The premise is one day we will be encode humans as digital representations and shoot ourselves to the stars with laser beams. The tenuous Rockhouse physics were used for the logic and I've invited anyone to show it's bollocks but that didn't happen. (Ithaka: Sending Humans to the Stars on Beams of Light Part I #Science #Physics #Fantasy)
Part I is in part based on the premise we will make digital simulacra of ourselves and then be able to encode those digital selves. This aspect of it wasn't covered much in Part I so that's now the purpose of Part II.
There's been tremendous research into extending mind function via linkage of some sort to external thought processors of some nature. There's also a great deal of research into understanding neural networks to discover how our minds perform all the functions the researchers can discern.
The extension to that research is the externalization of self with artificial media since after that your body really isn't needed anymore and you're, in effect, immortal. None of that is particularly new but we want to use that result of an externalized human for the actual exploration.
Here's another premise that any externalized human is necessarily digital and therefore can be encoded digitally for a precise simulacrum. We will get back to the mind blaster effect that must have on the psyche in a moment but that digital encoding means this simulacrum of your digital self can now be carried about on a thumb drive ... or a laser beam. That takes you back to Part I on how we will transmit that encoded simulacrum via laser beam to another star. (Ithaka: Sending Humans to the Stars on Beams of Light Part I #Science #Physics #Fantasy)
For a minor extension, consider the NSA of that future time since they won't be storing phone calls anymore but rather digital humans. Edward Snowden IX will walk out of there with everyone in Manhattan on a storage device. Look for that in the news in, oh, fifty years or so.
Assuming you accept the premise of digital humans, we have a whole world of strange and we can just imagine the joy joy trips from that.
In creation of the simulacrum of yourself, there are now two identical versions of yourself. One of them will travel via laser beam to another star but it's only a light year away and only takes one light year to get there. At one time people in Britain might send a correspondence to the West Indies via sailing ship and that might take a year ... and they thought they were in the future.
So it takes your simulacrum a year to get to the star. Does that even matter since it's all digital and maybe it even goes into some form of suspended animation.
Your digital self will need some type of apparatus for sensory input on this exoplanet and that's got to be a robo into which it's downloaded or linked in some other way; your digital self is extended by the capacity of the robo. Your laser beam can't carry a robo so it has to already be there as delivered by the slow poke starship mentioned in Part I.
This is a bit too whacked but I'll go with it anyway. If Delos D. Harriman could be flying that starship, he would find a way to make a buck on it. He will deliver those robos to the exoplanet and then welcome to the latest franchise for Hertz Robuddies, rent one for your dream exoplanet exploration. (Ref: "The Man Who Sold the Moon" - Robert Heinlein)
Don't get too nuts as that's just a cheesy way to commercialize it but the presence of some cadre of robos must already be on the exoplanet for this piece to work. Your digital self gets transmitted on a laser beam to the exoplanet and there it connects to an available robo you can use for whatever devious purpose you may have. Keep in mind, there's also quite a bit of research going into developing sensation in robos as in improving their vision, tactile senses, etc.
Given another hundred years, who knows what looney things they will do doing but the main point is the robos will have extraordinary capabilities. You know from your own reading or exposure they're doing this type of research now.
Meanwhile back on Earth, we have the twisted psychological situation in which there are now two of you, both of whom are collecting different experiences and, presumably, becoming different digital people. There's no reason to limit to a single simulacrum of yourself since maybe there could be many. How do your deal with which one is which or does it even matter. I don't suspect the sense of self would be terribly threatened by that but the self would be multiplied substantially.
For the extra credit option, what's to say your digital selves could not recombine to become a 'single' digital entity. Now your first self can experience the Trip to the Exoplanet and only needs to boot the system to feel it. As to what happens to the second self after it merges with the first, that's getting way too metaphysical for robos.
Ed: lighten up on the ganja!
Not at all since the only parts they're not developing are the encoding and the transmission by laser. There's active research into all the other pieces so carry that out fifty years or whatever you like and take a wild guess at what they will be doing.
Ed: you're making a wild guess!
If you have been following Ithaka, you have seen multiple citations for exactly the type of research I've mentioned here so the guess isn't that wild ... they're doing it now, mate.
