago, until I remembered stuff I'd been arguing earlier.

It's just so nonintuitive. I really do recommend the method that Ford suggests.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Scotty on November 03, 2009, 07:11:24 pm
Quick question:  If each "copy" starts at exactly the point in the original's life they were created, how does that prolong life and consciousness? :nervous:
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 07:21:51 pm
What do you mean? You're just a flawed copy of yourself from five years ago. How have you remained alive and continually conscious?

(See what I'm saying? We're always copying. An arbitrarily similar artificial copy - say, by teleporter - is indistinguishable, even to itself, from the original. So you cannot assign any special privilege to the original. We're in the habit of doing it, since it convinces us we're the same person we were ten years ago, but it's an illusion.)

Whoa hang on. You're misunderstanding something. Each copy's brainstate is causally directly connected all the way back to the moment of the original's conception. It has memories, cognitive structures, skills, every little neural scar, from all the way back to day zero. Everything that is recorded in the original's brain is recorded in its brain.

Heck, we have to go to sleep every so often just to work out the glitches in our brain, or we ****ing die! If you stayed the same person all the time, you'd go extinct!
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Scotty on November 03, 2009, 07:36:38 pm
What do you mean? You're just a flawed copy of yourself from five years ago. How have you remained alive and continually conscious?

That's kind of what I meant.  After a while, the body starts to not be able to replace itself like normal.  If the "copies" start at the same point as the original is at that point, is there any noticeable effect on life expectancy?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on November 03, 2009, 07:45:56 pm
If you have a technology that can do mind uploading and downloading, I think it's safe to assume that technology to avoid aging would be available as well.

Another thing that you seem to oversee: It could also be possible to download a consciousness into a body that was not originally your own.

Finally: Read Altered Carbon. It deals with a lot of the issues that are discussed here.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on November 03, 2009, 08:00:56 pm
Quote
You don't get it. The original Kosh has been destroyed hundreds of thousands of times. You are now a copy.

Really? I suppose a part of it is the replacement is much more gradual so that overall you don't even notice. I never actually realized that. Like the ship analogy.

Quote
say, by teleporter


The teleporter wouldn't be quite the same because (as least as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong) it will preserve your quantum state, so you wouldn't actually notice anything. At least that's my understanding.........
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 08:09:54 pm
What do you mean? You're just a flawed copy of yourself from five years ago. How have you remained alive and continually conscious?

That's kind of what I meant.  After a while, the body starts to not be able to replace itself like normal.  If the "copies" start at the same point as the original is at that point, is there any noticeable effect on life expectancy?

Ooh, okay. Fair point. I imagine you'd put yourself into a young body anyway. No more shocking than yonder rejuvenation drugs The_E suggesteth.

And, seriously, read Altered Carbon! It's fantasmic.

The teleporter wouldn't be quite the same because (as least as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong) it will preserve your quantum state, so you wouldn't actually notice anything. At least that's my understanding.........

Yep, the replacement is a gradual thing.

And I'm not sure any effects of quantum states on consciousness have ever been verified.



Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 03, 2009, 08:25:44 pm
Is 'Me' a physical thing or a conceptual thing? Personally, I see it more as a concept than a physical entity, so to my mind, the recepticle for 'Me' is no more than some technology used to move my brain around, be it an organic construct or a non-organic one, the perception of 'Me' would not change as long as the mental identity has been transferred 100%.
See, that's the fundamental point that I'd personally disagree with.  To me (heh), the "Me" is me, the complete physical entity that comprises my body and the consciousness that has arisen from it.  I am not just a vessel meant to hold some intellectual structure.  I am my relative lack of athletic ability, my slightly-protruding gut, my blue eyes.  I am a self-contained biological entity with a sentient consciousness.  I was born, and I am able to die.  This defines me as human...were I anything else, human I would not be.  This isn't a statement of fear; it's embracing my true human nature and condition.

And see, here's the kicker: I do believe in a "soul," a "true me," something that cannot be represented by a mere physical structure of atoms and cells.  I believe that consciousness arises from the physical brain, not that it is limited by it, transcending the physical to something more metaphysical.  I do not believe that science can re-create that exact physical structure and, by doing so, "fork" me perfectly...even if the physical remains the same, something essential is lost.  I believe that, when my own original physical body expires, the true "me" does as well in our physical world, no matter what sort of "anti-entropy gun" is employed on my physical remains afterwards.  I am more than the sum of my parts, even as those parts make me who I am.

I don't expect Battuta or anyone else in here to agree with any one of those statements, but that's fine by me.  When the Robo-You ten thousand years from now takes part in the Great Robot War, my physical self will be happily rotting into dust in the ground, and who knows what will become of my consciousness, but I wager it'll be better off. :p
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 08:27:00 pm
But what's the latest point at which you could be resuscitated before your not-quite-a-soul-thing departs?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 03, 2009, 08:30:38 pm
A few minutes, give or take, unless I happen to be one of those lucky sorts who winds up at the bottom of a frozen-over lake for an hour or so. :p
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 03, 2009, 08:38:55 pm
Exactly, this assumes that your soul somehow knows when you are dead beyond the point of rescue, and also knows whether you are going to get revived or not.

That's just a little too close to a religious belief to be acceptable as a scientific argument from my viewpoint.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 08:42:28 pm
I agree.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 03, 2009, 08:55:12 pm
I agree.
As do I, which is why I had the "things science can't do" caveat in my post. :p

But if you do want a scientific definition, let's pin it at complete, irrevocable brain death.  The moment my brain ceases to show any function whatsoever, my soul/what-have-you has departed, and I'm essentially a hunk of meat.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 09:00:15 pm
Ah, but what about when the threshold of 'irrevocable' gets moved back by science?

I mean, people can came back after zero brain function, with all electrical activity extinguished. These days you have to wait for necrosis of the cerebral neurons!
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 03, 2009, 09:06:57 pm
But if you push back that line any further, who's to say that what comes back is what was there in the first place?  If your "anti-entropy gun" becomes a reality, you may get something that walks like me and talks like me, but from my perspective, the true "me" has already left the building.  Who knows, maybe a replacement sets up shop, or maybe all that's left is the physical brain structure.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 09:12:45 pm
Well, that's the question, isn't it...though you're gonna have a real hard time arguing that if you run into a cute girl who got pulled back and neurally reconstructed after a few days dead or something.

But I'm gonna stick to hard science here, and as far as us physicalists are concerned, there's nothing but the brain structure. Anything past that is non-empirically-verifiable and up to individual imagination. So far as empirical reality is concerned, if it walks like you, talks like you, and has a neural network exactly like you, it's still you.

No offense.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 03, 2009, 09:18:54 pm
None taken.  I view that as a rather limited take on things from my perspective, but I still recognize it as a valid viewpoint.  I'll definitely stick around and keep reading what you have to say, because it is admittedly very interesting.

(This whole thing is rather amusing, come to think of it...my bachelor's degree is in physics, yet I'm the one pushing this particular view. :p)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Scotty on November 03, 2009, 09:23:25 pm
Exactly, this assumes that your soul somehow knows when you are dead beyond the point of rescue, and also knows whether you are going to get revived or not.

That's just a little too close to a religious belief to be acceptable as a scientific argument from my viewpoint.

I'd like to poke in here.  It isn't that the "soul" knows when you are dead.  Not anymore than the brain knows you are dead when it stops working from lack of oxygenated blood.  Call it the end of the body shutdown or what have you.

And I just realized this point has been argued for several posts now. :blah:

Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on November 03, 2009, 10:21:04 pm
Quote
And I'm not sure any effects of quantum states on consciousness have ever been verified.

Well my point was you would be preserved as you were, assuming thoughts included because all the quantum states of all your atoms would be exactly the same as before.

Quote
As do I, which is why I had the "things science can't do" caveat in my post.

We don't actually know what science can or can't do. Even in the last 200 years the border has been pushed back to a large degree, and everyday it keeps getting pushed back that much more. Imagine what we will be able to do in the next 200. I, Kosh0 would like to see it all.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 03, 2009, 10:42:32 pm
Let's stop the thread, I want to get off. My head hurts.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on November 04, 2009, 01:55:54 am
You know what's funny? In all of this I never never brought the issue of soul.
But then again, I didn't need to.

It really simple. You experience things trough a certain point of view...a certain lense.. a certain sense of self. That cannot be duplicated. You can only be at one point in place at time.

Bob1 goes to a cloning/forking facility. He lies down on the table, closes his eyes and several hours later his copy is ready. Bob1 walks out of the faciltiy happy.

If Bob1 is shot, Bob1 will experience the pain, feel the life slowly trickling away, close his eyes and be faced with...well either eternal darkenss of afterlife (depending in what you belive in).

Bob2 wakes up in the facility, but something is not right. Bob is in a tube, but he clearly rememebers being on the table. Holy schnitzel! He relises he's the copy! But nevermind, why should he care? He walks out of the facility and lives happily on.

Bob1 and Bob2 have different experiences. They have different points of view. Ergo, they are not the same. They are different entities.

Bob1 didn't achieve immortality by forking. He's dead.

And no, you don't die constantly. Your perception of self, your life , your point of view - they are constant untill you die.

Aaargh...why do I even waste my time on this?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: karajorma on November 04, 2009, 02:38:35 am
Okay, this is a Sci-fi board so let's try a sci-fi example. In the Star Trek TNG episode Second Chances Riker finds out that a transporter accident caused a duplicate to end up stranded on a planet for 8 years.

Now let's suppose that instead this error had caused two Rikers to appear in the transporter room. Which one is the real Riker? There isn't one, they are both the real Riker.


People keep arguing as if we're dealing with a situation where one of the two is real and one is the copy. But in this situation both are Riker prime.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 04, 2009, 03:12:47 am
I feel like, in some respects, people on both sides of this understand the main points of the other side without the other side understanding that.  Um...understand? :p

TrashMan, I don't think that either Battuta or karajorma would argue that Bob1 and Bob2 represent two separate entities that undergo different experiences, and that said experiences would vanish forever if one of them were to die.  There's no sort of "magical consciousness transfer" that would send the new memories and experiences of Bob1 to Bob2 if the former were to die.  However, under their model, both Bob1 and Bob2 share every single experience, memory, thought, and emotion up until the moment of their "forking."  They could both accurately be called "you," since they're identical in every respect in history, just as the two Rikers were in the Star Trek episode that karajorma mentioned.  Even if one of the two Bobs were to die, in a general sense, "you" would still be alive, since the other Bob would represent everything that makes you you.

And Battuta/karajorma, I think (or at least hope) that everyone gets the idea of the fork concept by now, but TrashMan raises a completely valid point himself.  In the general sense, the concept of "you" survives no matter what happens to one of the individual Bobs, since all of them share those same thoughts and memories from before the fork.  However, from the perspective of one single Bob, this concept means ****-all from a practical standpoint, since his death would result in the permanent loss of the thoughts and memories he's acquired since the fork took place.  To him, the whole concept doesn't represent any degree of immortality at all, because his own individual self can die just as easily as any normal human can, with the same results.

I don't know if this accomplishes anything, but maybe if everyone realizes that everyone seems to understand everyone else, we won't have so many headaches. :p
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Ford Prefect on November 04, 2009, 03:50:03 am
And no, you don't die constantly. Your perception of self, your life , your point of view - they are constant untill you die.
Disturbing though it may be, this claim has no epistemological foothold whatsoever. Imagine that the universe has just sprung into existence, in its present configuration, only a split second ago. You would remember a life that hadn't actually "happened," but what would it matter? All your memories up to any given moment are no more and no less than your physical configuration at that moment. Your sense of the past is entirely a product of your state in an infinitely minute present, and thus the existence of a causal connection between you and your remembered self is pure conjecture.
 
I've gotta go to sleep....
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: karajorma on November 04, 2009, 04:06:58 am
And Battuta/karajorma, I think (or at least hope) that everyone gets the idea of the fork concept by now, but TrashMan raises a completely valid point himself.  In the general sense, the concept of "you" survives no matter what happens to one of the individual Bobs, since all of them share those same thoughts and memories from before the fork.  However, from the perspective of one single Bob, this concept means ****-all from a practical standpoint, since his death would result in the permanent loss of the thoughts and memories he's acquired since the fork took place.  To him, the whole concept doesn't represent any degree of immortality at all, because his own individual self can die just as easily as any normal human can, with the same results.

I fully understand the point Trashman is failing to make but his original argument was predicated on the fact that the copy would know it's a copy.

Which has already been proved to be bollocks about a dozen times in this thread.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on November 04, 2009, 04:31:35 am
Okay, this is a Sci-fi board so let's try a sci-fi example. In the Star Trek TNG episode Second Chances Riker finds out that a transporter accident caused a duplicate to end up stranded on a planet for 8 years.

Now let's suppose that instead this error had caused two Rikers to appear in the transporter room. Which one is the real Riker? There isn't one, they are both the real Riker.

People keep arguing as if we're dealing with a situation where one of the two is real and one is the copy. But in this situation both are Riker prime.

Actually, the original Riker is dead. Vaporized by the transporter. Both Rikers are copies.


And the copy might now it's a copy. By simple deduction. It depends on how the copy is made in the first place. If  the last memory before you wake up is you lying on a cloning table and you wake up in a copy tube..well, it doesn't take a genius to figure it out.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 04, 2009, 05:05:38 am
Which of these two narratives is what really happens from your point of view?

Quote
I walk in to the office. I sit down in the chair. They put the helmet on my head. The scan is over in the time it takes me to blink. I get up and walk outside. A car screeches down the pavement and hits me. I fade away into nothingness.

Quote
I walk in to the office. I sit down in the chair. They put the helmet on my head. I blink. When I wake up, I am in a different room. "What happened?" I ask. "Did it work?" They tell me that it worked flawlessly, but that my other fork was killed shortly after the scan. "Shucks!" I say. "I waste all that money and one of my copies gets himself run over?"

Then go ahead and read this. (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=66326.msg1311318#msg1311318)

And yeah, Kara's correct with the transporter example. You tried to dodge it by saying that 'the original is dead', but by that argument, you're dead - you're not made of the same matter you were a year ago.

I really do understand where you're coming from - your issue is that no individual fork can guarantee prospective immortality, and that's true, even though any given fork is guaranteed retrospective immortality - but the resolution to your dilemma simply lies in the fact that the two forks are utterly interchangeable and therefore you can't tell one from the other.

You continue to 'ride the rails' of one fork, insisting that it's the original. But you have no meaningful way of telling which one is the original and which one is the copy, which makes your argument irrelevant.

Let's be done with this debate, I don't want to spend another whole day thinking about it, and all your points have already been covered in great depth.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on November 04, 2009, 05:15:32 am
Quote
Let's be done with this debate, I don't want to spend another whole day thinking about it.


This was easily the most enlightening debate I've had in a long time.


Out of curiousity how do you know so much about this stuff?

Quote
I've gotta go to sleep....

You know if your brain was nanoaugmented you might not need to sleep. :p
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 04, 2009, 05:22:59 am
Probably! Though sleeping is another one of those points against TrashMan. You don't assume you're a copy when you wake up in the morning - even though, neurally, you've actually been trimmed quite a bit.

TrashMan has yet to answer the two-brain-in-one-skull question either, which suggests he probably cannot.

Ironically, TrashMan already employs the system he is so afraid of: his brainstate is copied from moment to moment via causal coupling, and the previous state is destroyed instantaneously.

He believes he's still the same person. His argument is, however, that if the previous brainstate were instead to fork off in a different direction, then only one would still be 'the real him', the man holding the mental TrashMan camera.

Ironically, his current system, the one he's using right now, is indistinguishable from the Riker transporter example above. There is no meaningful difference, except that in his current reality, one of the duplicates (doesn't matter which one!) sputters out of existence - overwritten by the new one.

I really do understand where he's coming from, though. I almost talked myself around to his position yesterday. If you start at a time before the scan and trace your finger forward along the path of your consciousness, it seems like there's no possible way that your consciousness will ever magically jump over to another body. By necessity, you must remain in the original, since your brain does not causally care that it has been copied. When you die, you're out, no matter how many backups you made.

And that's totally true.

And yet, starting from the other fork's happily immortal endpoint, and tracing back...there's no discontinuity either. Perfect smoothness all the way back to birth.

That's why I posted this a little while back -

HOLD THE PRESSES.

I have figured out a way into the TrashMan/Scotty/Kosh argument that makes me agree with it in part and moves my understanding of the entire idea closer to a synthesis of the two perspectives. It makes me think we've been arguing the same thing from two different directions and that some of Ghostavo and Scotty's points have actually been more valid than I thought.

I will wait until one of them posts again to see if it's necessary, though.

TrashMan is deceived by the fact that there are two forks. If the 'original' (silly term) were vaporized at the moment of transfer, and cognition resumed at just that very instant in the new brain, that would not be significantly different from the way your brain changes between one moment and the next. So long as you accept that you are the same person now you were a minute ago, you must accept that this is true immortality.

Your family can move to a different house, but it's still the same family. So long as one brainstate is causally connected to the previous one: immortality.

Now, TrashMan is even now thinking - albeit quite correctly - that this remains pure philosophy. The fact is that the brain does not care that it's been copied. It will keep on ticking along until death, which will proceed just like a normal death, with no magical salvation.

Sure. 100% correct.

And yet you will also be alive in the other fork. And there is no reason to privilege one fork over the other.

This strategy for immortality does not minimize death. Rather, it produces at least one (possibly more) forks in which the fork consciousness can look backwards and say 'I have never died' at arbitrary time, even though each individual fork is nonetheless doomed (but in a way which is not meaningfully different from the way in which your current brainstate is doomed!)

Bizarre, huh?
Title: Mods feel free to fork this post
Post by: swashmebuckle on November 04, 2009, 05:51:02 am
Ok well it's been 8 pages of the same forking arguments so who's down for playing a little Pseudo-Immortality Good Idea/Bad Idea?  I'm gonna say bad idea from a practical standpoint--there's just too much that seems destined to go wrong with it:

1) How do you decide who gets to fork?  Obviously if everyone can fork indefinitely you'll run out of resources sooner or later (assuming new people continue to be created), so that's not really an option.  Maybe you can transfer your pattern into another, more efficient container like a super cool man-made computer that everyone and their Dad can inhabit but good luck getting people to give up sex.  I mean what's the point if it's just you and your immortal life partner going "0010101110 mmmmmm UUUUuuuuuuh" on a bit of RAM somewhere?

2) Think about all the crap that goes down presently because people think they can go on to everlasting life.  Imagine if it actually worked!  Revolving door suicide bombers, man.  Also isn't it a relief knowing that Dick Cheney will one day cease to exist?  You know he'd be second in line to fork it up indefinitely.

3) When you do have the inevitable duplication errors, what do you do when Riker1 and Riker2 both want to go back to their quarters and fork Troi (assuming Rikers and Troi wouldn't be totally into this)?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: karajorma on November 04, 2009, 06:02:21 am
Okay, this is a Sci-fi board so let's try a sci-fi example. In the Star Trek TNG episode Second Chances Riker finds out that a transporter accident caused a duplicate to end up stranded on a planet for 8 years.

Now let's suppose that instead this error had caused two Rikers to appear in the transporter room. Which one is the real Riker? There isn't one, they are both the real Riker.

People keep arguing as if we're dealing with a situation where one of the two is real and one is the copy. But in this situation both are Riker prime.

Actually, the original Riker is dead. Vaporized by the transporter. Both Rikers are copies.

In which case you've completely undermined your own argument. If the transporter kills the original and replaces it with a copy I presume that you would never ever use one and anyone in the Trek universe who had the same issue with it as you wouldn't use one either.

Quote
And the copy might now it's a copy. By simple deduction. It depends on how the copy is made in the first place. If  the last memory before you wake up is you lying on a cloning table and you wake up in a copy tube..well, it doesn't take a genius to figure it out.

People keep arguing as if we're dealing with a situation where one of the two is real and one is the copy. But in this situation both are Riker prime.

I really couldn't have said it any more clearly. :rolleyes:
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on November 04, 2009, 06:04:12 am
Which of these two narratives is what really happens from your point of view?

That depends on which of the two me's I was. I can only be one entity.


Quote
And yeah, Kara's correct with the transporter example. You tried to dodge it by saying that 'the original is dead', but by that argument, you're dead - you're not made of the same matter you were a year ago.

I really do understand where you're coming from - your issue is that no individual fork can guarantee prospective immortality, and that's true, even though any given fork is guaranteed retrospective immortality - but the resolution to your dilemma simply lies in the fact that the two forks are utterly interchangeable and therefore you can't tell one from the other.

That someone can't tell them for eachother is irrelevant. They can tell eachoter apart. They are distinct individuals. the fact that m cells replace themselves doesn't break the continuity and awerness of my self. I don't die as my cells age and are replaced. I don't experience death. My existance continues.


Quote
You continue to 'ride the rails' of one fork, insisting that it's the original. But you have no meaningful way of telling which one is the original and which one is the copy, which makes your argument irrelevant.

No, it doesn't matter which one is the origial. What matters is that each one has it's own sense of self - and that sense of self dies with him. Which makes all of YOUR points moot.

Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on November 04, 2009, 06:07:47 am
Quote
Actually, the original Riker is dead. Vaporized by the transporter. Both Rikers are copies.

In which case you've completely undermined your own argument. If the transporter kills the original and replaces it with a copy I presume that you would never ever use one and anyone in the Trek universe who had the same issue with it as you wouldn't use one either.

Undermined how? I wouldn't use a transporter, no.
Please don't tell me you're trying to use the behaviour/belief on characters in a fictional universe as proof of anything.


Quote
People keep arguing as if we're dealing with a situation where one of the two is real and one is the copy. But in this situation both are Riker prime.

I really couldn't have said it any more clearly. :rolleyes:

Irrelevant. They can both be real. Doesn't change the fact that each is a separete entity.

Basic logic. If it's two, then it can't be one. 1+1=2, not 1.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Kosh on November 04, 2009, 07:34:12 am
Quote
Bizarre, huh?


Interesting but it doesn't totally answer my question. How do you know this stuff? I'm curious about your sources so I can learn more.....
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 04, 2009, 09:55:16 am
Which of these two narratives is what really happens from your point of view?

That depends on which of the two me's I was. I can only be one entity.

That's right (as is everything in that post). Nothing you said in those two recent posts you made was wrong. You're just arguing a point that's been accepted and explored for pages now.

After the fork, you are two separate entities, both of them equally you. If one dies, he's dead.

No, it doesn't matter which one is the origial. What matters is that each one has it's own sense of self - and that sense of self dies with him. Which makes all of YOUR points moot.

I've already explained to you why this happens. Go back and reread the earlier posts.

Using this forking method, you can now extend retrospective existence indefinitely.

You're right. We've been telling you that you're right. But you're also equally wrong. I think you're finally beginning to ken what we're saying, though.

