Re: ROBOT: Your Flexible Friend

From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Fri Mar 16 2001 - 22:47:40 MST


> No silly, they only ran the simulation once up to the first
> Homo erectus. The billions of simulations running now all
> started at that point. The dinosaurs only lived once.
> They just leave the dinosaurs in the sim because their fossils
> serve to create the dynamic tension between the scientists
> and the creationists and thats the point of the sim -- what
> is the probability that conditions can be flipped and we will
> see that a majority will survive and triumph to ride the wave
> given the fact that the people preparing to do so are currently
> an inconsequential drop in the bucket?
>
> Robert

Oh, I dunno. I guess the probability is in the neighborhood of... an
inconsequential drop in the bucket you say? Yeah, that sounds about right.
So eventually the fight will be between the immortalist humans and
immortal machines. (Or the Terrans and Cosmists, as de Garis speculates.)
Some SF "fleshers" who can't keep up with fast evolving machines will
consider them a threat, and others will consider smart and autonomous
robots as quasi-children. Either way, humanity as we know it is doomed.
Nothing new there. Same old tired drama.

Stay hungry,

--J. R.

Useless hypotheses: consciousness, phlogiston, philosophy, vitalism, mind,
free will



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