Unfortunatly, we don't know what the limiting conditions of nanotech replicators would be yet.
A suffieciently robust replicator could go 'goo'.
What if the limiting condition is the amount of carbon in the environment? This makes sense - if we can make nanobots out of diamond, they would be pretty robust (of course, I have no idea what the composition of workable nano-replictors would have to be). Such a replicator that went "malignant" would then convert as much carbon as it could grab into copies of it'self. Unfortunatly, most of the Earth's biosphere, atmosphere, and mantle are composed of large percentages of carbon.
Now you might claim - and rightfully so - that they could be limited by their energy source. However - let's postulate a geothermal/solar energy flow.
You ALSO might object that I am simply making up conditions that lead to 'grey goo' that are improbable in that they are not likely to ever occur accidently.
Howver - 'Goo' comes in more flavors than grey. A 'Gray Goo' scenerio is far less likely, I think, than a 'Black Goo' scenerio: A 'rouge' replicator that decimates the biosphere and is DELIBERATLY designed to do so. You might also check out 'Red Goo' - which is genetically targeted 'Goo' - only take out genetically distict sub-sets of the population - such as Blacks, Jews (no, I am not anti-semitic, but there ARE genetic patterns which are most prominent - not unique - in the Jewish population. Such a 'target' profile would have a high 'collateral damage' factor - but some nutcase would probably use it), or Caucausians.
Such 'targeted' Goo scenerios do NOT require random chance to line up their 'initial conditions' just right. Some one brings them about.
I am not being, I think, particularly alarmist. I am enough of a realist to realize that we're not going to stop nanotech by worrying about it, or because it might be dangerous in the right situations. IF IT IS POSSIBLE to develop self-replicating nanomachines (and we don't know that is it - we just think it is - we could be wrong) then someone will do it.
So, what do we do? Accept that there is going to be a LARGE SCALE nano-oops (if it is possible to do) anyways?
Personally, I think that if we determine that large scale nanotech IS possible, we need to dump into a crash research program into developing a 'BLUE Goo' system: Self-replicating, environmentally omni-present nanobots whose sole purpose is to hunt-and-destroy 'rouge replicators' - a nanotech biosphere immunization:)
Actually - you can modify a standard diesal engine to burn a fuel made from canola oil. My father runs a diversified agri-business. We looked into it. We could convert 1/3 of our growing acreage to canola, and produce all our own fuel - become energy self-sufficient.
However, the econimics of it - cheaper to use it for cropland (income) and buy cheap fuel. No need to invest in fuel production infrastructure, etc.
I don't know about you, but if I was a company, and I paid for an ad timeslot, and I got filtered out by someone's perceptual filter, and YOU (as another company) put YOUR ads in a timeframe that I paid for, I'd sue your ass!
Seriously though, yes, if you had the option of 'filtering out' ads, you probably would have to pay more - SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE has to pay for media development. You think that the 'media fairy' hands out $$$ to artists to create stuff? Theoretically, this is what art councils are for - but in this day and age people don't seem to want to pony up TAX dollars for the arts, so you gotta PAY for them - weather it's a subscription fee (cable, ad-free), or ad-revenue driven (broadcast TV which is theoretically free), or a combination (your cable company carrying programs with SOME ads, but not as many).
If you're looking for good quality content that you DON'T have to pay for one way or another (taxes, advertising, or subscription fees), I'd like to know where you think the money for development and creation of such material is going to come from?
Personally, I'd LOVE to see more 'user supported' systems like PBS, etc - but the well is only so deep for that sort of thing.
Actually - as much as a love Ray Bradbury's work, he is not what you would class as hard science fiction. He definatly violates the science KNOWN IN HIS TIME to make literary and story points. This is not a bad thing. He's a fantastic storyteller and author - but we're talking about genre classification.
Me, I don't care if you want to call him 'post-modernist neo-trantorian steam-punk'. I still love his books.
To stop from violating YOUR sense filter, don't I have to know what it is, and vice-versa? I might not WANT you to know what my filters are doing. (no, really, NO ONE is naked in my filter, honest).
Besides... what happens if I'm dealing with two people at the same time, and doing action A will violate person #1's sense filter, and NOT doing action A will violate person B's? (If I dodge the imaginary tiger, for example. Does it not exist and can't be reacted to, or does it exist and DEMANDS reaction?).
hmm... now, I don't know what to do about 'invisible assailants' (that make me chuckle, btw) or paying for bandwidth by ads that I don't ever see, but finding a replacement for things that are blocked out shouldn't be a problem: I'll use the time/perceptual space to view my collection of por... classical art - much like I have on my screen-saver, or wallpaper.
