MISC: Exobiology, Brain Storage Capacity, & Ralph Merkle

Chris Hind (chind@juno.com)
Wed, 08 Jan 1997 23:07:26 -0800

I was thinking recently (oh wow! big suprise!) and the idea came to me that
when we take the first extraterrestrial life forms and place them on earth
won't they scare the shit out of existing animals because they're evolution
is so entirely different. Perhaps they'll scare the shit outta us by
appearing horribly disfigured by our standards. Evolution took a specific
course on Earth and therefore all animals have somewhat specific traits
which allow us to identify things such as eyes and noses. If they have all
their senses in different locations or entirely different senses what will
we think.

Someone on this mailinglist once told me that the human brain can
potentially hold 5-7 petabytes of information (1 petabyte=100 terabytes).
Why so much? How did we evolve such storage capacity? Has anyone in the
history of the human race ever breached the limit?

Another thing I'm beginning to find is that I continue to come upon Ralph
Merkle's name constantly in all these publications. (This month's wired in
"Evolution Revolution", Neil Stephenson's Diamond Age where there is a
structure called "Merkle Hall", and multiple references to him in those
USAF 2025 archives to name a few). Seems he's turning into quite a nanotech
celebrity, glad to have him here. Where is he anyways? I haven't seen him
around for awhile.

"Every obstacle is a stepping stone to your success."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Hind (chind@juno.com) Upward, Outward, ACTION!
NeoReality (Personal) http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/6810/
Ethereal Outlook (Extropian)
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/6810/outlook.htm
Extropian Photo/Email Directory
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/6810/photogal.htm