Scientist proposes new plan to "resurrect" the dead with a Dyson Sphere, kind of

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Originally published at: Scientist proposes new plan to "resurrect" the dead with a Dyson Sphere, kind of | Boing Boing

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Yeah, I’m gonna pass on that, thanks…

Also, how is this not just the plot of Altered Carbon?

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Still laughing as I write… thinking of the old Steve Martin line about how to become a millionaire and never pay taxes. First step toward immortality: stay alive for as long as you can hold out!

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Or Hannu Rajniemi’s Summerland! Makes that tale a whole lot more plausible.

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We have to solve the resource availability and consumption problem before we solve the mortality “problem.” Unless he means immortality only for a few…

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I mean, if you’ve already got a Dyson sphere…

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Is anyone else struck by the ease with which the creation of “Friendly AI” is assumed to be (a)the natural progression of AI research, (b)not terribly far away; and (c)the solution to a variety of hairy problems in resurrection studies that have largely eluded the world’s population of Natural Intelligences since the dawn of behaviorally modern humanity?

Maybe I’m just having a bad day; but dismissing out of hand the possibility of either I-Have-No-Mouth-and-I-Must-Scream AI or blue-and-orange-morality AI seems more than a bit premature; as does assuming that an AI will have any useful answers to, say, “how can I image my nervous system to the level of detail required to produce a model that is usefully ‘me’, ideally nondestructively”?

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Here, it seems more like shorthand for deus ex machina.

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If you are postulating the possibility, and existence, of a bunch of immortal simulations even a Dyson sphere is just kicking the can down the road when it comes to deciding on resource allocation.

That’s a lot of energy; but, especially if any of the existing simulations have an interest in bringing more simulations into the system(whether ones like themselves, as offspring, or just computationally expensive hobbies within the sim) it’s a finite and (and per-simulation decreasing) amount.

Scarcity gets even more fun if it turns out that the simulations parallelize well; and it turns out that allocating more resources to a given simulation lets it exist in faster than real time or a more detailed environment or the like; so the demand for resources of even a single instance could potentially be unlimited because more resources means more perceptual time before the star runs out.

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Like I said: deus ex machina.

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I already have a nanotech body. The primary elements are carbon and hydrogen.

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I’d prefer to be uploaded into a Hoberman sphere. That way my consciousness will have the comforting familiarity of being housed in a form whose circumference varies wildly.

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More and more I think anyone claiming to be a “Transhumanist” is just someone regurgitating sci-fi plots in order to get attention. I have a hard time seeing what they actually contribute to the thing they are advocating.

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Reading the headline I was thinking about a comedy where some mad scientist tries to make a zombie army using vacuum cleaners, The first try done using a kobold doesn’t go well, so other barands are tried.

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I don’t have a Dyson Sphere and Amazon doesn’t seem to have any in stock.

Will a Dyson Ball work?

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more of a cishumanistic kind o’ chap meself (in terms of organic chemistry don’tchaknow)

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The fool! Vaccuum cleaners?
He should have tried a Thermomix!