Heck - I can even see a new art form growing up around that. Subscribe to 'Ad-ventures', the new series of 15-second serial story vinettes, shown to you in place of commercial advertising! Why follow just one story when you can follow two?!
I think this has the potential to take things WAY to far.
One could argue that if one has one's 'filters' set to high, one can end up screening out anything NEW. New experiences are what keeps the mind growing. So - I have visions of hordes of drones soaked in a safe, porn-tinted perceptual cocoon.
Not saying that the idea doesn't have merit, but I think it can be abused.
I'd say... go for a 5% 'totally random material' bypass;)
Re:IANARS, so I wonder...
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Saving Hubble
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· Score: 3, Informative
"They lie at equal distance from Earth and Moon, in the Moon's orbit..."
The stable L-points are as far away as the MOON!!! L4 and L5 are the stable ones - in that they are 'self-correcting' - put something in L4 or L5, knock it out of position, and as long as you didn't knock it TOO hard, it will return to the L-point. The others are like balancing on a pin. If you 'slip' you keep getting pushed AWAY from the L-point.
The shuttle program is NOT making spacecraft capable of trans-lunar orbit burns!
It's really not hard to check these things. Google is an adequate tool to check your facts.
Re:Common sense revolution
on
Saving Hubble
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· Score: 4, Informative
It's a nice peice of equipment, but it's not going to last for decades to come.
Parts are wearing out (two of the 6 gyros have already failed - and that's AFTER some of them have been replaced on shuttle missions), and it actually uses consumables (like orientation thruster propellant), so it always HAD a limited lifespan. In fact - it's projected life span is just about up.
There WERE plans to capture it, bring it home, 'refurbish' it, and redeploy, but the shuttle is required for this. It looks like Hubble will limp along for a little, but it's not expected to survive past 2007.
In fact, NASA has been planning on replacing it for decades - that was always the original plan. I don't know how much the James Webb Space Telescope has been affected by the shake up in NASA, but it's been meant to replace the HST for a while now.
It's not possible to estimate how much petroleum EXITS. It IS possible to estimate how much EASILY FINDABLE and EASILY EXTRACTABLE petroleum there is - and THAT is what we are running out of.
There is more oil in the 'tar sands' of northern Alberta in Canada than ever existed in Saudi Arabia! It's just that we can't get the damn stuff OUT economically! Same goes for 'oil shale' beds. Grillions of barrels of oil - all out of reach by any known economical methods.
The usual response is "yes, but we'll get to that when we have all the cheap oil developed" - which is probably true. We'll NEED the oil, so we'll get it. But that STILL doesn't make it CHEAP oil. We'll get it, at 5-10 times the current development costs ($15 a gallon gasoline anyone?) - PROVIDED someone doesn't stumble across an amazingly simple and cheap extraction method - which might happen, but who can tell?
However, even if we discovered the Red Sea was really made of prime grade crude, it STILL doesn't mean we shouldn't be looking at cleaner and cheaper forms of power.
I guess we're already screwed.
Those several 1000 tons of meteorites, micrometeorite dust, etc that fall on Earth, plus the same amount that falls on the moon have doomed us all!
After all, you said the samllest mass change!
I imagine that the amount of meteor accumulation is AT LEAST equal to the several 1000 tons of He3 being discussed!
Even if we're talking several million tons of He3, it just takes a good sized impactor to make up that mass. CLUE: check the surface of the Moon - those DO happen now and then.
NO. I am NOT saying "YOU can't really know that YOU are YOU anymore, so nobody should look be looking forward to transhumanism." I assume that IF you are in control of what happens to you, you WILL be able to chart a 'connection of self-awareness' from one version to the other. I am just saying that in a 'Singularity', what makes you think that YOU will control what happens to you?
First of all - I'm not saying you can't look forward to transhumanism. HOWEVER - I might point out that there is a BIG difference between a transition to a transhuman state - and experiencing a technological singularity. You seem to be speaking of the former in your response - while your original statement seemed to be about the later. It is possible to have a transhuman that is NOT post-singularity. This is referred to as 'obtaining the AI advantage'. You get perfect memory, lighting calculation, run your 'program' in a big rack of optical processors, etc. etc. - BUT the basic level and STRUCTURE of your cognitive processes remains more-or-less intact. They may CHANGE over time, due to decisions that YOU make. This is what I refer to as 'soft' transhumanism - and I think it's a GOOD scenerio. In fact, it's the best possible scenerio. Not the most likely - just the best for US.
