[MURG] oh, the other thing

[Eugen Leitl]

On Mon, May 24, 2004 at 12:02:19PM -0500, Joseph J. Strout wrote:

> Heh -- then there are other people, like me, who fully intend to 
> *live* in the real world.  You should be nice to such people, as if 

I think no one intends to attempt full cybersolipsist collapse into 
their virtual navels. Anyone ignoring their physical layer is going to
learn its importance the hard way, by having their plugs pulled, their
coolant drained, containment shot full of holes, or suffering a physical malware 
infestation (ewwww).

> you intend to live in an artificial reality, you will be wholly 
> dependent on them to keep your entire universe up and running.

I think rearranging bits is a lot quicker than rearranging atoms, so before
long most interesting things will happen inside, not outside the box. 
Maintaining hardware is sure important, but it has probably the same 
sustained appeal as taking out the trash, and doing the dishes. Things 
only become more interesting if people mostly fight at the physical 
layer, which requires lots of sensors, constant vigilance, stealth 
and lots of nasty hardware. We sure don't want to go there, it's an ugly
place. 
 
> Nonsense.  Let the escapists play out their fantasy worlds as fast 
> (or slow) as they like; it really doesn't matter to me.

It should, because it's a false dichotomy. If energy is abundant (and it is,
especially away from planetary surfaces), being faster translates into
better fitness. 
 
> Of course Eugene makes the argument that competition will drive 
> uploads to run faster and faster (and suggests some speedup factors 

Unfortunately. And probably sooner than later.

> about which I am rather skeptical).  But that assumes that 

I think you'll agree that doing the equivalent of what biology is doing at ms
scale at ns scale is not at all difficult. ps scale is pushing it, so this is
why I'm thinking that 10^6 speedup is a safe bet, but 10^9 is very much
pushing it.

> competition is still relevant -- that may well not be the case, as 
> wealth increases and a person who's invested wisely for a century or 
> two (tops!) may well live off the interest alone.

I think we're facing a disruptive technology cascade, which will ruin the
"taking the long view" position, by destroying a lot of wealth.
 
> As for me, I may occasionally visit an artificial reality for a 
> vacation or to meet with someone who can't be bothered to come out of 
> their box.  But I certainly wouldn't want to live there.

You can speed up things by scaling servos into cm and mm range, but physics
there is different and fixed, so subjectively artificial reality is both
quicker and has more appeal due to malleability/diversity.
 
> It's a bit early to start thinking up epithets, isn't it?  But 
> seriously though, almost everyone is going to be born in biological 
> form, live a number of decades, and then be uploaded.  At that time, 

There are two issues with that notion. If beings are bit vectors, making new
copies takes ~ms, certainly far less than extruding new circuitry blocks. So
both will bit people dominate in numbers, and restructure their environment
in a fashion unsuitable (and in fact arguably quite lethal) for biological
beings, so these will be other forced into habitat niches, and/or go extinct
altogether.

It doesn't have to take long in wallclock time, exponential processes are
quick once we're past punctuated equilibrium. 

> most of them will still have family, friends, spouses, etc. who 
> aren't yet uploaded, and with whom they'll want to continue to live 
> and interact.  I don't think there will be much of a division between 
> uploading and biological people, as much as there will be between 
> those who live in the real world, and those who live entirely in 
> artificial realities.

That would be a very good thing indeed, if we could make that happen.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144            http://www.leitl.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
http://moleculardevices.org         http://nanomachines.net
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://askja.bu.edu/pipermail/murg/attachments/20040526/eadeface/attachment.pgp