Copying creates more yous.

The fact that you've now admitted that you can't tell copy from original, but that the copies themselves can, is precisely the point. Would you be worried about your own death if your identical twin died? No.

So long as any given fork lives, you can think of it as your twins dying, but the original living. And I don't think that you, TrashMan, would be freaking out over your copies dying (you might be sad, but it's not you dying.)

Thus, you are immortal.

Your problem is that you want an immortality strategy that minimizes deaths of all possible forks of you. Such a strategy is a trivial reduction of the forking strategy. One example would be moving your brain to a new, young body every so often.

But if you accept this as an immortality strategy that does not involve self-death (which you will), then you must also accept that the forking strategy is logically identical, only with the addition of some duplicates of yourself as 'waste products'. The only thing is that any given duplicate will see all the others as those waste products.

You are multiplying yourself. And yes, if any one of those selves dies, it is dead. Nobody has contested that.

You can indeed die in this system; immortality by forking does not prevent you from dying. But it nonetheless satisfies these constraints:

Quote
A system whereby my consciousness can continue indefinitely, without fear of permanent extinction, and without any interruption more significant than normal sleep or unconsciousness, and in which all my memories, both implicit and explicit (thereby including skills, cognitive structures) are preserved, along with my neural structure and embodied cognitive elements.

What you're hung up on is divergence after the fork. As Kara has demonstrated, you have to explicitly state which point of view you are now working from, just as in relativity you must specify a reference frame for anything to make sense. And as you've stated, you are now two different people after the fork.

The issue is that the system does not appear to be time-asymmetric. If you follow your point of view forward through a fork, you see no divergence: you sit down in a chair, get scanned, get up, leave, die.

But if you follow your point of view backwards from either of the two forks, you also meet no divergence. As the artificial fork, you remember sitting down in the chair and then waking up in a white room.

Making the leap to understanding this requires a tremendous effort and no little insight, like Ford Prefect said. It requires you to realize that you are not the same person you were five years ago in any physical sense, and that as long as two brainstates are directly causally coupled, they must be meaningfully considered the same person (how else are we to say that we continue?)

Again, Trash, ponder this thought experiment: You have two brains in your head, held perfectly in synchrony by a link. Which one of them do you live in? What happens if one of them is killed? Do you notice anything?

On the broader level, consider: how is death different from simple unconsciousness? In what way are they meaningfully different? If the mind can be rebooted from pure wetware after a state of zero neural activity, then what is the mind aside from meat? (Nothing!)

All in all, I find it ironic that you're getting so worked up about this, when I imagine you would be completely fine with a live-update backup system with no divergence (a la Cylon resurrection.) Would you be okay with resurrecting Cylon-style?

Quote
Bizarre, huh?
Interesting but it doesn't totally answer my question. How do you know this stuff? I'm curious about your sources so I can learn more.....

Uh, honestly, I've mostly just thought this out from first principles. Most of it (including the mind-boggling paradoxes that are tripping up Trash and even myself) can be constructed from physicalism and a purely physicalist answer to the mind/body problem. However, Kara might've read something good on the topic. I think Daniel Dennett is a physicalist philosopher.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on November 04, 2009, 10:06:23 am
And in that sense, your whole concpet of immortality is flawed. You equate yourself with your memories and patterns, nothing more. It's like the POV and sense of self don't matter. They do.

And this is all without even brining into question the very posiblity of making perfect copies OR the issue of souls.
Frankly, me ****ing out a new universe has a greater chance of happning that that. But, since we're keeping things theoretical, I'll gloss over that.

But if we're throwing around theories and "what if's", how about this one - the uncertanty principle (or some other universal law) makes making perfect copies impossible. What then?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 04, 2009, 10:09:53 am
And in that sense, your whole concpet of immortality is flawed. You equate yourself with your memories and patterns, nothing more. It's like the POV and sense of self don't matter. They do.

Ah, but the POV and sense of self are preserved, just as much as they are lost! Each fork is a full 'me', complete with totally preserved POV and sense of self.

I edited the previous post a bit. Go back and read it over if you like. All expansions or clarifications.

Quote
But if we're throwing around theories and "what if's", how about this one - the uncertanty principle (or some other universal law) makes making perfect copies impossible. What then?

Then you have to settle for fuzzy copies - which, ironically, is the very mechanism you use to copy yourself from moment to moment.

If you accept that you are the same person you were ten minutes ago, you must accept the reality of copying. Both situations create a new brainstate that is causally coupled to the previous one by physical law.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 04, 2009, 10:20:21 am
To make it easier, think about the fork this way:

At the moment of copying, your mind expands and then splits in twain, into two identical copies. (We've actually observed this in real people, to a degree, in certain lesion and lobotomy cases.) One of the cases is then plucked out and moves over to the new body. The other remains in your skull.

Your problem is your rigid assumption that your POV remains in your original skull. But your POV, too, has been duplicated, and flies over to the new brain. It's just as valid to call what you left behind the copy or the detritus - thus, the use of the fair term 'fork'.

And yes, from this point on, you're moving forward as two separate people. But if you accept that everything essential about you has migrated, then the copying process is exactly the same as the tick forward from one brainstate to the next within your own skull. And if you accept that you were the same person you were a second ago, then you must accept that you remain the same person in a new body.

You've also remained the same person in your old body (unless you elected to vaporize or freeze it, which is a process no more significant than consigning your previous brainstates to memory except in that the old body has the potential to diverge, which previous brainstates do not except, partially, in patients who've had their corpus callosum cut.)

The key is to specify your reference frame.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 04, 2009, 11:45:33 am
Heh, so much for a 4AM post accomplishing anything.  I should really know better.

Also, I feel like swashmebuckle asked some of the most pertinent yet overlooked questions in this entire thread. :p
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Bobboau on November 04, 2009, 11:53:16 am
I have not been keeping up with this discussion, but I just skimmed the last page and I had a thought.
what if forks were made by temporally freezing you, splitting your body lengthwise and atom by atom reconstructing the other half? which one is the 'original' then?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 04, 2009, 11:57:06 am
I have not been keeping up with this discussion, but I just skimmed the last page and I had a thought.
what if forks were made by temporally freezing you, splitting your body lengthwise and atom by atom reconstructing the other half? which one is the 'original' then?

That is indeed the question we've been harping on - we've played with that thought experiment a bit. They're both the 'original' and both the 'copy'. I don't see any other sensible resolution.

Another formulation is this:

You are blindfolded, drugged, and spun about until very dizzy. You are then led into a room, where there are two chairs. One chair contains a clone body awaiting a brain scan from you, and you are placed in the other. Because you are dizzy, you have no idea which chair you were placed in or where in the room you are.

The scan is performed, and your blindfold is removed. How do you know whether you are still in your original body, or in a new one?

(You can also perform this experiment by simply rendering the hypothetical scan-ee unconscious.)
Title: Re: Mods feel free to fork this post
Post by: The E on November 04, 2009, 12:07:07 pm
1) How do you decide who gets to fork?  Obviously if everyone can fork indefinitely you'll run out of resources sooner or later (assuming new people continue to be created), so that's not really an option. 
In most fictional implementations, running multiple versions of you is actually frowned upon or prohibited. The social and legal implications are just too messy.

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Maybe you can transfer your pattern into another, more efficient container like a super cool man-made computer that everyone and their Dad can inhabit but good luck getting people to give up sex.  I mean what's the point if it's just you and your immortal life partner going "0010101110 mmmmmm UUUUuuuuuuh" on a bit of RAM somewhere?

Non-issue, actually. Provided that that machine can give the brain all the stimuli it needs, it shouldn't make that much of a difference. (Not to mention the weirder things that are possible in such an environment; again, read Accelerando or Glasshouse)

Besides that, I have trouble seeing your point here. Are you saying that sex wouldn't be fun anymore, just because you don't get to use actual bodies?

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2) Think about all the crap that goes down presently because people think they can go on to everlasting life.  Imagine if it actually worked!  Revolving door suicide bombers, man.  Also isn't it a relief knowing that Dick Cheney will one day cease to exist?  You know he'd be second in line to fork it up indefinitely.

Again, that's why there would be severe restrictions on things like that. And there is no reason to believe that just because someone was powerful once, he will stay powerful forever (or "evil"). Besides, I don't think Cheney et al would really be capable of adapting to a new environment like that.

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3) When you do have the inevitable duplication errors, what do you do when Riker1 and Riker2 both want to go back to their quarters and fork Troi (assuming Rikers and Troi wouldn't be totally into this)?

Umm. Could you elaborate on this? What does one thing (replication errors) have to do with the other?
Besides, I believe if this technology ever becomes available, it would have to be proven to work correctly each time, every time before even the cutting edge people would seriously consider it.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: castor on November 04, 2009, 01:46:05 pm
Okay, one more..

Assume a person dies, plain and simple. Billion years passes... Then one random day, some random person, somewhere, by a freak chance of nature, develops to be exactly the same mind that died billion years ago. Do you consider that the person who died billion years ago now actually continues his/her life?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 04, 2009, 01:59:28 pm
Do they have precisely the same memories, neural structures, implicit skills, and characteristics, down to a resolution that is not distinguishable from the moment-to-moment procession of consciousness in the brain? Is their brainstate at time = T identical to that which would have proceeded from one of the original's brainstates, and does it proceed to develop in the same way, thereby rendering it causally connected?

Then yeah, miraculously, you've been resurrected. It seems crazy, but it's exactly the same as if you rot for a billion years and then some kind of crazy Anti-Entropic Field pulls you back together exactly as you were. Or if you're dead for a year, and your body is partially reconstructed by nanomachines - same principle. It's different matter but the same pattern. Basically, you've been teleported.

Bear in mind that the probability of this event occurring is staggeringly low. You're presuming that this duplicate has received precisely the same sensory input and physical stimuli. This means that everyone around them, all the weather, all the politics, all the everything has to be the same - the same stars in the sky, the same cosmic background radiation sleeting random particles into the brain. In fact, the only way for it to have happened is for them to have lived exactly the same life you did in exactly the same environment.

Of course, in a spatially infinite universe with regular matter density, the occurrence of such an event is actually inevitable, and you can actually calculate the average distance to an identical copy of you in existence right now.

tl;dr version: if you were teleported, and all the cast-off atoms of your existence formed a dead duplicate of you in the ground, you'd still consider yourself alive and the same person. It's the same scenario.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Topgun on November 04, 2009, 03:10:26 pm
okay, so, lets say you do make a copy of yourself, and your thoughts are duplicated. are you in two places at the same time? I get how you can be the same person even though your body is different. different cells but same process. BUT, what happens when there are two of you?
like this, you go to the brain scanner thingy, you get your brain scanned and at the same time another *you* is created. great, now there are two of you walking around. cool. but which one gets to live in your house?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on November 04, 2009, 03:30:47 pm
And now you see why it can become problematic, from a legal and social POV, to permit several instances of the same person to be active parallel to each other.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 04, 2009, 03:56:31 pm
okay, so, lets say you do make a copy of yourself, and your thoughts are duplicated. are you in two places at the same time? I get how you can be the same person even though your body is different. different cells but same process. BUT, what happens when there are two of you?

Well, as TrashMan has repeatedly and partially pointed out, now there are two of you.

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like this, you go to the brain scanner thingy, you get your brain scanned and at the same time another *you* is created. great, now there are two of you walking around. cool. but which one gets to live in your house?

Well, as The_E said, that's kind of the problem, isn't it? Philosophically and physically it's a fairly straightforward (if non-intuitive) process, but legally...sheesh!
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: karajorma on November 04, 2009, 04:36:20 pm
Undermined how? I wouldn't use a transporter, no.

*files this away for later*

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Please don't tell me you're trying to use the behaviour/belief on characters in a fictional universe as proof of anything.

I'm using the fact that virtually everyone on this board would use a transporter as proof you are wrong. I suspect that you are one of the only people here who wouldn't use one. Hell. I'd use one to avoid walking down the stairs in my building in the morning. :p


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Irrelevant. They can both be real. Doesn't change the fact that each is a separete entity.

Basic logic. If it's two, then it can't be one. 1+1=2, not 1.

I never said they weren't separate. I was challenging your claim that one of them always knows they are a copy. Battuta gives another example where you are drugged and copied and neither version knows which one is the "real" version.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 04, 2009, 04:37:54 pm
I'm using the fact that virtually everyone on this board would use a transporter as proof you are wrong. I suspect that you are one of the only people here who wouldn't use one. Hell. I'd use one to avoid walking down the stairs in my building. :p

Yeah. You can't say the transporter kills you without simultaneously admitting that the person you were a while back is dead.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: swashmebuckle on November 04, 2009, 07:07:25 pm
1) How do you decide who gets to fork?  Obviously if everyone can fork indefinitely you'll run out of resources sooner or later (assuming new people continue to be created), so that's not really an option.
In most fictional implementations, running multiple versions of you is actually frowned upon or prohibited. The social and legal implications are just too messy.
Here I was thinking not of running parallel copies (that's what I was trying to say in #3) but of extending yourself indefinitely by means of forking off near or at the point of death like the Cylon resurrection thing.  The problem I'm getting at is who would be allowed to do this, given that people will still desire to create new people in the traditional way, and you can't just have your population expanding forever.  Some solutions I thought might be suggested were:

A) DEATH PANELS (lol) that would decide based on a person's value to society who would get to resurrect.
B) Everyone gets a certain number of resurrections like in a video game.  Maybe you can get extra lives for doing community service or blowing up a lot of space invaders.
C) You get free bodies up to a certain age and then you're on your own (for me this is the least unpalatable option).
D) Only people who can afford it can resurrect (for me this is the most likely option).
E) The disembodied option described below:
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Maybe you can transfer your pattern into another, more efficient container like a super cool man-made computer that everyone and their Dad can inhabit but good luck getting people to give up sex.  I mean what's the point if it's just you and your immortal life partner going "0010101110 mmmmmm UUUUuuuuuuh" on a bit of RAM somewhere?

Non-issue, actually. Provided that that machine can give the brain all the stimuli it needs, it shouldn't make that much of a difference. (Not to mention the weirder things that are possible in such an environment; again, read Accelerando or Glasshouse)

Besides that, I have trouble seeing your point here. Are you saying that sex wouldn't be fun anymore, just because you don't get to use actual bodies?
Yes :D.  Maybe more to the point, I think everything would suck more without the urgency of having a finite span in which to do whatever it is you want.  The less limited I am, the less adversity I face, the less motivation I have.
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2) Think about all the crap that goes down presently because people think they can go on to everlasting life.  Imagine if it actually worked!  Revolving door suicide bombers, man.  Also isn't it a relief knowing that Dick Cheney will one day cease to exist?  You know he'd be second in line to fork it up indefinitely.

Again, that's why there would be severe restrictions on things like that. And there is no reason to believe that just because someone was powerful once, he will stay powerful forever (or "evil"). Besides, I don't think Cheney et al would really be capable of adapting to a new environment like that.
Hmm, I thought that of all the crazy crap that had been proposed, the notion that power tends to accumulate in the hands of the already powerful was the least far-fetched.  Looking around the world today, the people in charge all seem to be those coming from a base of wealth and power in an age group where they have accumulated a lot of experience and connections but their faculties have not yet critically declined.  This seems to be exactly the type of group we are proposing expanding and further empowering here.
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3) When you do have the inevitable duplication errors, what do you do when Riker1 and Riker2 both want to go back to their quarters and fork Troi (assuming Rikers and Troi wouldn't be totally into this)?

Umm. Could you elaborate on this? What does one thing (replication errors) have to do with the other?
Besides, I believe if this technology ever becomes available, it would have to be proven to work correctly each time, every time before even the cutting edge people would seriously consider it.
This was the issue Topgun just posted about, I guess I wasn't very clear.  In my scenario, Riker is duplicated on the transporter pad, and both Rikers head back to their quarters expecting to fulfill their husbandly duties with Troi.  Sexy hilarity ensues.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on November 04, 2009, 07:15:31 pm
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Humans are the most adaptive creatures known. We've colonised all four corners of the world and live for periods of time outside in orbit above the planet. There's no reason that humans won't spread across the known galaxy if it becomes both technologically possible and economically viable.

Ah, but the point is that we're very narrowly adapted to a very rare set of environmental conditions and we've only been around for a very, very, very, very, very small period of time. We're talking a blink here.

If you just measure success by 'how long you stick around', the dinosaurs are still outplaying us tremendously.

Yeah so how is that important? Reality is reality. So the Dinosaurs were around for a long time, and at the end they were still just dinosaurs. Humans on the other hand have been around for a compartively short amount of time and we've advanced a tremendous amount. In fact, I would suggest that an animal which is naturally adaptive is a poor choice compared to a human because humans are forced to adapt with technology. If a human can't survive in the artic he builds a house out of ice and wears some caribou hides for clothes. Whereas if we have another creature that can more easily adapt then where's the need for innovation? The animal goes on being an animal and doesn't improve itself because it's already suited to wherever it goes. It doesn't build a house it doesn't learn fire it doesn't learn to eat new types of prey through cooking it doesn't do anything other than eating, sleeping and crapping.

What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger and any environment which poses a challenge to an individual has the capacity to make them stronger. A creature which can adapt naturally has no challenge and therefore no need to improve itself.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on November 04, 2009, 07:57:39 pm
Here I was thinking not of running parallel copies (that's what I was trying to say in #3) but of extending yourself indefinitely by means of forking off near or at the point of death like the Cylon resurrection thing.  The problem I'm getting at is who would be allowed to do this, given that people will still desire to create new people in the traditional way, and you can't just have your population expanding forever.  Some solutions I thought might be suggested were:

A) DEATH PANELS (lol) that would decide based on a person's value to society who would get to resurrect.
B) Everyone gets a certain number of resurrections like in a video game.  Maybe you can get extra lives for doing community service or blowing up a lot of space invaders.
C) You get free bodies up to a certain age and then you're on your own (for me this is the least unpalatable option).
D) Only people who can afford it can resurrect (for me this is the most likely option).
E) The disembodied option described below:

Depends on circumstances beyond the scope of the original thought experiment. In this case, the availability (or scarcity) of resources. Suffice it to say that those are interesting points, and they are explored in the relevant literature.

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Yes :D.  Maybe more to the point, I think everything would suck more without the urgency of having a finite span in which to do whatever it is you want.  The less limited I am, the less adversity I face, the less motivation I have.

This sounds like a lot of the points NGTM-1R raised earlier. I don't believe a word of it, really. Again, read the relevant literature. It explains and explores the issues far more eloquently than I ever could.

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Hmm, I thought that of all the crazy crap that had been proposed, the notion that power tends to accumulate in the hands of the already powerful was the least far-fetched.  Looking around the world today, the people in charge all seem to be those coming from a base of wealth and power in an age group where they have accumulated a lot of experience and connections but their faculties have not yet critically declined.  This seems to be exactly the type of group we are proposing expanding and further empowering here.

And? This has to stay that way forever? I am a bright-eyed idealist here, but most singularity stories describe a massive social upheaval once the big S gets started. "Talk you of Tradition in Singularity!" indeed. (Bonus points for any non-Battuta who can source that quote)

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This was the issue Topgun just posted about, I guess I wasn't very clear.  In my scenario, Riker is duplicated on the transporter pad, and both Rikers head back to their quarters expecting to fulfill their husbandly duties with Troi.  Sexy hilarity ensues.

Again, these are the points where it gets interesting. I don't presume to have an answer to that dilemma; society (and the individuals involved) need to work that out.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: übermetroid on November 04, 2009, 08:08:45 pm

I don't get it.  There is no problem here with multiple forks.  The only resource that is being used up is matter, energy (for getting everything to work), bandwidth (for communicating), and processing cycles (the computer power).

If you can copy minds, you can upload them into the matrix if you want.  As many minds in as many matrixs are you have the (see above) to make.

Matter of fact, lets turn earth into a giant computer running a massive sim so we can support a billion billion billion billion ect lives.  Then when we run out of space we can turn the rest of the planets into computer systems to support more and more people.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 04, 2009, 09:05:38 pm
Works for me (though it has the potential to turn into a living hell if there are, for instance, lag issues, or if the system is exploited...)

If it's possible to build such a sim, then odds are we're living in one.

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Humans are the most adaptive creatures known. We've colonised all four corners of the world and live for periods of time outside in orbit above the planet. There's no reason that humans won't spread across the known galaxy if it becomes both technologically possible and economically viable.

Ah, but the point is that we're very narrowly adapted to a very rare set of environmental conditions and we've only been around for a very, very, very, very, very small period of time. We're talking a blink here.

If you just measure success by 'how long you stick around', the dinosaurs are still outplaying us tremendously.

Yeah so how is that important? Reality is reality. So the Dinosaurs were around for a long time, and at the end they were still just dinosaurs. Humans on the other hand have been around for a compartively short amount of time and we've advanced a tremendous amount. In fact, I would suggest that an animal which is naturally adaptive is a poor choice compared to a human because humans are forced to adapt with technology. If a human can't survive in the artic he builds a house out of ice and wears some caribou hides for clothes. Whereas if we have another creature that can more easily adapt then where's the need for innovation? The animal goes on being an animal and doesn't improve itself because it's already suited to wherever it goes. It doesn't build a house it doesn't learn fire it doesn't learn to eat new types of prey through cooking it doesn't do anything other than eating, sleeping and crapping.

What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger and any environment which poses a challenge to an individual has the capacity to make them stronger. A creature which can adapt naturally has no challenge and therefore no need to improve itself.

Wow, you missed a lot.

Anyway, the human being's inherent cognitive abilities are part of their adaptive abilities. Which fulfills the definition of "a creature which can adapt naturally has no challenge and therefore no need to improve itself", and makes your argument a bit circular.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: swashmebuckle on November 04, 2009, 10:09:21 pm
The E: Yeah it's going beyond the original thought experiment--that's what I was trying to do by saying let's play good idea/bad idea.  The original argument seemed to have petered out, with the non-replicators having fallen back on religion, so I was looking for some opinions and fun speculation.  And I'm still waiting for someone to say good idea or bad idea (keeping in mind that inevitable, impossible, etc are unacceptably boring answers).

übermetroid: Well that's certainly one possibility, but a matrix type of thing seems to operate on the assumption that having your intellect tied inextricably to a body is a crippling design flaw rather than a key feature, which I'm not so sure about.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 04, 2009, 10:14:16 pm
übermetroid: Well that's certainly one possibility, but a matrix type of thing seems to operate on the assumption that having your intellect tied inextricably to a body is a crippling design flaw rather than a key feature, which I'm not so sure about.

Right, but it could still be tied to a body (and probably would have to be) - just a simulated body that you could do weird stuff to.

