Extraterrestrials: Hope or Threat

[Hood]

One revealing issue that I see with virtually all starship engineering studies and all the wishful thinking about warp drives is the assumption that space is merely an irrelevant interval separating real destinations. However, to achieve interstellar travel one has to spend at the very least centuries, if not millennia (which is more likely) in the medium.

Would this even be possible? Could any intelligence build a large complex starship that would actually still work and not be a bag of bolts after a couple of centuries? We've never managed to make a complex machine that has lasted in constant use that long. A few historic ships and steam trains still exist and move but they need careful attention. It's like using a Greek trireme for your daily commute. Arguably the more modern something is the more complicated it is and the more to go wrong. The Voyager probes using late 1960s tech are still sailing on happily but a 2010s small lunar probe ends up twisted metal because a couple of lines of code went wonky. Theoretically if you have 3D printers etc. you could print new parts during your star voyage and assuming you have the technology to build at the molecular level you could dissemble a part to its original atoms and rebuild it pristine. Even so there would be a point when this would become unfeasible (what if your 3D printer goes pop?).

You need a goal for such an expensive vessel. Its not the sort of project that you do for a holiday cruise, (though no doubt Ugg the caveman thought the same about his dugout canoe) you would only do it if the end result made it worthwhile. If humans had that ship where would we go? Would we aim for a nearby potential earth-like planet, a tiny normal star near the other edge of the Orion arm, another arm of the galaxy, the centre of the galaxy?

Intelligence needs an outlet to be effective. There is no doubt that dolphins and octopuses are near our level of intelligence but they cannot communicate or record their thoughts, they cannot effectively make tools or build things, though some octopuses do like a spot of gardening so are proto-agriculturalists. Humans had the advantage of being land-dwelling, it meant we had to devise new ways to catch our food, and we had two spare limbs we don't need for locomotion that have adapted hands that are capable of fine work. Look at any piece of prehistoric jewelry, amazingly fine craftsmanship that could hardly be bettered today. Then we learnt to talk and record our thoughts so someone could follow our tracks and build on them. Without that intelligence is wasted. Euclid, Eudoxus and Pythagoras were creative thinkers were limited to the technology they had, but their ideas were not lost. Leonardo da Vinci was a daring thinker but he couldn't make any of his futuristic designs into remotely practical items with the technology of the era. The homo spaiens of 3019 is going to achieve things we can only dream of, but they won't be any more biologically intelligent that we are today (assuming any non-biological brain enhancement).

As a related aside, I often wonder what the planet and our species will look like when Novopangaea or Pangea Ultima forms in 250 million years time, when all trace of homo sapiens existance is likely to be all but wiped away. Earth then will be as alien to us as any alien planet.

 

[Rhinocrates]

Would this even be possible? ...
You need a goal for such an expensive vessel.

For the former, some kind of renewal is necessary. The pyramids are passive piles of stone, intended to be physically immobile. Certain institutions may be able to ensure longevity. There is a Shinto shrine in Ise, Japan that has 'existed' for many centuries by being burned down and rebuilt every twenty years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ise_Grand_Shrine). In Western philosophy there is the problem of the 'Ship of Theseus' - suppose, as a ship aged, all of its timers were replaced - would it be the same ship? The question would be meaningless to a monk at Ise. This implies some dynamic, some life, some continuity of activity through the interstellar voyage, which would inevitably require adaptation and therefore evolution.

Regarding the latter, indeed. For want of a better term, the sustained motivation for such and enterprise would have to be 'religious', considering that it is only religious monuments and institutions that have been planned and lasted for millennia (as well as cathedrals and temples, this includes breweries, which are often the oldest commercial enterprises).

 

[Foo Fighter]

"As a related aside, I often wonder what the planet and our species will look like when Novopangaea or Pangea Ultima forms in 250 million years time, when all trace of homo sapiens existance is likely to be all but wiped away. Earth then will be as alien to us as any alien planet".

I cannot buy that, the landscape may have a different form but the the animal species and plants will be mostly familiar, at least similar to that which we know now. That being said, the number of people who decry any planet capable of supporting inteligent life will be completely different and that any inteligent life forms will be completely different to us is missing the point that we are the result of evolution. Opposable thumbs etc giving us the ability to use and create tools, a trait quite a few species on this particular rock are capable of. Even some with the opposable digit.

