Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: landman@sun.com (Howard A. Landman) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Beyond active shields Message-ID: Date: 21 Jun 89 18:10:02 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View Lines: 39 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article mtuxo!ems1@att.att.com writes: >The Lifeboat, prepared in advance of the attack, is a tough enclosure >designed to support an analog of one individual's thought processes, >probably through nanotech modeling of synapses and other brain structures. Except for the enclosure, this isn't much different from a brain-enhancing implant. Assuming each individual has more nanotech compute power in their head (easiest place to interface to gray matter) than gray matter compute power, and more nanotech memory as well, it might well be that the implant will contain most of the individual's consciousness anyway. All you need to do is implant it in a new (cloned?) body. >The Beacon also transmits the last >and latest update of your mind-state to your offsite archives, thus >insuring that at least a copy of "you" will survive the attack. If you do the calculations for the necessary bandwidth, assuming that implants of say 100x the brain's capacity must also be "backed up", and assuming a world population of at least 10 billion (or optimistically a city population of at least 100,000) sharing the same ether, my guess is that this won't really be practical. >(Note again that I don't believe any actual transfer of *identity* >via radio will be possible for a long time. If you had that, then >you'd have long-range mind transfer, and you'd never have to worry >about any of this mess again.) Why not? How does that differ from long-range mind backup? > or if you get angry enough, build a tough robot body and fight back. This assumes that you're not *already* living in such a body, but that it's readily available. Might not many choose to avoid the messiness of rebuilding themselves (clones take time), and just stay constantly a robot? There might have to be laws governing this ... Howard A. Landman landman@sun.com