I think that such a matrix would probably be a 'bad idea', at least at first. Imagine if you were uploaded into Second Life...what a way to go.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Topgun on November 04, 2009, 10:20:03 pm
personally, I would like to be uploaded into the elder scrolls universe, with infinite health and a 0.000000000000000000000001x pain modifier.

and sex, the games don't have sex.
;)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: NGTM-1R on November 04, 2009, 10:24:46 pm
This sounds like a lot of the points NGTM-1R raised earlier. I don't believe a word of it, really. Again, read the relevant literature. It explains and explores the issues far more eloquently than I ever could.

Not really. I'm arguing against the existence of naturally superadaptive spacemen, as such a species would have no reason to develop the technology underlying space travel, or indeed intelligence. A species that simply came able to easily adapt to any environment will have no selection pressure on it, that's basic, but once you have technological ability that's also somewhat moot (although keeping selection pressure is probably good anyways). Any intelligent species will most likely either be like or have been like us; not well-fitted to their enviroment, so they developed intelligence, the means to make the environment bend to them.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: swashmebuckle on November 04, 2009, 11:43:20 pm
Right, but it could still be tied to a body (and probably would have to be) - just a simulated body that you could do weird stuff to.

I think that such a matrix would probably be a 'bad idea', at least at first. Imagine if you were uploaded into Second Life...what a way to go.
Heh, talk about a fate worse than death.  What I was thinking in regards to the physical limitations being an important part of our design has something to do with this simulated body thing too.  Would it be a good thing to be able to do weird stuff to yourself like radically altering your programming?  Would being able to erase unwanted memories (a la Eternal Sunshine) or inhabit other peoples' simulations (Being John Malkovich) or any number of other nutty operations that would be possible in this scenario raise or lower your quality of life?  How about the nature of the simulation itself (assuming we're talking about using avatars or whatever like in the Matrix movies where everything you directly observe is a video game type fabrication)?  The sim can never be as complex as the "real" universe, no matter how much energy you accumulate--is it a good idea to sacrifice that quality for the greater quantity of intelligences you could fit on a matrix planet?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 04, 2009, 11:44:44 pm
Selection pressure is not the only means to evolve.

The sim can never be as complex as the "real" universe, no matter how much energy you accumulate--is it a good idea to sacrifice that quality for the greater quantity of intelligences you could fit on a matrix planet?

Actually, I believe there are certain end-states to the universe where you can create an arbitrarily faithful simulation...I gotta look up the paper.

I don't think I'd want to spend the rest of my life in simulation. Of course, if such a simulation is possible, then the odds that we're already living in one are pretty high.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: TrashMan on November 05, 2009, 02:12:21 am
I'm using the fact that virtually everyone on this board would use a transporter as proof you are wrong. I suspect that you are one of the only people here who wouldn't use one. Hell. I'd use one to avoid walking down the stairs in my building in the morning. :p

Virtually everyone on this board? Eh? Was there some poll made when I wasn't looking? Or do you jsut assume virtualy everyone is backing you up?

And even if we assume they do, what of it? How does a buch of people willing to use transporters prove anything discussed in their thread?


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I never said they weren't separate. I was challenging your claim that one of them always knows they are a copy. Battuta gives another example where you are drugged and copied and neither version knows which one is the "real" version.

I never said one would always know. I said that in most cases, the copy would be abelt to find out if it is a copy.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't thir thread originalyl about human expansion and colonization?

But regardless. This discussion is becoming tedious. I've said my piece and and now taking my leafve. Hugs and kisses
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: karajorma on November 05, 2009, 02:40:23 am
Virtually everyone on this board? Eh? Was there some poll made when I wasn't looking? Or do you jsut assume virtualy everyone is backing you up?

Find me a post where someone else has said they'd never use a transporter because they'd be dead and a copy would live on in their place. I'll wait.

If it was a huge issue I'm pretty sure someone would have brought it up. What with this being a Sci-fi board and all. But if you want I'll post a poll and see if you're in in the minority. Might be interesting.

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And even if we assume they do, what of it? How does a buch of people willing to use transporters prove anything discussed in their thread?

Well it proves your view is in the minority for one thing.


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I never said one would always know. I said that in most cases, the copy would be abelt to find out if it is a copy.

Yet you never managed to make a convincing argument for what happened in the cases where it couldn't tell.

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And correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't thir thread originalyl about human expansion and colonization?

If you want me to ban you for dragging this entire thread off-topic when you claimed Transhumanism was monkey poo and thereby initiating all the off-topic discussion of how it isn't, just ask. :p

Otherwise you don't get to argue for 6 pages about something off-topic and then suddenly try to talk about the original when someone rebuts your argument. Especially when your post was actually the root cause of the off-topic. It's a rather cheap debating trick.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on November 05, 2009, 03:12:24 am
Anyway, the human being's inherent cognitive abilities are part of their adaptive abilities. Which fulfills the definition of "a creature which can adapt naturally has no challenge and therefore no need to improve itself", and makes your argument a bit circular.

No, what you said essentially was:

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Something much more rapacious and much more adaptive would probably do a lot better (something that needn't haul around a bubble of its absurd niche environment.)

We're far from optimized for galactic domination. I'm sure there are designs out there that can do everything we can do, but do it better, and then do a lot more on top of it.

If a creature doesn't need to haul around a bubble of it's absurd environment, then it has no need to create an artificial bubble, if it has no need to create the bubble it has no need to improve it's own technology. What you're essentially saying is that a creature whose physiology is more diverse and can adapt to more environments would be a better candidate for mass expansion than a human, but what I'm saying is that a human with its physical limitations and it's "niche environment" (btw everyone it's pronounced NEESH not NITCH!!!!!!  :mad:) would ultimately be more successful because it has actually has a need to create technology to overcome its physical shortcomings.

A creature which adapts through intelligence and design will always be more successful than a creature which adapts simply by its the diverse abilities of its physical being. And perhaps even in the development process a creature with diverse physiology simply has no need to develop a higher intelligence because it can instinctively do what it does and will therefore remain our definition of an animal or a lifeform lacking sentience.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Colonol Dekker on November 05, 2009, 03:40:36 am
As I read through this 'discussion' I can't help but think "I'm getting a Terran vs Zerg vibe here.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 09:44:49 am
If a creature doesn't need to haul around a bubble of it's absurd environment, then it has no need to create an artificial bubble, if it has no need to create the bubble it has no need to improve it's own technology.

Urm, what if it got the technology before it became so adapted? I.E. the organism redesigned itself?

You should have read the thread.

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What you're essentially saying is that a creature whose physiology is more diverse and can adapt to more environments would be a better candidate for mass expansion than a human, but what I'm saying is that a human with its physical limitations and it's "niche environment" (btw everyone it's pronounced NEESH not NITCH!!!!!!  :mad:) would ultimately be more successful because it has actually has a need to create technology to overcome its physical shortcomings.

Er, right, but a creature that has a more diverse physiology and all the technological ability of a human would be better still.

There's simply no way you can argue that a spacecraft without the need for life support is better than a spacecraft with the need for life support. Life support is an absurd waste of resources.

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A creature which adapts through intelligence and design will always be more successful than a creature which adapts simply by its the diverse abilities of its physical being.

Well, okay, no, while I'm inclined to agree, we don't have any evidence of that at all. We've barely been around an eyeblink. One of the things we have to consider is that our 'intelligence and design' is actually a weakness, a bad survival strategy. Or, alternatively, that we're not actually particularly intelligent - there's plenty of evidence that we are pretty half-assed thinkers.

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And perhaps even in the development process a creature with diverse physiology simply has no need to develop a higher intelligence because it can instinctively do what it does and will therefore remain our definition of an animal or a lifeform lacking sentience.

Again, zero evidence.

You should learn a bit about evolution, it's really fun stuff. I will try to dig up a book or two. Basically, one thing you should be aware of is that selection pressure is not the only way to evolve.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mars on November 05, 2009, 10:28:46 am
Virtually everyone on this board? Eh? Was there some poll made when I wasn't looking? Or do you jsut assume virtualy everyone is backing you up?

Find me a post where someone else has said they'd never use a transporter because they'd be dead and a copy would live on in their place. I'll wait.

Although I disagree to an extent, I probably would not use a transporter, because I would be afraid of coming out different somehow.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Ghostavo on November 05, 2009, 11:16:04 am
Virtually everyone on this board? Eh? Was there some poll made when I wasn't looking? Or do you jsut assume virtualy everyone is backing you up?

Find me a post where someone else has said they'd never use a transporter because they'd be dead and a copy would live on in their place. I'll wait.

If it was a huge issue I'm pretty sure someone would have brought it up. What with this being a Sci-fi board and all. But if you want I'll post a poll and see if you're in in the minority. Might be interesting.

In universe reference, McCoy.  :P
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Topgun on November 05, 2009, 01:25:04 pm
I wouldn't use a teleporter either, just in case.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Colonol Dekker on November 05, 2009, 02:54:51 pm
If they were about before I was born and I grew up with them integral to society I wouldn't have a bloody choice would I :lol:
 
 
I'd rather not though. . I saw the fly remake when I was little and aside from Geena Davis' arse, the rest was pretty nasty for a preteen.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: castor on November 05, 2009, 03:10:51 pm
Then yeah, miraculously, you've been resurrected. It seems crazy, but it's exactly the same as if you rot for a billion years and then some kind of crazy Anti-Entropic Field pulls you back together exactly as you were.
Ok, I don't agree with everything, but you seem to be consistent in your line of thought. :)

Just as a side note (as it's even more OT), I have the itch that it will not be possible to actually replicate a mind; I assume a mind is like a fractal that modifies itself as it goes.. To replicate a mind, you need to know the "equation", to know the equation, you need to replicate the mind (that is, no matter how fine details you pass over, it will never be complete - just a cardboard copy).
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Topgun on November 05, 2009, 03:17:43 pm
Then yeah, miraculously, you've been resurrected. It seems crazy, but it's exactly the same as if you rot for a billion years and then some kind of crazy Anti-Entropic Field pulls you back together exactly as you were.

Just as a side note (as it's even more OT), I have the itch that it will not be possible to actually replicate a mind; I assume a mind is like a fractal that modifies itself as it goes.. To replicate a mind, you need to know the "equation", to know the equation, you need to replicate the mind (that is, no matter how fine details you pass over, it will never be complete - just a cardboard copy).
wow, that's kinda like what I think.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: High Max on November 05, 2009, 03:18:18 pm
*_*
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 03:50:33 pm
Then yeah, miraculously, you've been resurrected. It seems crazy, but it's exactly the same as if you rot for a billion years and then some kind of crazy Anti-Entropic Field pulls you back together exactly as you were.

Just as a side note (as it's even more OT), I have the itch that it will not be possible to actually replicate a mind; I assume a mind is like a fractal that modifies itself as it goes.. To replicate a mind, you need to know the "equation", to know the equation, you need to replicate the mind (that is, no matter how fine details you pass over, it will never be complete - just a cardboard copy).
wow, that's kinda like what I think.

You can make the argument that it will not be possible from an engineering standpoint, but given arbitrary scan resolution and point manipulation of matter, you cannot argue that it is physically impossible without becoming a dualist.

High Max: read the damn thread! That's already been tackled.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: karajorma on November 05, 2009, 04:29:18 pm
In universe reference, McCoy.  :P

He used the transporter all the time. He got beamed down to pretty much every single planet just so he could say "He's dead Jim!" :p


I should point out that I'm not asking who wouldn't use a transporter because they were scared of an accident. That's a complete different and much more rational fear. I'm asking who absolutely, in all circumstances wouldn't use a transporter because even if it worked 100% correctly they'd still be dead.

So you're on a planet that's about to explode in one minute, the Enterprise offers to beam you up and you say no and start looking for a shuttle because if you can't find one you are just as dead if you beam up as if you blow up with the planet. Find me someone who believes that.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Scotty on November 05, 2009, 04:34:49 pm
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Which is probably why in sci-fi, other species see humans as inferior. But we are in some ways still physically more adaptable than some life forms on earth considering that we have efficient iron based blood that is good at absorbing oxygen instead of the less efficient copper based blood, as well as having a 4 chambered heart for increased stamina. Also, the fact that we are warm blooded which enables us to live almost anywhere in the world, and we are also omnivores to boot, which enables us to eat a wide variety of foods. We also have the ability to sweat if we get too hot and tan for more protection from the sun, and that also aids in heat dissipation.

I call shenanigans on the first sentence to start.  Cite please, and then explain why that seemingly applies to every single piece of Science Fiction.

Then, please explain why humans are so unique just on the basis of those traits, seeing as we have nothing to compare to. that comparison doesn't hold water to what any alien could be.

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No one besides you could ever know if it has your consciousness.

Except, you know, it wouldn't, since it's a distinctly separate individual.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on November 05, 2009, 04:45:52 pm
Urm, what if it got the technology before it became so adapted? I.E. the organism redesigned itself?

You should have read the thread.

10 pages? No thanks.
You've obviously got some fascination with genetic manipulation as you think it's the solution to most everything.
The real question is would a sentient species be willing to throw away their identity. I suspect that in any, thinking species there would be a lot of resistance to that.

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Well, okay, no, while I'm inclined to agree, we don't have any evidence of that at all. We've barely been around an eyeblink. One of the things we have to consider is that our 'intelligence and design' is actually a weakness, a bad survival strategy. Or, alternatively, that we're not actually particularly intelligent - there's plenty of evidence that we are pretty half-assed thinkers.

Regardless of how smart or not we are there is no evidence of any lifeform more intelligent.

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Again, zero evidence.

You should learn a bit about evolution, it's really fun stuff. I will try to dig up a book or two. Basically, one thing you should be aware of is that selection pressure is not the only way to evolve.

Sure, and zero evidence to the contrary too.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: High Max on November 05, 2009, 04:50:32 pm
*_*
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Topgun on November 05, 2009, 04:52:09 pm
In universe reference, McCoy.  :P

I should point out that I'm not asking who wouldn't use a transporter because they were scared of an accident. That's a complete different and much more rational fear. I'm asking who absolutely, in all circumstances wouldn't use a transporter because even if it worked 100% correctly they'd still be dead.

Im not worried about an accident, Im worried that the one who got teleported is not me.
let me put it this way, I believe what you are saying, but I wouldn't take the chance.


In universe reference, McCoy.  :P

So you're on a planet that's about to explode in one minute, the Enterprise offers to beam you up and you say no and start looking for a shuttle because if you can't find one you are just as dead if you beam up as if you blow up with the planet. Find me someone who believes that.
In that case, I would take the transporter. becuase the odds of the teleporter not killing me are better than the odds of me finding a shuttle in time. and even if the teleporter does kill me, at least my copy will get to go on and have a full life.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Scotty on November 05, 2009, 04:55:11 pm
You quoted yourself in that last post.  Read the first sentence again.  Just incase:  "in sci-fi, other species see humans as inferior."  Now let's play spot the qualifier.  I can't find it for some reason.

Also, anyone else start laughing when Max said "stupid, primitive, and like animals, and even selfish" as if that were the worst insult that had ever been conceived?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Topgun on November 05, 2009, 04:58:49 pm

One example would be that in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Anakin is pod racing and you hear the announcer say something that indicates that humans are seen as inferior. If you watch sci-fi, you will often encounter other species putting down humans as being weak, stupid, primitive, and like animals, and even selfish, but some of that even I could not argue with and would agree on.

yeah, star wars, where most jedi are human :doubt:
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on November 05, 2009, 05:04:19 pm
10 pages? No thanks.

And right here, you lost most of your credibility. If you're not going to bother reading what has been said before, why should I bother reading anything you say?

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You've obviously got some fascination with genetic manipulation as you think it's the solution to most everything.
The real question is would a sentient species be willing to throw away their identity. I suspect that in any, thinking species there would be a lot of resistance to that.

Define "Identity". Does being human necessitate having a 100% biological human body? I say No. What makes us human are our minds and spirits, our bodies matter comparatively little.
Also, genetic manipulation is only one tool in the box. There are other methods which are equally fun.
 

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Regardless of how smart or not we are there is no evidence of any lifeform more intelligent.

And?

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Again, zero evidence.

You should learn a bit about evolution, it's really fun stuff. I will try to dig up a book or two. Basically, one thing you should be aware of is that selection pressure is not the only way to evolve.

Sure, and zero evidence to the contrary too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_drift
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_flow
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation

Are you telling me there is zero evidence for these mechanisms?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: High Max on November 05, 2009, 05:04:48 pm
*_*
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Topgun on November 05, 2009, 05:08:22 pm
yes I know, but canonically, there are more human jedi than alien.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: karajorma on November 05, 2009, 05:11:07 pm
Im not worried about an accident, Im worried that the one who got teleported is not me.
let me put it this way, I believe what you are saying, but I wouldn't take the chance.

No chance in it. 100% certainty the transporter kills you.

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In that case, I would take the transporter. becuase the odds of the teleporter not killing me are better than the odds of me finding a shuttle in time. and even if the teleporter does kill me, at least my copy will get to go on and have a full life.

Yeah but we're arguing that it's agreed that the transporter 100% does kill you. It simply makes a copy of you at the other end which has no reason not to believe it's you apart from the fact that you were just transported. So the odds of finding a shuttle are higher. They are always going to be higher. Trillion to one chances are better than 100% certainty of death.

So would you still use the transporter? Cause from what he says, Trashman presumably wouldn't.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on November 05, 2009, 05:17:28 pm
I never said all sci-fi thought bad about humans and when I was talking about human adaptability, I was not comparing it to alien species. I was just saying that we are not the least adaptable life form on the block and it seemed like Battuta was not giving us enough credit for our bodies' ability to adapt.

For the love of kittens, High Max, read the bloody thread. This very argument was brought up in the beginning. Let me just say that Humans are NOT THAT ADAPTABLE. We cannot live on most of this Planet's surface, let alone the surface of others. We rely on a very narrow range of environmental conditions, beyond which we need technology to survive.
So, yes. We CAN survive on this planet almost indefinitely. BUT: The current climatological circumstances are bound to change over time (Talking about geological time scales here). When they do, we will be hard-pressed to continue surviving, if we haven't changed with our environment (Thanks to evolution, we probably will, but you never know).
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 05:46:29 pm
Urm, what if it got the technology before it became so adapted? I.E. the organism redesigned itself?

You should have read the thread.

10 pages? No thanks.
You've obviously got some fascination with genetic manipulation as you think it's the solution to most everything.

Huh? I haven't suggested genetic manipulation as a solution to more than one problem here. Nor, in fact, did I even...recommend genetic manipulation.

You're contradicting yourself again. You say that the real adaptive ability of humans lies in their technology, and then you accuse me of being fascinated with technology.

You've got a double standard - you think technology is what keeps us moving and adapting, and then you say 'no, it's our nature that makes us human, not our technology.'

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The real question is would a sentient species be willing to throw away their identity. I suspect that in any, thinking species there would be a lot of resistance to that.

Now that's just out and out silly. You have no reason to think any other species will behave like humans. Even if 99% of species think that way, the whole point of the thread is that the 1% who don't will have an advantage.

Furthermore, again, double standard: you're advocating technological adaptation, and then saying it 'destroys our nature'. I can only imagine you preaching to the tribe: "We no sharpen spear! We use fists! Is NATURE!"

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Regardless of how smart or not we are there is no evidence of any lifeform more intelligent.

Um, right. But our ability to construct hypotheticals is part of the same cognitive toolset that you've praised earlier.

It's easy to construct a more intelligent human by eliminating or correcting a few common heuristics. We're not very rational organisms yet.

And, yep, if it weren't silly, I'd repost the stuff The_E said too. I'm not even sure what points you're making any more; you seem to just be arguing against anything thrown in front of you.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Scotty on November 05, 2009, 05:47:56 pm
And, if doomsayers about said climatological circumstances changing now are correct, we also have the ability to change our climate.  Not so great a stretch (for this thread, at least) to say that changing the climate of either this or another planet in our benefit is out of the question
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Colonol Dekker on November 05, 2009, 06:15:11 pm
2012!



Nanageddon, and the Acrocalypse will all get us in the  end.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: swashmebuckle on November 05, 2009, 06:34:49 pm
2112!

We are the priests!  Of the Temples! Of Syrinx!
Our great computers fill the hallowed halls!
We are the priests!  Of the Temples! Of Syrinx!
All the gifts of life are held within our walls!

Dunununun dun dadun DUN!
Dunununun dun dadun DUN! etc.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on November 05, 2009, 06:56:03 pm
Urm, what if it got the technology before it became so adapted? I.E. the organism redesigned itself?

You should have read the thread.
Huh? I haven't suggested genetic manipulation as a solution to more than one problem here. Nor, in fact, did I even...recommend genetic manipulation.

You're contradicting yourself again. You say that the real adaptive ability of humans lies in their technology, and then you accuse me of being fascinated with technology.

You've got a double standard - you think technology is what keeps us moving and adapting, and then you say 'no, it's our nature that makes us human, not our technology.'

"Organism redesigns itself" = genetic manipulation.
Despite human advances in technology the human body has not changed. It's better fed yes, but it is still just as vulnerable (if not more so) to all the woes of nature. And btw nice way to paraphrase something I didn't even say. Very inventive.

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The real question is would a sentient species be willing to throw away their identity. I suspect that in any, thinking species there would be a lot of resistance to that.

Now that's just out and out silly. You have no reason to think any other species will behave like humans. Even if 99% of species think that way, the whole point of the thread is that the 1% who don't will have an advantage.

Furthermore, again, double standard: you're advocating technological adaptation, and then saying it 'destroys our nature'. I can only imagine you preaching to the tribe: "We no sharpen spear! We use fists! Is NATURE!"

Oh yes the grand cop out. "They're ALIEN, we don't know how they will think!!!". <cue spooky music>
Spare me.

Spear = a tool. I'm not talking about using tools or technology, you talk about a species re-designing itself to survive in environments to which it is not suited. That is genetic manipulation. Creating a new organism which is "superior" to the original.



10 pages? No thanks.

And right here, you lost most of your credibility. If you're not going to bother reading what has been said before, why should I bother reading anything you say?

Because I'm replying to a reply, I'm not going to read 10 pages so I can talk about Anakin Skywalker Pod Racing.

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Define "Identity". Does being human necessitate having a 100% biological human body? I say No. What makes us human are our minds and spirits, our bodies matter comparatively little.
Also, genetic manipulation is only one tool in the box. There are other methods which are equally fun.

So if you transfer your consciousness to a robot are you still human? No, you're not.
Without the limitations of the human form we lose our humanity. Our humanity is conversely essential to what it means to be human. Fundamentally altering our bodies will alter our perceptions of ourselves and ultimately the way we perceive and act within the world. At the end we will no longer be human, but rather something which was once human and still fancies itself to be human but is at the end, no longer human. Our humanity is as much a product of our shortcomings as it is a product of our strengths.
 


Quote
Quote
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Again, zero evidence.