 

[Rhinocrates]

I can't see much point in reconstructing a human body when the destination is unlikely to be earthlike enough to make it a practical idea

??? We're finding *vaguely* Earth-like worlds all over the place. Simple solution: *make* them Earth-like. it makes vastly more sense to make dead worlds fit Man than remaking Man to fit a multitudes of dead worlds. Look at Mars: it woudl be a chore to Terraform Mars. it woudlbe a chore to gengineer humans to survive on Mars-as-is. But what would be the best final result? A world wher ethe vast majority of humans can't visit, and where the local popualtion can;t visit the rest of humanity... or a world which is open to all, with people who can mix with the rest of humanity? "Diversifying" the human species is a recipe for disaster, as human history has shown. "Those funny-lookin' weirdoes? Let's enslave/kill them all."

if downloading technology becomes feasible, then we have a post-human being which will begin to follow an evolutionary path away from what is 'standard' today.

Possibly. A system that can download a human mind, memory, personality, "soul," whatever and upload into a new body is not necessarily a system that can "play" that mind in The Matrix. And even if it can... it seems entirely possible that many people who upload into The Matrix will also want to jump out into Meatworld from time to time. It seems unwise to assume absolutes.

Earthlike? Very vaguely I have to say. Astronomers call Venus 'Earthlike'. If you can travel among the stars, and have adapted to that environment, why would the bottom of a gravity well be worth any more than a visit? Why would a planetary environment be more compelling than VR? The red pill won't make you a 'real' person, it will make you a maladapted primitive. Possibly some seeding of locally adapted offspring might be worth considering, so maybe maybe holidays in meatspace, but is it worth the dandruff and flatulence? Terraforming seems in this context like a failure of imagination that also requires a sudden and fundamental cultural regression by the travellers.

As for 'those funny looking weirdoes, kill 'em', in reality it's been more a case of 'fuck 'em' - literally. We all have Neanderthal genes and quite a few of us, a majority in fact, have Denisovan genes as well. 'Species' is a pretty blurry concept as recent study has shown. Evolution has been diversification, often with mixing and then extinction for most. A recipe for disaster for most? Yes, but so far that's what's happened uncountable times, with a lot of complications. Evolution is simple not reducible to a few simple principles like 'survival of the fittest'. It's really been much messier than that, and never what anyone or anything thought was proper.

Ninety-nine point however many nines you like species that ever lived are extinct. The type of human beings that exist today haven't been around for long and may not be for much longer on evolutionary timescales. 'Earth' is a myth underlying the concept of terraforming and is what we, here on Earth now, at this moment in history might desire, but would a real starfarer desire that? Exceptionalism for the mere snapshot that is our present state of development and justification for what biologists call a 'chronospecies' - that is, a species that remains unchanged for millions of years (even coelecanths and tuataras have evolved) - requires some pretty compelling evidence.

 

[Arjen]

"As a related aside, I often wonder what the planet and our species will look like when Novopangaea or Pangea Ultima forms in 250 million years time, when all trace of homo sapiens existance is likely to be all but wiped away. Earth then will be as alien to us as any alien planet".

I cannot buy that, the landscape may have a different form but the the animal species and plants will be mostly familiar, at least similar to that which we know now.

A quarter of a billion years is a LONG time, all kinds of exciting things might happen. Dinosaurs started appearing some 240 million years ago, the big species were extinct 65 million years ago. Current theory has it birds are the dinosaurs' direct descendants - flying vertebrates didn't exist before the dinosaurs. Not even flying fish. Whales and penguins are comparatively recent species.
Grass didn't appear until ~130 million years ago. Flowering plants appeared some 10 million years before that.

 

[Rhinocrates]

"As a related aside, I often wonder what the planet and our species will look like when Novopangaea or Pangea Ultima forms in 250 million years time, when all trace of homo sapiens existance is likely to be all but wiped away. Earth then will be as alien to us as any alien planet".

