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#1 2007-12-04 07:42:44

Antius
Member
From: Cumbria, UK
Registered: 2007-05-22
Posts: 1,003

Re: Microscopic starships

There has been much speculation as to how interstellar travel will eventually take place.  Faster than light travel looks impossible on the basis of all science that we presently understand.  Even exotic sublight transportation systems such as anti-matter, bussard ramjets and dark-matter engines are difficult to foresee, given the inefficiencies in the manufacture of anti-matter, the interstellar drag imposed by hydrogen ions on a bussard ramjet and the speculative nature of dark-matter.

On this basis, it must be assumed that the fastest forseeable interstellar transport systems will be fusion, solar sail and beamed energy.  This limits transport speeds to approximately 0.1C, making manned interstellar travel very diffucult, unless we are prepared to build extremely large and expensive multi-generational spacecraft.

The other option would be to send robotic craft to other starsystems which would automatically manufacture human beings and human habitats when arriving at the target solar system.  Such a ship could be thought of as a 'seeder' ship, carrying with it only the genetic codes of its crew and the instructions on how to build suitable infrastructure on arrival.  Upon arrival, the craft would locate a small carbonaceous asteroid and manufacture a habitat, along with all of the infrastructure that the first batch of human would need.  From there, the first batch of humans could completely colonise the target star system.

On this basis, taking miniaturisation of components to its limits, a starship need be no larger than a coffee cup and there is the possibility that with radical advances in nanotechnology, it might even be microscopic.  It should therefore be possible to mass produce litterally billions of starships, colonise the entire galaxy within about 10,000 years and go on to colonise other galaxies on a timescale of a few tens of millions of years.  This could be done without humanity ever leaving the Earth as a biological entity.

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#2 2007-12-04 09:27:43

cIclops
Member
Registered: 2005-06-16
Posts: 3,230

Re: Microscopic starships

Once again Von Neumann probes are rediscovered!  smile

One of the only two interstellar technologies that exist right now might help to do this sooner. Embryos can be stored long term, so initially it may be easier to send a few hundred embryos than to try to assemble a human from DNA.

Once full nano technological capability is achieved, complete clones with all memories and skills could be reassembled at these distant bases. The other technology BTW is EM communication, essential for light speed travel once the base has constructed a suitable receiver. New technology and explorers can then travel from base to base at minimal cost and in minimal time. Brave explorer clones could  travel throughout the network established by the seeder probes. Eventually they would be able to travel anywhere in the galaxy, routed from habitat to habitat like IP packets smile Of course they would pay a heavy price in external time, light speed would still apply, it would take 50,000 years or more to cross the galaxy. Internally the consciousness of a clone would probably not experience any delay between disassembly and reassembly at the next location, but they would need a big update on missed events.

Nano tech would be able to clone cities around these bases and terraform suitable worlds. Even skies on other planets are not the limit!

Intergalactic distances are immense even compared with intragalactic ones, so even this type of exploration might daunt future generations.

(As technology progressed, clones could be upgraded with new bodies or whatever, thereby effectively achieving immortality)


[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond -  triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space]  #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps]   - videos !!![/url]

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#3 2007-12-05 07:34:24

Terraformer
Member
From: The Fortunate Isles
Registered: 2007-08-27
Posts: 3,907
Website

Re: Microscopic starships

Why clones? If you use clones you have the conciousness of the clone already in there so you can't place a new consciousness in. It would be easier and more ethical to simply make humans cyborgs. A cyborg body could be waiting at the location for the person to inhabit. Terraforming would be needless.


Use what is abundant and build to last

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#4 2007-12-05 11:17:19

Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: Microscopic starships

Yes terraforming is for biological creatures like us who need oxygen to breath. If we become machines, we don't need to terraform planets. But again if nanotechnology hit us, I don't see why we all should be forced to become machines or programs. Just maintain our biological bodies indefinitely, that's all I ask. If somebody becomes a superfast supercomputer brain, why should economic pressure force me to do the same. I'd rather have machines and computers serving me than for me to become such a machine. I don't want to have to compete with my technology, the trouble is distinguishing my technology that serves me with other people who choose to become technology. So we live seperately from the self-willed AIs that some humans choose to upload into?

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#5 2007-12-05 12:48:40

cIclops
Member
Registered: 2005-06-16
Posts: 3,230

Re: Microscopic starships

Why clones? If you use clones you have the conciousness of the clone already in there so you can't place a new consciousness in. It would be easier and more ethical to simply make humans cyborgs. A cyborg body could be waiting at the location for the person to inhabit. Terraforming would be needless.

Because it may not be possible to transfer "consciousness" into another body. Transferring consciousness to another body is an even harder problem, beyond nano technology. However, there is no reason why assemblers can't reproduce a person. If it's done atom by atom then a conscious clone would be expected at the end of the copying process.