You should learn a bit about evolution, it's really fun stuff. I will try to dig up a book or two. Basically, one thing you should be aware of is that selection pressure is not the only way to evolve.
Sure, and zero evidence to the contrary too.
Are you telling me there is zero evidence for these mechanisms?

My reply was in reference to his first sentence, not the second. His first sentence was in reply to this:
"And perhaps even in the development process a creature with diverse physiology simply has no need to develop a higher intelligence because it can instinctively do what it does and will therefore remain our definition of an animal or a lifeform lacking sentience."


Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on November 05, 2009, 07:08:37 pm
Quote
So if you transfer your consciousness to a robot are you still human? No, you're not.
Without the limitations of the human form we lose our humanity. Our humanity is conversely essential to what it means to be human. Fundamentally altering our bodies will alter our perceptions of ourselves and ultimately the way we perceive and act within the world. At the end we will no longer be human, but rather something which was once human and still fancies itself to be human but is at the end, no longer human. Our humanity is as much a product of our shortcomings as it is a product of our strengths.

We'll just have to disagree here.
But let me ask, how much alteration would you say is sufficient to turn someone into a nonhuman?

Another question: When do you want to stop developing technologies to overcome human shortcomings? By what you said, sooner or later you just have to stop, unless you wish to be nonhuman. Would that mean that a cure for the complex of degenerative conditions known as old age would be unacceptable, since becoming frail is part of the human condition? What about eye implants that enhance our visual spectrum? What about brain implants to enhance our cognitive facilities?
Where is the line drawn?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Scotty on November 05, 2009, 07:10:07 pm
Personally, I would draw the line when percentage of body by volume is > 50%.

But that wouldn't really change anything except the term I would use.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 07:27:02 pm
Quote
Spear = a tool. I'm not talking about using tools or technology, you talk about a species re-designing itself to survive in environments to which it is not suited. That is genetic manipulation. Creating a new organism which is "superior" to the original.

Um, no, there are lots of ways to do that, many of which we already practice. Do you have glasses? A pacemaker?

Genetic manipulation constitutes transgenic alteration of DNA, in case you're not familiar. It's one way to effect it, and one we already practice on various levels.

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Oh yes the grand cop out. "They're ALIEN, we don't know how they will think!!!". <cue spooky music>
Spare me.

It's not that at all. You simply took a fairly narrow human cultural belief and attributed it to our entire species and then to entire other species. That's simply unfounded.

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So if you transfer your consciousness to a robot are you still human? No, you're not.
Without the limitations of the human form we lose our humanity. Our humanity is conversely essential to what it means to be human.

Defining humanity as 'what it means to be human' is no definition at all.

But the nice thing is that you don't have to take advantage of any such abilities if you don't want to. We currently stand somewhere between animal and thinking being; at some point we'll decide to move the rest of the way.

When do you want to stop developing technologies to overcome human shortcomings? By what you said, sooner or later you just have to stop, unless you wish to be nonhuman. Would that mean that a cure for the complex of degenerative conditions known as old age would be unacceptable, since becoming frail is part of the human condition? What about eye implants that enhance our visual spectrum? What about brain implants to enhance our cognitive facilities?
Where is the line drawn?

The_E is completely correct. To see how silly your argument is, consider this?

Are you human if you wear glasses?

Are you human if you wear contact lenses?

Are you human if you get laser eye surgery?

Are you human if you're born with a gene variant that improves your vision?

Are you human if that variant was given to you artificially?

(I imagine you've said 'yes' so far.)

Now, are you human if you're born with a gene variant that gives you perfect memory?

There's nowhere to easily draw the line. And that's simply because we have no scientific definition of what a species is. You can't trace your finger back along the fossil record and say 'oh, this is where we became human'; you'll simply get a hunch at some point that you're not really in the human neighborhood any more.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 05, 2009, 07:41:57 pm
Here's a thought...

A friend of mine has a pacemaker, and an artificial hip, does that mean he's less human than someone without them?

Edit: Ah, GB had already mentioned pacemakers anyway :)

Prosthetic technology is advancing, If people genuinely think that being non-organic is not human then we might need to start looking at ensuring the rights of these people as the level of technology advances.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 07:47:05 pm
Right.

Plus Akalabeth Angel has spent all this time arguing that alterations would make us 'less human' and then failed to provide any reason why that would be a bad thing. Would he have complained that getting a bit more skull volume would make us 'less homo habilis?'
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on November 05, 2009, 07:58:23 pm
Quote
Spear = a tool. I'm not talking about using tools or technology, you talk about a species re-designing itself to survive in environments to which it is not suited. That is genetic manipulation. Creating a new organism which is "superior" to the original.

Um, no, there are lots of ways to do that, many of which we already practice. Do you have glasses? A pacemaker?

No and No.
But that's besides the point, you're not even on the same argument. Why you keep meandering I'll never know. The fundamental discussion is whether humans are ill-suited to galactic expansion because of their need to bring around their "niche" environment with them. You say that a species can re-design itself to live in more diverse environments rather than bringing around that bubble. The only way to redesign yourself and stay a species (as opposed to a machine) is to use genetic manipulation. Therefore you seem to believe genetic manipulation will trump a non-manipulated species simply using technology. While I suggest that any intelligent free thinking species would not willingly alter themselves to such a fundamental degree, to do so would they would lose the core of what it means to be what they are.


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Quote
Oh yes the grand cop out. "They're ALIEN, we don't know how they will think!!!". <cue spooky music>
Spare me.

It's not that at all. You simply took a fairly narrow human cultural belief and attributed it to our entire species and then to entire other species. That's simply unfounded.

People are afraid of change. People also share many instinctual similarities with non-human beings. Animals in nature have motherly instincts for example to protect their young, they all have fight or flight. Many animals display curiousity, the ability to mimmick and learn. There is a lot of evidence that animals and humans on this world share many of the same ways of thinking. Is this thinking a product of our planet? If an animal grew up on another world would it suddenly think differently for no reason at all? The idea that an alien species will think in alien ways is a cop out because there is no evidence supporting it, and a lot of evidence to the contrary. Many animals act like humans, just on a less developed level.


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So if you transfer your consciousness to a robot are you still human? No, you're not.
Without the limitations of the human form we lose our humanity. Our humanity is conversely essential to what it means to be human.

Defining humanity as 'what it means to be human' is no definition at all.

But the nice thing is that you don't have to take advantage of any such abilities if you don't want to. We currently stand somewhere between animal and thinking being; at some point we'll decide to move the rest of the way.

I wasn't defining humanity I was saying saying without our humanity we are not human. And without our bodies we do not have humanity. Therefore without our bodies we are not human.

And as to your point about becoming a thinking being, how? By losing irrationality? you say:

"It's easy to construct a more intelligent human by eliminating or correcting a few common heuristics. We're not very rational organisms yet."

Our irrationality is at the core of being human. The day the human race ceases to be irrational is the day the human race dies.



We'll just have to disagree here.
But let me ask, how much alteration would you say is sufficient to turn someone into a nonhuman?

Another question: When do you want to stop developing technologies to overcome human shortcomings? By what you said, sooner or later you just have to stop, unless you wish to be nonhuman. Would that mean that a cure for the complex of degenerative conditions known as old age would be unacceptable, since becoming frail is part of the human condition? What about eye implants that enhance our visual spectrum? What about brain implants to enhance our cognitive facilities?
Where is the line drawn?

Death is at the very core of existence of life. All things die. Even non-living entities, such as the sun and our planet will in a way "die" at some point in the passage of time. A better question is if you cannot die are you truly alive? Immortality would be the death of development in my opinion. Personally I never work as hard as I do before a deadline, and the greatest deadline in life is death. Without the need to "life each day to the fullest", people will create less, do less, advance less. Sure there'll be a few go-getters, but a person cannot remember everything. If you get 25 degrees from university will you remember much beyond the last 2?

What would be the purpose of brain implants for higher cognition anyway? Human achievement is the sum of experience not intelligence. That is what fundamentally separates us from animals. We are able through storytelling to pass on what we have learned to future generations. I would argue that the freedom and abundance of information in the modern world has already the potential to make humans more intelligent. Everything we create is based on experience, the more we experience, the more we can create.

Of course then you'll say "well if you can live longer, and have a better brain to experience more then isn't that a good thing?". But again without a finite existence there is no drive to create. And also creation is as much about the lack of information as it is about the existence thereof. If someone write a poem and subconsciously it bears a resememblance to something they once read then maybe it'll be good. But if they have higher memory capacity, and can remember that poem, will they still write the new one? Or will they think "this has been done, I'll just sit around instead".

Creating a better body does not create a better human.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: High Max on November 05, 2009, 08:07:18 pm
*_*
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 08:09:38 pm
Uh, okay, I think you're just spouting religion. I can't see any empirically valid points in there, and a few that are even philosophically absurd.

Basically:

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But that's besides the point, you're not even on the same argument. Why you keep meandering I'll never know. The fundamental discussion is whether humans are ill-suited to galactic expansion because of their need to bring around their "niche" environment with them.

Absolutely no question of that. We are ill-suited compared to some hypothetical species that are better suited. We are, after all, engaged in an exercise of the imagination here.

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You say that a species can re-design itself to live in more diverse environments rather than bringing around that bubble. The only way to redesign yourself and stay a species (as opposed to a machine) is to use genetic manipulation.

Why aren't machines species?

Why is it a good thing to stay the same species?

What's wrong with genetic manipulation? We do it all the time already. How are you going to decide who to marry? Your genes are looking for compatible partners to hybridize with - and you're making conscious designs about a good mate.

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Therefore you seem to believe genetic manipulation will trump a non-manipulated species simply using technology.

Er, I do? It's not some kind of schoolyard brawl. I certainly think that better solutions can be found by conscious design than by blind evolution...which is why we as a species are doing okay today.

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While I suggest that any intelligent free thinking species would not willingly alter themselves to such a fundamental degree, to do so would they would lose the core of what it means to be what they are.

Why?

Why's that a bad thing? Why would we want to keep the core of being something obsolete?

Why would any intelligent free thinking species reject technology and consciousness in favor of their animal roots?

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People are afraid of change.

Yeah, I'm kinda seeing that...

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Is this thinking a product of our planet? If an animal grew up on another world would it suddenly think differently for no reason at all? The idea that an alien species will think in alien ways is a cop out because there is no evidence supporting it, and a lot of evidence to the contrary. Many animals act like humans, just on a less developed level.

You just argued that animals would be against genetic engineering. There are plenty of humans around you who are pro-genetic-engineering. Just by that alone we can see that there's no reason to believe everyone would be as scared of change as you are.

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I wasn't defining humanity I was saying saying without our humanity we are not human. And without our bodies we do not have humanity. Therefore without our bodies we are not human.

Um, what's the problem there...? We aren't homo erectus any more, I doubt you'd want to go back...

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"It's easy to construct a more intelligent human by eliminating or correcting a few common heuristics. We're not very rational organisms yet."

Our irrationality is at the core of being human. The day the human race ceases to be irrational is the day the human race dies.

Why is our irrationality at the core of being human?

Again, what's the problem if the human race dies or speciates? Would you have rather stayed as homo habilis?

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Death is at the very core of existence of life.

Why?

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Without the need to "life each day to the fullest", people will create less, do less, advance less. Sure there'll be a few go-getters, but a person cannot remember everything. If you get 25 degrees from university will you remember much beyond the last 2?

Any evidence?

Are people more creative if they only have a lifespan of 25 years? 50 years? 100 years? Where does it start dropping off?

It's just a silly superstition.

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What would be the purpose of brain implants for higher cognition anyway? Human achievement is the sum of experience not intelligence. That is what fundamentally separates us from animals. We are able through storytelling to pass on what we have learned to future generations. I would argue that the freedom and abundance of information in the modern world has already the potential to make humans more intelligent. Everything we create is based on experience, the more we experience, the more we can create.

Er, so, how do brain implants hurt...? We're better at thinking than homo habilis was.

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Of course then you'll say "well if you can live longer, and have a better brain to experience more then isn't that a good thing?". But again without a finite existence there is no drive to create. And also creation is as much about the lack of information as it is about the existence thereof.

Evidence for any of that? Do uneducated third world sweatshop workers make better poets?

You mostly sound very afraid. Which is fine. Nobody's forcing anything on you.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Liberator on November 05, 2009, 08:10:19 pm
yes I know, but canonically, there are more human jedi than alien.

Probably because there are simply more humans around than there are non-humans, so it's simply a matter of the ratio of humans to non-humans.  Or, it could be like Starfleet, that organization is mostly human because the other races involved are fairly content to let the humans do the dangerous stuff.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on November 05, 2009, 08:10:23 pm
Here's a thought...

A friend of mine has a pacemaker, and an artificial hip, does that mean he's less human than someone without them?

No it means he's using technology in an effort to combat his human shortcomings.
Again, this is a simple diversion from the core argument about whether humans are suited for mass galactic expansion. It's only come up because with every post GB makes he gets farther and farther from the core issue to the point of using silly non-issues in an attempt to refute my previous statements.


The real question is, is there any real NEED to improve the basic healthy human body?
For example if a human wants to become a better explorer so they give themselves night vision like a cat is that an improvement? Being afraid of the dark is a fundamental part of human existence, especially childhood. How will we be without fear of the dark, fear of the unknown? For example, if "the dark" is a simply a physical manifestation of "the unknown" in general how will humans interact and think about the unknown? Will there be less incentive within the human psyche to explore and pursue the unknown?

We don't know.

All we know is that the human race has achieved an incredible amount of knowledge, creativity and technology with our current limitations. If those limitations are taken away will we be better for it? If all humans are born with the same superior eyesight we lose individiuality. If we're born with the same photographic memory and same higher intelligence we lose identity. Will the human race have the same potential without the individuality? If we're all factory made carbon copies where is ambition? the drive to do better?

You people should all turn off your computers, go to Rogers and rent Gattaca.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 08:12:38 pm
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Again, this is a simple diversion from the core argument about whether humans are suited for mass galactic expansion. It's only come up because with every post GB makes he gets farther and farther from the core issue to the point of using silly non-issues in an attempt to refute my previous statements.

Okay, here, I'll give you the simple point I've made again and again.

Which is more efficient:

A ship that must carry a full life support biosphere for a living crew?

Or a ship that must carry minor life support for a crew capable of biological hibernation?

This is what happens when you don't read the thread.

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No it means he's using technology in an effort to combat his human shortcomings.

And that's all I'm arguing for.

Ferociously humping a straw man will not get you anything except sticky pants and odd looks.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: NGTM-1R on November 05, 2009, 08:17:40 pm
Selection pressure is not the only means to evolve.

It is, however, the one that moves quickest. It would take significantly longer even in geological terms to get anywhere without it. (In fact a situation without it is effectively impossible, because there will always be a negative interest to it as all other methods will not necessarily be beneficial.)

So by the time you've made it without selection pressure, it's probably too late anyways. :P
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on November 05, 2009, 08:23:50 pm

The real question is, is there any real NEED to improve the basic healthy human body?
For example if a human wants to become a better explorer so they give themselves night vision like a cat is that an improvement? Being afraid of the dark is a fundamental part of human existence, especially childhood. How will we be without fear of the dark, fear of the unknown? For example, if "the dark" is a simply a physical manifestation of "the unknown" in general how will humans interact and think about the unknown? Will there be less incentive within the human psyche to explore and pursue the unknown?

We don't know.

Here's a nice little thought: It is uncommon nowadays to live without a mobile Phone. GPS devices in Phones become more common by the day. Very soon, we will live in a world where "being lost" is an unknown concept for kids. That, I believe, is as much a part of human nature as fear of the dark, and somehow I doubt that removing these things will lead to a dehumanization of some kind.

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All we know is that the human race has achieved an incredible amount of knowledge, creativity and technology with our current limitations. If those limitations are taken away will we be better for it? If all humans are born with the same superior eyesight we lose individiuality. If we're born with the same photographic memory and same higher intelligence we lose identity. Will the human race have the same potential without the individuality? If we're all factory made carbon copies where is ambition? the drive to do better?

You people should all turn off your computers, go to Rogers and rent Gattaca.

And you should read Iain M. Banks' Culture Novels.

Now, again I ask: Where and When do you want research in medical science to stop? Where will YOU draw the line of "good medicine that enhances and empowers humans" and "bad technology that dehumanizes people"?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 05, 2009, 08:24:58 pm
Isn't converting your sentience into a machine mobile form in order to inhabit less hospitable environments also making up for physical shortcomings in much the same way? A Pacemaker is designed to make up for a heart that can no longer handle the stresses placed upon it, an artificial body used to survive an otherwise hospitable environment is exactly the same thing, without the prosthetic, be it heart, bones, or even the entire skeletal and muscular system, the person would die, so artificial constructs are required to maintain it.

Even the possibility of transferring consciousness back into vat-grown organic bodies once the climate has been tamed is perfectly acceptable, I suspect that, like you, many humans would have an inate fear of losing their 'humanity' if they lost their bodies, but at the end of the day, our physical bodies are slightly modified apes, it's the brain, the mental functions, that make all the difference. In essence, the body is an engine, it's the brain that is the driver.

The only scientific hiccup I could see would be procreation, I think it would be extremely difficult to create a technological solution to procreation, but then, if humans were rendered practically immortal, procreation would drop massively. Is that a good thing? I really couldn't say, my instincts say 'No', that procreation, and old things dying to allow the newer, different perceptions to rise, are a vital part of life, but, at least from my point of view, Homo-Sapiens is not the same as Human, Homo-Sapiens is that physical entity, and isn't really all that different from a primate, but a Human is a mental construct, and something far more special and delicate, but it doesn't depend on Homo-Sapiens for it's existence, it's lumbered with it.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 08:27:40 pm
Selection pressure is not the only means to evolve.

It is, however, the one that moves quickest. It would take significantly longer even in geological terms to get anywhere without it.

Cite please? If that's so, why are human beings evolving so quickly today?

(And there is a quicker method...*innocent whistle*)

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(In fact a situation without it is effectively impossible, because there will always be a negative interest to it as all other methods will not necessarily be beneficial.)

So by the time you've made it without selection pressure, it's probably too late anyways. :P

Um, again, so why are human beings evolving so fast today?

And a big +1 to Flipside, and a comment:

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The only scientific hiccup I could see would be procreation, I think it would be extremely difficult to create a technological solution to procreation, but then, if humans were rendered practically immortal, procreation would drop massively.

We're already biological machines. Technological machines reproduce the same way we do: assembly!

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but a Human is a mental construct, and something far more special and delicate, but it doesn't depend on Homo-Sapiens for it's existence, it's lumbered with it.

And that's really rather well-said. We will remain human once even if we shed our current trappings. A man with two artificial limbs is human, a man with an artificial heart is human - the only way to stop being human is if you decide to stop calling yourself human any more.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 05, 2009, 08:29:44 pm
Agreed, but the mutations and random combination of genes from the two parents would be, I think, harder to perform in a technolgical sense, but then, in fairness, since we are talking about a humanity that is capable of transferring consciousness, we may well have overcome that hurdle as well by then :)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on November 05, 2009, 08:43:15 pm
Uh, okay, I think you're just spouting religion. I can't see any empirically valid points in there, and a few that are even philosophically absurd.

Religion? No the simple core of it is that I think in philosophical meaning of life ways. You think in a science textbook.
I'm Roman Catholic but lukewarm at best. My ideas do not spawn from any religious basis merely my experience and my own spirit.

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But that's besides the point, you're not even on the same argument. Why you keep meandering I'll never know. The fundamental discussion is whether humans are ill-suited to galactic expansion because of their need to bring around their "niche" environment with them.

Absolutely no question of that. We are ill-suited compared to some hypothetical species that are better suited. We are, after all, engaged in an exercise of the imagination here.

The problem with your imagination is that it has no core behind it. Things don't pop out of mid-air, they come into being for a reason. How did that species get to where it is? To everything there is a reason.
For example, take what I said before, if a creature can adapt well to its environment what need is there for tools? Without tools there is no technology, without technology there is no space exploration.
Or then we have your other argument about a species reinventing itself. Well, who'd want to do that? Let's say a species creates a sub species for space exploration. Why would that come about? One might say to avoid the dangers of exploring. But this idea misses the core idea that explorers want to explore. The old explorers in the Age of Sail, Captain Cook, Columbus, etcetera they didn't hire a crew and set them loose. They went out themselves. So if there is space exploration the people who want to explore it will want to do it themselves, in the flesh, because sending out some robot surrogate proxy is not the same as doing it yourself. Likewise creating some super human and sending it out won't satisfy the explorers.

Then to that you might say, well maybe this magical species doesn't have the same drive to explore. Maybe they're content staying at home and sending out some new hybrid. Well if they don't want to explore why are they creating these explorers in the first place. Everything in life is cause and effect.

The human race is who it is today because of what we are, not what we aren't. Our creations are as much as a product of our shortcomings as of our strengths, remove those shortcomings and where is the creation?

I'm not afraid of change. I see no need for it.

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You say that a species can re-design itself to live in more diverse environments rather than bringing around that bubble. The only way to redesign yourself and stay a species (as opposed to a machine) is to use genetic manipulation.

Why aren't machines species?

Because they're tools.

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Why is it a good thing to stay the same species?

Why is it a good thing to change species?

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What's wrong with genetic manipulation? We do it all the time already. How are you going to decide who to marry? Your genes are looking for compatible partners to hybridize with - and you're making conscious designs about a good mate.

Oh sorry. Wrong word for the science guy. Genetic ENGINEERING. Which is what you mean when you say a species redesigns itself.


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While I suggest that any intelligent free thinking species would not willingly alter themselves to such a fundamental degree, to do so would they would lose the core of what it means to be what they are.

Why?

Why's that a bad thing? Why would we want to keep the core of being something obsolete?

Why would any intelligent free thinking species reject technology and consciousness in favor of their animal roots?

Again, you're straying from the argument and trying to manipulate my words.
I am talking about GENETIC ENGINEERING, so are you. But you keep changing this to be an anti-technology. Animal roots??
There is a difference between TOOL technology and manipulating your body. There is also a difference between correcting faults, and replacing PERCEIVED problems. Why does a human need better sight? Why do we need more strength? Why do we need to breathe underwanter? We can achieve all of this with tools, there is no need to change the body.

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You just argued that animals would be against genetic engineering. There are plenty of humans around you who are pro-genetic-engineering. Just by that alone we can see that there's no reason to believe everyone would be as scared of change as you are.

I'm not scared of change, I'm simply comfortable with what I am. I realize that the human experience is based upon the limitations of the human form and without that form the human experience would never be the same.


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Our irrationality is at the core of being human. The day the human race ceases to be irrational is the day the human race dies.

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Why is our irrationality at the core of being human?

Again, what's the problem if the human race dies or speciates? Would you have rather stayed as homo habilis?

