If you're up to reading it, this one sounds like an interesting spec:
http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT05/Papers/McKendree/index.html
I'll need to sleep on it, I must need sleep because I mandatorily lost
consciousness partway through (wasn't boring material, just my state).
It's neat how you can take those blink naps and get an extra boost of
energy and pick up where you left off, I don't do it so often these
days. The mind does interesting things when winding down to that point
especially if caught unawares like beginning at the same paragraph a few
times each time you blink or experiencing total displacement (zero
perception of time passage indicators) when you blink and the world has
shifted so far it is troubling, or tracers, but that's going too deep
into it. It used to be my nightly ritual but takes it's toll, g'nite, be
well all.
On 5/20/2011 7:38 AM, Chuck Bowling wrote:
I'm in agreement about the radical changes that nanotech appear to
promise. Changes that could spell doom or a complete redefinition of
what it is to be human. It's about the only thing that makes me want
to live longer than my allotted time. Just so that I can see what
miracles come next.
On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 9:40 PM, Ash <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Yeah, I was fear mongering Chuck, a political device. ;-) This is
a favorite topic of mine, it is at the axis of many fields. To
accelerate nanotech development I think we should implement rapid
prototyping, experimentation and analysis systems. When I envision
man at the beginning of this revolution I look for tools that
would allow an explosion (figuratively) of development, being able
to catalog and operate a multitude of experiments in parallel,
while building a massive library of modeled behavior for materials
and systems interoperating in the real world to improve the
robustness and diversity of this technology is apparently the way
to go. To think that the behavior of biological systems can be
abstracted and used to formulate dynamic systems guided by expert
algorithms to solve material challenges in real time guided by
people over vast distances, it goes beyond genetics, I am in awe
at the potential universe we are venturing toward. We will also be
able to make changes to ourselves and our experience of this world
at a similar rate..
On 5/19/2011 1:41 AM, Chuck Bowling wrote:
I think that with nanotechnology we will be able to synthesize
pretty much anything we want from raw materials in the future.
Assuming that any alien race capable of traveling the trillions
of miles to get here would have at least the same level of
technology my guess is that they wouldn't need anything we'd have
to offer.
On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 8:48 PM, Ash <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
There is another good reason to develop our technologies as a
species, think how we are looking at the planets and
celestial bodies as vast resources. Imagine if something else
came through and strip mined the resources we would need to
develop into a spacefaring species, that would suck big time.
Like a tribe of humans moving through and picking all the
nuts we squirrels need, or worse, deciding we were in the way
of those resources, think what we have done in those
situations.. I know it's unlikely considering the vast
resources out there, but something might have it's eye on our
pale blue dot too, working faster than us at making the leap.
On 5/18/2011 8:37 PM, Chuck Bowling wrote:
I think right now the technology will only allow us to tell
if a planet is rocky or a gas giant. And even then only if
it is a relatively massive planet. The last time I read
anything on the subject the smallest planet found was
something like 3 times the size of the Earth.
IMO, the analogy with Columbus doesn't hold. 17th century
technology allowed humans to travel anywhere on the Earth -
albeit slow and wrought with hazard. If the analogy is that
a neighboring star is like a new continent then we are more
like cavemen discovering that a log can float. At the rate
we're going it might be a thousand years before we can
actually mount an expedition to another star.
I think the primary reason we are so far from actually
exploring other stars is mainly political rather than
technological. But, I think you are right. It is a project
worth attaching too. Now if we could just make the damn
politicians see it that way... ;)
On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 4:58 PM, archytas <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I'm not sure how accurate they can be in revealing
planets enough like
ours to offer possibilities of a new promised land.
They claim there
is one 20 light years away, or 300,000 years at current
space travel
speeds. One can feel that this at least puts us
somewhere near the
position of 'Columbus'. Our current 'tin-foil'
technology won't do,
but at this kind of distance we are talking about
something other than
worm-holes, 'relativity flight' or the kind of physics
in which
distance is an illusion.
For someone like me who can't take god-stories seriously
and quite
likes the idea of a human future (or at least the idea
of evolution
not just ending through catastrophe), there is an
opportunity to
believe in something distant in time and a need for us
to direct
ourselves towards it. A time, perhaps in which a form
of conscious
life can live very differently from now, and a project
worth attaching
to - perhaps a reason for spirituality. Comments on
this or the
technology welcome.