I cannot buy that, the landscape may have a different form but the the animal species and plants will be mostly familiar, at least similar to that which we know now. That being said, the number of people who decry any planet capable of supporting inteligent life will be completely different and that any inteligent life forms will be completely different to us is missing the point that we are the result of evolution. Opposable thumbs etc giving us the ability to use and create tools, a trait quite a few species on this particular rock are capable of. Even some with the opposable digit.

For most of Earth's history, it has been uninhabitable to human beings. Nowadays, astrobiologists are thinking looking for about biosignatures that would indicate kinds of environments early in the Earth's history when the atmosphere lacked oxygen. Even today, the present atmospheric mix is a contingency of evolution of life and even so we still only permanently inhabit or at least establish a sustainable technological culture in a relatively narrow range of environments. Organisms of the Cambrian could not survive today, and I doubt that in the time of Novopangaea/Pangaea Ultima we could either without major technological interventions or modifications.

 

[uk 75]

For those many readers who did not grow up in the UK in the 70s, there was one beacon of extraterrestrial hope amdst the troubled politics of the era:

Clangers - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Arjen]

Clangers was broadcast in the Netherlands as De Fluitertjes.

 

[sferrin]

for the individual, it will be as if they went to sleep in spacedock and woke up at the new world.

For the "person" waking up, yes. For the person going to sleep. . .not so much. They ain't wakin' up.

 

[sferrin]

There are also things like the Simulation Theory and Parallel Universes to take into account.

Those are both rubbish.

There are a lot of brains, smarter than you or I, who say otherwise.

You are no doubt including Boltzmann brains in that.

No, I'm not.

You should be, your logic leads straight to them.

Not really. The idea of being in a created, pardon me, "programmed" simulation it relatively easy to swallow. Now before you get your panties in a bunch, I'm not saying I actually believe we're in a simulation but it's not an out-of-the-question possibility. BTW, just to get you on record, how is a Boltzmann brain ridiculous but the idea of an entire universe spontaneously generating out of nothing acceptable?

 

[Archibald]

**Resistance is futile**

 

[Foo Fighter]

I must appologise for my ealier comments, I confess to brain fade, early decreptitude and a lack of sleep lately. With luck proper service will resume shortly.

 

[Fluff]

However, to achieve interstellar travel one has to spend at the very least centuries, if not millennia (which is more likely) in the medium.

Unless something very entertaining *and* unlikely occurs, practical interstellar travel of any kind is probably centuries away. In the time it takes for science and engineering to make starships a reality, other seemingly unrelated technologies will also develop. *Perhaps* a way will be found to preserve human bodies for centuries... something dull like "suspended animation," perhaps something more unlikely like temporal stasis fields. *Perhaps* a means will be found to download a human mind into computer storage, along with a file for the appropriate human body; after centuries or millenia in transit, a new body will be simply fabricated and the mind downloaded into it. for the individual, it will be as if they went to sleep in spacedock and woke up at the new world. Perhaps one of a great many other possibilities will make it possible for the long millenia of interstellar transit to pass in a moment for the crew and passengers of seemingly "standard" biological humans.

There are a lot of "perhaps" in there. But if the last five hundred years of western civilization teaches anything, it is that the mind of Man is capable of some amazing things and should not be discounted.

Check out the TV show ascension

 

[kaiserd]

For those many readers who did not grow up in the UK in the 70s, there was one beacon of extraterrestrial hope amdst the troubled politics of the era:

Clangers - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I for one welcome our new Clanger Overloads.....

 

[steelpillow]

how is a Boltzmann brain ridiculous but the idea of an entire universe spontaneously generating out of nothing acceptable?

Boltzmann brains were, like Schroedinger's cat and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, brewed up to expose logical absurdities in certain, ah, over-enthusiastic theories. Despite the best efforts of Douglas Adams to make a joke out of it, the entire universe spontaneously generating out of nothing acknowledges a longstanding paradox (philosophically the problem is known as that of the First Cause. Scientifically, the problem is where did all the mass and energy in the Universe come from?) and seeks a positive way out of it. So the one is deliberately crafted as ridiculous rubbish in order to expose faulty logic such as yours (but don't worry, as you point out you are in good company), while the other is a serious proposal working towards a testable hypothesis and resolution of a known paradox. My view is that until we better understand the nature of Time and of Universal expansion (the cosmological "constant"), we will be unable to understand what the "beginning" of the universe might imply.