The most irrational human quality is love. Love is at the core of all artistic creation. Without love there is no art, and without art we're just machines. Hell without art there's not storytelling and without storytelling there's no passing and accumulation of knowledge, and without that accumulation of knowledge we're still in the dark ages.





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Without the need to "life each day to the fullest", people will create less, do less, advance less. Sure there'll be a few go-getters, but a person cannot remember everything. If you get 25 degrees from university will you remember much beyond the last 2?

Any evidence?

Are people more creative if they only have a lifespan of 25 years? 50 years? 100 years? Where does it start dropping off?

It's just a silly superstition.

Evidence evidence evidence. You're incapable of understanding basic concepts without evidence. Or more to the point, you adamantly refuse the truths of life without evidence. Do you do more work close to a deadline, yes or no? If yes. Then there's your evidence.

What about the idea that people with terminal illness often drop everything and do everything they've wanted to do? Travel the world, see the sights. Without that illness, would they have ever gone there? Ever done those things? Or would they still be packing bags at Walmart for the rest of their life?





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Er, so, how do brain implants hurt...? We're better at thinking than homo habilis was.

The problem with your argument is you keep comparing us to what we're not than what we are.
Is there a need to improve or are humans fundamentally "perfect" in the loosest sense of the word, and of course we're not perfect but if our world is defined by our imperfections will removing those imperfections create a better world?


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Of course then you'll say "well if you can live longer, and have a better brain to experience more then isn't that a good thing?". But again without a finite existence there is no drive to create. And also creation is as much about the lack of information as it is about the existence thereof.

Evidence for any of that? Do uneducated third world sweatshop workers make better poets?

You mostly sound very afraid. Which is fine. Nobody's forcing anything on you.

Don't be an idiot.
You're seemingly incapable of any real thought provoking argument because you consistently FAIL to understand my core message by bringing up inane, irrelevant situations. Every scientist who has ever postulated the rules of the universe has done so out of a lack of understanding. Without that lack of understand there is no need to create.

As someone who actually likes to write poetry from time to time, poetry is often simply an attempt to put into words something that cannot otherwise be put into words. An attempt to describe the indescribable. To describe the human experience. It is that lack of understanding that drives the creation of poetry because the poem is as much a tool to help the poet understand as it a tool to help the audience understand.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 08:45:50 pm
Okay, I simply can't understand what you're saying any more. It seems to be largely your reflections on life, which, while nice, are no more valid than anybody else's. The only way to conduct a debate is through logic and evidence.

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My ideas do not spawn from any religious basis merely my experience and my own spirit.

Unfortunately, these techniques are riddled with heuristic flaws. They generally lead us to conclusions like 'the Earth is flat', 'left-handed people are sinister', and 'a human being with a gene to give her perfect memory has lost the will to live/create/inspire.'

If you've made deeper points than 'we're good how we are' then I can't understand them. Restate in clear, complete sentences, please.

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Don't be an idiot.

Come on, now. I'm happy to continue the debate, but if this turns personal, I really don't want to fight.

I have no problem if you disagree with me profoundly. I get enough agreement to know I'm not crazy.

You seem to be arguing madly against something that is, so far as I can tell, utterly unrelated to anything I'm saying.

Could you go back and answer the question you're interested in?

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Okay, here, I'll give you the simple point I've made again and again.

Which is more efficient:

A ship that must carry a full life support biosphere for a living crew?

Or a ship that must carry minor life support for a crew capable of biological hibernation?

We'll proceed from there.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: NGTM-1R on November 05, 2009, 08:52:12 pm
Cite please? If that's so, why are human beings evolving so quickly today?

Oh come now. You know as well as I that sentience gave us the ability to direct it and delibrately pursue it. You also know as well as I that I'm discussing the evolution of sentience rather than post-sentience, because that's what all my posts in this thread have been about.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 05, 2009, 08:52:23 pm
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Every scientist who has ever postulated the rules of the universe has done so out of a lack of understanding. Without that lack of understand there is no need to create.

No offence, but scientists had a lot more understanding when they postulated their theories than the writers of the Bible did when they postulated theirs.

This isn't about creativity, creativity is a part of humanity itself, it would be transferred with everything else, but the idea that someone who has a terminal illness will suddenly do everything they wanted all at once has a few flaws, because the number of people who get terminal illnesses and the chance to do all these things is actually extremely small, and, I'm sure if you asked them, they'd swap the opportunity for the chance to be healthy again.

One could also argue that those who had near-terminal diseases and survive suddenly go out and do all the things they planned to because they realise how precious their life is, which is the other side of the coin, mortality functions heavily in human culture because it is there, like a brick wall at the end of our lives, and it looms ever larger. Who's to say that, if you took that wall away, we would stagnate, we've never had the wall taken away, so any conjecture is theory, for all we know, it could open up humanity to its full potential, allow him to appreciate the true majesty of the universe instead of sitting around on a ball of dirt complaining prosaically.

Death does not define us, it's an immutable part of organic life, it's defined as the great enemy, or the great challenge, but what do we know? In truth, it's the first enemy, the first challenge, but that doesn't mean it is the only one, or, indeed, the greatest or most inspiring, but you have to get over the first hurdle to start running towards the next.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on November 05, 2009, 08:53:59 pm
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Don't be an idiot.

Come on, now. I'm happy to continue the debate, but if this turns personal, I really don't want to fight.

I have no problem if you disagree with me profoundly. I get enough agreement to know I'm not crazy.

You seem to be arguing madly against something that is, so far as I can tell, utterly unrelated to anything I'm saying.

Could you go back and answer the question you're interested in?

I'm not calling you an idiot I'm saying don't be an idiot. There's a fundamental difference.



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Okay, here, I'll give you the simple point I've made again and again.

Which is more efficient:

A ship that must carry a full life support biosphere for a living crew?

Or a ship that must carry minor life support for a crew capable of biological hibernation?

We'll proceed from there.

Basing the response on worldly evidence, creatures which hibernate do so out of necessity not choice.
Therefore while the ship with minor lifesupport will be a more efficient ship, the ship with a full biosphere will have a more efficient crew because they will be conscious and capable of productive work for a greater length of time than a species which by necessity needs to habitually hibernate for several months of the year.

The answer also depends on the capabilities of the ship. If you're talking about a slow non-FTL ship then sure, but if the ship has FTL and is capable of transiting systems at high speed and there is no "downtime" then where is the need for hibernation?

Anyway I'm off to Karate so don't expect an answer for hours.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 08:57:31 pm
You give me hope for humanity, Flipside!

Cite please? If that's so, why are human beings evolving so quickly today?

Oh come now. You know as well as I that sentience gave us the ability to direct it and delibrately pursue it. You also know as well as I that I'm discussing the evolution of sentience rather than post-sentience, because that's what all my posts in this thread have been about.


Huh? All I asked for was a citation on the fact that natural selection was the fastest driver of evolution.

Well, I'd be hasty to say we're evolving towards post-sentience. We can't even say we're fully sentient yet.

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Therefore while the ship with minor lifesupport will be a more efficient ship, the ship with a full biosphere will have a more efficient crew because they will be conscious and capable of productive work for a greater length of time than a species which by necessity needs to habitually hibernate for several months of the year.

Nope, we said capable, not mandated to hibernate. They can stay awake whenever they please.

A human crew capable of hibernation, whether through external or internal means, has all the capabilities of a baseline human plus one: they can hibernate. They win. You could have the same number of live crew as on a regular ship plus extra crew hibernating if you wanted.

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The answer also depends on the capabilities of the ship. If you're talking about a slow non-FTL ship then sure, but if the ship has FTL and is capable of transiting systems at high speed and there is no "downtime" then where is the need for hibernation?

Ironic that your mind revolts at the idea of giving a woman a genetic tweak so she can have perfect memory - and in fact you argue, based solely on your own poetry, that this would rob her of humanity - but then you throw 'FTL' out there rapidly.

You're content to say 'humanity is fine as is; if we improved at all, we'd stop improving', but that same argument could have been made when we were even more limited.

What evidence do you have that our current suite of limitations is the correct one?

None.

(And I want to clarify, here: my argument is that there is no reason to avoid cybernetic or genetic augmentation of the human being, because we have already been practicing such alterations for thousands of years, every time we healed a wound, set a limb, stopped a baby from dying of a congenital disorder, or put a man on a dialysis machine.

We alter our environment; it's what we do. Our bodies and even our minds are part of our environment. The human spirit is to take control of things from nature, and we might as well have control of ourselves, instead of leaving it up to random chance. If people like Akalabeth Angel want to impose limitations on themselves, they will be free to do so, but the important thing is that we will have a choice.)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: NGTM-1R on November 05, 2009, 09:03:23 pm
Huh? All I asked for was a citation on the fact that natural selection was the fastest driver of evolution.

Well, I'd be hasty to say we're evolving towards post-sentience. We can't even say we're fully sentient yet.

Yes, but then you effectively agreed it was later in the reply so I figured you'd found your own citation. :P As it is the only really directed method possible without concious thought, it will allow the quickest progress. I shouldn't even need to cite this. Yes, in theory the other methods available without thought could randomly move faster, but the law of mediocrity says that's most likely not going to happen, and certainly not going to sustain.

I'm not using the terms the same way you are, either, post as in post-evolution-of, and sentient as in whatever you want to call our capablity for thought. I'm trying to avoid the sci-fi here.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on November 05, 2009, 09:08:15 pm
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Therefore while the ship with minor lifesupport will be a more efficient ship, the ship with a full biosphere will have a more efficient crew because they will be conscious and capable of productive work for a greater length of time than a species which by necessity needs to habitually hibernate for several months of the year.

Nope, we said capable, not mandated to hibernate. They can stay awake whenever they please.

A human crew capable of hibernation, whether through external or internal means, has all the capabilities of a baseline human plus one: they can hibernate. They win. You could have the same number of live crew as on a regular ship plus extra crew hibernating if you wanted.

All animals in nature hiberate according to the seasons as far as I know. How do you magically create some optional hibernation ability in humans that allows them to sleep for as long as they want. Furthermore, I have noticed in myself the ill effects that long periods of sleep has on the human body (a headache for one). How is that overcome? And if a human needs rest subconsciously to recharge and hibernation is essentially rest how can they choose to wake themselves up without conscious thought?

You see, it's all well and good to say "if humans could hibernate" but there's no basis for it being possible. I could say "If humans could walk though walls they'd be better spies than humans who could not" but so what? I can pull any crazy idea out of thin air. Cause and effect. There needs to be some basis for things. If all we do is pull ideas out of the air what's the point? That's brainstorming not a discussion.




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The answer also depends on the capabilities of the ship. If you're talking about a slow non-FTL ship then sure, but if the ship has FTL and is capable of transiting systems at high speed and there is no "downtime" then where is the need for hibernation?

Ironic that your mind revolts at the idea of giving a woman a genetic tweak so she can have perfect memory - and in fact you argue, based solely on your own poetry, that this would rob her of humanity - but then you throw 'FTL' out there rapidly.

You're content to say 'humanity is fine as is; if we improved at all, we'd stop improving', but that same argument could have been made when we were even more limited.

I'm sorry, are we sticking to your new discussion? Or are you avoiding the previous post except for picking out random things to use at your discretion? If you want to narrow it down narrow it down. I'm simply saying that if the ship is FTL hibernation is irrelevant.



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What evidence do you have that our current suite of limitations is the correct one?

None.

What evidence do you have that it isn't?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 05, 2009, 09:08:48 pm
It like how a Medieveal Knight, for example, made extensive modifications to his exterior, making a prosthetic carapace in the manner of beetles in order to protect himself from arrows and swords, that's really no different in a way, it's modifying the human body with technology in order to cope with the environment it is in, in this case, a battlefield. It's a prosthetic that can be removed once the environment is safe, but that's not really important, as I said before, if we can transfer consciousness, then the construct need not be a permanent residence either, but the mentality, the humanity behind the concept is exactly the same.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 09:11:54 pm
Yes, but then you effectively agreed it was later in the reply so I figured you'd found your own citation. :P

I did?  :nervous:

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As it is the only really directed method possible without conscious thought, it will allow the quickest progress.

Wait, progress towards what? Sentience? Sexual selection can (and has been postulated as) leading to sentience too. What about social selection?

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I shouldn't even need to cite this. Yes, in theory the other methods available without thought could randomly move faster, but the law of mediocrity says that's most likely not going to happen, and certainly not going to sustain.

Er, vis a vis social selection or sexual selection? I should think it has to be cited. Evolution can occur very rapidly even via genetic drift.

I'm not sure what you think I'm taking issue with here, but my objection is simply to the idea that evolution will slow down without selection pressure. That's factually untrue.


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What evidence do you have that our current suite of limitations is the correct one?

None.

What evidence do you have that it isn't?

Ah, and there it is - the great weakness!

My evidence is the fact that none of the previous suites of limitations, all the way back to single-celled life, were the correct ones. Thus your choice of our current state is arbitrary and rooted in simple satisficing behavior.

As for your objections regarding hibernation, I'll just refer you to Flipside's wonderful last post. The armor had tradeoffs, but nonetheless, it had a net benefit.

The gist of the argument with the hibernating astronauts was that it showed a way that a simple tweak could make us better at space travel.

Another one might be if we gave all the astronauts perfect memories so they didn't have to carry checklists. That should be less contentious for you, and I hope you can agree it's a good change.

The existence of tradeoffs to a strategy does nothing to change the fact that it may be a good strategy.

As a side note, could you just chill out a bit? I really dislike how personal you're making your arguments. It makes me not want to debate with you. I recall this from prior debates, you were jumping all over me even when I was practically agreeing with you.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on November 05, 2009, 09:23:34 pm
Ah, and there it is - the great weakness!

My evidence is the fact that none of the previous suites of limitations, all the way back to single-celled life, were the correct ones. Thus your choice of our current state is arbitrary and rooted in simple satisficing behavior.

As for your objections regarding hibernation, I'll just refer you to Flipside's wonderful last post. The armor had tradeoffs, but nonetheless, it had a net benefit.

The existence of tradeoffs to a strategy does nothing to change the fact that it may be a good strategy.

Okay so now we're abandoning your simple question for something else entirely are we? Your simple question basically being "Tell me I'm right" to which I responded "no, it's broader than that" to which you proceeded to ignore it entirely. I see how you like to discuss now.

The problem with your "great weakness" idea is that no organism has achieved what we have. No organism in the millions upon millions of years of life on this planet has achieved what we have achieved in the smallest, tiniest, minute amount of time. So I would propose that this is evidence for humans being "just right".


Dinosaurs evolved into pigeons. Was that an improvement?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 09:24:34 pm
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The problem with your "great weakness" idea is that no organism has achieved what we have. No organism in the millions upon millions of years of life on this planet has achieved what we have achieved in the smallest, tiniest, minute amount of time. So I would propose that this is evidence for humans being "just right".

Ah, but we achieved what we have through continuous forward progress. A million years ago, what were we? Nothing of significance. We only arrived in our current state an eyeblink ago and already we are moving past it. Why should we freeze right here, as you're advocating?

I don't understand the rest of your post. If you're referring to the astronaut example, it's discussed extensively in the post you quoted. Why are you ignoring that?

EDIT: Looks like you may have started drafting early and missed an edit, sorry about that. In fact it looks like you've missed a lot of them, which might explain your confusion. Might want to read back.

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Dinosaurs evolved into pigeons. Was that an improvement?

Evolution is not directional. Human design, on the other hand, could be...which is why it would be lovely if we had a hand in our own direction as a species.

Again, in the vein of the spaceship question, would you object to the elimination of cancer? That makes us profoundly more suitable for long-distance space travel. And we've done it before - we've basically eliminated polio from our population. Yet that's the very kind of engineering I'm advocating: taking traits of the human organism and changing them.

And, on an earlier note, how can you say that we've done things no other species has done? We've barely been around for a blink. If we kill ourselves off in the next few hundred years, which we could easily do (but hopefully won't), we aren't exactly a shining success, my friend.

Lastly, please stop ignoring the other posters who have addressed your points.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 09:28:57 pm
Just FYI, post was edited.

And let me hit up a good point while I'm at it:

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The problem with your "great weakness" idea is that no organism has achieved what we have. No organism in the millions upon millions of years of life on this planet has achieved what we have achieved in the smallest, tiniest, minute amount of time.

Exactly. And we did it by thinking and reasoning and creating.

So why stop now?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 09:40:18 pm
This is frustrating. I feel like you think there's some kind of agenda behind my opinion that I myself am not aware of.

Could you lay out exactly what you object to with the notion that a species capable of transbiological augmentation via cybernetic or genetic means (you keep focusing on the genetic ones...) may have an advantage in space colonization over a species that does not use such means?

Secondly, could you lay out any objections you may have to the notion that there may be species out there which are better thinkers than us, better colonizers than us, or both?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 05, 2009, 09:41:12 pm
As far as Dinosaurs and Pigeons go, the way I look at it, there are a lot more Pigeons about than Dinosaurs these days, so yes, it may not look ferocious, it may not be as aesthetically riveting, it may not capture the imagination, but a pigeon, simply by its existence, has proved its point.

Edit: And lets face it, a large degree of the success of Pigeons has been because of mankind, I certainly wouldn't go to Trafalgar square to feed Dinosaurs, so it seems to me that they are actually a very good example of how something has adapted to make the most of its environment by appearing to 'lose' something.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 05, 2009, 09:50:33 pm
I do find somewhat interesting the claim that those resistant to such concepts as wholesale body-swapping or flat-out full cyberization are doing so out of "fear," since I feel like the same claim could be leveled in the opposite direction.  Isn't thinking along such lines driven by a fundamental fear of death, a desire to not succumb to that finality that is our fate as biological creatures?  That scrabbling and clawing, going to ridiculous measures just to achieve some semblance of "immortality"...what else would drive someone to such ends?  Why is there this massive resistance to the thought of dying, of not experiencing the future in this world beyond a certain point?  We are limited, irrational beings, and frankly, I wouldn't have us any other way.  I embrace the fact that, some day, I won't be walking around here anymore.  I do believe that there is something afterwards, but even if it winds up that there isn't, it won't phase me, since I won't be around to be upset over it anyway.  As Akalabeth said, it's by embracing our limitations and striving to the utmost within them that we're able to achieve the most; to wish for something beyond that is simple frivolity.  I'm going to die someday, but if I manage to achieve even one worthwhile deed over the course of my life, then from my perspective, I'll be fine with that.

(And to be honest, I find Akalabeth's treatment of the human condition to be far more personally satisfying than the cold and clinical view of Battuta's.)

I do have to wonder if anyone in here has ever read C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, particularly the final novel That Hideous Strength, or what they would think of it if they had.  I suspect Battuta, at least, would be yelling his head off at Lewis's portrayal of at least some aspect of this argument. :p Along the same lines, a lot of this discussion reminds me of many of the core themes of the anime series Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex.  What does it mean to be human, indeed.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 09:54:24 pm
I read the Space Trilogy, found it interesting.

Look, though, the 'embrace our limitations' argument is well and good, but when you can prevent harm with fewer limitations, it is ethically wrong to maintain those limitations.

I don't like seeing the stock market crash because of glitchy heuristics. If the human being is in need of patching, then patch. This idea that our assets are tied to our flaws is unsupported by evidence.

In particular:

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We are limited, irrational beings, and frankly, I wouldn't have us any other way.

Why do you want people making decisions about the deployment of nuclear weapons using a cognitive toolset that dates to the Stone Age?

Why do you want children to be denied access to basic education due to social circumstances that could be corrected by rational strategies?

Why do you want minorities to be stereotyped due to the over-weighting of improbable coincidence events?

Why do you want people to suffer pain for the entire duration of their lives due to a genetic preset, when that preset could easily be corrected?

Rejecting any genetic or technological augmentation of the human species requires you to put away all the technological augments you already use (so smash your computer) and to argue against the existing biological therapies we use to improve our lot.

You say we are okay right here. Let's go no farther. People have been saying that for centuries. But it is human nature to go farther.

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I embrace the fact that, some day, I won't be walking around here anymore

Um, me too. I just want to see what awesome stuff we get up to in the next few hundred years. I have no problem with dying, but I have a problem with not living any more. There's so much to see, to do, to learn...why would anyone want to give that up?

And if you would want to give it up, why do you want to force that choice on me?

I have no problem if you don't want to do these things yourself. But at least let us help those who can be helped. And that includes those who want help to achieve extraordinary things - including, perhaps, an astronaut who wants his longevity extended so he can fly to Alpha Centauri.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 05, 2009, 10:00:05 pm
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We are limited, irrational beings, and frankly, I wouldn't have us any other way.

Why do you want people making decisions about the deployment of nuclear weapons using a cognitive toolset that dates to the Stone Age?
As Nuke would probably say, because it's far more fun that way. :p

But more seriously, because that irrationality comes part and parcel with so much that makes you you.  Try to stamp out irrationality, and you wind up with a literal Spock (only without his occasional flashes of emotion).  As someone mentioned on the previous page, love is perhaps the most irrational emotion we experience, and arguably the most powerful.  Would you risk losing that just for the sake of "updating the cognitive toolset"?

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I embrace the fact that, some day, I won't be walking around here anymore

Um, me too. I just want to see what awesome stuff we get up to in the next few hundred years. I have no problem with dying, but I have a problem with not living any more. There's so much to see, to do, to learn...why would anyone want to give that up?
Well, to be brutally honest once again, from where I'm sitting, the world is a pretty ****ing terrible place as a whole.  I'm completely comfortable with not seeing what else we manage to muck up after my natural lifespan expires.

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And if you would want to give it up, why do you want to force that choice on me?
From my perspective, I'm not "forcing" anything on you personally, because this entire argument is remarkably abstract.  We as a species aren't yet capable of even building something resembling an intelligent A.I.  It's going to be far longer than you or I will spend on this planet before what you're proposing becomes feasible, if it ever does.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 05, 2009, 10:02:46 pm
But that's the thing, Death is synonymous with our being biological creatures, the difficult part is to keep the emotive argument and the logical argument seperate, there are many reasons why people might resist the idea of losing their organic body, I can understand that, but most of those arguments are emotive, it involves things like 'the nobility of human nature' and the 'fragility of the soul' and 'the essence of love', absolutely none of which are quantifiable values.

To start defining these things as 'right' or 'wrong' is wholly a question of perspective, they just are, and are, in all likelihood, inevitable, without wanting to give Evolution a 'purpose', it's what we were designed for, and we've being steadily doing it for Aeons, clothing, armour, houses, prosthetics they are all attempts to modify the world around us, or ourselves, in order to achieve a longer, safer and better life.

It's all very nice to read stories about how artificial life might fall in love, or how converting ourselves into robots might dehumanise us, but we also need to bear in mind that these people are authors, they deal in stories and emotions, and the very same concerns that are mentioned here are what powers those stories, but they are still only stories, not factual recountings.

