Mr Skeptic

So then you admit that changing it makes new function. Degradation is of course new, unless it already existed somewhere perhaps? And in any case, I'm sure you're incredibly surprised that a small step away from a local maximum will usually result in reduced function, and think there is some deep meaning to this other than the obvious. Again, this is false. A small change can result in novel function. For example, a small change of one amino acid in sGC is the difference between it being a sensor for oxygen or nitrogen. As you noted elsewhere, this can be seen as degraded function -- because the NO binds much more strongly but the O2 is far more plentiful, decreasing the binding affinity to oxygen turns it into an NO sensor. In this case this "degraded function" turns out to be the same as "new function", since now it functions as a sensor for NO. Very similar such proteins are used in different creatures, either for binding NO or O2. http://www.nature.com/nchembio/journal/v1/n1/full/nchembio704.html Riboswitches, though not proteins, can perform a similar function. In the link are two such riboswitches, one for binding guanine and the other adenine. One single change is the key to their different specificity http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/static.do?p=education_discussion/molecule_of_the_month/pdb130_1.html Whose promise?

Certainly. When there is something that limits exponential growth, things work out nicely for those involved. And it doesn't really matter what it is that limits the exponential growth, so long as something does. Personally, I prefer that that limit is our own choice, rather than forced upon us like it has been proven to unavoidably happen otherwise. Please note that this does not mean that we have to force birth control or death nor anything -- rather, our more developed populations have reduced their birth rate, and presumably if we let the poor countries catch up they will do the same. This would be ideal since we don't need to do anything ethically questionable like let our population expand past what can be sustained nor conversely limiting population by force.

Just keep in mind we'll do our best to try to poke holes in it. But don't worry, if it is bulletproof we won't be able to.

How could a society founded on the principles of fallible and sinful men possibly compare to one founded on the principles of a loving and infinite God?

Open Source are for the most part volunteer projects. Beggars can't be choosers, so you just have to convince them that you'd do more good then harm. Or, you could start a project of your own and see if anyone wants to join you. Just as an example, check out the game biohack: http://www.fileplanet.com/216253/210000/fileinfo/BioHack-Demo It's not open source, but it mixes coding, gameing, and biology. But the reason I suggested open source, is because of the teamwork aspect. Getting on a commercial team would be harder and have different objectives; most open source projects need as many volunteers as they can get.

How would recycling himself get rid of the humans? That's like thinking you can destroy an ant nest by killing one of the ants, it won't work and he'll be replaced very quickly. If he wanted to do the world a favor by killing someone, it certainly wouldn't be himself, but rather someone who is causing even more harm... Yes, because we're killing off species faster than any of the historical mass extinctions have. Obviously our domesticated plants and animals will also suffer without humans, and a few species like rats that are favored by the conditions we create. Humans really aren't good for the environment, at least not right now. In the future we could stop the earth from being destroyed by the sun turning red giant, but that won't be for quite a while. And none of this is really related to Gliese 581g.

Maybe you could work on some Open Source software.

No, no I understand that completely. That is why I suggested consolidative growth right from the start, and trillions upon trillions of times better than the one you suggested. I stopped the consolidative growth at getting humans down to one atom per human, because I figured it would be impossible to get any further consolidative growth than that. Humans still run out of resources for exponential growth. Sure, but it is still far worse than what I assumed. My one-atom humans don't need any of these resources you want them to need, but nevertheless they still run out of resources for exponential growth. Sure, if you stop exponential growth then exponential growth stops. That's perfectly reasonable, but then like I said exponential growth stops anyways. Sure, but I'm suggesting that you turn every atom in that bike, sidewalk, etc, into a human as the population expands. I can't see how you think your suggestion would allow for more growth than mine. Humans still run out of resources for exponential growth. Do you even realize that to sustain an exponential growth you need to have exponential resources (or exponential decrease in needed resources but as you said that can't happen if you can't shrink humans down to less than one atom each)? By all means, repeat yourself until you are sore. I won't even bother responding unless you can suggest something that would actually work, rather than your continuing of suggesting things more pessimistic than I myself suggested. Quit being a closed-minded pessimist already, and suggest some technology that can sustain exponential growth -- if you can.

For that to work, you'd need a faster than light spaceship to take your telescope.

Every known form of information is contained materially; books, computer memory, antibodies, all material and all a form of memory. There is however no evidence nor proposed process by which memories, ideas, thoughts or information are reducible to immaterial so any belief that this were possible is purely metaphysical based on a prior commitment to supernaturalism.

Sure, gravity is based on mass, and magnetism on the movement of electric charge. Gravity can't cancel out and only adds up, whereas electromagnetism is far stronger but tends to cancel out if allowed to do so. This means that at large scales gravity will dominate, and at small scales electromagnetism will.

Well it would piss off the religious folks; they might treat you as an abomination with no soul. But I don't know of any reason that it wouldn't work, other than that our technology has a long way to go before it could be done.

Maybe, but a solid projectile would probably work better. Lasers are weak and heavy; the reason to use them is only to hit far away things that are too fast for normal projectiles.