You seem to ASSUME this scenerio. In this scenerio, YOU get to choose what happens to you. YOU get to finally upgrade yourself, etc.
However - in the case of a technological singularity EVERYTHING changes. Asymptotically accelerated chages in technology result in a 'punctuated equalibrium' and PRESTO the entire basis of (technological?) reality 'lurches' and changes. And it changes in ways we CANNOT predict without going through it. What makes you ASSUME that YOU (or any human) gets to control that change - even if it's just the changes to themselves. What if the 'uber network' of peer-to-peer toaster ovens suddenly becomes self-aware, intelligent (but of a KIND of intelligence that is totally alien to human thought processes - this is almost the DEFINITION of a post-singularity intelligence), discovers (or hi-jacks existing) nano-technoloy, and re-writes the macro-atomic structure of the Earth's lithosphere down to the mantle. It might not even be AWARE that there are biological life forms until there aren't any more. Now - for US - this is a WORST case scenerio. Not a reality, not a certainty, just a possibility. I CANNOT assign probability - and I don't think anyone can.
Even if evolving non-human-based post-singularity intelligence(s) IS/ARE aware of biological intelligences - what makes you think they'll CARE? Yes - you are correct - it would be computationally trivial (in an enviroment that COULD be composed of a large percentage of computronium) to simulate your 'pristine' human state. It's computationally insignificant to simulate a paramecium on your desktop. Yet there is no massive run on 'microbe backup' software. We just don't CARE about the individual live of microbes.
There is NO reason to think that a transhuman intelligence would be ethically mandated to maintain backups of all previous 'versions' of Earth, including, incidently yourself. You cannot know the mind of a trancendent intelligence - especially as it NEED NOT BE BASED ON YOU. What makes you think that it will be ethically madated to act in ANY way? I CERTAINLY can't say that it will NOT backup everything - and for the same reason - but saying that something is not forbidden is a LONG way from saying it's mandatory.
I am not saying 'Singularity Bad!' - I am saying 'Singularity Unknowable' - and making rosy, blue-sky predictions on how wonderful it will be to suddenly be a God is naive in the extreme. While this is a possibility, it is by no means the only one.
Actually I've seen a scenerio like this proposed with 'Software Agents' and 'Wearable Computers'. It works like this.
I have my nifty 'info-matic(tm)' glasses on. It has a GPS system and is connects to the WiFi network. I run into you on the street. My system detects your system in 'range'. My software agent starts hunting (your blog, your girlfriends blog, your EXgirlfriends blog, your mother's blog, the corporate website of the people you work for...) and PRESTO - an instant, 4-paragraph summary of YOU, overlaid over the visual field, just below your face:)
It's everybody's favorite gameshow 'Bait The Transhumanist!'... *applause*
If you agree that the Singularity is inevitable, then it really doesn't matter if we get smacked by an asteriod or not. It is the END of humanity.
Trancendent intelligence - by definition - is not even remotely human. Most 'sunny day transhumanists' seen to have the impression that they'll 'up-load', 'houseclean' out all the NASTY side effects of biological evolution, and presto! ME v2.0.
If you SERIOUSLY take a stab at a philosophical inquiry into the nature of 'post singularity intelligence', then you run up against the NASTY probability (not inevitability, but probability) that whatever tattered remains of YOU that would survive a Singularity, it's not going to be that cheery.
If you're PART of the Trancendence, then what makes you think that your ego will survive? The you that is self-aware? You might be 'reprogrammed' to be 'module' in a higher order mind - and the YOU part is simply washed out.
If you're not part of the Transendence - what makes you think a higher level intelligence will even notice humanity. Or notice that they got wiped out when it reorganized the biosphere so it would be more comfortable?
Most transhumanists seem to think that a technological singularity is the technological equivelent of 'The Rapture'. It could very well be evolution side stepping YOU entirely.
Actually - we DO have a way of figuring out how many impacts of significant size. Several techniques at least.
First - there is the 'ash layer' found at the K-T boundary. The clay at this layer has concentrations of heavy metals that cannot be accounted for by geological distrubution. I believe there is WAY to much Osmium in that layer - the theory being that the impactor had a large amount of this metal in it. I don't know if there are OTHER such layers in the geological record or not - but if there are, then you can date impactors of a sufficiently large size.
Secondly - if the asteriod in question has a high concentration of iron, or other ferro-magnetic metals, then it will show up as a distortion in the earth's magnetic field. This occurs because the asteriod mass gets 'embedded' in the earth's surface. You are correct that the surface features can (and are) scrubbed away by geological forces - but the mass tends to live on 'under the skin' for billions of years. I would guess (but only guess), that eventually the impactor mass is recycled just like the rest of the earth's surface - but it endures for billions of years.
