Cris, I am in the initial stages of talking to a company to do some Knowledge Management (SigmaLink) work for their internal use. I made a proposal to provide a similar service to their clients. If something like that occurs, then I can setup a large MPP cluster with a lot of NAS to convert the clients Information to Knowledge. If we get 10 clients, at first, I can setup the standard Information Warehouse with data access softwares. Later, I can tinker with software and architecture to create an expert system. After that, I have an architecture, I have been noodling for 5 years, I am going to try. No promises, but this just might work.
km, Awright, go for it. I'm taking a different approach and plan to stay within a large computer manufacturer. I reasoned that I'm never likely to be able to afford the large configurations on my own. Best of luck. I really don't care who gets there first as long as someone gets there soon. Cris
Well, uploading your consciousnes into a machine sounds great, unless it begins a 4000 year war!!!!: Ironically, it was the Core's ultimate victory, the victory over death itself, that brought about the downfall of its paradise and started the war that would decimate a million worlds. "The immortality process, known as "patterning," involved the electronic duplication of brain matrices, allowing the transfer of consciousness into durable machines. Effectively it meant immortality, and the Core decreed the process mandatory for all citizens in order to ensure their safety. However, there were many citizens unwilling to toss aside their bodies so casually, many indeed who regarded patterning as an atrocity. They fled to the outer edges of the galaxy, forming a resistance movement that became known as the Arm. War began, though it was never officially declared by either side. The Arm developed high-powered combat suits for its armies, while the Core transferred the minds of its soldiers directly into similarly deadly machines. The Core duplicated its finest warriors thousands of times over. The Arm countered with a massive cloning program. The war raged on for more than 4,000 years, consuming the resources of an entire galaxy and leaving it a scorched wasteland. Both sides lay in ruins. Their civilizations had long since vanished, their once vast military complexes were smashed. Their armies were reduced to a few scattered remnants that continued to battle on ravaged worlds. Their hatred fueled by millenia of conflict, they would fight to the death. For each, the only acceptable outcome was the complete and utter annihilation of the other." http://www.cavedog.com/totala/ovr_frame.html Just being human and looking at the worst that could happen Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! But seriously ( Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ), everyones looking outside, Mars, moon, Jupiters moons, floating cities etc. But there is still plenty of space inside. There´s a LOT of rescourses near the core of earth and perhaps in the future we´ll be able to start mining them, also there would be a lot more living space down there. We could expand our cities downward and upward, ofcourse there is a risk that the tunnels would collapse, it would require much planning. Also ofcourse moving earth below the cities would require a lot of work, but perhaps less than going into Mars (atleast with the current technology) or building huge platforms into sea or space. There would already be enough food to feed the population of earth, the only problem is how it´s shared, but you cannot really expect humanity to become a communist utopia? Supporting starving people requires a lot of money and altough we are perhaps giving more humanitarian aid today than ever before... still people are dying. IF we could live for 150-200 years it would probaply cost a lot and so only the upper class could have it, and that would make the gap between the rich and poor even wider... but still it doesn´t mean that it shouldn´t be invented if we could. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Well, technically there is more space as you go outward of a sphere. I suggest everybody moving up and leaving earth for growing food and heavy machinaries. We may not be able to sustain 100 billion people on earth. So if half of them move to cyberspace - that will help. Then we may have to figure out if someone can go biological by creating a husk (a la 6 days) for a few years. If we can find a way to create artificial gravity, we could live on the moon too...
"Well, technically there is more space as you go outward of a sphere." Yes, but there isn´t such a crowd in 100 meter below earth. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! A lot of people could still be housed there. There was a report in sciene magazine about somekind of Super Skycrapers, which would be over a kilometer tall and would be intependent. They could grow theyr own food, hundreds of thousands of people could fit in them and you wouldn´t have to leave the building in your lifetime if you wouldn´t want to. To upward or to downward, now there´s a question Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Ofcourse you can continue to expand on sides... but in the end, no matter where you expand... someday you won´t be able to expand. But there´s no need to worry about that for a LOOONG time... and there´s always moon, mars and the moons of the Jupiter... there is the asteroid belt from which you could mine rescourses to build somekind of floating cities. But it really doesn´t have to be this way, perhaps someday the population growth will stop even in the developing countries... perhaps when we all get our mandatory Longevity Vaccine shots, population growth is somehow controlled or perhaps we´ll have a lot more space to expand by then. Who knows... it´s simply impossible to predict the far future... who could have thought of PC´s and mobile phones in the year 1900... who could have thought electricity or televisions in the year 1500? Whatever we´ll do, whatever we´ll become... most probaply it will be something beyond our imagination. Altough I don´t know, we have become more and more aware of the future and that in time our societies and technology will most probaply change a lot... therefore have we become somehow more mature in our predictions of the future? We no longer imagine flying machines or alien invasions from mars... we imagine moon colonies, self-aware machines, fusion power and gene technology. But those are works in which we have already taken a few steps... can we really imagine something totally new, something that we haven´t started study yet... something that we have no connection at all? Will our predictions always look stupid in the future? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Social prediction of the future is not that difficult. Humans have not changed that much in 10,000 years. But the specific technology is difficult to predict though some of them have been predicted in ancient times. For example, the magician or god in Veda days (8500 BC) talk about view plates where they can see distant objects in real time. That sounds like television type gadget. There is a whole lot of gadgets from "Puranas" we are just beginning to design. Another item that I remember from the old books is that when the people from Mizar landed on earth, they had a tricorder type device that catloged all the flora and fauna on this planet and its actions on the human body that is now a matter of record in the Vedas. We still do not have the technology today to create a digital human for chemical and protein interaction testing.
