X-Message-Number: 10945 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: Once more, the Eloi Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1998 23:36:13 +1100 (EST) Hi everyone! I note that Mr. Smith once more urges the value of becoming one of the Eloi. We already have computers that do many things we cannot do ourselves, at least in the sense that we cannot do them as fast, and often could not do them at all. No doubt we will expand and increase this ability of computers in the future. But there is an essential difference: without us requesting inform- ation from the computer, the computer is no more than a big slab of electrical devices. No doubt we could if we wished create computers that could ask their own questions and carry out their own investigations. I do not doubt that at all. But to simply do that and then go off and dance in the Sun is exactly to become an Eloi. I do not intend to become an Eloi, regret that Mr. Smith does (not that I can stop him) and hope that most people on Cryonet would not be satisfied with such a state, just as I would not be satisfied with such a state. In one short story (actually in several, but it showed up most clearly in one) that I wrote for the fiction magazine once produced by Fred and Linda Chamberlain, one of the characters was essentially using such a computer, through connectivity into his brain. He could exchange that computer for another to solve some different problem (since if we carried all such computers around with us we could not move at all). I say this not to promote it but merely to point out that we already have a symbiosis with our computers, one which might be improved, but also one in which we play an essential role. There is nothing at all in technology which says that we should or must become Eloi. And to anyone who reads this and doesn't know who the Eloi were, I recommend reading Wells' TIME MACHINE. And yes, if we are to live forever we will also grow, in ways hard to predict now. 1000 years from now I may not even remember the first 100 years of my life. But then the first few months of a baby's life decide lots of things, too. Best and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10945