Thirdly, even if the mass is NOT ferro-magnetic, it's mass causes GRAVITATIONAL anomolies. Very slight, but they CAN (and have!) been mapped from orbit (see the upcoming NASA GRACE project). Again, this is because the impactor tends to 'stay put' for billenia. This is how the Chicxulub impact crater - the one thought to be THE 'dinosaur killer' - was imaged.
Now - you're right. All this tells us is HOW MANY impactors OF A CERTAIN SIZE RANGE there have been within the last couple of billion years.
It can't tell you if an asteriod will smack us tomorrow or not. I don't agree that it has NO bearing - it can allow us to give statisitical probabilities - but you're right if you're thinking that even if there is a 1 in a trillion chance of it happening tomorrow, it still CAN.
Take our ant, walking along the 1-D string, thinking he's in a 1D universe.
The string is twisted and curved so that it 'spans' a 3D space (ball of string), while remaining 1D in nature. All well and good so far.
Now... imagine that instead of a STRING, we have a RUBBER BAND. Now - and this is the clever part - STRETCH the band, WHILE it's wrapped up in a ball.
Ok - so that's physically impossible... but you hopefully understand what I mean. The 'inflation', or stretching, of spacetime doesn't affect it's curvature into higher dimensions - or at least it NEED NOT do so - I don't know if it DOES.
Why should multiple dimensions mirror other dimensions? Is there *any* part of theory which states this?!
Hmm... now, I'm no theoretical physicist - but bear with me.
I believe that under one particular variant of Quantum Mechanics - and remember that String Theory(tm) is a superset of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity - you get the 'many-worlds hypothesis'. I believe that it's under the 'Copenhagen Interpertation' of Quantum Mechanics.
Now - according to the MWH, whenever a quantum probability function has to collapse (ie. the universe has to choose - is the particle there, or there, and by what path did it get there) it collapses to all possible states, and reality diverges. This means that the particle goes to all points that is can, by every path that it can, but only chooses one destination-path-pair per diverging reality.
This means that each new reality is a very minor variant on the parent universe, and on each other. This means, of course, that except for that one very small difference, each 'new' reality is identical.
So, in answer to your question - Yes, there is a part of the theory that says that branching realities that are close to one another DO 'mirror each other'.
1. Find a site that supplies 'freeware' HTML templates. 2. Find one you like, or can modify. Fix it. 3. Fill in the blanks with your conent. 4. Profit!
And in some cases - where blogs and personal sites are written by intelligent and articulate people - they are reviving the art of the formal essay (which DOES actually have a literary purpose outside the high school class room!) - although I'm sure many people call them ARTICLES now:)
Yahoo has it's 'user directory' - which you can opt out of.
However, the biggest offense on Yahoo is the 'chat rooms'. I can't count know how many times that 'marketing bots' have wandered into one of the totally innocous chat rooms and spew 'porn-o-matic' messages into the room (complete with links) and vanished.
I also suspect that the 'spam bots' on yahoo chat rooms do 'profile lookups' of people in the rooms they see and do an email harvest.
It's not a hard fix to get rid of - but it has to be done by Yahoo. Messenger has an 'ignore feature, and if you had an option to 'auto ignore' anyone who spoke a URL aloud (ok, you MIGHT get real people too - but how often do YOU state URLs in casual convertaion. Maybe a bad question to ask/.'ers;> ).
However, Yahoo provides a free service - so there is no real incentive to fix it. There a few 'third party' proxy programs that allow you SOME of this added functionality. Perhaps such anti-spim features will be in an 'upgraded' pay service:p
Did you count how many teams there are from each country?
Now - while one of the front contenders happens to be American: Scaled Composites, there are some teams that are making good progress that aren't (gasp!) Americans! Perish the thought!
Heck - there are even Canadian teams that have performed successful final engine design tests, and picked final flight crews: Canadian Arrow.
The Internet also gives us the ability to offset such media distortions, with... other media distortions, ironically:)
My current news aggregrator grabs content from CNN,CBC,BBC, and... Al-Jazeera. Plus many more.
NONE, and I mean NONE of these sources are going to be 'tamper-free' and unbiased. However, I think that you CAN use multiple sources of approximatly oppotite spin.
For example - if you read Time, you should also read/.;)
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunatly, we don't know what the limiting conditions of nanotech replicators would be yet.
:)
A suffieciently robust replicator could go 'goo'.
