From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sun Aug 03 2003 - 12:23:47 MDT
On Sun, 3 Aug 2003, Lee Corbin (commenting on my comments) wrote:
> Ah, yes, but as I've pointed out many many times, we
> use our intuitions of having to *move* rather than
> *copy* and then project this limitation onto our future
> selves and onto advanced technologies themselves!
Lee, this is a fundamental flaw in the consideration of the
behavior of advanced civilizations -- particularly if they
are "tightly integrated" as an "uploaded" civilization might
be. The problems are that (a) you have access to the entire
knowledge base of the civilization at vary high bandwidth
(so this is a "wealth" of knowledge).; and (b) it looks like
a solar system can contain something like 2^50 bits of
information -- this can get even more complex if one "overloads"
terms.
I have yet to see anyone propose a reasonable scheme for
sending 2^50 bits across interstellar distances. I just
don't think it is going to be easy -- and if it is "easy"
it seems likely that it is going to be expensive (in terms
of energy, mass, etc.)
Copying a megabyte of information between floppies is cheap
to us now. But copying a civilization's entire information
base seems problematic. So it seems likely that if one does
it one may do it rarely when the cost is lowest. If instead
one decides to "go it alone" one is sacrificing a huge knowledge
base. I don't think people of our culture can easily understand
what that means (it is probably much worse than the situation
experienced by colonizers of a few centuries ago). Look at how
"emplaced" Google has become and multiply the sacrifice of that
by many orders of magnitude. It could be argued that colonization
would in effect require the loss of ones "identity".
Thought question: "How much of yourself (mental, physical, etc.)
would you sacrifice colonize a new star system?".
And before you answer, read a little bit about the misadventures
of the Donner Party.
> (Really, though, I sincerely wonder what
> does keep everyone in the U.S. from moving to California.
> The reasons that people need all that ice and snow aren't
> clear to me, but the reasons do exist.)
Some of us actually *left* California, in large part due
to the hazard function presented by earthquakes.
And besides you can't do ice-fishing in CA (generally
speaking)... :-)
> Advanced civilizations will simply *spread* outward,
> and if the papers you are studying make it really
> advantageous to run outside galaxies, then eventually
> despite the fewer resources, the matter dominated
> areas inside galaxies would very gradually fall
> behind.
Yep, being in a galaxy puts you in the "stupid" part of
the universe. (But hey, you didn't know before now
so you can't really be faulted for it...).
But it doesn't matter. Alligators cannot live where
lions live and lions cannot live where alligators live.
We live in the hazardous (stupid) part of the universe
and those more advanced than us live elsewhere.
> That is, all tentacles of civilization that
> reach beyond a galaxy will by definition lag 20,000
> years behind to begin with. It will take a *long time*
> to catch up and surpass their parents.
Granted -- but MBrains and other civilizations most likely
*have* a "long time". A sol-type star, properly star-lifted,
has a lifetime of trillion(s) of years, or one could always migrate
to a sufficiently small star with a similar lifetime. So one has a
"long time" significantly exceeding how long the universe has existed
thus far (perhaps 100+ times longer). That is a *long* time
to figure out "Plan B".
Robert
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