My father had Angioplasty performed on some main arteries earlier this year, after a heart-attack, 10 years ago, he would have died, it's a road we are already on, and everything in our nature prevents us from turning around.

Edit : As for the fact of Death, I agree, you will never, ever completely remove Death from humanity, fly a ship of constructs into a Supernova, and they're dead, end of story, but there's also the question of Age, of Decay, of waking up in the morning and wondering where that muscle twinge came from.

It was only a couple of centuries ago that witches were burned at the stake for providing natural remedies because it was 'up to God' whether people survived an illness or not, that sentiment died out and now Medicine is completely accepted, same in this case, we will grow, we will change and we will adapt, if we didn't, then we would have stopped being human.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 10:05:16 pm
But more seriously, because that irrationality comes part and parcel with so much that makes you you.  Try to stamp out irrationality, and you wind up with a literal Spock (only without his occasional flashes of emotion).

What? What the **** is this? Where does this even come from?

Sorry for getting pissed off (nothing personal), but this betrays a complete misunderstanding of the nature of irrationality.

It is rational to do what makes you happy. If what makes you happy is to eat salmon every day, fine. Nobody cares!

Rationality means effective problem solving. Why do you want to suffer from heuristic glitches? Why do you want to think that if 5 machines can make 5 objects in 5 minutes, 100 machines can make 100 objects in 100 minutes (as your brain instinctively suggests as the first answer)?

Why do you want to suffer from implicit bias?

Why do you want to instinctively associate black faces with anger and aggression?

Why do you want to have cognitive loopholes that allow others to control your performance just by activating relevant stereotypes?

A hypothetical transhuman with patched rationality would be as emotive as you or I. We all manage to control our emotions to a degree. The fact that you can control them doesn't mean you don't have them.

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As someone mentioned on the previous page, love is perhaps the most irrational emotion we experience, and arguably the most powerful.  Would you risk losing that just for the sake of "updating the cognitive toolset"?

I don't understand why people think it's not okay to argue about history without knowing some history, but it is okay to argue about irrationality without knowing what irrationality is.

Love is perfectly rational. It is an end state. It makes you happy. Love defines a utility function. We use rationality to achieve our utility function, not to change it.

But making bad decisions about love is irrational. Shooting your wife in the head because you can't control your rage? That's irrational. On a more concrete level, thinking that because ten heads came up in a row on your last ten coin flips, the next toss is more likely to be tails - that's bloody irrational.

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From my perspective, I'm not "forcing" anything on you personally, because this entire argument is remarkably abstract.  We as a species aren't yet capable of even building something resembling an intelligent A.I.  It's going to be far longer than you or I will spend on this planet before what you're proposing becomes feasible, if it ever does.

We have longevity drugs for mice right now. We have gene therapy for our kids right now. I want these tools available to me.

And Flipside continues to impress me.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 05, 2009, 10:15:45 pm
But that's the thing, Death is synonymous with our being biological creatures, the difficult part is to keep the emotive argument and the logical argument seperate, there are many reasons why people might resist the idea of losing their organic body, I can understand that, but most of those arguments are emotive, it involves things like 'the nobility of human nature' and the 'fragility of the soul' and 'the essence of love', absolutely none of which are quantifiable values.
I would argue that the emotive argument cannot be removed from the logical argument without making the whole argument moot in the first place.  There's far more to life than mucking around with quantifiable values.  If that makes me a flawed being, then so be it.

Battuta, I'm not even going to begin to get into an argument about what constitutes the proper definition of "irrational,"  particularly if you're going to reduce the concept of love to an "end state."  It's not worth it to me.  Have fun with your Brave New World flights of fancy; I'll go be a meatbag elsewhere.

Edit: I know this comes across as me throwing a hissy fit and running away from the sandbox, but honestly, it's not worth me getting irrationally (hee) angry over forum threads anymore.  I have enough to be pissed about as-is.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 10:23:07 pm
No, I agree, but what's pissing me off is that you think this is a 'Brave New World flight of fancy.'

Mongoose, I sit down with definitions of irrationality every day. We have concrete, scientific knowledge of what it means in humans. There is no argument about the proper definition.

I am just peeved that you draw sweeping conclusions about what I believe without even understanding the terms I'm using.

I really dislike your use of the term 'reduce' here:

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particularly if you're going to reduce the concept of love to an "end state."

Why do you think I experience love less fully than you? An end state is a goal worth pursuing for its own sake. I thought that's what you thought love was.

I just do not get why you think this is some dichotomy between Cold Clinical Science and your 'meatbag existence.' I am a meatbag too. I want more of what I have, not...some bizarre reduced life.

When you hear rationality you think monk. When I say rationality I mean acting in a way that fulfills your utility function, i.e. your happiness, as efficiently as possible - i.e. not committing systematic errors due to glitches in human cognition.

One can act rationally in the pursuit of whatever goals one pleases. If your goal is to dance around like a loon, that's fine. If your goal is to make a beautiful work of art, that's perfectly rational. If your goal is to make a nutty stand against an overwhelming foe..

Being rational is going about your goals in the best way possible. It means 'not being an idiot'.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 05, 2009, 10:25:54 pm
Well, to quote Terry Pratchett on Schrodingers box, the easiest answer is to open to box and look.

I agree that humanity is a whole bunch of non-quantifiable values, but non-quantifiable doesn't mean non-transferrable, and you can be certain that, at some point, someone is going to try to do it. I cannot say that things like love will certainly be transferred in such a condition, though I have my suspicions, but equally, it's impossible to say that they wouldn't, but, purely from a logical, survival of the species point of view, it's going to happen, even the planet we are currently on is constantly in flux, and many species have died because they couldn't keep up, we were 'designed' to keep up, and our nature will make us do so, be it on Earth or in space, it's what humans do.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 10:28:40 pm
I'm just going to leave this thread to Flipside. I'm getting upset at people for not knowing everything I do, which is silly.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 05, 2009, 10:30:02 pm
Well, I was considering posting a request for people to calm down a bit to be honest, things got a bit heated earlier.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 05, 2009, 10:37:06 pm
Just...**** this.  Battuta, I'm sorry.  I can't even get my ****ing points across right now, I can't focus in on the points you're making and respond to them in kind, and I'm getting all sorts of worked-up over this for what seems to be no reason whatsoever.  I never should have ****ing posted here in the first place.  This discussion deserves better than what I can give it.

I think it's just that...what you're proposing, and what Flipside is proposing, and everything along those lines...it runs completely and utterly contrary to my entire understanding of my own identity as a human being, of my view of humanity as a species, of my beliefs about life and death...about everything, really. I can't step back and look at this particular topic from a detached, theoretical viewpoint; I'm just not able to.  What I believe involves a concept of absolute right and absolute wrong, and this whole idea comes down pretty hard on the "wrong" side...it's not something I should even be attempting to debate in this setting.  I can't even really accept that science and medicine can get in my head and tell me why I think what I think or do what I do.  It's just...incompatible with my whole notion of self.  And I'm truly honestly sorry if that looks like I'm disparaging your entire field, because that's not my intention.  I feel like all I can hang my hat on is the idea that I'm an inexplicable, unique being; you take that away, and I might as well be that bag of meat.  So yeah, I'm sorry that I pissed you off there; it was some sheer stupidity on my part.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 10:38:56 pm
I'm sorry. I'm getting upset for no good reason too.

Honestly, when I think about arguments like this, I think of a rather reasonable post you made a while back about how the thread was just stressing you out.

If the debate is making us unhappy, then we should probably let it be. It's not like we can't get along perfectly well while still disagreeing, and it's not like it's that important to convince other people either. Pluralism is great.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 05, 2009, 10:44:16 pm
I'll admit that the idea scares me as well, I certainly, right now, would be unwilling to leave my physical body behind, I'm rather attached to it, but it also needs to be borne in mind that, to us, it's something un-natural and totally divorced from personal experience, just as medicine was 200 years ago, to those who would actually be of that generation, it would not seem to be such a massive change, they would have grown up with it.

That's what I mean by seperating the Emotive and the Logical, emotionally, it's difficult to accept, but logic suggests its inevitability, oddly enough, like Death, it's something we all have to come to terms with in our own way.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 05, 2009, 10:55:09 pm
That's what I mean by seperating the Emotive and the Logical, emotionally, it's difficult to accept, but logic suggests its inevitability, oddly enough, like Death, it's something we all have to come to terms with in our own way.
Heh, that's a good point.  Even on the off chance this does come to pass before I die, so long as no one's trying to force me into a robotic body, it's not going to phase me personally either way.  I'll let my (potential) grandkids deal with it.

And yeah, Battuta, it does feel rather stupid that certain threads manage to get a rise out of me for no real reason.  I think it's the sentiment in this comic (http://xkcd.com/386/).  You see someone who doesn't agree with you about a particular issue, which apparently makes them "wrong," which apparently means you have to get into a back-and-forth to try to make them "right"...and there it goes.  I just need to figure out how to stop falling into that trap.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 11:07:35 pm
Yeah, me too.

On some issues where people I'm close to are really put off by the thread, I can feel a little White Knight about it. But I don't know any transhumans to get offended...except, I guess, I do wear glasses...
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: redsniper on November 05, 2009, 11:15:34 pm
I'd like to reference this (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=61969.0). I think it's relevant. :D
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: karajorma on November 05, 2009, 11:15:56 pm
 I embrace the fact that, some day, I won't be walking around here anymore.  I do believe that there is something afterwards, but even if it winds up that there isn't, it won't phase me, since I won't be around to be upset over it anyway.

Given that you are religious you kinda torpedo your own argument about being okay with the finality of death. If you believe that something will happen to you after death that is simply your method of dealing with fear.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 05, 2009, 11:18:14 pm
Whereas mine is to kick Death squarely in the nuts and run like hell ;)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Liberator on November 05, 2009, 11:24:54 pm
Here's what get's me about this whole "discussion".

Pages and pages of repetitive blathering without any actual progress being made.

Here's my perspective on the transference of mind from biological to machine basis:

Machines can't feel.  Hard silicon brains and steel body are fine for the concrete tasks of day to day life.  But no matter how fast or fuzzy-logic capable you make it, a digital processing system cannot by it's nature process abstract information or concepts.  Also, whether you will admit it or not, there is something about the human mind that science can't quantify, the quality that many would call the spirit or the soul, that does not exist as some byproduct of 6 pounds of gray matter and various quantities of neurotransmitters.

Sure, one day, it will probably be possible to copy the memory of a human into a computer, but you wouldn't be copying the human, you would simply be providing that human's memories and experiences into a machine, the aspect of the human that would qualify him(or her) as human would remain with the biologic.

Battuta your argument that there is a "need" to update the cognitive toolset is kind of...pointless.
You know what kept WW3 from happening in 1962?  Kennedy bluffed Kruschev into giving into his base fear and calling back the ships.  A more "rational" mind would have probably let the generals have they're way and we'd all never have existed.  I say that to say this, get your head out of your statistically codified, logically compartmentalized ass.  All the things you are berating humanity for and saying we should change are what makes humanity something other than a primitive.  All the technological achievements from the beginning of human history to the end of it don't make a damn if you can't appreciate it spiritually.

Also, Death as a concept isn't a ravening destroyer, it is a companion all our life.  Helping us make decisions and if necessary, relieving pain and suffering.  While it is natural to fear death, it is not natural to fear Death.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 11:29:39 pm
It's odd that you'd say 'pages and pages of repetitive blathering without any actual progress being made', when people have chimed in saying how much they've learned. The only thing apparently not making progress is your own understanding of the topic. You've been exposed to some seriously advanced thought here; it's a shame you're not absorbing any of it.

Your ad hominems will get you banned if you're not careful. Insulting the educated just makes you look like a boor.

As a biological machine, you should be careful about making generalizations about machines, and as a person who wants religion respected, please don't bring your religion into science by attempting to say there's something 'science can't quantify.'

If the brain is Turing-complete, it can be emulated on any Turing machine. A basic knowledge of computational science reveals this.

Science. It works, *****es. There's nothing you can do.

Your implications that the educated cannot experience life as you do are a sad attempt to self-justify your belief systems. War can rarely occur in a system of rational actors with good information (as both parties in a state-state conflict have) - only negotiation. Meanwhile, a clear need to update the cognitive toolset exists when humans can't make a simple judgment about probability. (Roulette wheels spring to mind.)

Your sad misperceptions of scientific thought betray your ignorance. Science embraces the utility of intuition and feeling (as you should know if you'd read recent titles like Malcolm Gladwell's Blink.) My 'statistically codified, logically compartmentalized ass' knows when to go on gut instinct and when to use rigorous analysis in a way that you can't appreciate without training.

Save the superstition for the yokels. You're typing on a computer and living in a society built on the principles you despise.

Go sit in a corner, we're done with this debate. We're all feeling nasty as a result of it. Listening to you plug your ears, bury your head in the sand, and spout 'can't won't don't' without any empirical basis is not improving anybody's mood.

No matter how firmly you state an unsubstantiated viewpoint, it remains unsubstantiated. And if machines can't feel, and you're a machine, where does that leave you?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 05, 2009, 11:32:36 pm
Death doesn't relieve pain and suffering, it merely follows it, that's an analogy we make to comfort ourselves.

We are already machines, we sense through electrical impulses that are decoded into 'feelings' by our brains, in very much the same way that computers send electrical impulses through sets of transistors to set up states within a computer. Abstract concepts are, by definition, abstract, there's no saying whether they can be calculated or emulated because it's never been tried, we aren't talking about someone sitting down and 'programming' you into a machine, we are talking about a transfer of conciousness, which is different, a machine does what its told, if you transfer over a human mind in every detail, then the machine will do what the mind tells it, think, feel, love, hate, dream and imagine, if the mind is complete, then it is no different to an organic machine, except not organic. If you put milk in a glass, is it different to milk in a porcelain mug? The container changes, the contents, however, remains the same.

As for the 'senseless blathering', you know, it's strange, but everyone had actually come to happy medium about the concept...

Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 05, 2009, 11:41:22 pm
Yeah, I really want this thread to just die down so I can have some peace. I must've written a few thousand words by now!

I'm happy to leave Akalabeth and whoever with whatever opinion they like, so long as they recognize it's an opinion. Let's just go talk about FreeSpace or something. Hopefully we've all picked up some interesting information.

(Though debates like this tend to harden the existing perspectives of those involved rather than changing them...an interesting bit of science there.)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on November 05, 2009, 11:42:32 pm
Agreed. Let it die in peace, rather than continue to descend into flames.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 05, 2009, 11:47:32 pm
Concur and locked, I think the conversation was pretty healthy for the main part, but the last thing this little fire needs is petrol poured on it.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 06, 2009, 02:48:06 pm
Ok, unlocked in the hope that people have calmed down a bit and we can continue this conversation without some of the raised heckles it was displaying earlier :)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Topgun on November 06, 2009, 03:18:29 pm
Im not worried about an accident, Im worried that the one who got teleported is not me.
let me put it this way, I believe what you are saying, but I wouldn't take the chance.

No chance in it. 100% certainty the transporter kills you.

Quote
In that case, I would take the transporter. becuase the odds of the teleporter not killing me are better than the odds of me finding a shuttle in time. and even if the teleporter does kill me, at least my copy will get to go on and have a full life.

Yeah but we're arguing that it's agreed that the transporter 100% does kill you. It simply makes a copy of you at the other end which has no reason not to believe it's you apart from the fact that you were just transported. So the odds of finding a shuttle are higher. They are always going to be higher. Trillion to one chances are better than 100% certainty of death.

So would you still use the transporter? Cause from what he says, Trashman presumably wouldn't.
in that case I wouldn't use the transporter, unless *someone* needed me alive becuase I had vital information or something.
copy-me hasn't been created yet so I wouldn't be killing him if I didn't take the transporter.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 03:21:26 pm
Mate, if you think the transporter kills you, then you have already died a hundred times.

A transporter does nothing that does not happen to you every day. It just does it faster.

Either you accept that you die every day (which is fine, 'death' doesn't actually mean anything except 'irretrievable loss of information'), or you accept that the transporter doesn't 'kill you.

You are a model built of Lego bricks. Switching in new bricks for the old ones does nothing to change the structure of the model (as XKCD would put it.)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Topgun on November 06, 2009, 03:23:51 pm
Mate, if you think the transporter kills you, then you have already died a hundred times.

A transporter does nothing that does not happen to you every day. It just does it faster.
I don't, but I won't take the risk. what you say makes sense, but there is always a chance you are wrong.
I am about 65/35 split on the matter, not worth risking my life on.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 03:26:11 pm
Fair enough, I guess. We won't know for sure until we try it.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Topgun on November 06, 2009, 03:27:17 pm
unfortunately, even then we won't know.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 03:34:47 pm
Um, yes we will.

You're forgetting, again, that you're simply a copy of the individual you were some time ago, yet I doubt you'd say that you've died.

Unless people come out of a teleport limp and unresponsive, then there's simply no difference between teleportation and normal life, barring any horrible errors the teleportation process may induce (and those might kill you, but that's an engineering problem.)

If there is no empirically verifiable difference, whether by objective measure or by self-report, then no difference exists unless you introduce dualism, in which case your objection to the teleport is purely religious.

The fact that individuals can be resuscitated after complete cessation of neural activity indicates that humans can be rebooted purely from the wetware. If the wetware is preserved, the human is preserved.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 06, 2009, 03:37:23 pm
Basically, every cell in your body is replaced on a regular basis, this is doing the exact same thing, only much faster.

Science-wise, I'm not sure about the feasibility of teleportation in the first place, but if being taken apart and reassembled somehow took something away from us, then we are all empty, soul-less shells several times over.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 03:39:36 pm
I love you, man.

*hug*
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: StarSlayer on November 06, 2009, 03:46:53 pm
Basically, every cell in your body is replaced on a regular basis, this is doing the exact same thing, only much faster.

Science-wise, I'm not sure about the feasibility of teleportation in the first place, but if being taken apart and reassembled somehow took something away from us, then we are all empty, soul-less shells several times over.

Who says we aren't already? :D
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Topgun on November 06, 2009, 03:47:09 pm
Then you don't understand what I mean.
I am not sure if the person "on the other side" is me. sure, he will have the exact same body and thought patterns, but will he have my POV? I think so, since he will just be a continuation of my brain, but I don't know for sure. just becuase copy-me is alive and acts just like me, doesn't mean he is me.
for that matter, I don't even know for sure if who I was yesterday is me today, or if I just have his memories.
I just don't know, I can't know.


Basically, every cell in your body is replaced on a regular basis, this is doing the exact same thing, only much faster.

Science-wise, I'm not sure about the feasibility of teleportation in the first place, but if being taken apart and reassembled somehow took something away from us, then we are all empty, soul-less shells several times over.
I know, which is why I believe consciousness exists in the processes of the brain cells (what the cells do) and not in the cells themselves.
again, though, I can't be sure.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 03:49:02 pm
Topgun, dude...we've covered this point already.

The person on your other side will have your POV.

You're a copy-me right now. You have your POV. You can rest easy, unless you decide that you really were a different person yesterday, in which case...why is it a problem?

If it happens to use every day, why are you worried about using a teleporter?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 06, 2009, 03:53:37 pm
I love you, man.

*hug*

:lol:

Quote
I know, which is why I believe consciousness exists in the processes of the brain cells (what the cells do) and not in the cells themselves.
again, though, I can't be sure.

From what I understand, a vast majority of neural pathways are direct cause-effect links, billions upon billions of IF/THEN statements, as it were. Copying the neural pathways, and the contents of them, is way beyond the current scope of science, because you would have to copy every electrical impulse as well as the pathways themselves, if you are halfway through a thought at one end of a transportation, then that thought should continue un-abated at the other end, which is a pretty tall order.

I suppose the real test of Teleportation is that is should feel just like walking through a door, whether that level will ever be achieved is a whole other matter, but, purely from a theoretical point of view, the knowledge is there.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Topgun on November 06, 2009, 04:04:41 pm
But we don't know that. everything we can see says so, but we might be missing something, we don't know.
my life is a little too valuable to take the risk.
and yes, I know that if the transporter kills me, then chances are I am just a copy of who I was yesterday with a different POV. the difference is that it won't help me to think that I might not be the same person that I was yesterday, becuase in that case, it won't matter what I think, I still die. If I do it through the transpoter, then the chances are even worse.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 04:08:53 pm
Yeah, exactly, Flipside. If the brain is Turing-compatible (which I can't say for sure!) then emulating it is no problem. If it isn't, then brain uploading may hit an issue.

Neurons are, in general, digital. They are either firing, or not firing. However, their firing state is determined by analogue signals between neurons, including additive potentials on the post-synaptic regions of the neuron. Moreover, these analogue signals are to a degree transmitted between neurons as well, adding an analog component to what would otherwise be a purely digital network.

(This is part of why I got so peeved at Liberator; he clearly missed his neuroanatomy!)

The brain operates on a mix of digital and analog code. It's not particularly mysterious, just very, very complex.

Quote
then chances are I am just a copy of who I was yesterday with a different POV

Well, um, I hope you have the same POV. I certainly have the same POV I had yesterday.

We've defined POV as our continuous sense of identity. You are worried that a copy would not preserve such continuity, that you would end. Now you're worried that you yourself don't have a continuous sense of identity...but you do! It's what we defined 'POV' as in the first place.

See, if it happens to you every day, why are you worried about being a copy? Clearly there's nothing bad about it! It's the only way things have ever worked!
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Topgun on November 06, 2009, 04:15:40 pm

Quote
then chances are I am just a copy of who I was yesterday with a different POV

Well, um, I hope you have the same POV.

See, if it happens to you every day, why are you worried about being a copy? Clearly there's nothing bad about it! It's the only way things have ever worked!
becuase...     I    D O N  'T     K N O W
this is ALL speculation, I am not going to take the risk when there is an alternative.
I believe that, after I go through the transporter, everything will be the same, same POV, same me, everything, just as if I walked though a door.
but I don't know for sure, and I don't think its worth the risk.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 04:19:36 pm
Well, if your argument is that we can't know, then this is just a religious matter.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 06, 2009, 04:24:26 pm
As I've said before, until we open the box and look, we won't know, nobody forced the Wright Brothers to fly, nobody forced Neil Armstrong to walk on the moon, there will always be people willing to hurl themselves into the unexplored and find out.

Thing is, that probably won't solve the issue, because people will still argue the point that the person may not be the 'same' person, it's really an unanswerable question in that respect.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: redsniper on November 06, 2009, 04:25:16 pm
So when we build the first teleporter or brain copier or whatever, who do we test it on?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Topgun on November 06, 2009, 04:25:50 pm
bunnies.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Scotty on November 06, 2009, 04:28:31 pm
Despite the best efforts of this thread and all involved, I still must disagree with the concept that a copy will still be me.  I can't quite nail down why, though the prime contender is that I can't shake the thought that even if the hypothetical teleporter rearranged me in the exact likeness of who and what I am now, it still wouldn't be me.  That possibly the sudden and complete sessation of life, even for an infinitesmal amount of time, is somehow different from simple unconsciousness.  At no point in my life until death will my body be completely destroyed, actually disassembled down to the smallest particle of matter, in an instant.  My bodily functions will not cease in everyday living, unlike using this teleporter would entail, but instead continue to function even as the component parts are replaced ever so slowly.

