Humans in computer bodies, set to S L O W time during transit. Who cares about the speed of light if the speed of thought is one bit per day or there abouts?2edfe9 wrote: Deep space will be owned by computers, not humans.
New Nasa Spaceflight On pB11
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CaptainBeowulf
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I wonder if it will be technically possible to design a way to "re-download" into a clone of your biological body. Could you fly along in a coke can sized ship, deploy some nanites at your target to build factories etc., and eventually grow new bodies and transfer into them?
Seems difficult as the human CNS isn't just "hardware" - rather, the hardware gets rewired for the software (the mind) - memory pathways are built up etc. by making new connections between neurons. But with nanotechnology, perhaps there would be some way of preparing the clone.
With sufficiently advanced computers, I should think a coke can would be large enough to hold: A) Some downloaded human minds, B) Its own flight software and whatever other ship software is needed, C) a swarm of nanites, and D) The information needed for making factories and other tech, as well as the entire genomes of hundreds of people.
Kiteman, if I could live "forever" I wouldn't want to be wasting the time. I'm sure that huge libraries of knowledge could be put in that coke can with me. I would have a few centuries to do some extra PhDs in subjects that always interested me but I didn't choose to focus on.
Seems difficult as the human CNS isn't just "hardware" - rather, the hardware gets rewired for the software (the mind) - memory pathways are built up etc. by making new connections between neurons. But with nanotechnology, perhaps there would be some way of preparing the clone.
With sufficiently advanced computers, I should think a coke can would be large enough to hold: A) Some downloaded human minds, B) Its own flight software and whatever other ship software is needed, C) a swarm of nanites, and D) The information needed for making factories and other tech, as well as the entire genomes of hundreds of people.
Kiteman, if I could live "forever" I wouldn't want to be wasting the time. I'm sure that huge libraries of knowledge could be put in that coke can with me. I would have a few centuries to do some extra PhDs in subjects that always interested me but I didn't choose to focus on.
With advances in suspended animation tech, the human crew could hibernate the whole trip, no need for a large habitat to take up weight, the AI advance crew could build that for you on the other end.
The interstellar ships I've seen in science mags involve light sails, ramscoops or immense tanks of propellant, vehicles miles wide that weigh as much as 10 aircraft carriers. Half the trip is spent accelerating and decelerating. Pancake the weight down and a round trip to the nearest star is bearable for one human lifetime.
The interstellar ships I've seen in science mags involve light sails, ramscoops or immense tanks of propellant, vehicles miles wide that weigh as much as 10 aircraft carriers. Half the trip is spent accelerating and decelerating. Pancake the weight down and a round trip to the nearest star is bearable for one human lifetime.
CHoff
btw,.I.am.the.mlorrey.behind.that.post...as.for.local.interstellar.medium,.recent.probe.data.says.our.sun.Tom Ligon wrote:Lower utility, but not zero. The numbers I've seen say around 1/3 the presumed average density of interstellar gas. When you get right down to it, the interstellar medium is the next best thing to a perfect vacuum, zero density by all standards we can achieve here.
Within the Oort cloud it might not be so bad. Possibly we could use BFR-powered RAIRs for less than interstellar distances, perhaps long before we had practical interstellar ramjets.
In any case, the utility of interstellar hydrogen for propulsion gas is, at the moment, of use primarily to writers of science fiction.
is.hitting.a.rather.dense.whisp.of.interstellar.gas.atm.that.is.held.together.by.some.sort.of.magnetic.field...
It's going to be really hard to emulate a human consciousness outside of a body because our brains swim in a gargantuanly complex biochemical-electrical soup of hormones and impulses. And putting one back in....Could you fly along in a coke can sized ship, deploy some nanites at your target to build factories etc., and eventually grow new bodies and transfer into them?
I have a hard time believing we'll ever be able to build a body, complete with memory and etc., such that you could call it a consciousness transfer.
But persistence of identity is mostly an illusion anyway, you might get 90% of a personality with something like John Barnes' psypyx. I suppose you would only care if you were programmed to care.
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Heath_h49008
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Does it matter?
It's the old Transporter Paradox... you still die... every time you are converted from matter to energy, or from a physical body to a computer simulation... you die, and a functional copy goes on.
No thanks.
Even considering relativistic issues, I would be happy as a clam to thrust out and back at 1G, and enjoy the fact I came back 100 years in the future.
I keep wondering... as your craft approaches C, your reaction mass also increases at the same rate as the rest of the ship it's pushing...
