From: Brian Phillips (deepbluehalo@earthlink.net)
Date: Mon Mar 19 2001 - 01:00:30 MST
----- Original Message -----
From: Spike Jones <spike66@attglobal.net>
To: <sl4@sysopmind.com>
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2001 1:17 AM
Subject: Re: How To Live In A Simulation
> > James Higgins wrote: Borg is not my idea of an ideal future.
>
> The problem with the Borg is that its a trap, a one way
> trip, a roach motel. What if we could voluntarily join
> a Borg, play in that until we were satisfied, then get back
> out to our individual existence at will? Wouldnt that be
> way cool?
The Borg may wind up being the less unpalatable alternative.
If I had to choose between an organic mesh of human and
infosystems (i.e. a much more seamless version of what is essentially
the present state of affairs) or remaining an "unmodified human" with
the Godlike Sysop in charge of my destiny... I know which one I'd
pick.
Granted I would like very much to be a "small intimate Borg"
composed of a few thousand genetically near-identical bodies,
all unified by a common set of memetics. But I'd go big before
I'd migrate permanently to a VR. I have a thousand years of
realTime before I'm ready for that.
Something else I would like to point out....
It's obvious reading the writings of the "singularity's friends"
that they tend to think in terms of "Before Singularity" and
"After Singularity". What's motivating this "discrete point"
vision of the transhuman future? shouldn't the perception be
a steepening CURVE?
The only thing I can think of which might produce a "single
point" style "event horizon" is the invention of Eli's hyper-evolving
transhuman AI, and only then in a world lacking competitors.
The inclusion of infosystems directly into the cortex of humanity
will be a gradual process (taking at least a few years, at least)
(imagine that as a nanoprank...everybody wakes up with neurojacks!).
Similarly nano-heaven (a la Diaspora or what have you) doesn't arrive
the moment the first general purpose assembler comes on line.
All these things may happen extremely quickly by the standards of
past human history...but the curve is still extant, just abbreviated into
decades or even years producing unrecognizable change.
just a thought,
brian
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