If you mean my proposed technological progress, then most definitely yes, and that is rather the point. Exponential population growth doesn't work even when being stupidly optimistic, and therefore it won't work when being realistic either. In fact the majority of the thread is pie in the sky because continuous exponential growth is even more ridiculous than any of the assumptions anyone else has made in this thread.

Abstinence during the fertile period is totally unnatural. The rhythm method of birth control is therefore also unnatural and goes against human nature. The fact is that women are hornier during their fertile period and also somehow more sexually attractive to the men. See for example: For the effects on men: http://bigthink.com/ideas/24558 For the effects on women: http://www.newlifeafterdivorce.com/Relationships/Married-fertile-women-prefer-single-men.html

No, I understand how you're confused. However, all the examples you give are still far inferior to the ones I suggested, but somehow with inferior technologies you think you can get more resources or more efficient use of resources... it won't work. You advocate merging two (people/language/resource pools) into one person made up of about 10^27 atoms, I suggest something that is 10^27 times better but show that it still won't work. Where you say maybe you can fit two people I say maybe we can fit many many many times earth's current population. And you think I'm being stubbornly closed-minded by suggesting something 10^27 times better than what you are suggesting. I understand. Now just to be clear: are you suggesting we can shrink people and their resource consumption past 1 atom per person? If not, please realize that you need something better than the technologies I myself suggested to keep up exponential growth. So far you are saying worse technologies are better and that I don't understand that.

I think that when they switch parties it gives you a very good indication of what they stand for. The ones that stay in the party you don't know what they stand for since you don't know whether they're in that party out of convenience or because of the position of the party on the various issues.

Well it converts work into electrical energy. I don't really know the details. But no, it won't just keep generating electricity with a rock on it, it has to keep being disturbed (ie you need movement).

I'm not sure what you thought I didn't understand that you felt the need to repeat yourself. You have not really presented any scientific evidence in favor of your position (other than a strawman). I never questioned that putting an egg and sperm together is the start of a living human individual, so all the evidence you presented in favor of that view is a strawman (you're pretending that that is what I'm questioning when I've made it very clear it is not). What I'm saying is that these attributes are not enough to make a person (nor for that matter even necessary to make a person) It's all really just a matter of definition. You think a clone can't be a person since he wasn't formed by fertilization, I do. You think a braindead human is a living person, I don't. When the aliens come you won't consider them people because they're not human, and I will. When we create a sentient AI they'll have to wipe out people like you because you won't consider them people, I will. Note that as mentioned above, some people consider animals to be people. Really it all depends on how you make your definition. I think mine is better but of course I cannot prove it; at best I can show that it is more convenient than yours.

Correct. In fact, the virus they resurrected would have had to be an extinct strain (that's even more specific than species, but species is an odd concept for things like viruses that don't reproduce sexually. I don't know if it was extinct at a higher taxonomic level though). Here's a couple articles about this: http://genome.cshlp....ss/Herv_K.xhtml news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2006/11/01-04.html Note that they had to use multiple copies to deduce the original, since any one copy would have been full of mutations.

Oh, you mean if I put a rock on it can it generate infinite electricity? I wish!

Well one group of scientists recreated one of the retroviruses by putting together the fragments, and it could infect cells. But the more usual way is to compare the sequences to other known sequences and see if they match.

Why do you say that? I'm assuming that dilating time won't give you more atoms. Do you think I am mistaken? I think that if they have to eat (so that they can fast), then they take up more than one atom per human. I'm just saying, if you go implementing population control that puts a stop to the population growth, so as I said the population growth has to stop. You're intending to recycle living humans, yes? Because otherwise your suggestion makes no sense. Note that my assumption included 100% recycling of everything, and everything is humans. (and of course they still run out of resources for population growth). You're operating in the realm where you can't even imagine a possible solution to my problem, but still insist that it's not a problem. You'd have to find better (imaginary) technologies than the ones I assumed, for population growth to be able to continue, and you can't. Please, I tried my best. I assumed travel as fast as seems like it might possibly be allowed by the laws of physics; probably way faster than would be possible in actuality without most of your ship being antimatter. I assumed miniaturization to the limit that we somehow require only 1 atom per human. I assumed more energy that would probably be allowed by the laws of physics (enough to power about 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atom-sized humans on earth alone). And still, exponential population growth can't continue. None of these technologies would even come close, nor have you been able to suggest one that could. Despite the most optimistic suggestions anyone has offered, exponential population growth still couldn't be sustained. And yet you seem to think I'm being stubbornly pessimistic!?! You have quite the nerve to call me closed-minded given that the technological possibilities you offered as possible solutions are so far behind the ones I suggested.

It all looks like the stuff we already discussed, and fails at the very thing you failed at: Making an equivalence between human + alive, and personhood. No one cares if something is human and alive (see: cancer cells), they care if it is a person. Then you yourself disagree with most of what is in your own link. In fact, not a single mention of a soul. Also, breathing does not start until later in the development, so are you saying that until then it is not a human being? That's basically what we've been saying, just with "person" instead of "has a soul". I'd imagine things with no "soul" don't get any rights.

I think the result is the spider eating a few wasps, and the wasps for the most part ignoring the spider. There's also wasps that hunt tarantulas; and you're quite right about it being an epic battle, since either can win.