Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: landman@sun.com (Howard A. Landman) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Backups (was: Re: Beyond active shields) Message-ID: Date: 30 Jun 89 02:41:33 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View Lines: 31 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu (daniel mocsny) writes: >That way even if you >got blown away without backing up in a week or so, the simulation >could probably piece you back together by extrapolating forward from >your past and by interpolating with its other knowledge of events >in your area. I don't think so. Too many chaotic (and hence inherently unpredictable) inputs. It's much more likely that you'll be able to restore from periodic "full backups". The cost and difficulty of making a backup is an important issue; if it's expensive or difficult, people won't do it very often, which will lead to problems that are all too easy to imagine. >I can see a great story line here (but it must surely have been done >already). Imagine someone who keeps getting blown away and restored, >and each time the destruction is serious enough to delete the >memory of how death occurred. It's been done already, by John Varley. "Getting murdered can be a problem, especially after the third time..." I don't remember the story title, but it might be in the same volume with "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank", which deals with similar issues. Another possibility due to Varley - if your "self" is primarily in (nano-)hardware, or can be "translated" to other genetic structures, then you might choose to spend your vacation as a lion or a dolphin. Club Zed - the antidote for being human? What is it like to be a bat? Howard A. Landman landman@sun.com