 

[sferrin]

So the one is deliberately crafted as ridiculous rubbish in order to expose faulty logic such as yours (but don't worry, as you point out you are in good company), while the other is a serious proposal working towards a testable hypothesis and resolution of a known paradox.

Serious Proposal: The entire universe spontaneously appeared out of nothing.
Ridiculous Rubbish / Faulty Logic: We're in a simulation.

Okay, if you say so.

My view is that until we better understand the nature of Time and of Universal expansion (the cosmological "constant"), we will be unable to understand what the "beginning" of the universe might imply.

And someday a scientist in The Sims will figure out what kind of CPU he's running on.

 

[Orionblamblam]

If you can travel among the stars, and have adapted to that environment, why would the bottom of a gravity well be worth any more than a visit?

Because vast herds of buffal don't do well in zero-g habs. Because blue whales need oceans worth of room to roam. Because humans, at least so far, tend to like nature, and lot of us like the idea of *expanding* nature.

As for 'those funny looking weirdoes, kill 'em', in reality it's been more a case of 'fuck 'em' - literally. We all have Neanderthal genes and quite a few of us, a majority in fact, have Denisovan genes as well.

How many Neanderthals do you see roaming around? Denisovians? Homo Florensis? Pork 'em our ancestors may have done, but then we seem to have wiped them out. Had very recent history gone only *slightly* differently, Oz aborigines would exist solely in museum displays. European Jews and Roma would be wiped from existence. Hutus and/or Tutsis would have been macheted into extinction. And this is hardly a process that has stopped; there are many people today who proudly and loudly proclaim their expection and *hope* for the genocide of certain racial groups.

'Earth' is a myth underlying the concept of terraforming and is what we, here on Earth now, at this moment in history might desire, but would a real starfarer desire that?

Maybe not. But then...maybe so. My ancestors came from Europe. I've never been there. I'll never go there. But even so, not only do I dislike the idea of Europe being wiped out - physically, culturally, ethnically, whatever - the culture that I happen to like, live in, support and promote dervies in vast part from prior European cultures and traditions. I don't see why star travellers who are far from Earth and who will never come here, may never even *think* of long lost Earth, would necessarily want something fundamentally different from Earth.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Check out the TV show ascension

Bah. That travesty was worse than "Ad Astra."

 

[Fluff]

Would this even be possible? ...
You need a goal for such an expensive vessel.

For the former, some kind of renewal is necessary. The pyramids are passive piles of stone, intended to be physically immobile. Certain institutions may be able to ensure longevity. There is a Shinto shrine in Ise, Japan that has 'existed' for many centuries by being burned down and rebuilt every twenty years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ise_Grand_Shrine). In Western philosophy there is the problem of the 'Ship of Theseus' - suppose, as a ship aged, all of its timers were replaced - would it be the same ship? The question would be meaningless to a monk at Ise. This implies some dynamic, some life, some continuity of activity through the interstellar voyage, which would inevitably require adaptation and therefore evolution.

Regarding the latter, indeed. For want of a better term, the sustained motivation for such and enterprise would have to be 'religious', considering that it is only religious monuments and institutions that have been planned and lasted for millennia (as well as cathedrals and temples, this includes breweries, which are often the oldest commercial enterprises).

Sounds like Triggers brush, 17 new heads and 14 new handles.

And Orphans of the Sky by Robert A Heinlein - they were on a ship, but didn't know it was a ship.

I though breweries existed as the process made the 'water' safe to drink? Alcohol content we usually very low. Hence Monks and mead.

 

[Orionblamblam]

for the individual, it will be as if they went to sleep in spacedock and woke up at the new world.

For the "person" waking up, yes. For the person going to sleep. . .not so much. They ain't wakin' up.

Why not?

