Bob Cross
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Posts posted by Bob Cross
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On 8/23/2023 at 10:29 AM, swansont said:
Forecasting technology has a pretty poor track record if there’s any specifics included. Yes, technology will advance, but the devil’s in the details.
If you go back to the 70s and 80s, the predictions of what life will be like in 50 years bears little resemblance to what we have and what’s on the horizon. Their idea of robots in the home was not roombas. We don’t have flying cars getting us everywhere - and it really doesn’t take much analysis to know why, but you need to apply some analysis to know where the tall tentpoles are and what problems need to be solved, and know if it’s a fundamentally problem (like flying cars; it’s the energy) or technology..
I think I put a lot of details into mind capture and storage (nano-machines, etc.). Beyond that, I'm looking far beyond the horizon - millennia in the future. In that case, we just can be sure that technology is going to be expanding to unimaginable advances. As such, anything plausible that doesn't violate the laws of physics can be expected to come about.
On 8/23/2023 at 10:32 AM, Phi for All said:The climate scientists told me to remind Bob Cross that "weather" and "climate" are two different things, and that ignorance of the science is no excuse.
That actually was my point. Scientists can predict the climate far into the future without needing to get specific about what the weather will be like on a given day far in the future.
In the same way, I'm forcasting technology into the far future. I don't have to file for a patent for that technology to do so.
On 8/23/2023 at 10:57 AM, studiot said:Are you making this demonstrably foundless claim by ignoring History or from ignorance of it?
2 millenia ago the Romans had central heating , piped water supplies and sensible (for the their time) sanitation
arrangements.Have you not heard of the Dark Ages when no one had these things ?
Very Euro-centric of you. The middle east and the far east had no such dark age. Overall, world-wide, there was no regression of technology. In fact, gun powder was invented during that period (9th century).
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On 8/17/2023 at 2:43 PM, iNow said:
Of course it is. You can’t even tell me what it’ll look like next month.
I can't tell you what the weather forecast will be next month either. Tell that to the climate scientists.
Forecasting based upon the known facts isn't WAG. And technology has been advancing steadily for millennia and exponentially for centuries. It's not WAG to expect that to continue. In fact, anyone predicting technology to stagnate would be the one making baseless claims.
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On 8/4/2023 at 11:35 AM, Phi for All said:
Plausibility is all that's required for you to believe?! This is me, recoiling in horror at the dubious system of belief you follow. I call that type of belief "wishful thinking". That's as opposed to faith and trust, the other two types of belief I observe. My preferred method is trust, which requires more evidence, and far less assumption.
Plausibility coupled with near infinite technological advancement is all that is required. If technology is advancing to infinity (and that's what the evidence shows) anything plausible is a sound basis for belief.
And, as I said earlier, we can't even navigate life without belief. What route you take to work depends upon your immediate beliefs about traffic. The stock market, the weather, romance, politics, all require belief to navigate.
Even science requires belief! The ancients had no interest in the laws of physics because they didn't believe they were unmutable. Today they've been tested enough for us to assume that they are unmutable - but it has never been proven. It's a belief. Then there's Quantum Mechanics. "Does God play dice?", as Einstein asked. If probablities are involved reality becomes a dice game.
On 8/4/2023 at 11:20 AM, iNow said:Here that's described as WAG: Wild Ass Guessing
Will it be powered by unicorn farts, or maybe the tears of transgender leprechauns?
It's not WAG that technology is heading for near infinity eventually.
And, as I've said earlier, mind contents will be captured via nano-machines. Then those contents will just be broadcast to the distant star by radio and reconstituted on-site.
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Pardon my absence, but life can sometimes knock projects like this to the bottom of the priority stack.
On 7/21/2023 at 4:01 PM, zapatos said:You should be an Evangelical preacher. Substitute "God" for "human technological advancement" and you'll soon be healing the lame and handling serpents.
Except that "human technological advancement" does not involve the supernatural. "God" does. Nothing in my thesis involves the supernatural. I am postulating a basis for a belief, but that belief is in the ingenuity of mankind, not the supernatural. Rational people can still believe things. In fact, they have to to navigate life. Not every facet of existence has been solved to perfection.