To me, that is the biggest difference, and the largest hurdle in my acceptance of your stance.

EDIT:  Holy crap!  SIX TIMES I had to hit the post button.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Snail on November 06, 2009, 04:30:05 pm
EDIT:  Holy crap!  SIX TIMES I had to hit the post button.
You're lucky you didn't accidentally sextuple post.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Flipside on November 06, 2009, 04:33:23 pm
I suppose one way of discussing it would be this:

If I emailed someone a Word document, would the file I send them be the same document or a different document? Have I sent them my file, or have I sent them something that simply looks like my file in every concievable way?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 04:35:06 pm
Despite the best efforts of this thread and all involved, I still must disagree with the concept that a copy will still be me.  I can't quite nail down why, though the prime contender is that I can't shake the thought that even if the hypothetical teleporter rearranged me in the exact likeness of who and what I am now, it still wouldn't be me.

You must have real fear issues watching Stargate!

Think of it this way: every second, a hypothetical teleporter fails to rearrange you in the exact likeness of who and what you are now. You're shedding and absorbing new atoms constantly. Your inner structures are in a state of constant flux. In fact, you're mostly empty space: built of flickering electromagnetic fields, like gossamer.

The only constant is the pattern of information, like a file, or XKCD's Lego model. The actual Lego bricks involved in the model are being swapped out constantly, but the model itself remains constant.

But I do understand your objections. It's not an easy thing to buy.

Quote
That possibly the sudden and complete sessation of life, even for an infinitesmal amount of time, is somehow different from simple unconsciousness.  At no point in my life until death will my body be completely destroyed, actually disassembled down to the smallest particle of matter, in an instant.  My bodily functions will not cease in everyday living, unlike using this teleporter would entail, but instead continue to function even as the component parts are replaced ever so slowly.

What if your heart stops, your lungs stop, your blood stops, your brain ceases to function, and your very neurons are simply dead matter?

(Alternatively, think of it this way: what if the gradual replacement was sped up to ten seconds? One second? You still probably wouldn't object, would you? Now, use your calculus, and take the limit as the time of replacement approaches zero.)

We can work from there.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 04:37:39 pm
Oh, and, sorry for DPost but I don't want you to miss it -

What if you were teleported one atom at a time, a new atom being swapped in for each missing piece? Would you be okay with it then?

Would the transported copy, or the stationary copy, be the 'you' at the end of the process?

See the dilemma?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Scotty on November 06, 2009, 04:50:54 pm
It's not the teleportation itself that I wrestle with.  It's the concept of dying, even for an infinitesmal amount of time (which, even if you consider the "copy" and original to be alive after, during the atom-by-atom relocation of oneself, life can obviously not function) that really unnerves me.  What complicates it further is that after that "death," everything will still be normal, objectively, but I can't be sure, not entirely, not completely, that everything will be the exact same in every instance.

To use the XKCD lego analogy, when you disassemble and reassemble a Lego boat, that boat may still have the same shape and structure, but it isn't the same boat.  I know that, and I can accept that I am not made of the same stuff I was a month ago, but the leap of faith (*snicker*) is assuming that the instant relocation/rearragement (spatially) of matter is equivalent to the gradual replacement of the pieces of my body.  Even taking the limit as time approaches zero, I find myself unable to reconcile that the two processes are the same.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: karajorma on November 06, 2009, 04:51:13 pm
becuase...     I    D O N  'T     K N O W
this is ALL speculation, I am not going to take the risk when there is an alternative.
I believe that, after I go through the transporter, everything will be the same, same POV, same me, everything, just as if I walked though a door.
but I don't know for sure, and I don't think its worth the risk.

Bear in mind I'm talking about using, say, a TNG teleporter where the technology has been around for many years, is heavily used and no one appears to suffer from ill effects from using it (Mirror universe trips aside! :p )
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 04:57:13 pm
It's not the teleportation itself that I wrestle with.  It's the concept of dying, even for an infinitesmal amount of time (which, even if you consider the "copy" and original to be alive after, during the atom-by-atom relocation of oneself, life can obviously not function) that really unnerves me.

I agree, it's totally unnerving, but unless you want me to stop, I'll keep plugging at the logic.

So, again, what if the teleportation were just slightly slower than instantaneous? What if it were very slow? It's the same process, after all, just a wee bit more delayed. Yet you're okay with it there?

And, similarly, what if you were completely brain and body dead (which happens to people), and then you rebooted from the wetware? Do you consider that equivalent to teleportation in its 'unnerving uncertainty'? Because, from a physical standpoint, it is.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Scotty on November 06, 2009, 05:05:01 pm
I'm not making myself very clear here.  It has nothing to do with the speed of the teleportation, and everything to do with the concept of dying, even for an infinitesmal amount of time (how do you spell that word anyway? :P).

Were I have happen to me the substance of your third paragraph, I don't know what I would think. (that sentence sounds weird when I read it).  I suppose, in the "unnerving uncertainty" aspect, it would warrant full marks.  However, the circumstance itself (simply from the brain and body death) would have a risk of incongruity with my "former" self.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 05:08:17 pm
I'm not making myself very clear here.  It has nothing to do with the speed of the teleportation, and everything to do with the concept of dying, even for an infinitesmal amount of time (how do you spell that word anyway? :P).

Ah, but the speed of the teleportation is very relevant. Let's tackle the same problem differently.
 
Imagine that I teleport a tiny fraction of your brain away and instantly replace it with identical atoms in an identical structure. All action potentials, neurotransmitters, everything is preserved.

I doubt that you feel that you have experienced 'unnerving instantaneous death.'

Now I increase that fraction a bit. And I continue to increase the fraction, until I have instantly teleported and replaced your entire body.

At what fraction do you enter the 'unnerving instant of death' phase you are worried about?
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Colonol Dekker on November 06, 2009, 05:12:32 pm
I can't help seeing the image of a tablecloth being pulled out from under a vase of flowers when i read that.


I'm not a vase and i don't want to break  :shaking:
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Scotty on November 06, 2009, 05:25:46 pm
I suppose, if pressed for an exact point, I would say the point at which the amount teleported exceeds the amount that could possibly be survived were it to be removed.

This vague feeling of unease is not a rational expression.  Were it rational, those logical breakdowns would help.  As it is, a rational, well-thought out reservation is found somewhat lacking here.  Looking at Dekker's reply, that looks to be a fairly analogous example (even if it's missing a couple things).
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Colonol Dekker on November 06, 2009, 05:27:39 pm
I've just realised the irony of Someone called scotty debating telporter effectiveness. ;)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on November 06, 2009, 05:31:14 pm
Okay rather than go back and reply to day old messages I'll just say this.


1. People in this thread talk about evolution, well the human body is the product of millions of years of evolution. We are who we are today because somewhere along the line, it became apparent that the current design of human is a successful one. And over the course of Earth history, no design has been more successful in sheer achievement both technological and material. We are fundamentally a BALANCED design. So how is it, that some humans suddenly get the idea that they can improve one aspect of a human body and suddenly they'll get a better design? Remember nature has been testing this human design over hundreds of thousands of years. What Laboratory can do that quantity and quality of testing? To every fundamental change you make to the human body, there WILL be negative consequences. Remember that people with heightened senses and cognitive abilities already exist in our world, they're called Idiot Savants, and most of them have autism or some other disability. There are a few who do not but I would venture that they are the exception, not the norm. The real question is will these changes, the body improvements result in a fundamentally flawed design, and furthermore can these changes be instead achieved more successfully with the creation of external technology?

2. The idea that someone change the human body, and that the new change will be an optional one is bogus. Take GB's example about a race of super humans who can hibernate at will. Animals don't hibernate at will, they hibernate with the seasons. What PRECEDENCE is there for any real voluntary bodily function? Can you sleep at will? Can you decide not to sleep? Can you decide to stop requiring to go to the bathroom? No, of course not. The only thing we can really do is control our muscles and focus our mind. So what exactly gives anyone the idea that they gift humans with these magical powers and suddenly the laws of nature will no longer apply? And yes, I say magical powers because quite honestly they strike me as high fancy. That's the difference between TOOLs from technology and the human body. Tools can be used at will, discarded at will, the human body cannot. So any human-designed evolution of the human body will be technological, not biological. Sure if people want they can enhance their bodies with cybernetic implants but then you're not an enhanced human, you're just a cyborg.

3. As I said to E via PM, I am not opposed to the elimination of diseases such as cancer, or the augmentation of the human body with false hips and so forth to make up for the failings of that body. Essentially I believe there is a "human standard", and no I don't mean some Aryan Nazi bull****, just a very rough baseline of what is a healthy human body. And any medical advances created to bring individuals up to that standard is fine. Glasses, hearing aids, crutches, etcetera. If someone can help spinal paralysis walk again, cool. That's fine. But anything beyond that human standard, no. Because as I said the human is a balanced, successful design, why go unbalancing the design when you can use tool-based technology instead? And on this same topic:

4. Death is not a disease. It's a fact of reality. And yes E I should go read Culture by some guy but I'm not at a library. Immortality is a very dangerous game, as it stands in the current world the only real immortality humans have is their offspring. What will immortality do to the birth rate? I think it very likely that the human race will suddenly stagnate and cease development until all immortals die out through accident or disease and the human race as we know it ceases to exist. All of these questions also ignore the fact that a suddenly immortal world would have devastating consequences to the economy. If the death rate disappears the population will explode and in all likelihood the world economy would collapse as a result. And just because a person is immortal doesn't mean it will significantly change their lives in any event.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 05:35:30 pm
I suppose, if pressed for an exact point, I would say the point at which the amount teleported exceeds the amount that could possibly be survived were it to be removed.

This vague feeling of unease is not a rational expression.  Were it rational, those logical breakdowns would help.  As it is, a rational, well-thought out reservation is found somewhat lacking here.  Looking at Dekker's reply, that looks to be a fairly analogous example (even if it's missing a couple things).

Fair enough, I'll stop trying to logic you out of it.

Akalabeth:

Huge post, I'll just pick out the factually wrong part and hit up some key differences. I really am not interested in a philosophical debate, only in what can be empirically verified.

1. Right now, today, the human species is actually evolving faster than it has at any point in the past. This makes your assertion that we have reached a 'balanced design' observably wrong.

2. It appears your objection is simply to genetic alteration of the human germ line. I'll deal with this later if I feel like it; if you accept technological augmentation then that's close enough. Of course, you do accept alteration of the germ line in some cases, so see #3...

3.  I would have no problem bringing all humans up to the 'human standard'. Of course, that standard would be defined by the most exemplary humans in all fields...after all, most humans can't drink milk, but I can't imagine you'd object to making everyone lactose tolerant. Once we're there, we can decide what to do next.

The important part is that this should be a matter of choice, not some kind of mandatory upgrade. If people want to alter themselves, let them have the freedom. The market can decide.

4. Sure, you don't want to be immortal. Do you have a problem with extending the human lifespan by thirty years? Fifty, a hundred? I don't deny there would be enormous social implications, but there were enormous social implications of the shift from nomadicism to agriculture, and we did okay.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 05:37:55 pm
Post edited, FYI, in case you're drafting.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Mongoose on November 06, 2009, 05:50:30 pm
Somewhat related to what Scotty's saying, I do have to wonder if the time scale in this model can really be treated as continuous without introducing problems.  If you take the "yesterday's self died to get to today's self" view (and I'm not saying I'm necessarily agree with it, but let's run with it), you're still talking about replacement on a relatively long-term scale.  Like I mentioned in some far-flung post earlier, the brain's neurons don't normally divide past adulthood, and they're not exactly swapping out their entire atomic composition every millisecond.  Now obviously, this process at normal speed doesn't affect our continuity of identity/POV; if it did, we wouldn't still be ourselves.  Double or triple it, and you're still in the same ballpark.  But what happens when you expand it to every atom in the entire body over the course of a second?  A millisecond?  Whatever infinitesimal (there you go, Scotty) time-frame a hypothetical Star Trek-esque teleporter would involve?  Do we overstep some as-yet-unrecognized time limit, to the point where our POV after the process flat-out isn't continuous with that before it?  I think it's an interesting question.

And we're not really on the exact topic anymore, but part of me really wanted to bring up the universe of Ghost in the Shell a day or so back, since it's all about delving into the issues surrounding cyberbrains, prostheses, and human identity.  I don't think I feel like doing that much writing at this point, though.

(Okay, screw the in-between posts; this is going up anyway. :p)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on November 06, 2009, 05:52:57 pm
Huge post, I'll just pick out the factually wrong part and hit up some key differences. I really am not interested in a philosophical debate, only in what can be empirically verified.

That honestly is the greatest failing of science. The need of science for proof. Need a child put their hand in a fire to know that it's a bad idea? Says the scientist "I don't know that fundamentally altering the structure of the human body will be a bad idea, I must first do it, and then test to see how bad of an idea it was."

Quote
1. Right now, today, the human species is actually evolving faster than it has at any point in the past. This makes your assertion that we have reached a 'balanced design' observably wrong.

Evolving? In what form? Are we evolving or are we reaching our full potential.

Quote
2. It appears your objection is simply to genetic alteration of the human germ line. I'll deal with this later if I feel like it; if you accept technological augmentation then that's close enough. Of course, you do accept alteration of the germ line in some cases, so see #3...

No my objection is to people believing whimsical flights of fancy somehow apply to reality. The notion that the human body can be changed in a biological manner to achieve a result which is only possible through technology.

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3.  I would have no problem bringing all humans up to the 'human standard'. Of course, that standard would be defined by the most exemplary humans in all fields...after all, most humans can't drink milk, but I can't imagine you'd object to making everyone lactose tolerant. Once we're there, we can decide what to do next.

Are you saying that babies in Asia drink water instead of breast milk? Most humans can't drink milk because they don't drink milk beyond infancy. That's just an immunity deficiency born of their environment and upbringing. It has nothing to do with any human standard. I'm talking about 20/20 vision, 120/80 BP, average hearing, etcetera.

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4. Sure, you don't want to be immortal. Do you have a problem with extending the human lifespan by thirty years? Fifty, a hundred? I don't deny there would be enormous social implications, but there were enormous social implications of the shift from nomadicism to agriculture, and we did okay.

Honestly would it make much difference? Is a person lives to be a thousand years instead of a hundred will they still spend their life working at Walmart? I would venture yes. Of course I'm scared of dying and of course I would like to live longer but those are all selfish ideas and even if Immortality is a nice concept I don't think it would necessarily be a good thing.
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 05:53:40 pm
If every trait of each particle was perfectly preserved through the teleportation, then there's no physical reason I am aware of that timescale should matter.

Akalabeth, I'm not going to get into a religious or spiritual debate. I'm only concerned with the realities here, not people's inner lives. The child does put his hand in the fire to learn whether it's a bad idea - we've all done it.

The fundamental advantage of the human species is our ability to take control of environmental factors. Genetic engineering and cyborg augmentation are tools to meet specific tasks, like the knight's armor Flipside cited earlier. They are no different from your computer keyboard or your mother's instructions to you - both of which do not exist in animals, and both of which fundamentally change the human condition.

There is no such thing as 'potential' in evolution. It is a spiritual term. Evolution is measured by the rate of allele flow and that is higher than it has ever been. Thus, we are evolving faster than we ever have. Evolution is non-directional.

The human body has changed in a biological manner to accomplish things. It has been done before, it will be done again.

You are eager to bring all humans up to minimum specifications, but not to expand the maximum. Yet the reason we are able to do things like talk to each other on the Internet is due to a sudden explosion in our maximum cognitive specifications that only occurred very recently.

I would not dare to say immortality is necessarily a good thing either, but as a species, we must explore. Stasis is death.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on November 06, 2009, 06:00:29 pm
That honestly is the greatest failing of science. The need of science for proof. Need a child put their hand in a fire to know that it's a bad idea? Says the scientist "I don't know that fundamentally altering the structure of the human body will be a bad idea, I must first do it, and then test to see how bad of an idea it was."

And blindly accepting something because someone else says so is somehow better?
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Evolving? In what form? Are we evolving or are we reaching our full potential.

Still believing that Evolution has a goal, are we? Learn some science, and learn the difference between religion and science.

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Are you saying that babies in Asia drink water instead of breast milk? Most humans can't drink milk because they don't drink milk beyond infancy. That's just an immunity deficiency born of their environment and upbringing. It has nothing to do with any human standard. I'm talking about 20/20 vision, 120/80 BP, average hearing, etcetera.

Do some research, please. Lactose intolerance refers to intolerance to lactose in cow milk. And since Lactose intolerance is as much a genetic as an environmental issue, it definitely has to do with your "Human Standard".
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: SpardaSon21 on November 06, 2009, 06:14:25 pm
I would love to see immortality for humans.  Of course, if we do achieve that, hard decisions are going to need to be made about reproduction so we don't overrun the Earth.  Also, if humanity isn't unified by that time getting the various nations to voluntarily impose population restrictions is going to be hard as they will see outnumbering everyone else as their way to gain supremacy. Restrictions only work if everyone imposes them, otherwise those that do impose get overrun by those that don't in a rush for space and resources.

Genetic alteration is problematic for me, at least serious genetic alterations are.  The problem with something like that is the potential for serious problems to result from mis-altered DNA or unaccounted-for mutation.  I see no issues with small-scale embryonic alterations such as removing minor genetic defects, but once you delve into serious genetic manipulation of adults or embryos, the chances of something major going wrong greatly increase.  Cyberization is less problematic for me, since the traits can't be passed to offspring.  I'm not concerned about people altering their bodies in a major manner, I just don't want any traits they added to be passed to their offspring.  There is a large potential for Murphy's Law to take effect in germ-cell alteration and the meiosis process, and I am concerned both about the embryo developing traits they didn't want as well as some hideous abomination being born.

So hypothetically speaking, how serious of genetic alteration are we talking?  Culture-style species swaps, or just genetic defect removal and augmentation of natural traits?  We are just talking about genetic alterations in general without a specific degree of alteration, so the argument lacks a bit of focus.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on November 06, 2009, 06:14:58 pm
That honestly is the greatest failing of science. The need of science for proof. Need a child put their hand in a fire to know that it's a bad idea? Says the scientist "I don't know that fundamentally altering the structure of the human body will be a bad idea, I must first do it, and then test to see how bad of an idea it was."

And blindly accepting something because someone else says so is somehow better?

I'm not talking about blind faith I'm talking about considering the consequences of one's actions. Hypothesizing potential problems made with desired advances.  All you scientists in this thread who talk about improving the human body seem to have no idea that those changes will have negative consequences. Or at least none of them seem to consider the idea within your discussions.

Take Flipside's example of Medieval Knights wearing armour. Yes, they add armour and now they're better survived on the battlefield. But, in doing so they lose mobility, they lose buoyancy, they limit their senses (depending on the helm being worn), etcetera. The change comes with a lot of negatives, or as he described it tradeoffs. Now let's enhance humans but instead let's give them natural biological armour, armour they're born with, armour they can't take off.  And you have most of those same problems but now they're problems for life.


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Evolving? In what form? Are we evolving or are we reaching our full potential.

Still believing that Evolution has a goal, are we? Learn some science, and learn the difference between religion and science.

No I'm asking GB for examples of human evolution. He provided none.

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Do some research, please. Lactose intolerance refers to intolerance to lactose in cow milk. And since Lactose intolerance is as much a genetic as an environmental issue, it definitely has to do with your "Human Standard".

Er, humans produce lactose in their milk as well. It has nothing to do with COW milk. In fact humans have MORE lactose in their milk than cows do. Also people drink goat milk and other forms of milk too.

Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: TrashMan on November 06, 2009, 06:22:07 pm
The most common depiction of cyborgs always makes me laugh. You know - artificial arm and leg, with massive strength and built-in things and weapons. Since it's not realistic.
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: Mongoose on November 06, 2009, 06:24:11 pm
That honestly is the greatest failing of science. The need of science for proof. Need a child put their hand in a fire to know that it's a bad idea? Says the scientist "I don't know that fundamentally altering the structure of the human body will be a bad idea, I must first do it, and then test to see how bad of an idea it was."
No offense, but without striving for proof, "science" would be an utterly meaningless word.  I'm not even talking about this specific instance, but in general.  The entire scientific method is founded on coming up with an idea that explains something or other, then testing it to see if it holds up.  Without that, you don't have anything left.

If every trait of each particle was perfectly preserved through the teleportation, then there's no physical reason I am aware of that timescale should matter.
I suppose the specific aspect I'm wondering about is the time scale over which certain mental processes occur, which is admittedly something I don't really know anything about.  Under this purely-structural model, if you could theoretically preserve the precise quantum state of every single atom in the body (which I'm sure you'd agree is a mind-bogglingly complex computational problem, at least by our modern standards) and near-instantaneously transfer it to the destination, I suppose that even the fastest mental process would presumably be preserved.  But that raises the question of acceptable error level: if you can't do all of that with 100% accuracy, does there come some sort of upper limit where you wind up essentially derailing the brain's thought patterns in-progress?  And what does that mean for you on the other end?
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: Colonol Dekker on November 06, 2009, 06:35:21 pm
This is safer by far...
(http://holycrapthatsfunny.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/broken_teleporter.png)
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: The E on November 06, 2009, 06:38:00 pm
I'm not talking about blind faith I'm talking about considering the consequences of one's actions. Hypothesizing potential problems made with desired advances.  All you scientists in this thread who talk about improving the human body seem to have no idea that those changes will have negative consequences. Or at least none of them seem to consider the idea within your discussions.

Where did you get that idea? We know there will be sideeffects, but we also know that with an appropriate amount of design work, these things can be avoided. You seem to go on and on about difficulties and how they make stuff impossible, while we see those as challenges to be overcome.

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Take Flipside's example of Medieval Knights wearing armour. Yes, they add armour and now they're better survived on the battlefield. But, in doing so they lose mobility, they lose buoyancy, they limit their senses (depending on the helm being worn), etcetera. The change comes with a lot of negatives, or as he described it tradeoffs. Now let's enhance humans but instead let's give them natural biological armour, armour they're born with, armour they can't take off.  And you have most of those same problems but now they're problems for life.

Again, you see problems that are simply engineering challenges to be worked around. Also note that the armored Knight are very well adapted to their environment (which has a distinct lack of water to swim in, and where not getting a Sword or Lance in your face has positive efects on your survival).


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No I'm asking GB for examples of human evolution. He provided none.

