From: Randall Randall (randall@randallsquared.com)
Date: Mon Aug 04 2003 - 14:25:34 MDT
On Monday, August 4, 2003, at 01:36 PM, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>
> On Mon, 4 Aug 2003, Randall Randall wrote:
>
>> You're forgetting that Lee doesn't care about benefit to Lee I
>> in particular, but about benefit to all the instances of Lee
>> collectively.
>
> Not! As I said a Extro 3 to survive over the long term one
> needs a "distributed replicated intelligence" -- *BUT*
> "distribution" of ones intelligence across a solar system
> sized object (a Matrioshka Brain) does a pretty good job of this
> (asteroids, commets, small black holes become "minor" concerns).
I haven't yet been to an Extro. :)
> But distributing ones intelligence across light years makes it
> essentially "impossible" for Lee to function as a connected
> intelligence. So you seem to be suggesting that "Lee" is
> a socialist or a communist and that he is colonizing for the
> "good" of the very loosely connected collective.
By "collectively", I meant "summed over all entities with Leeness".
Note that I'm sure that Lee can defend his own point of view better
than I can, and I only mentioned it as an example of how these
discussions seem to go off track. :) It appears that I shouldn't
have used the term "collectively", since it's so close to the
term "collectivist", which isn't what I intended. Nor was it the
case that I believe that Lee is interested (in this case) in
distributing intelligence across lightyears.
>> That is, creating Lee II is a way to get more
>> run time for Lee I.
>>
>> I don't happen to agree with that, but losing track of what's
>> been said before is exceptionally unproductive in these threads.
>
> No, the point I have been trying to make (it seems like over
> and over again) is that Lee II *cannot* provide any "return
> on investment" to Lee I.
The thing you're missing here, Robert, is that Lee I doesn't care
(totally, at least) about ROI to Lee I, but about benefit to any
person who is Lee, anywhere. Or, hey, maybe I misunderstood Lee,
and you're right. :) Only The Corbin can say.
> The only reason that Lee I would
> create Lee II is out of some desire to propagate and Lee I
> would know that propagation eventually has negative consequences.
It doesn't matter that propagation eventually has negative
consequences, *unless* you can prevent all propagation
by anyone, anywhere. If anyone propagates, they will be
disproportionately the ones that get to deal with the
resulting problem.
>> If they had started with the assumption that GB or Spain would
>> eventually be defeated by *someone*, they might very well have
>> chosen to deliberately create the next set of winners. You can't
>> prevent North America (or the intergalactic space) from being
>> colonized, but you can try to choose what sort do the colonization.
>
> Perhaps. Most people do not act out of a desire to produce their
> replacements.
This is clearly not the case. Seen parents, much?
> Sure you can have evolutionary drives but
> any advanced civilization will have regulated those drives
> (witness the declining populations in Japan and Europe).
> Now one might produce "offspring" if it were clear that they
> were not going to compete with you (i.e. the children of
> advanced civilizations exit from the galaxy due to the
> temperature and thermodynamics reasons I have suggested).
A civilization that successfully regulates its own growth, but
not that of others, if any, will not be highly represented at
a given late date. Even if humans are the only existing
intelligences (and I would guess that we are), I see no reason
why there wouldn't be escapees.
-- Randall Randall <randall@randallsquared.com> "Not only can money buy happiness, it isn't even particularly expensive any more." -- Spike Jones
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