On 7/21/2023 at 4:26 PM, Genady said:I think that your predictions by cherry picked simple extrapolations are, intentionally or not, grossly simplistic for the real world. "It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future", but I am certain that something very different will actually happen.
To @zapatos, you remind an Evangelical preacher. To me, you remind a communist propagandist. Just substitute "classless society" for "human technological advancement" and you get a "hyperhyperdrive" to universal happiness.
As I posted earlier, what I am doing is best characterized as “Technology Forecasting”. By definition, that means forecasting technology that doesn’t exist yet. There would be no point in forecasting existing technology, like jet engines, would there? So, since the forecast technology doesn’t exist yet, certainty cannot be a requirement. Only plausibility can be. And, in any event, my thesis was a basis for a belief only. Again, that only requires plausibility, not certainty.
Nevertheless, my forecasting has employed historical trends in technology (exponential advance rates), coupled with the current state of the technological horizon (AI assistance looming). So, my forecast is based on the best evidence. Anyone forecasting a technological dark age on the horizon would be making a forecast without any factual basis. Even if a dystopian world came about technology would still be the vector of survival and therefore even more prioritized. Finally, even if the advance is slower than I have anticipated, the time available for mankind is virtually unlimited. Mankind will get to the advanced state I’ve predicted eventually. Wonders will ensue.
I again postulate that the astronomical advance of technology that the future surely has in store for us makes my prediction possible: Secular people have a sound basis for belief in a wonderful afterlife. That should be a source of positivity in this troubled world we live in.
On 7/22/2023 at 10:36 AM, TheVat said:Think about the handheld leaf rake. Steady improvements for a few centuries and then....Perfect for its job, quiet, low-maintenance, lightweight, fuel-less. Not every technology must necessarily keep advancing rapidly. Some plateau.
Wiki "mature technology."
I was refering to technology in general. Not a specific invention.
On 7/25/2023 at 9:51 AM, Phi for All said:Then you're Begging the Question by assuming your conclusions about the technology are correct. Can't you discuss the advance of technology and its consequences without the assumptions about a technological afterlife?
I'm assuming that my prediction is plausible. That's all that is required for predictions. That's all that is required for belief. We have a basis for a secular belief in an afterlife.
As an aside, just for fun, I want to revisit my prediction that teleportation will be the method of interstellar travel. Once we have mind storage/recovery, teleportation will be possible. Instead of physically traveling between stars, with the risk of slamming into some unknown object in deep space at 10% of the speed of light, machines will do that traveling, prepare the way, and then human mind contents will be teleported at no risk and at the full speed of light, to the distant star. 😊
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On 7/19/2023 at 10:47 AM, zapatos said:
You don't know that.
You don't know that.
You don't know that.
Of course we do!! Many people suffer spinal injuries disconnecting themselves from their sensory inputs. They remain the same consciousness. And, we know that the brain's data processing must be hard wired. Otherwise how could it come into existence? You can't think your thinking system into existence. It has to be built in before you can even think!! So that part of the brain must be contained in the DNA blueprints. So, we only need the DNA to reproduce that part.
And you are not grasping the magnitude of human technological advancement.
On 7/19/2023 at 12:00 PM, Genady said:How do you know this?
Not necessarily, but it is not a brain function.
What do you mean by it? Why does the brain need to recover itself? What do you call "recover" in this context?
Sure it's a brain function. The sugar in the coke interacts with the sugar receptors in my tongue and alerts the brain. (Much like the chemical transfers between neurons!).
And....the brain is keeping secrets from itself??!!
I feel like the discussion has gotten off-track. We seem to be mired in the minutia about the implementation of the specific steps required, which was never the point of my thesis. I’m not in any way claiming to know how those steps will be implemented (never mind that I’ve almost got about half the paperwork filled out for the patent on mind-saving 😊). My thesis was about the accelerating advance of technology and its consequences for ourselves and those who came before us.