No-one has whacked me in Part I Comments but quite a number read it so I'm holding onto the possibility we can transmit digital humans with laser beams thus ripping right past the Time Delation Effect. Part I plays around with Subjective Time but it seems to work. There won't be any hooting if it's called out as rubbish thinking since I'm curious to know. (Ithaka: Sending Humans to the Stars on Beams of Light Part I #Science #Physics #Fantasy)
Part I is in part based on the premise we will make digital simulacra of ourselves and then be able to encode those digital selves. This aspect of it wasn't covered much in Part I so that's now the purpose of Part II.
There's been tremendous research into extending mind function via linkage of some sort to external thought processors of some nature. There's also a great deal of research into understanding neural networks to discover how our minds perform all the functions the researchers can discern.
The extension to that research is the externalization of self with artificial media since after that your body really isn't needed anymore and you're, in effect, immortal. None of that is particularly new but we want to use that result of an externalized human for the actual exploration.
Here's another premise that any externalized human is necessarily digital and therefore can be encoded digitally for a precise simulacrum. We will get back to the mind blaster effect that must have on the psyche in a moment but that digital encoding means this simulacrum of your digital self can now be carried about on a thumb drive ... or a laser beam. That takes you back to Part I on how we will transmit that encoded simulacrum via laser beam to another star. (Ithaka: Sending Humans to the Stars on Beams of Light Part I #Science #Physics #Fantasy)
For a minor extension, consider the NSA of that future time since they won't be storing phone calls anymore but rather digital humans. Edward Snowden IX will walk out of there with everyone in Manhattan on a storage device. Look for that in the news in, oh, fifty years or so.
Assuming you accept the premise of digital humans, we have a whole world of strange and we can just imagine the joy joy trips from that.
In creation of the simulacrum of yourself, there are now two identical versions of yourself. One of them will travel via laser beam to another star but it's only a light year away and only takes one light year to get there. At one time people in Britain might send a correspondence to the West Indies via sailing ship and that might take a year ... and they thought they were in the future.
So it takes your simulacrum a year to get to the star. Does that even matter since it's all digital and maybe it even goes into some form of suspended animation.
Your digital self will need some type of apparatus for sensory input on this exoplanet and that's got to be a robo into which it's downloaded or linked in some other way; your digital self is extended by the capacity of the robo. Your laser beam can't carry a robo so it has to already be there as delivered by the slow poke starship mentioned in Part I.
This is a bit too whacked but I'll go with it anyway. If Delos D. Harriman could be flying that starship, he would find a way to make a buck on it. He will deliver those robos to the exoplanet and then welcome to the latest franchise for Hertz Robuddies, rent one for your dream exoplanet exploration. (Ref: "The Man Who Sold the Moon" - Robert Heinlein)
Don't get too nuts as that's just a cheesy way to commercialize it but the presence of some cadre of robos must already be on the exoplanet for this piece to work. Your digital self gets transmitted on a laser beam to the exoplanet and there it connects to an available robo you can use for whatever devious purpose you may have. Keep in mind, there's also quite a bit of research going into developing sensation in robos as in improving their vision, tactile senses, etc.
Given another hundred years, who knows what looney things they will do doing but the main point is the robos will have extraordinary capabilities. You know from your own reading or exposure they're doing this type of research now.
Meanwhile back on Earth, we have the twisted psychological situation in which there are now two of you, both of whom are collecting different experiences and, presumably, becoming different digital people. There's no reason to limit to a single simulacrum of yourself since maybe there could be many. How do your deal with which one is which or does it even matter. I don't suspect the sense of self would be terribly threatened by that but the self would be multiplied substantially.
For the extra credit option, what's to say your digital selves could not recombine to become a 'single' digital entity. Now your first self can experience the Trip to the Exoplanet and only needs to boot the system to feel it. As to what happens to the second self after it merges with the first, that's getting way too metaphysical for robos.
Ed: lighten up on the ganja!
Not at all since the only parts they're not developing are the encoding and the transmission by laser. There's active research into all the other pieces so carry that out fifty years or whatever you like and take a wild guess at what they will be doing.
Ed: you're making a wild guess!
If you have been following Ithaka, you have seen multiple citations for exactly the type of research I've mentioned here so the guess isn't that wild ... they're doing it now, mate.
No-one has whacked me in Part I Comments but quite a number read it so I'm holding onto the possibility we can transmit digital humans with laser beams thus ripping right past the Time Delation Effect. Part I plays around with Subjective Time but it seems to work. There won't be any hooting if it's called out as rubbish thinking since I'm curious to know. (Ithaka: Sending Humans to the Stars on Beams of Light Part I #Science #Physics #Fantasy)
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