Wow... I´m impressed and thank you for correcting my mistake. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Also I´m sorry it took a... while to reply into this post, I have to admit that I´m not as commited to this discussion page as I should be. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Longevity is such a hard matter because there are so many aspects in it. I´m personally very confused these days and can´t really make a hard opinion against or for this subject, even though I´m interested. I would say that if people could live 150-250 years it would surely create huge problems but it would also have a huge potential... just like fission reaction or computers. But if we have the ability... why not use it? Perhaps it is fear (which is sometimes even reasonable) that limits us, so that we don´t use our full potential.
Yang, The Core versus Arm war, the machine people against the bio people, assumes that intelligences between the species would be equal. And that is where the analogy fails with the current expectations. The power of computer technology is increasing at a non-linear rate and the achievement of power equivalent to that of current humans seems certain and within a few years. It will take longer to master the emulation of human brains and the hope is that parallel development of AI will help us solve those problems by using similar computing power. We then face the other issue of accurately scanning the human brain and the transfer to the durable substrate. Again this will likely happen after we have adequate computing power, maybe. By the time all the ingredients are ready, computing power will have likely exceeded the minimum to achieve human intelligence. IOW the first uploaded brains will start with intelligence greater than they had as bio beings. But more significantly is that it is unlikely that the technology would be frozen at that point. As we see with the computer revolution now, the hardware is ancient within 6 months of release. Those who are uploaded will very likely take part in a never-ending sequence of upgrades. Any real humans who chose to stay as bio beings will be seen by the new robo-sapiens as significantly inferior in terms of intelligence and capabilities. In the same way that a human has little problem outthinking a dog then robo-sapiens will be able to achieve the same with homo-sapiens. The idea of a war between homo’s and robo’s being on an equal footing is nonsense. It would be like you playing a game of chess with an ape – there would simply be no contest. But uploading offers more than just immortality it offers an independence of the planet. Even if humans were to create a colony on Mars the issue of long term adjustment to a much lower gravity presents a massive problem. We know now that astronauts who spend months in space suffer considerable bone and calcium loss. While some gravity will lessen that effect it will nevertheless cause real problems long term. Issues of an atmosphere and food production are even bigger problems. An upload in the form of a robo-sapien has none of these limitations. Even massive acceleration, a vacuum, etc, would not present any problems. The only issue will be maintaining a power source and avoiding truly corrosive surroundings. I don’t see that humans will be the ones to reach and break the final frontier, that will be the realm of robo-sapiens. Perhaps some people might choose to remain human in which case their best hope of survival might well be to inherit the Earth, until that is, the next major asteroid hits it. Cris
Jesus, i didnt know uploading was being discussed here. aaaaaaaaaarrrrgh... missed it.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! bye!
Cris, i was angry for not being present in the discussion.this subject is also one of my favorites. did i give wrong expression?Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! sorry if i did.because i want this stuff to continue. bye!
yeah me too. someone in other thread,something enviornmental,i think it was Stryders thread.i had bought this Uploading idea.it never lets anything down. best of all the solutions,true Nirvana...Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! bye!
Yes, zion - Cris sneaks mind uploading idea every chance he gets. Because we are many years away for testing, I think, we should first try the genetic enhancement of our species. It is a stop gap measure but can provide a time compression for our mind-uploading project. The first set of genetic enhancement should include physical well being meaning the body can repair itself superfast with available food and air and that the $800 Billion dollar medical industry (in US alone)would reduce to $8 Billion. That need to be accomplished in say next 20 years. Then we need to work on enhancing our brain power with total recall and better computation. There have been math prodigies that can multiply very large numbers on the fly. So, we know, it can be done - all we need is a little twiking. Towards the end of this cycle, we will be ready to transfer our mind to a machine host. So...get to work....
Km, Just spreading the idea around a bit so people can begin to get used to it. And you are dead right - get to work. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Cris, Instead of "Mind Uploading" why not "Mind Parallel Processing". Since we have so much talk of "In 10/20/30 years time..." and "when we can build something with X number of 200ghz processors". Why not build something that can act as an extension to your mind, not just a method of storage but a way to increase processor cycles. It's known that for the highest speed systems you have two choices, something high powered and fast which enduces heat and needs venting, or something similar to your own biological system. If you merge the two, you could have a computer partially using your mind to process data at speed without the necessary heat consequences, although I'm very sure you would need a laboratory of people to begin with to get the system to learn how to cater to the human mind. With this method it would make a system more affordable, and would increase the speed at which the eventual thing your looking for Cris can happen. (since vast quantities of data will have already been partial worked upon.)