Take a minute to think about that accelerating advance. It’s been advancing at an exponential rate for centuries now. And we’re about to add machine intelligence to that process. Machine intelligence itself is not going to remain static either. Its algorithms will be exponentially improved (including by machine intelligence itself) as will the power of the computers it runs on. So, machine intelligence itself is going to be advancing exponentially. Therefore, the technological advances it will engender are going to advance even faster than exponentially. They’re going to go into hyperdrive!
Furthermore, there really isn’t any limit to the time that the hyper expansion of technology can run. Centuries, millennia, tens of millennia, hundreds of millennia, etc. can be expected in our future. The combination of hyper advance of technology and unlimited time will mean that technology will ultimately be advanced to the edge of infinity. Under that paradigm, any task that is within the laws of physics will be achievable.
And, if that isn’t enough, don’t forget that the world’s population continues to expand as does its wealth. That means more and more minds and more and more technology devoted to the advancement of technology. Can you say “hyperhyperdrive”?
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On 7/17/2023 at 11:33 AM, zapatos said:
A snapshot of the brain at a given moment tells you next to nothing about the brain. It is like taking a long distance snapshot of our galaxy and trying to extrapolate how life, ecosystems, feelings, human connections, gravity, time, art, sports and everything else will function and change over the next second, month and year.
Our nervous system sends roughly 20 billion messages per second. In each cell of the brain you have approximately 1 billion chemical reactions per second, or about 37 billion trillion chemical reactions per second for the whole body. What is happening in your heart, spleen and skin affects what is happening in your brain.
You may be able to create something superficially similar to a human's brain and memory, but it is not a duplicate.
Most of that is irrelevant to recreating "you". What sensory inputs or specific thoughts you happen to be having at the moment can be discarded without changing yourself. Furthermore, many of the brain's systems are hard wired in your DNA and wouldn't have to be saved.
Once nano-machines are available, we will, over a few centuries, figure out just what is needed to be recorded for restoration. This is a solvable problem that will be solved. Have a little faith in human ingenuity!
On 7/17/2023 at 12:53 PM, Genady said:No, if it turns out to be a quantum machine, nothing can recover its state without destroying it.
Yes, there are. Your nanomachines or whatever cannot measure positions and momenta of these particles and thus cannot recreate them.
So...not even the brain can recover it!!??
And, I guess when I sip a coke (exchanging chemicals) I'm doing quantum entanglement??
This is getting sillier and sillier. Whatever is required to transfer our minds to hard media will not be able to resist the expansion of technology to the edge of infinity.
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On 7/15/2023 at 11:08 AM, Genady said:
Now it is YOU who is stuck in 2023, it seems.
... and other important components.
For a simple example, myelin sheath structures control rate of propagation of signals in neurons. Different rates cause differences in arrival times of the signals. This affects the spikes. Etc.
Lesser? This is how drugs affect brain. They don't modify neuron connections. The effects are dramatic, though.
Paraphrasing YOU just a bit,
You were presenting the brain as a quantum computer as if it were an established fact. Wikipedia describes it as speculation, even as admited by its proponents:
"These hypotheses of the quantum mind remain hypothetical speculation, as Penrose and Pearce admit in their discussions."
Regardless, I'll repeat what I said earlier: If the brain can recover its contents (and it must be able to) then a nano-machine can do so as well.
And exchanging chemicals is a lesser act than chemical bonding in that there are no quantum mechanical aspects.
On 7/15/2023 at 11:54 AM, zapatos said:Well sure, if you believe without evidence then I can see why you might also believe in shapeshifting and Santa Claus. Being pragmatic though I understand that some things are impossible to know, and humans are limited, just like every other living thing is limited.
Again, what I'm doing is sort of like "Technology Forecasting". I don't have to file a patent to do so.
If everything we don't yet have figured out is "implausible" then that means all blue-sky research is implausible. Who's going to fund implausible research?
And plausible today is not the same as plausible centuries or millennia from now.
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4 minutes ago, Genady said:
In the case of quantum computers, it does.
Your claim that the brain is a quantum computer doesn't seem to have much acceptance yet, that I can find. Regardless, it is still made up of neurons and their connections. Anything a neuron can detect a nano-machine can detect - and record.
1 minute ago, TheVat said:Internal combustion operates on the scale of atoms interacting, especially hydrogen, carbon and oxygen atoms. Automobiles are too macro for this.