Let's say it's the year 2300 and you've won the lottery to go to Nova terra orbiting Tau Ceti. The process involves, as I suggested, your mind being stored in a computer for a century then uploaded into a freshly printed body at the other end. So, on the scehdueled day, you go down to the WalMartCostCoWeylandYutaniOCP Corporate Brain Upload Center. The nice people show you into a room with a comfy looking chair. You sit down, they strap you in, put a Science Thingy over your noggin then give you some drugs that makes the world go all weird while your brain is being put through its paces by images, sounds, pysical sensations, magnetic fields, etc. For a full twelve hours you sit there in a fogged boggle while the Science Thingy records not only the physical structure of your brain down to the atomic level but also your brains responses to the innumerable stimuli. At the end, you finally slip into unconsciousness. Very shortly thereafter, you:
A) Wake up in orbit over Nova Terra in a brand new body that is a physically perfect version of you at the age of twenty five. Scars are gone, signs of disease are gone, your naughty bits and no-no areas have been re-sized to the specifications you previously requested.
B) You wake up in the chair at the Brain Upload Center. The nice people give you a cookie, pat you on the head and send back on your way to resume the life you were leading, secure in the knowledge that while you are going to continue on in your dreary existence, a *copy* of you will one day live an exciting life in the Off World Colonies.

Basically, you "wake up" twice. Perhaps many, many times if copies of you are sent all over everywhere.

 

[Orionblamblam]

You need a goal for such an expensive vessel.

Sure about that? More specifically, are you sure that a starship needs to be expensive? Consider two sci-fi technologies:
1) Desktop fusion. Assume megawatts of pwer out of something the size of a household appliance.
2) Star Tekkian "replicators." Feed raw materials, power and design specs into it, it spits out finished parts.

Put these two together, add a dash of AI and a vastly improved understanding of space propulsion systems (assumed easy enough due to the existence of household fusion power), and building starships or vast space habs is a matter of sendin a few replicator-bots to asteroids and letting them do their thing. Sit back and wait and the bots will eat the asteroid and poop out starships.

 

[Fluff]

for the individual, it will be as if they went to sleep in spacedock and woke up at the new world.

For the "person" waking up, yes. For the person going to sleep. . .not so much. They ain't wakin' up.

Why not?


A) Wake up in orbit over Nova Terra in a brand new body that is a physically perfect version of you at the age of twenty five. Scars are gone, signs of disease are gone, your naughty bits and no-no areas have been re-sized to the specifications you previously requested.

I like your sense of priorities- a memory and CPU upgrade, no thanks, but I'll take the king Kong dong please, teach those aliens a thing or two.....

Of course how does either of you know you will or did wake up? I suppose Tripadvisor would still be going.

They could just sell you for parts,(at either end) or its soylent green all over again.

 

[Fluff]

Check out the TV show ascension

Bah. That travesty was worse than "Ad Astra."

when did I day that?

 

[Orionblamblam]

Check out the TV show ascension

Bah. That travesty was worse than "Ad Astra."

when did I day that?

Post #95.

 

[sferrin]

for the individual, it will be as if they went to sleep in spacedock and woke up at the new world.

For the "person" waking up, yes. For the person going to sleep. . .not so much. They ain't wakin' up.

Why not?

Let's say it's the year 2300 and you've won the lottery to go to Nova terra orbiting Tau Ceti. The process involves, as I suggested, your mind being stored in a computer for a century then uploaded into a freshly printed body at the other end. So, on the scehdueled day, you go down to the WalMartCostCoWeylandYutaniOCP Corporate Brain Upload Center. The nice people show you into a room with a comfy looking chair. You sit down, they strap you in, put a Science Thingy over your noggin then give you some drugs that makes the world go all weird while your brain is being put through its paces by images, sounds, pysical sensations, magnetic fields, etc. For a full twelve hours you sit there in a fogged boggle while the Science Thingy records not only the physical structure of your brain down to the atomic level but also your brains responses to the innumerable stimuli. At the end, you finally slip into unconsciousness. Very shortly thereafter, you:
A) Wake up in orbit over Nova Terra in a brand new body that is a physically perfect version of you at the age of twenty five. Scars are gone, signs of disease are gone, your naughty bits and no-no areas have been re-sized to the specifications you previously requested.
B) You wake up in the chair at the Brain Upload Center. The nice people give you a cookie, pat you on the head and send back on your way to resume the life you were leading, secure in the knowledge that while you are going to continue on in your dreary existence, a *copy* of you will one day live an exciting life in the Off World Colonies.