The first thing that came to mind with this topic was the usefulness of such a mechanism. Elderly folk in society are side-lined, hog hospital resources and are a general financial burden for society to deal with....the spectre of more elderly people with conservative politics, tastes etc is dire. Imagine waiting 100 years for an inheritance - the murder rate will sky-rocket!! It sounds warm and fuzzy for loved grandparents and parents to live forever but the reality of a planet and developed world having to deal with the realities is gruesome. As we age, the cell replication makes increasing errors thus problems develop - multiply that scenario x double time and it's just too awful to contemplate (IMO)
As we age, the cell replication makes increasing errors thus problems develop - multiply that scenario x double time and it's just too awful to contemplate (IMO) Somewhere I read that cancer cells do perfect duplication indefinitely. So the mechanism exists for perfect duplication or close to it for the life of a subject. In the scale of the planet and the universe, 100 years or 1000 years is still insignificant. As the intelligent specis, if you suddenly find a pill that extends to increase your lifespan and quality to 1000 years, I do not think you want to have a child in the first 30 years. May be wait for 300 years....just the time scale will be different. Elderly folk in society are side-lined, hog hospital resources and are a general financial burden for society to deal with....the spectre of more elderly people with conservative politics, tastes etc is dire IMHO, it is you who has the conservative opinion - cannot see past your own fixed ideas yet say the same about the elderly? No offense intended. Any topic with long life assumes that the life will be healthy and vibrant. Stop the clock at age 40 for example for 960 years.... At our present rate of progress, the society will not function with old methodology and specialization. The exponential state of silos of knowledge could not be integrated without people that understand many silos - that means instead of 2 years of experience one may need 10 years in several field and that requirement will increase exponentially.... Already I see that in my line of work. For example companies ask for the following expertise for just one person: 1. 3 years in Business Objects 2. 3 years in Oracle 8 or 9i 3. 3 years in Informatica 4. 2 years in Java J2EE 5. 3 years as a database Adminstrator 6. 3 years in MPP or SMP hardware 7. 3 years in Erwin 8. 3 years in UML design for a "database architect" Can you find such a person? No wonder we have 300,000 job openings that no one can fill and therefore we have to import H1B people and still left with 300,000 jobs....
Welcome to sciforums, Tong Tied. Respectfully, think that they too once had these problems and probably these veiwpoints. They started as you did, only they are a little further down the line than you. Unless things change drastically, and Cris's hopes become reality, you too will face this problem in the future. (Being one of those that hog the hospital resources) It is theirs to do with as they see fit. It might go to their cat instead of their heir. You have a lifetime to develop your own inheritance just as the elderly had. Do not wait for someone to give you. It is not your "right" to expect something that you did not work for. If your parents see fit to give it to you then accept it gracefully, if not then it was never yours to begin with so you have lost nothing. It will not get better either. As systems become more complicated and businesses strive to meet the demand, their demands are higher. No one wants to pay to educate someone up to speed. They would like to get it up front without having to delay several years before an employee is of use to them. A problem we are facing is that the baby boombers are ageing into the elderly. There are not near enough of the younger generation to replace those that will retire in the next 20 years. This is driving business to automate, sublet noncritical business functions, and try to make some way of coping with the shortage of hireable employees that is coming. There will be drastic changes in the way things are done as we try to cope with less people to do the work. I would imagine that we will see changes in the immigration polices that now shape our world for those qualitified. I would also expect to see the retirement age to be extended as they try to keep those already trained and of use to them.
"Earth's capacity to support our species is approaching the limit. We already appropriate by some means or other 40 percent of the planet's organic matter produced by green plants. If everyone agreed to become vegetarian, leaving little or nothing for livestock, the present 1.4 billion hectares of arable land (3.5 billion acres) would support about 10 billion people. If humans utilized as food all of the energy captured by plant photosynthesis on land and sea, some 40 trillion watts, the planet could support about 16 billion people. But long before that ultimate limit was approached, the planet would surely have become a hellish place to exist. There may, of course, be escape hatches. Petroleum reserves might be converted into food, until they are exhausted. Fusion energy could conceivably be used to create light, whose energy would power photosynthesis, ramp up plant growth beyond that dependent on solar energy, and hence create more food. Humanity might even consider becoming someday what the astrobiologists call a type II civilization and harness all the power of the sun to support human life on Earth and on colonies on and around the other solar planets. Surely these are not frontiers we will wish to explore in order simply to continue our reproductive folly." Edward O. Wilson, The Future Of Life, 2002
The problem in linear thinking is you dont see the curve and fall off the cliff....great men have this habit too.... We had the information, but we could not see or imagine it was coming...(the WTC attack ie)...connecting the dots when you can not see the dots...well...monsters in the dark...that is for children.... Dont worry about the population - India and Pakistan (Iran and Iraq etc) will see to it that it is reduced by 1 to 2 billion in short order....