😏
That's only chemistry. Do neurons even bond chemically with each other to interact? They exchange chemicals but that's a lesser operation. If neurons aren't even doing chemical bonding how could they be doing quantum mechanics?
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1 minute ago, Genady said:
Neurons and their connections are not the whole story of the brain.
Quantum computers are macro, too. They operate on quantum, nevertheless.
"Quantum" can mean lots of things. It does not equate to Quantum Mechanics.
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5 hours ago, Genady said:
The latter are quantum in nature, and I think that the "calculations" which brain runs are quantum.
You "think"? I thought you had discovered a law of nature.
Quantum mechanics operate on the scale of atoms. Neurons are far too macro for this.
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23 hours ago, zapatos said:
It is not just that we don't know how to do certain things to meet your goal, but that we don't even know what those certain things are. You are assuming first that all problems can be solved, and second that all problems can be solved by humans. I would argue that neither of those assumptions are true. Thus, until we know a lot more than we do now, it is not possible to claim you've made a "plausible case that they will be solved".
Plausibility is subjective. Those who have faith in the ingenuity of mankind will see this task as plausible.
Stone-age men couldn't draw up the blueprints for jet engines. We still have them.
23 hours ago, Genady said:It is not.
Quantum mechanics prohibits this.
No technology overcomes laws of nature.
It's definitely a collection of neurons and their connections. And if the neuron can detect its own state, a nano-machine can too. For sure, EEG sets detect enough of the brain's activity to decern emotions.
The brain's structure is not a law of nature.
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On 7/13/2023 at 10:50 AM, Genady said:
If you don't record all the necessary information, you cannot restore the original state. I claim that it is in principle impossible to collect all the necessary information. This makes your case implausible.
Again, if the brain is just a collection of neurons, their connections, and the states of those connections, it is possible to collect all the necessary information using nano-machines - as I've described earlier. Even if it's more complicated than that, the issue will not withstand the tidal wave of technological advancement to the edge of infinity. These are simply techological speed bumps that will get flattened in that wave.
Regardless, I'm not filing for a patent on the technique. I'm just making a case for belief that it will be solved. That's a lower bar that I'm sure I've met.
23 hours ago, TheVat said:Moreover, how is that immortality? How do we know that after your brain is precisely copied by some as-yet unknown (and implausible) method for a "quantum snapshot," then you will die, and a distinct consciousness will awaken that has all your memories? It will tell everyone that "you" survived and are just fine, but that subjective report does not eliminate the possiblity that the original biological you lost consciousness and is gone forever.
As I said in my initial post:
"There are some issues with insuring that it really is our consciousness that gets restored and not just a duplicate of ourselves, of course."
So, yes, that is an issue that will have to be resolved. Even the science isn't sorted out yet for that, so no point in my speculating how it might be achieved. But, work on machine consciousness may be the vector that allows human consciousness to be sorted out. And, again, my scenario includes extrapolating technology to near infinity. That should bulldoze any solvable problem in our paths eventually.
Oh, and I just said "snapshot", not "quantum snapshot".
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21 hours ago, wtf said:
Human experience is finite, but our lifespans are short. If you're uploaded to a computer, you'll inevitably reach the point where your experiences duplicate. Once that happens often enough, you'll beg to be unplugged.
In no alternate universe, let alone this one, was Ray Kurzweil ever a founder of Google. He joined the company as an employee in 2012. Nano machines are not the subject of the thread.
I'm not loading anyone into a computer. I'm just storing a snapshot of our minds in one to enable it to be restored after our deaths. That storage is finite but, after restoration, our prospects will be as infinite as in any other living organism.
I guess I got some bad info on Kurzweil. Nevertheless, what I said about his nano-machine prediction stands - and that's what matters. Among the many revolutionary advantages they will bring will include repair to cells and other bodily structures. So, pristine cells and arteries, for example. Like a "fountain of youth"!
18 hours ago, Genady said:How do you know that the mind contents are recorded in the spatial locations of the neurons? I bet they are not. The neurotransmitter concentrations, release, absorption, and other molecular level mechanisms inside and outside of neurons are crucial as well.