What if the limiting condition is the amount of carbon in the environment? This makes sense - if we can make nanobots out of diamond, they would be pretty robust (of course, I have no idea what the composition of workable nano-replictors would have to be). Such a replicator that went "malignant" would then convert as much carbon as it could grab into copies of it'self. Unfortunatly, most of the Earth's biosphere, atmosphere, and mantle are composed of large percentages of carbon.
Now you might claim - and rightfully so - that they could be limited by their energy source. However - let's postulate a geothermal/solar energy flow.
You ALSO might object that I am simply making up conditions that lead to 'grey goo' that are improbable in that they are not likely to ever occur accidently.
Howver - 'Goo' comes in more flavors than grey. A 'Gray Goo' scenerio is far less likely, I think, than a 'Black Goo' scenerio: A 'rouge' replicator that decimates the biosphere and is DELIBERATLY designed to do so. You might also check out 'Red Goo' - which is genetically targeted 'Goo' - only take out genetically distict sub-sets of the population - such as Blacks, Jews (no, I am not anti-semitic, but there ARE genetic patterns which are most prominent - not unique - in the Jewish population. Such a 'target' profile would have a high 'collateral damage' factor - but some nutcase would probably use it), or Caucausians.
Such 'targeted' Goo scenerios do NOT require random chance to line up their 'initial conditions' just right. Some one brings them about.
I am not being, I think, particularly alarmist. I am enough of a realist to realize that we're not going to stop nanotech by worrying about it, or because it might be dangerous in the right situations. IF IT IS POSSIBLE to develop self-replicating nanomachines (and we don't know that is it - we just think it is - we could be wrong) then someone will do it.
So, what do we do? Accept that there is going to be a LARGE SCALE nano-oops (if it is possible to do) anyways?
Personally, I think that if we determine that large scale nanotech IS possible, we need to dump into a crash research program into developing a 'BLUE Goo' system: Self-replicating, environmentally omni-present nanobots whose sole purpose is to hunt-and-destroy 'rouge replicators' - a nanotech biosphere immunization
Actually - you can modify a standard diesal engine to burn a fuel made from canola oil. My father runs a diversified agri-business. We looked into it. We could convert 1/3 of our growing acreage to canola, and produce all our own fuel - become energy self-sufficient.
However, the econimics of it - cheaper to use it for cropland (income) and buy cheap fuel. No need to invest in fuel production infrastructure, etc.
Hey! Are you badmouthing Strongbad?!? DELETED!!
However, I think you are more likely pointing out the 'web-design tips' being handed out in that particular episode.
I don't know about you, but if I was a company, and I paid for an ad timeslot, and I got filtered out by someone's perceptual filter, and YOU (as another company) put YOUR ads in a timeframe that I paid for, I'd sue your ass!
Seriously though, yes, if you had the option of 'filtering out' ads, you probably would have to pay more - SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE has to pay for media development. You think that the 'media fairy' hands out $$$ to artists to create stuff? Theoretically, this is what art councils are for - but in this day and age people don't seem to want to pony up TAX dollars for the arts, so you gotta PAY for them - weather it's a subscription fee (cable, ad-free), or ad-revenue driven (broadcast TV which is theoretically free), or a combination (your cable company carrying programs with SOME ads, but not as many).
If you're looking for good quality content that you DON'T have to pay for one way or another (taxes, advertising, or subscription fees), I'd like to know where you think the money for development and creation of such material is going to come from?
Personally, I'd LOVE to see more 'user supported' systems like PBS, etc - but the well is only so deep for that sort of thing.
Actually - as much as a love Ray Bradbury's work, he is not what you would class as hard science fiction. He definatly violates the science KNOWN IN HIS TIME to make literary and story points. This is not a bad thing. He's a fantastic storyteller and author - but we're talking about genre classification.
Me, I don't care if you want to call him 'post-modernist neo-trantorian steam-punk'. I still love his books.
How is this even possible NOT to do?
To stop from violating YOUR sense filter, don't I have to know what it is, and vice-versa? I might not WANT you to know what my filters are doing. (no, really, NO ONE is naked in my filter, honest).
Besides... what happens if I'm dealing with two people at the same time, and doing action A will violate person #1's sense filter, and NOT doing action A will violate person B's? (If I dodge the imaginary tiger, for example. Does it not exist and can't be reacted to, or does it exist and DEMANDS reaction?).
hmm... now, I don't know what to do about 'invisible assailants' (that make me chuckle, btw) or paying for bandwidth by ads that I don't ever see, but finding a replacement for things that are blocked out shouldn't be a problem: I'll use the time/perceptual space to view my collection of por... classical art - much like I have on my screen-saver, or wallpaper.