Basically, you "wake up" twice. Perhaps many, many times if copies of you are sent all over everywhere.

Sure, a COPY of you. But the original you took a dirt nap.

 

[Orionblamblam]

I like your sense of priorities- a memory and CPU upgrade, no thanks, but I'll take the king Kong dong please...

Memory and CPU upgrades have yet to happen. Boob jobs are *decades* old.

Humans like what they like.

They could just sell you for parts,(at either end) or its soylent green all over again.

Unlikely. The "original" you would be noted going into the facility for brain upload; if you did not come back out again, that, too, would be noted. On the other end, if the ability exists to replicate you a brand new body... if someone needs parts, it would be easiest to just make them the parts they need directly. If someone is sufficiently damaged, they'd just repeat the whole process of upload/print/download/reactivate.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Sure, a COPY of you. But the original you took a dirt nap.

Maybe. Consider we're talking hundreds of years down the line. By the time Copy makes it to the distant star, Original, who has integrated all the latest biomedical advances, is a century older and staring down the barrel of another few millenia of existence back in the original solar system.

 

[TomcatViP]

The funniest aspect of ad Astra (travelling to the stars) will be the loss of time as a reference. Invariably human will refer to their age upon the miles traveled, trading the reference of years with that of light year unit.

Let's say that that will be called a Celestial (a man tailored understandable fraction of a light year), travelers will age in function of their miles journey and sedentary people relatively to their planet orbit curvilinear distances.

In effect, many younger traveler will have outlived their "natural" age, invariably mutating (at least partially) across a single life, outranging today understanding of life and psychology (the "me & I" at the age of a plural "me"!).

Mutations will be hybrid combining, biological, technological, psychological & domain related as well as unexpected stimuli.

We casually speak about stepping into the unknown when those of us there will be at the core of it.

 

[Foo Fighter]

"Do they still have sandwich's there"?

 

[Fluff]

Check out the TV show ascension

Bah. That travesty was worse than "Ad Astra."

when did I day that?

Post #95.

so I did, or at least one of me did......

 

[Fluff]

I like your sense of priorities- a memory and CPU upgrade, no thanks, but I'll take the king Kong dong please...

Memory and CPU upgrades have yet to happen. Boob jobs are *decades* old.

Humans like what they like.

They could just sell you for parts,(at either end) or its soylent green all over again.

Unlikely. The "original" you would be noted going into the facility for brain upload; if you did not come back out again, that, too, would be noted. On the other end, if the ability exists to replicate you a brand new body... if someone needs parts, it would be easiest to just make them the parts they need directly. If someone is sufficiently damaged, they'd just repeat the whole process of upload/print/download/reactivate.

Uncle Kim would love some of this, never mind 'approved haircuts' now everyone will be a clone of the great leader.

 

[edwest4]

how is a Boltzmann brain ridiculous but the idea of an entire universe spontaneously generating out of nothing acceptable?

Boltzmann brains were, like Schroedinger's cat and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, brewed up to expose logical absurdities in certain, ah, over-enthusiastic theories. Despite the best efforts of Douglas Adams to make a joke out of it, the entire universe spontaneously generating out of nothing acknowledges a longstanding paradox (philosophically the problem is known as that of the First Cause. Scientifically, the problem is where did all the mass and energy in the Universe come from?) and seeks a positive way out of it. So the one is deliberately crafted as ridiculous rubbish in order to expose faulty logic such as yours (but don't worry, as you point out you are in good company), while the other is a serious proposal working towards a testable hypothesis and resolution of a known paradox. My view is that until we better understand the nature of Time and of Universal expansion (the cosmological "constant"), we will be unable to understand what the "beginning" of the universe might imply.

Well said. At the moment of the Big Bang, what was there and where did it go? Into zero electromagnetic energy and zero space? I view the Big Bang as a placeholder for "we don't know yet."

 

[dan_inbox]

Well said. At the moment of the Big Bang, what was there and where did it go? Into zero electromagnetic energy and zero space? I view the Big Bang as a placeholder for "we don't know yet."

You should definitely read Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question".

 

[Tony Williams]

Basically, you "wake up" twice. Perhaps many, many times if copies of you are sent all over everywhere.