Moreover, how do you know that brain is not a quantum rather than classical computer? If it is, it is impossible in principle to record its state without destroying it.
The brain is a collection of neurons and their connections. That - and their states - can be recorded. If it's more complicated than that, we'll have centuries to figure out those details. Again, I don't have to solve all the technical details this minute. I just have to make a plausible case that they will be solved. And they will be.
In fact, once nano-machines become available (maybe pretty soon) the opportunity to make such a recording of our minds might be a good idea. That's even if it will be centuries before restoration becomes possible. That storage will eliminate the need for some sort of time-travel like technique to recover that info later.
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On 7/9/2023 at 10:02 AM, Bufofrog said:
In fairness, I think the first part of your statement is also "off the deep end" since that is firmly in the realm of science fiction.
This does not seem like philosophy this seems like science fiction. I think this would be a better fit in Speculations or The Lounge sections
Earlier I said I didn't care how it was categorized, and I still don't. But I want to go back to this anyway. I wouldn't categorize it as science fiction since that doesn't have any constraints. I'm postulating a basis for a belief - that constrains me to plausibility. I think a better categorization would be "Technology Forcasting". But, since this concerns belief in an afterlife, it should continue to fit nicely here in the General Philosophy category.
On 7/10/2023 at 10:19 AM, Genady said:No, it is impossible because DNA has only part of the information necessary to reconstruct the body and the brain. The other part, which is interactions with environment during development, got lost. Without this other part, you don't have enough information to reconstruct the body and the brain.
The brain is the only part that has to be reconstructed precisely - for restoring the mind contents recorded earlier. But that recording - using nano-machines you'll recall - can also record the spacial locations of all neurons as it does so. Then, when the body - including the brain - is constructed, the brain will be identical to the original. Our bodies change continuously and there is no need for such precision for that.
Catch up! You're stuck in 2023. This is happening centuries from now, after centuries of AI-assisted technological advancements.
15 hours ago, wtf said:I have another objection or concern that comes to mind, would be interested in your feedback.
Every physical computer has only finitely much memory. In the future it will be a lot, but it must be finite. That implies that the computer can only be in a finite number of states before repeating.
So you are uploaded into digital heaven (more about that in a moment). You are served a seemingly endless supply of delightful digital heavenly experiences. Then one day you notice that you're in the same scene you've been in before. You realize that since the computer is only capable of being in finitely many states, you are condemned to loop forever.
After the billionth time you've had sex with the celebrity of your choice, you realize it's not really fun anymore. It's boring. You realize you are not in heaven. You are in hell.
There's a relevant Twilight Zone episode. Petty crook dies and goes to the beyond. His host (named Pip, played by the delightful Sebastian Cabot) tells him he can have anything he wants. Girls? They all fall for him. Gambling? He wins at everything. Crimes? Yes he can even commit crimes, and he gets away with them.
One day he starts getting bored. He asks Pip if there could just be a chance he'd get caught committing a crime. Pip takes out his notebook, says, "Ok, you'd like to be caught." The guy says no, I just want there to be a CHANCE of getting caught. That's the excitement, to not know. He says, "If this is heaven, then I'd rather be in the other place."
Pip lets out a devilish laugh and says, "Heaven? What ever made you think this is heaven? This IS the other place!"
And so it would be for your existence inside a digital computer. After the millionth time through the same experiences, you would beg your machine maintainers to unplug you. You would beg for death.
And then you remember -- you are not in digital heaven. In your life you committed a crime. You are CONDEMNED to your endless existence of the same predictable experiences, over and over for eternity. It's your punishment. You are in hell.
What say you?
By the way note that it wouldn't help to allow you to interact with the other uploadees. There's only so much memory and only so many states, and in the end, everyone's collective experiences must loop endlessly through the same finite set of experiences.
I never said anything about "digital heaven". The contents of the human mind is finite and that was what was being recorded to memory for future restoration. The subject will be physically restored to real life - in a future that I expect to be sort of equivalent to something we might call heaven, but just as infinite as any other time in the universe has been.