That should mean that the delta v required is a stable quantity based upon time (Relative time) and not upon the force required if the ship were driven from the outside.
It's the old Transporter Paradox... you still die... every time you are converted from matter to energy, or from a physical body to a computer simulation... you die, and a functional copy goes on.
No thanks.
Even considering relativistic issues, I would be happy as a clam to thrust out and back at 1G, and enjoy the fact I came back 100 years in the future.
I keep wondering... as your craft approaches C, your reaction mass also increases at the same rate as the rest of the ship it's pushing...
That should mean that the delta v required is a stable quantity based upon time (Relative time) and not upon the force required if the ship were driven from the outside.
If all that makes you "you" goes on in the robot body, what is the real difference? Do you stop being "you" if you loose your limbs and use prosthetics? Where does it stop? Fake hand? Fake legs? All your limbs? Limbs plus mechanical heart?Heath_h49008 wrote:Does it matter?
It's the old Transporter Paradox... you still die... every time you are converted from matter to energy, or from a physical body to a computer simulation... you die, and a functional copy goes on.
No thanks.
Consider the robot body the ultimate in prosthetics.
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Heath_h49008
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- Joined: Wed Jan 27, 2010 9:12 pm
- Location: Michigan
Your experience of continuity is an illusion of the brain's slow processing speed.Heath_h49008 wrote:Because that benefits the universe who will get to enjoy my continued presence, but not me experiencing the universe.
I'm selfish.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
I agree. I just had an argument over this issue with a friend of mine a few days ago. I believe it will be possible to map the brain down to the near molecular level such as to "store" someone's identity inactively in computer memory, sort of a digital version of cryonics, in the next 50 years or so. However, I do not believe it is possible to recreate a person to live actively as software simulation in the next 50 years.TallDave wrote:It's going to be really hard to emulate a human consciousness outside of a body because our brains swim in a gargantuanly complex biochemical-electrical soup of hormones and impulses. And putting one back in....Could you fly along in a coke can sized ship, deploy some nanites at your target to build factories etc., and eventually grow new bodies and transfer into them?
I have a hard time believing we'll ever be able to build a body, complete with memory and etc., such that you could call it a consciousness transfer.
But persistence of identity is mostly an illusion anyway, you might get 90% of a personality with something like John Barnes' psypyx. I suppose you would only care if you were programmed to care.
In the digital version of cryonics, once you recreated the necessary industrial infrastructure in the target system, you would use some kind of regenerative process (based on synthetic biology) to grow new bodies for the crew and colonists, then recreate the neuro-structures such as to match those in computer memory so as to re-create the colonists as biological beings again. I believe this will be possible by the end of the century and, barring any breakthroughs in physics (FTL, wormholes), this will be how we go to the stars.
Well, this is true, but the truth is IMHO more complicated.It's the old Transporter Paradox... you still die... every time you are converted from matter to energy, or from a physical body to a computer simulation... you die, and a functional copy goes on.
The thing is, as some have pointed out already, that your counsciousness is not linear anyway. IMHO we are constantly dieing if you want to look at it that way. Anything that you do and that you experiences changes you. It changes who you are. The brain just somehow manages to "smoothen" this out. Call it some "subroutine" that masks the constant change.
The other problem is that, at least IMHO, our physical bodies do have an influence on who we are. Our minds are to a large extend controlled by our hormones, our genes, heck even what we consume makes a difference (e.g. a diet high in sugar has been recently found influence your behaviour). So does our self perception. In some ways our minds are not only controlling our bodies, but our bodies are influencing our minds as well.
If you separate the human brain from the body, you take away some of what makes you you.
That is one problem. There are other problems to it and honestly I gave up thinking to much about it a long time ago, or I would have gone nuts.
Especially since my actual death last may, I dont dare thinking about this anymore. It is very disturbing.
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CaptainBeowulf
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Hormones and the limbic system are one of the more difficult parts... without those, you would potentially be completely emotionless. Things like curiosity and desire to explore are as much emotions as anything... so you would have to find a way to emulate hormones in software if you didn't want to end up being a computer consciousness that just sits there because it doesn't care about anything anymore.
Also, you need emotions to preserve a moral center. I doubt we want highly intelligent consciousnesses with control over advanced computers and robotics running around with no sense of right and wrong...
Also, you need emotions to preserve a moral center. I doubt we want highly intelligent consciousnesses with control over advanced computers and robotics running around with no sense of right and wrong...