Where is the ethical problem? The clone would be the same as the original was at the time of the copy, from then on it would have different experiences, and have all the rights of an individual. There may however be a legal problem smile  As the original wished to be transferred, then the clone ought to have the same desire. Of course it may not like the place on arrival.

Terraforming would be very helpful, as it's unlikely that the new location would be suitable for human beings.


[color=darkred]Let's go to Mars and far beyond -  triple NASA's budget ![/color] [url=irc://freenode#space]  #space channel !! [/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/c1cl0ps]   - videos !!![/url]

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#6 2007-12-06 10:36:01

Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: Microscopic starships

Transferring consciousness and using nanotechnology to make people introduces a number of troubling questions.

I think soon, we will live in an era where our machines are smarter than us, but will those machines continue to serve us?

I think they can, and there is no reason why they shouldn't, but I think we must becareful about creating machines that are people.

There are two cases we must deal with, the machine that is a servant and, the machine that is a person.

The Machine that is a servant, may be smarter than us, it may be more creative, but it does whatever we tell it to do, it doesn't not have any motivation other than to serve as that is its purpose. If we tell it to destroy itself, it will do that too without hesitation, because it is not a person, it has no desires, no motivations, it is in short a tool, a very intelligent, smart and clever tool but a tool just the same and nothing more.

The other case is the machine that is a person, this may come about because of a person's desire to upload his mind into a more durable and superior matrix, and also from his desire to be nearly immortal and to have superior intelligence and mind processing capabilities. Another reason to create machines that are people would be to simulate a whole society in virtual reality. A really powerful computer can simulate an entire world complete with natives for the users to interact with, for that we need to create artificial personalities that act and behave just as people would. Now the point is, once we've created such a VR world with its people, we become responsible for them, this becomes somewhat troubling, because in electronic role playing games, often what is desired is to have a number of intelligent opponents to fight. What happens to the opponents once they are killed? We could  ressurrect them into new simulated bodies I suppose and have them fight the next users that want an adventure, to the elctronic personalities, it would be just another job I suppose, one where they get "killed" multiple times and then try again, but they would still be people as they would have independent desires and goals seperate from what they were created for.

This has many aspects of playing God, and it is somewhat troubling. We should tread carefully here.

Electronic people don't need terraformed worlds, as we can simulate worlds for them alot easier than we can manipulate the physical universe to actually create Earth-like worlds for those who prefer to remain biological. There is also the issue of competition between electronic and biological people, the biologicals don't stand a chance in such a competition. Now if we can all live together or live seperately in peace without getting in each other's way, that would be good, but how to accomplish this, I honestly don't know, that is a question for the future perhaps.

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#7 2007-12-10 11:17:28

Antius
Member
From: Cumbria, UK
Registered: 2007-05-22
Posts: 1,003

Re: Microscopic starships

It may well turn out that robotics and machine intelligence are the next stage of evolution, for the simple reason that they are much more suited to the space environment and the very long timescales of interstellar travel.  As such, they would supercede us in much the same way as we superceded the amphibians that crawled from the primordial sea.

Not very pleasant on the face of it, but this sort of development would seem to be on the cards.

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#8 2007-12-12 11:55:38

Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: Microscopic starships

I don't know, we live side by side with creatures that are inferior to us, and we don't try to exterminate them because they are not as smart as we are. I would like to design the future artifical intelligences so that they are our servants rather than our compeditors, and since the machines are created to satisfy our wants and desires, a machine that is more intelligent than we are would be much better at it, and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't continue to do so in the future despite how intelligent they are.

I view intelligence as the ability to solve problems, now I believe the matter revolves around who decides upon which problems need to be solved, is it us or is it the machines? I think if we design our machines right, they will solve our problems and may come up with secondary problems that need to be solved on the way to solving the problems we give them, but they don't decide on which primary problems to solve. If they did choose their own problems, they may decide that one of their problems is getting rid of humans that take up space and use resources that otherwise they could use for themselves. I think that a good AI is one that acts as an "arm" or a "leg". That arm or leg goes where we want and does what we want it to do. An Ai servant would act just as that arm or leg would except besides doing physical problems it can also solve mental, mathematical, and other complex problems that we would otherwise be unable to solve. That lies in the slipery slope of use evolving into our machines that serve us so faithfully. The computer chip in our heads would become a part of us, that extra intelligence and capability would become part of our identity, and the danger is we may eventually decide to get rid of our core organic selves. I am not ready to become a machine, I'm not sure I want to become a hyper intelligent artificial intelligence just so I could compete with everyone else and have to constantly upgrade my software and hardware in a relentless rush to the top. All these changes, and humans evolving into superintelligent physical "machine gods" entails all sorts of risks. As they say "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" Technological power is certainly a type of power. Why not just find a way to enjoy life in this universe rather than pursue a relentless course of keeping up with the Joneses technologically and intellignence and powerwise?

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