I want to add that last year Ray Kurzweil (one of the founders of Google, famous for technology predictions) predicted that Nano-Machines were only about eight years away! That sounds a little early to me, but if he's right that will be Earth-shattering!
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On 7/10/2023 at 10:19 AM, Genady said:
No, it is impossible because DNA has only part of the information necessary to reconstruct the body and the brain. The other part, which is interactions with environment during development, got lost. Without this other part, you don't have enough information to reconstruct the body and the brain.
Explain cloning then.
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8 minutes ago, Genady said:
I did not point to something that needs more details. I pointed to a mistake.
So...unless you can conceive of how to do it right now in every particular, it's impossible?
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23 hours ago, Bufofrog said:
In fairness, I think the first part of your statement is also "off the deep end" since that is firmly in the realm of science fiction.
This does not seem like philosophy this seems like science fiction. I think this would be a better fit in Speculations or The Lounge sections
I don't care how it's categorized. But I wanted to counter the notion that the concept of an afterlife has been scientifically disproven. We just had Arnold S. declare that Heaven doesn't exist. A few years ago non-believers posted declarations on billboards that "there is no afterlife" on US-59 here in Houston. No room for discussion. That seems to be the understanding among non-believers - that science has disproven any afterlife. Well, it hasn't. There's room for it if what I proposed gets figured out.
QuoteThis is not how DNA works. DNA does not contain information for reconstructing our bodies. The only way to use DNA to get a body is to let it go through the entire developmental process. And then, the result will depend on both DNA and the developmental environment, which surely will be different from the original. So, the "reconstructed" body will be different from the original.
This includes the brain. The "reconstructed" brain will be different from the original. Thus, it will not fit the stored contents of the original brain.
A technological speed bump. Obviously, I don't have the details figured out yet. Stone age men didn't have the blueprints for jet engines either.
13 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:Much like how I don't believe in gods, I don't believe in exponential progress either. I expect the progression is more like an S-curve. They can look very similar... for a while. Let us hope it is not a U-curve.
I don't want to die - although that may change as my body and mind deteriorates from age - but not enough to set aside experience and reason in favor of religious faith in an afterlife. I doubt a technological version is possible but I'm not much attracted by it; seems that whoever it is achieves consciousness in that body won't be me, even if he thinks otherwise. So I struggle to feel any attachment to his fate, apart from a vague "good luck".
Better medical care for the life I have - with or without a capability to extend it - will remain a better goal in my view
It's been a long time since mankind has regressed, technologically, if ever. Soon we'll have AI to help us - the current rate of advance will accelerate!
I mentioned that the issue about who's consciousness is restored would have to be figured out. Another techological speed bump.
I am in no way suggesting this is a basis for discounting the life we have.
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Postulating a Basis for Belief in a Technological Afterlife
by
Bob Cross
I’ve been thinking about the implications of the accelerating advance of technology in our world. Extrapolating this to the far future has led me to postulate the plausible expectation of a non-supernatural afterlife – a Technological Afterlife.
Think about the advance of technology we’re experiencing. Compare 2023 vs. 1923. Compare that to 1923 vs. 1823, etc. It’s advancing exponentially. So, imagine what will be possible – not just in a century – but in millennia. I like to use Arthur C. Clark’s idea about what vastly advanced civilizations will be like to us (he meant extraterrestrial civilizations, but it would apply to our own civilization millennia from now as well). He said their technology will basically appear to be magic to us. So…just about anything that you can imagine will be conceivable (so long as it doesn’t violate the laws of physics).
Try conceiving that in the far future mankind will be able to transfer the contents of our minds to hard memory – to be restored upon the event of our death. (I can imagine nano-machines effecting this – one machine detecting at each neuron). Our bodies will be quickly reconstructed to perfection from just our DNA – to then be repopulated with the stored memory of our minds. This probably isn’t actually that far off – maybe a century or two. (There are some issues with insuring that it really is our consciousness that gets restored and not just a duplicate of ourselves, of course. And we still haven’t figured out just what consciousness is - so, anticipating it does require a leap of faith that that will be figured out.) Once achieved, humans will basically be immortal.