Heck - I can even see a new art form growing up around that. Subscribe to 'Ad-ventures', the new series of 15-second serial story vinettes, shown to you in place of commercial advertising! Why follow just one story when you can follow two?!
I think this has the potential to take things WAY to far.
One could argue that if one has one's 'filters' set to high, one can end up screening out anything NEW. New experiences are what keeps the mind growing. So - I have visions of hordes of drones soaked in a safe, porn-tinted perceptual cocoon.
Not saying that the idea doesn't have merit, but I think it can be abused.
I'd say... go for a 5% 'totally random material' bypass
Um... the LaGrange points?
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing...
Check this.
"They lie at equal distance from Earth and Moon, in the Moon's orbit..."
The stable L-points are as far away as the MOON!!! L4 and L5 are the stable ones - in that they are 'self-correcting' - put something in L4 or L5, knock it out of position, and as long as you didn't knock it TOO hard, it will return to the L-point. The others are like balancing on a pin. If you 'slip' you keep getting pushed AWAY from the L-point.
The shuttle program is NOT making spacecraft capable of trans-lunar orbit burns!
It's really not hard to check these things. Google is an adequate tool to check your facts.
It's a nice peice of equipment, but it's not going to last for decades to come.
Parts are wearing out (two of the 6 gyros have already failed - and that's AFTER some of them have been replaced on shuttle missions), and it actually uses consumables (like orientation thruster propellant), so it always HAD a limited lifespan. In fact - it's projected life span is just about up.
There WERE plans to capture it, bring it home, 'refurbish' it, and redeploy, but the shuttle is required for this. It looks like Hubble will limp along for a little, but it's not expected to survive past 2007.
In fact, NASA has been planning on replacing it for decades - that was always the original plan. I don't know how much the James Webb Space Telescope has been affected by the shake up in NASA, but it's been meant to replace the HST for a while now.
You are, and are not correct.
It's not possible to estimate how much petroleum EXITS. It IS possible to estimate how much EASILY FINDABLE and EASILY EXTRACTABLE petroleum there is - and THAT is what we are running out of.
There is more oil in the 'tar sands' of northern Alberta in Canada than ever existed in Saudi Arabia! It's just that we can't get the damn stuff OUT economically! Same goes for 'oil shale' beds. Grillions of barrels of oil - all out of reach by any known economical methods.
The usual response is "yes, but we'll get to that when we have all the cheap oil developed" - which is probably true. We'll NEED the oil, so we'll get it. But that STILL doesn't make it CHEAP oil. We'll get it, at 5-10 times the current development costs ($15 a gallon gasoline anyone?) - PROVIDED someone doesn't stumble across an amazingly simple and cheap extraction method - which might happen, but who can tell?
However, even if we discovered the Red Sea was really made of prime grade crude, it STILL doesn't mean we shouldn't be looking at cleaner and cheaper forms of power.
I guess we're already screwed. Those several 1000 tons of meteorites, micrometeorite dust, etc that fall on Earth, plus the same amount that falls on the moon have doomed us all! After all, you said the samllest mass change! I imagine that the amount of meteor accumulation is AT LEAST equal to the several 1000 tons of He3 being discussed! Even if we're talking several million tons of He3, it just takes a good sized impactor to make up that mass. CLUE: check the surface of the Moon - those DO happen now and then.
NO. I am NOT saying "YOU can't really know that YOU are YOU anymore, so nobody should look be looking forward to transhumanism." I assume that IF you are in control of what happens to you, you WILL be able to chart a 'connection of self-awareness' from one version to the other. I am just saying that in a 'Singularity', what makes you think that YOU will control what happens to you?
First of all - I'm not saying you can't look forward to transhumanism. HOWEVER - I might point out that there is a BIG difference between a transition to a transhuman state - and experiencing a technological singularity. You seem to be speaking of the former in your response - while your original statement seemed to be about the later. It is possible to have a transhuman that is NOT post-singularity. This is referred to as 'obtaining the AI advantage'. You get perfect memory, lighting calculation, run your 'program' in a big rack of optical processors, etc. etc. - BUT the basic level and STRUCTURE of your cognitive processes remains more-or-less intact. They may CHANGE over time, due to decisions that YOU make. This is what I refer to as 'soft' transhumanism - and I think it's a GOOD scenerio. In fact, it's the best possible scenerio. Not the most likely - just the best for US.
You seem to ASSUME this scenerio. In this scenerio, YOU get to choose what happens to you. YOU get to finally upgrade yourself, etc.