Does Evolution in terms of Sociology count? Probably not, from your POV. But isn't it amazing how Humans have managed to become the controlling species on this planet in a matter of millennia?
Transhumanism posits that Homo Sapiens + Technology is a different species from Homo Sapiens himself. Sounds silly at first, but where would we be if we subtracted Technology from the equation? And yes, even the sharpened Stones on sticks that were all the rage 10000 years ago count as technology.
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on November 06, 2009, 06:43:21 pm
That honestly is the greatest failing of science. The need of science for proof. Need a child put their hand in a fire to know that it's a bad idea? Says the scientist "I don't know that fundamentally altering the structure of the human body will be a bad idea, I must first do it, and then test to see how bad of an idea it was."
No offense, but without striving for proof, "science" would be an utterly meaningless word.  I'm not even talking about this specific instance, but in general.  The entire scientific method is founded on coming up with an idea that explains something or other, then testing it to see if it holds up.  Without that, you don't have anything left.

Well yes I realize that, in truth I probably communicated my ideas in an inefficient manner. My real problem is that a fundamental part of the scientific method is also the hypothesis. And no scientist that I've talked to in this thread with the exception of Flipside is using any real hypothesis that looks at the full picture. The ideas are instead one-sided and irresponsible. They talk about the benefits of things without apparently considering the potential problems. And they also talk about the effects of things without examining the causes.

So, enhanced hearing will allow me to hear better and . . . what else? Will it give me continual headaches like listening to loud music for too long will? Because the entire world will essentially become one cranked up Rammstein track? Will I have problems sleeping without a sound proof room like a certain superhero from a recent movie.

Or on the other hand we have the idea of humans who can hibernate at will. This a marvellous effect but what is the cause? What bodily function works like this? What precedence or EVIDENCE in nature is there that it can even be done? What consistent evidence is there to the contrary that hibernation is in fact an involuntary act dominate by the seasons?


Cause and Effect, Action and Consequence.

One without the other is Fantasy not science.

So
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: Nuke on November 06, 2009, 06:52:12 pm
figure most star systems are too radioactive or binary systems which seem like it would cause a lot of orbital instability. i wouldnt even bother looking for life in the core of the galaxy. just too much **** that can kill you there.
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 06:52:58 pm
I don't think anybody's advanced any formal scientific hypotheses in this thread. A hypothesis has to be tested with evidence.

On the other hand, plenty of people have advanced suggestions which can be refuted with existing evidence.

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No I'm asking GB for examples of human evolution. He provided none.

What the heck did you miss? I said it explicitly:

The rate of allele flow in the human population is statistically higher than it has been at any point in the past.

Evolution is designed as a change in allele frequency over time.

We are therefore evolving faster than we ever have.

If you want an example of a recent massive evolutionary change, the development of human cognition.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on November 06, 2009, 06:58:10 pm
I'm not talking about blind faith I'm talking about considering the consequences of one's actions. Hypothesizing potential problems made with desired advances.  All you scientists in this thread who talk about improving the human body seem to have no idea that those changes will have negative consequences. Or at least none of them seem to consider the idea within your discussions.

Where did you get that idea? We know there will be sideeffects, but we also know that with an appropriate amount of design work, these things can be avoided. You seem to go on and on about difficulties and how they make stuff impossible, while we see those as challenges to be overcome.

Because none of you have actually listed anything in that regard? Not to my recollection.
And I don't think that anything can be fully avoided. In science there will always be blowback.

When was the last time you took a prescription drug which didn't include side effects?



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Take Flipside's example of Medieval Knights wearing armour. Yes, they add armour and now they're better survived on the battlefield. But, in doing so they lose mobility, they lose buoyancy, they limit their senses (depending on the helm being worn), etcetera. The change comes with a lot of negatives, or as he described it tradeoffs. Now let's enhance humans but instead let's give them natural biological armour, armour they're born with, armour they can't take off.  And you have most of those same problems but now they're problems for life.

Again, you see problems that are simply engineering challenges to be worked around. Also note that the armored Knight are very well adapted to their environment (which has a distinct lack of water to swim in, and where not getting a Sword or Lance in your face has positive efects on your survival).

No I see consequence to changing the human form. I realize that technology has drawbacks, and I would rather be able to discard technology and those drawbacks than to be born with it or become surgically altered and live it with my entire life. That's why humans are adaptable. Oh, I need to breath under water? I'll grab a scuba tank. I need to fight in a joust? I'll take off my scuba tank, and put on medieval armour, oh I need to run fast? I'll take off my armour and put on shorts. I need to see in the dark? I'll use night vision goggles? I need to shade my eyes at noon? I'll put on sunglasses and take off those goggles before I go blind.

That's why external technology will always be superior to any biological enhancement. Because you can use whatever you need depending on the circumstance, you can take those drawbacks for a short period of time rather than having to live with them for the rest of your life.

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Does Evolution in terms of Sociology count? Probably not, from your POV. But isn't it amazing how Humans have managed to become the controlling species on this planet in a matter of millennia?
Transhumanism posits that Homo Sapiens + Technology is a different species from Homo Sapiens himself. Sounds silly at first, but where would we be if we subtracted Technology from the equation? And yes, even the sharpened Stones on sticks that were all the rage 10000 years ago count as technology.

Transhumanism should buy a dictionary and look up the word "species".

Honestly that theory strikes me as someone trying to make themselves feel important. And by someone I do not mean you, I mean the theory's author. Something to the effect of "look at those tribesmen, running around with sticks and stones? I could waste them with this .50 cal". Well no, I'm sorry but if those tribesmen were born today and ate the same food and learned the same knowledge they'd be just capable as anyone living today. Take an orphan from some tribe in the rainforest, nurture them and put them to school in London and are they going to be less capable than a Londoner who was born there and whose family has lived there for 5 generations? No.
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 07:05:42 pm
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Well no, I'm sorry but if those tribesmen were born today and ate the same food and learned the same knowledge they'd be just capable as anyone living today. Take an orphan from some tribe in the rainforest, nurture them and put them to school in London and are they going to be less capable than a Londoner who was born there and whose family has lived there for 5 generations? No.

Ah, I think you're finally coming towards the light!

The introduction of culture, which includes technology, represented a fundamental shift in human development. Natural selection became largely obsolete. We now undergo technological selection: those with the best tech, survive. Agriculture is a great example.

This is why the transhumanist movement does not largely feel the need to 'advocate' anything, as you seem to suggest. Nor is it afraid of side effects - because, indeed, you are correct, drugs have side effects. So will any modification to the human condition. Many of the side effects will be awful, even atrocious.

You apparently have something against genetic modification of the human germ line, except in conditions where you approve of it. *shrug* That's fine. You won't have to avail yourself of it.

Genetic modification of that sort is certainly full of extraordinary ramifications. And yet it is only a natural extension of what we already do.

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That's why external technology will always be superior to any biological enhancement. Because you can use whatever you need depending on the circumstance, you can take those drawbacks for a short period of time rather than having to live with them for the rest of your life.

Er, right, but in no way is that an argument against genetic engineering.

For example, right now you lack a cognitive trait called 'calibration' - you cannot perform basic judgments of probability reliably. If that was genetically corrected, say by the elimination of base rate neglect, what do you feel the drawbacks would be?

Ahem. Now, for a different matter.

You are being shockingly rude. You have stated that you believe people in this thread are being 'one-sided and irresponsible.' Yet I don't think that either The_E or myself (or any other educated individual) believes that genetic engineering is not staggeringly complex, extremely finicky, and full of dangerous social implications.

Why you would believe that we've all got a hard-on for genemodding is beyond me. From left field a few pages back you said that I thought genetic engineering was the solution to all problems, and from then on forward you've been on some kind of mad crusade against a problem that doesn't exist.

I'll say it again: humping a straw man gets you nothing but weird looks.

Let me restate my position: I believe that genetic engineering will, at some point in the future, be a useful tool for improving the human condition, and I believe that with work (and, inevitably, through failures) its risks will be understood and avoided.
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: Kosh on November 06, 2009, 07:10:50 pm
I thought this thread was locked?

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Somewhat related to what Scotty's saying, I do have to wonder if the time scale in this model can really be treated as continuous without introducing problems.


Everything always introduces problems. In our current state, the biggest problem at this moment is death. By solving this problem it is true that it would cause other problems, however those problems do have solutions that can be found. Solving new problems is the nature of tech advance.

There are some who suggested that we would not have any need to continue our advancement. This isn't true because there would still be new problems. For example, electronics are more sensitive to radiation. There will always be a need to push the boundries.
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: Flipside on November 06, 2009, 07:14:34 pm
It's also partly to do with self-definition, I think, the world 'culture' has a lot to answer for in some ways.

There are a couple of things that do occur to me, however, one is that whatever special abilities there may be in some sort of technological device that contains a human consciousness, our minds will adapt to utilise those abilities, in that respect, I can accept that transferring to a mechanical device would change what it means to be human, but, as I've said before, 'human' is a thought, not a being, we are, in essence, what we define ourselves to be, it wasn't that long ago that dark-skinned people were not considered 'human' by light skinned people, there are already concerns about the rights of clones because the technology is within reach (we're talking non-simulcrum copies here, physical clones, not mental ones), our definition of human is constantly in flux.

Secondly, is the definition of 'alive', is life a physical process, a chemical process or a mental process, or a combination of the three, and if life can be maintained without a Biological container, then does the definition of life change? Nature has already come up with organisms that can be boiled, irradited and frozen and bounce back again without a problem, so maybe rather than identifying ourselves by our weaknesses, or even our strengths, we should consider the simple phrase of 'Life just is', that it doesn't matter what form that life takes, or what challenges that lifeform surmounts, life is defined by its own existence and nothing else.

That's quite a difficult thought to put into writing, so I hope it makes sense :)
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on November 06, 2009, 07:16:27 pm
What the heck did you miss? I said it explicitly:

By said explicitly you mean in an edit after the original post.

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The rate of allele flow in the human population is statistically higher than it has been at any point in the past.

Evolution is designed as a change in allele frequency over time.

We are therefore evolving faster than we ever have.

If you want an example of a recent massive evolutionary change, the development of human cognition.

Yes but none of this style of evolution has any comparison to the laboratory optional enhancements people are suggesting in this thread.

And btw you see this as evolution, I see this as humans better reaching their potential. Humans are better fed, better informed, better lived than in the past so is it any wonder we're superior? If you could take a person out of the past and grow them in this world would the be the same or inferior? That's the real question. Are our advances a product of environment or a product of genetics? If two short parents from Asia move to the Western world and have children that turn out to be taller than them did their children evolve? Or did they eat a different diet?

Of course people are constantly evolving in subtle ways and our bodies are constantly reproducing itself through cell death and division but is the human being a fundamentally different species than a few thousand years ago?


Regardless this is a discussion about scientifically manufactured evolutionary leaps, not subtle improvements or the fulfilling of potential on the basic homo sapien model (or is it sapien sapien, whichever). And there have been no evolutionary leaps in the human population.


Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 07:20:12 pm
And just to shoot down a point of Akalabeth's I'd passed over earlier, voluntary hibernation is believable. If you can engineer an organism with a hibernation system and with conscious control of HIT release, you have a voluntary hibernator.

Obviously, this is speculative, so saying 'that's not possible' is rather missing the point: it's not, yet. However, it provides an obvious model by which a transgenic human might try to ease the rigors of space travel.

Akalabeth has been rather hung up on the issue of 'tradeoffs', and indeed, he is correct to say that any modification has tradeoffs. Nonetheless, some tradeoffs are worth it in some situations: the knight's armor, the bear's heavy coat, the human being's incredibly large brain.

The fact that some tradeoffs are worth it is why evolution proceeds, and why genetic modification might be a viable approach to some problems of space flight. (For instance, bone density issues, or the prevention of oncogenesis.)

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And btw you see this as evolution, I see this as humans better reaching their potential. Humans are better fed, better informed, better lived than in the past so is it any wonder we're superior? If you could take a person out of the past and grow them in this world would the be the same or inferior? That's the real question. Are our advances a product of environment or a product of genetics? If two short parents from Asia move to the Western world and have children that turn out to be taller than them did their children evolve? Or did they eat a different diet?

That's exactly the point. We don't have to rely on evolution for humans to reach 'their potential' - which is whatever we want.

I see this as humans better reaching their potential too.

And please don't make this personal. This statement was present:

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There is no such thing as 'potential' in evolution. It is a spiritual term. Evolution is measured by the rate of allele flow and that is higher than it has ever been. Thus, we are evolving faster than we ever have. Evolution is non-directional.

Before you posted. I did not edit it in after the fact.
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on November 06, 2009, 07:32:12 pm
I'll say it again: humping a straw man gets you nothing but weird looks.

Spare me the strawman bull****, your whole argumentative style is strawman. You consistently avoid points and come up with small irrelevances which avoid the question. For example, let's take your starting question.

What is better?
1. A ship which requires full lifesupport for a human crew.
2. A ship which requires minimal lifesupport for a human crew capable of biological hibernation.

This question is essentially a loaded question because the only logical answer within such limited information is 2. And when I fail to tell you "oh gee GB, you're right" and instead I expand those guidelines to actually have some basis in reality you go off on some other tangent about how I'm somehow odd for introducing FTL into the equation and on the other hand ignore my main question is:

Hibernation as it exists in nature is a involuntary part of an animal's life cycle which is dictated by the seasons. So how is it that humans or any creature will be able to biologically hibernate at will?

Essentially you give me a limited, loaded question and I being aware of that fact expand upon and you proceed to ignore. That's pretty much the whole trend of this argument in a nutshell.


EDIT - regarding Strawman for example.
We're talking about humans+1. Ie humans which incorporate an evolutionary leap. I say that there's a human base model, ie homo sapien which has worked just fine, you respond by saying "we're evolving all the time" (paraphrased). Well, I'm sorry, but we're talking about evolutionary leaps not increased genetic variety. That is strawman, you take my post as a singular thing instead of part of the whole discussion and go off on tangents to try and disprove the post rather than addressing that post within the great discussion. Should I quote 5-10 messages to get my full point across?? To keep people in perspective. And whoever made up this dumbass "strawman" term anyway.

Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 07:40:28 pm
Here you go, Akalabeth. I'll provide a list of possible genetic fixes, and you can explain to me how technology would do a better job of correcting these problems.

1. Move retinal arteries behind the retina instead of in front to prevent many causes of blindness.

2. Remove wisdom teeth to prevent brain abscesses, empyema, and meningitis.

3. Slightly lower the position of the larynx. Helps with choking.

4. Alter the odontoid process in the spine; a simple ball-and-socket joint instead of a peg here would prevent a lot of paralysis injuries in whiplash.

5. Strengthen hip joints, which are still optimized for quadripedal locomotion - that's why the hip joint so frequently degenerates with age. You'd need to do some canny designing to pull this off.

6. Intelligently re-engineer the knee joint while you're at it. It's also still optimized for quadripedal life, and it's way too weak.

7. Redesign the foot so we're no longer walking on our wrists. I'll leave the specifics to the structural bioengineers!

8. Weave the plantar nerves in the foot into the bone structure so they're not crippled by arch collapse.

9. Redesign the median nerve in the wrist so it's no longer damaged by each wrist flexion. Improve ligamental shielding.

10. Move the ulnar nerve to the inside of the elbow; we're not horses, so why is it still built like a horse's ulnar nerve?

11. Reengineer the brachial plexus and add protection to prevent the destruction of the nerves there by certain forms of pressure.

12. This might be a contentious one, but the placement of the rectum, urinary tract, and vagina in females is poor and prone to infection. Needs a bugfix!

13. Remove the appendix.

14. Prevent progressive dilation of veins in the legs during posture change to reduce the risk of death by blood clot.

15. For god's sake, move the vital cranial nerves and carotid artery structure farther from the nose, or protect it somehow! We shouldn't be dying of sinus infections that get into our vital nerve and blood pathways. Similarly, move other cranial sinuses away from the middle ear!

16. Prevent chordoma and gill-type birth defects; they're a product of old evolutionary structures that grow and then vanish during fetal development, for no real reason.

That's my shopping list! Some of them are easy fixes, some would be hellishly tricky, but I'm sure the same human ingenuity that built the space shuttle can figure it out.

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Hibernation as it exists in nature is a involuntary part of an animal's life cycle which is dictated by the seasons. So how is it that humans or any creature will be able to biologically hibernate at will.

HIT injections. Or an internal gland under voluntary control. Easily accomplished - there are dozens of organisms that can voluntarily alter their biochemistry like that.

Sorry for not answering that earlier. Satisfied?

Sorry if I ignored you, but I haven't exactly been systematically dismissing your points. It was an honest oversight.

I really dislike your style. I don't enjoy these debates when they turn so personal.
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: The E on November 06, 2009, 07:44:37 pm
This. All of this.
Title: Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Post by: NGTM-1R on November 06, 2009, 07:45:21 pm
I did?  :nervous:

Yes, you appeared to agree, with your whistling. :p
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 07:46:28 pm
The 'faster option than natural evolution' I was talking about was intelligent design, natch.  ;7 And I don't mean the silliness of people who missed elementary biology, but actual human intelligent design of the human organism.

A rather fetching example of which I posted up above. Now we just need to get the expertise and the experts to pull off the suggested changes.

I can't wait to get started!
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: The E on November 06, 2009, 07:56:10 pm
Also, let's not forget this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqzmEtLe8PM

On a more practical note, what about haemogoblin with a higher oxygen capacity?

Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 07:56:17 pm
Indeed, as The_E sayeth, HerraTohtori has posted a request for a higher-capacity haemoglobin molecule a la the crocodile. (http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/SUA04/crocodile_blood.php)

Apparently a human version has already been produced!
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: Mongoose on November 06, 2009, 08:22:59 pm
That's my shopping list! Some of them are easy fixes, some would be hellishly tricky, but I'm sure the same human ingenuity that built the space shuttle can figure it out.
Those were all very fascinating items (damn, you've done your homework), but I feel like sticking thermal tiles onto a rocket glider required just slightly less ingenuity than most of them will. :p
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: Mr. Vega on November 06, 2009, 08:24:30 pm
Quote
16. Prevent chordoma and gill-type birth defects; they're a product of old evolutionary structures that grow and then vanish during fetal development, for no real reason.
You can't do that with significantly altering the fundamentals of embryonic and fetal development. Good luck. Everything else looks reasonable.
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 08:26:10 pm
That's my shopping list! Some of them are easy fixes, some would be hellishly tricky, but I'm sure the same human ingenuity that built the space shuttle can figure it out.
Those were all very fascinating items (damn, you've done your homework), but I feel like sticking thermal tiles onto a rocket glider required just slightly less ingenuity than most of them will. :p

At our current level of expertise, absolutely. We've barely started work on the problem.

Quote
16. Prevent chordoma and gill-type birth defects; they're a product of old evolutionary structures that grow and then vanish during fetal development, for no real reason.
You can't do that with significantly altering the fundamentals of embryonic and fetal development. Good luck. Everything else looks reasonable.

Yeah, that one's gonna be a bit thorny, inn't?

And the rest are reasonable, sure, but we still have to learn a lot before we can pull it off. Still, though, if we can build all the marvelous things we have already, I don't think this is unfeasible. Optimistic, but reasonable.
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: SpardaSon21 on November 06, 2009, 08:48:22 pm
Nice shopping list GB.  Personally I'd throw in some less-vital options such as general enhancements to the human form such as better eyesight, stronger muscles, tougher bones, and maybe a better sense of smell.  None of that is vital, but I do think we should constantly be improving ourselves in all areas, not just fixing problems caused by physiology.
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 08:56:58 pm
I concur. The thing about 'general enhancements', though, is that it's hard to know how to engineer them specifically, and what tradeoffs might be involved. As Akalabeth pointed out, a better sense of smell could be a curse in some situations, and stronger muscles or tougher bones could come at the price of a more demanding diet.

I'd also like to see patches for better heuristic calibration - humanity in general has a serious overconfidence problem in most experimental confidence range tests. But cognitive territory is messier and more risky, and will probably have to wait.
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: Topgun on November 06, 2009, 09:01:07 pm
I concur. The thing about 'general enhancements', though, is that it's hard to know how to engineer them specifically, and what tradeoffs might be involved. As Akalabeth pointed out, a better sense of smell could be a curse in some situations, and stronger muscles or tougher bones could come at the price of a more demanding diet.
we do have waay too much food though.
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 09:03:02 pm
Not everywhere.

You wouldn't want an amped-up metabolism to feed your augmented muscles and bones if you were stuck in the Sudan.

As a good indicator of how cautious scientists are being with the field, the NIH recently adapted guidelines that basically said, 'you only treat the disease with genetic alteration of nothing else works.'

I think that's a pretty good philosophy all in all: genetic augmentation should generally be a last resort.
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: Flipside on November 06, 2009, 09:22:32 pm
It could be noted, however, that those general enhancements could also include our ability to metabolise food in the first place, we aren't actually too bad as animals go for being able to eat a wide variety of foods, but since food increases linearly, and population increases exponentially, we will always hit a brick wall, maybe approaching it from two different angles at once might help that problem?

Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: General Battuta on November 06, 2009, 09:25:18 pm
Maybe. I'm not sure how to improve human food metabolism, though, so, for that I'd have to resort to the kind of magicalism AA was accusing me of (though, in the case he was leveling the accusation towards, I was able to supply a mechanism, so ha.)
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: übermetroid on November 07, 2009, 09:33:22 am
Lets go the "old mans war" route and get rid of blood and replace it with something else.  Something that carries more oxygen and is not able able to get infected.
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: Mongoose on November 07, 2009, 11:19:51 am
While we're making a list, can we tack on the cessation of the formerly-useful adaptation of storing too many calories as fat, so as to eliminate moobs and the beer gut once and for all?  Or how about strengthening teeth enamel, so as to bankrupt the sadist enterprise that is dentistry? :p
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: General Battuta on November 07, 2009, 12:19:19 pm
We are pretty poorly adapted to our current diet, especially on the cognitive level. Our food-reward circuits could use some intelligent tweaking, but you have to be careful of tradeoffs.

We do have drugs right now that appear to extend the lifespan of mammals while simultaneously keeping them pretty thin.
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: High Max on November 09, 2009, 05:27:11 pm
..
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: General Battuta on November 09, 2009, 07:16:19 pm
Yeah, but those are a bit farther out on the horizon, and kind of fall into 'let's just make it better!' category. I'm not sure how to get started on those, though I imagine other organisms could provide some insights.
Title: Re: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!
Post by: Backslash on December 07, 2009, 11:35:33 pm
Very interesting reading this has been!

Better hearing or smell has been brought up, but I want more protection as well.  'ear-lids', 'nose-lids' or something like that.  Turn nostril flaring into something useful! ;)

A way to block pain.  Yes, nerve, I KNOW my ankle is twisted, I have taken steps to recover, now leave me alone!