From: Marko Cebokli (s57uuu_at_hamradio.si)
Date: Fri Aug 19 2005 - 14:24:21 UTC
Hello,
I haven't read Egan, but that sounds logical - an intelligent entity will
always want to play with creating something new, and "cyberspace" is
very well suited for that, since it's not limited like the surface of a
planet.
another way I can think about this follows:
(also borrowing from Dawkins a little)
Death of organisms is probably beneficial for biological gene-space evolution
in a limited environment (like a planet)
However the evolution of ideas takes place in meme-space and there is no
reason why it should depend on things that effect gene-space evolution.
The equivalent of organism death in meme-space would be "death of ideas"
and that can certainly happen without killing an organism (only elephants
never forget :-)
New ideas simply do not come into this world ready-packed in the brains
of newborn humans. You have to stuff a brain with most of the old ideas
before it can produce new ones.
Another reason why people are suspicious about immortality is probably that
"it is a sin for mortals to aspire to things that only belong to gods."
Our culture has suffered for millenia under the dictature of religion and
even we atheists carry some inherited brain-scars of this kind...
Marko Cebokli
On Thursday 18 August 2005 20:56, you wrote:
> Hello Marko,
> You have raised several interesting points that have merit.
> Two points that intrigued me the most were namely:
> "So if ever, real immortality will only be reached on artificial
> non-biological substrates (conscious computers) where you can use backup
> copies
> to avoid accidental death." and "Such systems can be upgraded and changed
> "while alive" so no
> need for "new persons" to get novelty and improvement."
>
> Have you ever read the Australian Science Fiction Writer Greg Egan? In his
> novel "Diaspora" our Immortal descendants live in cyberspace as you
> outlined above, but they create new individuals through a process involving
> the use of genetic algorithms (these are the software equivalent of DNA
> in the field of Artificial Life). So even within the scenario you outlined
> you can still have the emergence of new sentient beings with each passing
> generation and have Immortality at the same time.
>
> Marko Cebokli wrote:
> > Hello Alex,
> >
> > you know the story about the fox and the sour grapes?
> >
> > I think most of the "immortality bashing" is done for the same
> > reason - the same old psychological defense mechanism that
> > reduces our frustration by declaring things that we can't have as not
> > worth having.
> >
> > The "no new folks - no new ideas" mantra doesn't impress me very much -
> > just think what kind of wonderful ideas one could have based on
> > 500 years of life experience...
> >
> > Anyway, removing all biological death causes, the average lifespan
> > wouldn't be much more than 1k years, because of accidents, murders
> > etc.
> >
> > So if ever, real immortality will only be reached on artificial
> > non-biological substrates (conscious computers) where you can use backup
> > copies to avoid accidental death.
> >
> > Such systems can be upgraded and changed "while alive" so no
> > need for "new persons" to get novelty and improvement.
> >
> > Marko Cebokli
> >
> > On Wednesday 17 August 2005 23:11, you wrote:
> > > Hello Once Again Gang,
> > > In several Science Fiction novels that have
> > > explored "The Immortality Option", the ones that come to mind include
> > > "Against the Fall of Night" and "The City and the Stars" by Arthur C.
> > > Clarke, and finally "The Giants Trilogy" by James P. Hogan, didn't
> > > immortality lead to a stagnation in the societies (whether human or
> > > alien) that chose it?
> > >
> > > The stagnation as depicted in these novels was usually cultural,
> > > scientific, and technological. From the stand point of evolution (both
> > > biological and cultural) isn't death a good thing? It leaves the way
> > > open for new experiments in humanity. Meaning new people replace the
> > > old, thus bringing forth new thoughts, ideas, and concepts into the
> > > world. Could we view death as an important factor in our continual
> > > evolution as a species and a society? Could we view "The Immortality
> > > Option" a form of "Temporal Imperialism" robbing future generations of
> > > their place in the world?
> > >
> > >
> > > In the novel "Tech-Heaven" Linda Nagata presents a future Earth where
> > > nano technology and cryonics is perfected. These breakthroughs cause
> > > huge sociological disruption. The future society depicted in the novel
> > > comes up with an interesting solution, they decide that all cryonauts
> > > who are revived and immortals should emigrate to space.
> > >
> > >
> > > I only present these questions to open this topic for what may prove an
> > > interesting discussion.
> > >
> > > Alex
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.6 : Fri Aug 19 2005 - 14:31:37 UTC