However - in the case of a technological singularity EVERYTHING changes. Asymptotically accelerated chages in technology result in a 'punctuated equalibrium' and PRESTO the entire basis of (technological?) reality 'lurches' and changes. And it changes in ways we CANNOT predict without going through it. What makes you ASSUME that YOU (or any human) gets to control that change - even if it's just the changes to themselves. What if the 'uber network' of peer-to-peer toaster ovens suddenly becomes self-aware, intelligent (but of a KIND of intelligence that is totally alien to human thought processes - this is almost the DEFINITION of a post-singularity intelligence), discovers (or hi-jacks existing) nano-technoloy, and re-writes the macro-atomic structure of the Earth's lithosphere down to the mantle. It might not even be AWARE that there are biological life forms until there aren't any more. Now - for US - this is a WORST case scenerio. Not a reality, not a certainty, just a possibility. I CANNOT assign probability - and I don't think anyone can.
Even if evolving non-human-based post-singularity intelligence(s) IS/ARE aware of biological intelligences - what makes you think they'll CARE? Yes - you are correct - it would be computationally trivial (in an enviroment that COULD be composed of a large percentage of computronium) to simulate your 'pristine' human state. It's computationally insignificant to simulate a paramecium on your desktop. Yet there is no massive run on 'microbe backup' software. We just don't CARE about the individual live of microbes.
There is NO reason to think that a transhuman intelligence would be ethically mandated to maintain backups of all previous 'versions' of Earth, including, incidently yourself. You cannot know the mind of a trancendent intelligence - especially as it NEED NOT BE BASED ON YOU. What makes you think that it will be ethically madated to act in ANY way? I CERTAINLY can't say that it will NOT backup everything - and for the same reason - but saying that something is not forbidden is a LONG way from saying it's mandatory.
I am not saying 'Singularity Bad!' - I am saying 'Singularity Unknowable' - and making rosy, blue-sky predictions on how wonderful it will be to suddenly be a God is naive in the extreme. While this is a possibility, it is by no means the only one.
Actually I've seen a scenerio like this proposed with 'Software Agents' and 'Wearable Computers'. It works like this.
:)
I have my nifty 'info-matic(tm)' glasses on. It has a GPS system and is connects to the WiFi network. I run into you on the street. My system detects your system in 'range'. My software agent starts hunting (your blog, your girlfriends blog, your EXgirlfriends blog, your mother's blog, the corporate website of the people you work for...) and PRESTO - an instant, 4-paragraph summary of YOU, overlaid over the visual field, just below your face
It's everybody's favorite gameshow 'Bait The Transhumanist!' ... *applause*
If you agree that the Singularity is inevitable, then it really doesn't matter if we get smacked by an asteriod or not. It is the END of humanity.
Trancendent intelligence - by definition - is not even remotely human. Most 'sunny day transhumanists' seen to have the impression that they'll 'up-load', 'houseclean' out all the NASTY side effects of biological evolution, and presto! ME v2.0.
If you SERIOUSLY take a stab at a philosophical inquiry into the nature of 'post singularity intelligence', then you run up against the NASTY probability (not inevitability, but probability) that whatever tattered remains of YOU that would survive a Singularity, it's not going to be that cheery.
If you're PART of the Trancendence, then what makes you think that your ego will survive? The you that is self-aware? You might be 'reprogrammed' to be 'module' in a higher order mind - and the YOU part is simply washed out.
If you're not part of the Transendence - what makes you think a higher level intelligence will even notice humanity. Or notice that they got wiped out when it reorganized the biosphere so it would be more comfortable?
Most transhumanists seem to think that a technological singularity is the technological equivelent of 'The Rapture'. It could very well be evolution side stepping YOU entirely.
Actually - we DO have a way of figuring out how many impacts of significant size. Several techniques at least.
First - there is the 'ash layer' found at the K-T boundary. The clay at this layer has concentrations of heavy metals that cannot be accounted for by geological distrubution. I believe there is WAY to much Osmium in that layer - the theory being that the impactor had a large amount of this metal in it. I don't know if there are OTHER such layers in the geological record or not - but if there are, then you can date impactors of a sufficiently large size.
Secondly - if the asteriod in question has a high concentration of iron, or other ferro-magnetic metals, then it will show up as a distortion in the earth's magnetic field. This occurs because the asteriod mass gets 'embedded' in the earth's surface. You are correct that the surface features can (and are) scrubbed away by geological forces - but the mass tends to live on 'under the skin' for billions of years. I would guess (but only guess), that eventually the impactor mass is recycled just like the rest of the earth's surface - but it endures for billions of years.