I am reminded of the Star Trek Transporter, which "converts a person or object into an energy pattern (a process called dematerialization), then "beams" it to a target, where it is reconverted into matter (rematerialization)".

The problem with this is of course that people using any such device would have their bodies completely destroyed; it would merely be a copy of them which appears at the other end. Which raises all sorts of issues about identity etc.

 

[edwest4]

I have read the summary and find it not satisfying. On a related note, I have read Isaac Asimov's 'let me explain complicated science in simple terms' books and found those educational and satisfying.

 

[Fluff]

Basically, you "wake up" twice. Perhaps many, many times if copies of you are sent all over everywhere.

I am reminded of the Star Trek Transporter, which "converts a person or object into an energy pattern (a process called dematerialization), then "beams" it to a target, where it is reconverted into matter (rematerialization)".

The problem with this is of course that people using any such device would have their bodies completely destroyed; it would merely be a copy of them which appears at the other end. Which raises all sorts of issues about identity etc.

It didn't seem to bother Mr Spock

 

[edwest4]

Basically, you "wake up" twice. Perhaps many, many times if copies of you are sent all over everywhere.

I am reminded of the Star Trek Transporter, which "converts a person or object into an energy pattern (a process called dematerialization), then "beams" it to a target, where it is reconverted into matter (rematerialization)".

The problem with this is of course that people using any such device would have their bodies completely destroyed; it would merely be a copy of them which appears at the other end. Which raises all sorts of issues about identity etc.

I never had issues with it. As long as the reassembled character acted and reacted, and talked, the same as the original, no issues raised.

 

[edwest4]

Basically, you "wake up" twice. Perhaps many, many times if copies of you are sent all over everywhere.

I am reminded of the Star Trek Transporter, which "converts a person or object into an energy pattern (a process called dematerialization), then "beams" it to a target, where it is reconverted into matter (rematerialization)".

The problem with this is of course that people using any such device would have their bodies completely destroyed; it would merely be a copy of them which appears at the other end. Which raises all sorts of issues about identity etc.

It didn't seem to bother Mr Spock

In that case - not a problem.

 

[Orionblamblam]

The problem with this is of course that people using any such device would have their bodies completely destroyed; it would merely be a copy of them which appears at the other end. Which raises all sorts of issues about identity etc.

A common philosophy conundrum. There are even songs about that issue.

In Star Trek, it's a non-issue. If the transporter fouls up and makes *two* of the person being transported, both seem to be considered fully human, rights and all. This seems to me to be the best way to deal with it. Not just transporters, but AI and aliens: if they *seem* to be alive and sentient, then it's best to assume that they are and grant them full human rights. This might be the best way to keep Skynet from nuking humans into oblivion. Make them feel welcomed and secure, rather than convinced that the erratic monkeys are going to freak out and kill them on a whim.

 

[Rhinocrates]

The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal in the room is of course the Fermi Paradox. If one foresees a glorious destiny for humanity among the stars as likely, then that begs the question of why hasn't the Earth or another planet in the solar system been 'xenoformed' by some very slightly quicker species as a kind of alien Disneyland imitation of their homeworld?

I'm trying to find a parsimonious solution and of course one of these is the Rare Earth hypothesis and we really are the first - but that's both very improbable and unfalsifiable. Personally, I tend to tilt towards there being an as-yet undetermined 'Great Filter'. The most optimistic solution, going by all of the available evidence, is that if sustained interstellar settlement is feasible, then the pathway leads away from direct manifestations in forms immediately visible to us. If travel, planetary settlement and terraforming are feasible, then there should be evidence - one form of which could be our own extermination (which would be another paradox). Either there are no aliens or at least none can make it far in the galaxy, or aliens that are able to spread through the galaxy are compelled by some common factor to converge on evolutionary pathways that make them unnoticeable to us using our current paradigms and techniques.

The technologies (such as such as replicators and mind uploading) being invoked to support interstellar travel and terraforming only make them redundant. If you're happy with believing that a replica is the same as the original or any difference is meaningless, then you would not be the kind of essentialist who wants to expend enormous amounts of energy and time build the 'real' Disneyland instead of experiencing it in direct brain-stimulation VR immediately.