(And, as a side-effect, it might also mean teleportation, like in “Star Trek”, with DNA-code and mind contents teleported wherever desired to then be used for restoration on site. This may be how real interstellar travel is effected – robots sent ahead first to prepare the way with whatever planetary terraforming is required, followed by teleportation of mind contents.)
This step isn’t that controversial. And I’m hardly the first person to postulate the “minds to hard memory” thing. It doesn’t really require much foresight to foresee its advent. It’s my next step that goes off the deep end:
Now take a much bigger leap into the far, far, far, far, future – multiple millennia from now. Now technology is so advanced that mankind will be able to see back in time with perfect clarity – enough that the minds and DNA-code of long dead people can be saved to hard memory in the same fashion. And – boom! - long dead people will be able to be restored to life! OK, this is a real leap into the unknown!
Note that I’m not postulating actual time-travel as there are paradoxes linked to that. Rather, I’m just postulating seeing into the past with perfect clarity. No paradoxes there.
We can at least say that this expectation doesn’t violate the laws of physics. In fact, a current tenet of physics is that “information cannot be destroyed”. (In fact, this was one of the final things Hawking solved regarding black holes). And, since we’re extrapolating technology to near infinity, it’s only natural to anticipate a way to recover it.
But how such recovery will actually be possible is unknowable for us. If I were writing a science fiction story, I might use sci-fi buzz words like “manipulating parallel universes” or such. But the real technology used will be many orders-of-magnitude even more unimaginable to us (like stone-age men trying to anticipate jet engines or smart phones). Again, I invoke Arthur C. Clark: It will appear to be magic to us. So, it must be taken on faith. But note that it’s not faith in the supernatural. Rather, it’s faith in human ingenuity.
Note that if a few millennia won’t suffice then just wait for a few tens of millennia, a few hundreds of millennia, etc., with technology advancing exponentially throughout. The combination of information indestructability and extrapolating technology to the edge of infinity renders the expectation plausible.
Let me be clear: I’m in no way saying that I KNOW this technological advance will occur. I’m only saying that it has enough basis to warrant a belief that it will. In other words, all I’m saying is that secular people, sans religion, have a plausible basis for an expectation of an afterlife.
What will this be like for us? After death, we won’t experience the intervening millennia – we’ll be inert. Our next conscious thoughts will be millennia later, upon being restored. So, the intervening millennia will zip by in a flash for us. The world we enter will be like heaven to us, comparably – living in perfect health for eternity with the Universe to explore.
Why would such distant people want to restore us? They won’t. But they will want to restore their parents. Then their parents will want to restore their parents, and so on – eventually getting all the way back to us. Don’t leave descendants that far forward? No problem. Some ancestors of yours will do so and be restored, and then will want to restore any of their children that didn’t. Then those children will want to restore their children, and so on.
Will there be space for us? Of course. By then mankind will be expanding throughout the galaxy and will need warm bodies – or at least will have space for them. There may even be planets devoted to each civilization and era – and that’s probably where we will be restored: Populating them without needing space travel (or even teleportation!).
I realize this almost sounds religious. But it’s not, since there is no supernatural factor involved. The assumptions are purely within the bounds of science and rationality. But, having tumbled to it, I admit that it’s about as comforting as religion. But, don’t worry if you don’t join in the belief. This faith has no penalty for non-believers – they will be restored the same as everyone else. Of course, some of history’s most evil people may not be cleared for restoration – but that will be independent of their beliefs.
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Postulating a Basis for Belief in a Technological Afterlife
in General Philosophy
Posted
The invention of gunpowder was a lot of progress. As impactful as the invention of nuclear weapons has been in our time.
And there was no REGRESSION of progress in Africa, the Americas, or Oceania. Whatever technological level they were at they at least maintained that level.
Furthermore, even Europe wasn't fully dark. The Byzantine Empire remained literate and civilized. It was only Western Europe that suffered a dark age.
So...as I said, on a world-wide basis, technology continued to advance throughout this supposed dark period.
Regardless, there is no looming dark age stretching before us today. What we see looming before us is a tidal wave of accelerating advancement of technology like never before in history. It's gonna take your breath away! And that means that what I've been postulating is plausible enough for rational people to believe in its eventual achievment.