Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: mtuxo!ems1@att.att.com Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Beyond active shields Message-ID: Date: 24 Jun 89 04:14:11 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ Lines: 76 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article you write: >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. Agreed. Probably most of us information gluttons will spend our time that way, for the high "baud rates" possible. On the other hand, some of us prefer natural childbirth, for instance. >>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. You're assuming the Beacon needs to send a complete backup. It perhaps wasn't clear from my earlier posting, but the "latest update" I foresee will be an incremental type, just a record (mind-diff ?) of the changes since your last update was sent, probably a week ago. Transmitting 1 week's worth of experience by Beacon is a lot more achievable than trying to send the experience of an entire lifetime. How much does someone change in 1 week? >>(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? Well mind *transfer* probably would require that complete backup you were assuming earlier, for one thing. Mind transfer would also imply that you could escape from any attacker at the speed of light. This would be a lot more foolproof than either active shields or lifeboats. (Although the attacker *could* locate all your archives, and have henchmen waiting at each possible destination.) > >> 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 ... > The small number of "general purpose assemblers" (yeah I know, what do *they* look like) are included in the lifeboat to enable you to build *whatever* you may need later, assuming there are freely available raw materials on hand. People who preferred to spend most of their time in robot bodies might, in time, come to view natural bodies as slimy and disgusting. Sort of like super-Victorianism? Some things are no fun unless they're messy, however :-) As for laws, about the only changes I foresee would be amendments to the existing anti-discrimination laws, adding the clause "or preferred bodily form" to the statutes already on the books. Am I missing something? > Howard A. Landman > landman@sun.com Ed Strong {princeton,mccc}!nanotech!ems