On 9/12/00, at 10:53 PM, Samantha Atkins wrote:
>> > But: Just as we should go to space in part to avoid putting all our eggs
>> > in one basket, I think we should also have some solutions that fail-safe.
>> > Some of us sentients should live in habitats that are not dependent on
>> > advanced technology. That come with a biosphere that is capable of
>> > sustaining organic, sentient life without use of technology.
>How on earth (or off) would you do that? There is no place on earth
>that is not vulnerable to natural or manmade catastrophe. We don't have
>Vingean bobble fields after all. And there is no place off of earth
>that supports a human compatible biosphere without the use of LOTS of
>technology. So I am having trouble understanding what was meant.
>It will take a lot of tech to maintain an human supportive atmosphere
>and temperature on Mars even with nanotech. And what is this hangup on
>human (as we now know them) life support anyway? I would rather be able
>to morph my body or better still design one I could "step into" that
>best suits the environment and needs at hand.
Let me try again.
I think life and sentience are great. I don't know if there's a purpose to the
universe, but if there is, I bet life and sentience are key to it. (And if
there isn't a purpose, then by-gum we'll invent one! How about cheese?)
I want to see us spread out into the universe in such a way as to reduce to an
absolute minimum the risk of total extinction of sentient life.
There are three approaches to this, and they are not mutually exclusive:
Diversity, omnipresence, and adaptability.
I'd like to see sentient life everywhere, with lots of variations in form and
strategy. Organic, inorganic, hybrid, unmodified original stock, space-faring,
planet-bound, technology-based, technology-independent, fixed form, and
adaptive.
While we're building our high-tech solutions, let's either try to design them
so that they cannot fail, or so that if they fail, we still survive, or make
sure that there are some sentients that are not dependent on them.
By living in environments that require minimal tech to survive, like being an
old-style sentient on an old-style planet. Or by terraforming a world in a way
that requires no upkeep for millions of years. Or by modifying sentient bodies
to survive without technological assistance. Or by keeping the technology, but
building massive fault-tolerance and repair into it or into us.
Or doing all of these, and more, at the same time.
In other words, let's not turn the universe into a single, borg monoculture
running Windows 2035. (Instead of heat death or proton decay, the universe
will end with a blue screen.)
-- David Lubkin.
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