Thirdly, even if the mass is NOT ferro-magnetic, it's mass causes GRAVITATIONAL anomolies. Very slight, but they CAN (and have!) been mapped from orbit (see the upcoming NASA GRACE project). Again, this is because the impactor tends to 'stay put' for billenia. This is how the Chicxulub impact crater - the one thought to be THE 'dinosaur killer' - was imaged.
Now - you're right. All this tells us is HOW MANY impactors OF A CERTAIN SIZE RANGE there have been within the last couple of billion years.
It can't tell you if an asteriod will smack us tomorrow or not. I don't agree that it has NO bearing - it can allow us to give statisitical probabilities - but you're right if you're thinking that even if there is a 1 in a trillion chance of it happening tomorrow, it still CAN.
Another way to look at it...
Take our ant, walking along the 1-D string, thinking he's in a 1D universe.
The string is twisted and curved so that it 'spans' a 3D space (ball of string), while remaining 1D in nature. All well and good so far.
Now... imagine that instead of a STRING, we have a RUBBER BAND. Now - and this is the clever part - STRETCH the band, WHILE it's wrapped up in a ball.
Ok - so that's physically impossible... but you hopefully understand what I mean. The 'inflation', or stretching, of spacetime doesn't affect it's curvature into higher dimensions - or at least it NEED NOT do so - I don't know if it DOES.
Why should multiple dimensions mirror other dimensions? Is there *any* part of theory which states this?!
Hmm... now, I'm no theoretical physicist - but bear with me.
I believe that under one particular variant of Quantum Mechanics - and remember that String Theory(tm) is a superset of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity - you get the 'many-worlds hypothesis'. I believe that it's under the 'Copenhagen Interpertation' of Quantum Mechanics.
Now - according to the MWH, whenever a quantum probability function has to collapse (ie. the universe has to choose - is the particle there, or there, and by what path did it get there) it collapses to all possible states, and reality diverges. This means that the particle goes to all points that is can, by every path that it can, but only chooses one destination-path-pair per diverging reality.
This means that each new reality is a very minor variant on the parent universe, and on each other. This means, of course, that except for that one very small difference, each 'new' reality is identical.
So, in answer to your question - Yes, there is a part of the theory that says that branching realities that are close to one another DO 'mirror each other'.
No - this was just making animals into barbeque sized portions - not the afore-mentioned animal porn :p
Maybe I shouldn't admit this - but I've worked in Meat Packing before I finished my degree and went into IT :o
1. Find a site that supplies 'freeware' HTML templates.
2. Find one you like, or can modify. Fix it.
3. Fill in the blanks with your conent.
4. Profit!
And in some cases - where blogs and personal sites are written by intelligent and articulate people - they are reviving the art of the formal essay (which DOES actually have a literary purpose outside the high school class room!) - although I'm sure many people call them ARTICLES now
Yahoo has it's 'user directory' - which you can opt out of.
However, the biggest offense on Yahoo is the 'chat rooms'. I can't count know how many times that 'marketing bots' have wandered into one of the totally innocous chat rooms and spew 'porn-o-matic' messages into the room (complete with links) and vanished.
I also suspect that the 'spam bots' on yahoo chat rooms do 'profile lookups' of people in the rooms they see and do an email harvest.
It's not a hard fix to get rid of - but it has to be done by Yahoo. Messenger has an 'ignore feature, and if you had an option to 'auto ignore' anyone who spoke a URL aloud (ok, you MIGHT get real people too - but how often do YOU state URLs in casual convertaion. Maybe a bad question to ask
However, Yahoo provides a free service - so there is no real incentive to fix it. There a few 'third party' proxy programs that allow you SOME of this added functionality. Perhaps such anti-spim features will be in an 'upgraded' pay service
Um... sure.
Did you even LOOK at the X-prize site?
Did you count how many teams there are from each country?
Now - while one of the front contenders happens to be American: Scaled Composites, there are some teams that are making good progress that aren't (gasp!) Americans! Perish the thought!
Heck - there are even Canadian teams that have performed successful final engine design tests, and picked final flight crews: Canadian Arrow.
Abso-fricken-lutely!
:)
/. ;)
The Internet also gives us the ability to offset such media distortions, with... other media distortions, ironically
My current news aggregrator grabs content from CNN,CBC,BBC, and... Al-Jazeera. Plus many more.
NONE, and I mean NONE of these sources are going to be 'tamper-free' and unbiased. However, I think that you CAN use multiple sources of approximatly oppotite spin.
For example - if you read Time, you should also read