X-Message-Number: 14566
From: "George Smith" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re: SETI and immortality
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 13:28:39 -0700

Dear Ron Have:

Your Cryonet post #14456 was right on target!

If intelligence as we know it doesn't make continuity of knowledge
(immortality) a prime issue, there would come a point when the civilization
would probably stall and fail.

If we were not expanding the capacity of our information handling tools
(computers), we would now be entering a state of stasis or decline.

Hans Moravek's vision of flesh human uniting with robotic machine seems
inevitable as we need to be able to keep up with the knowledge explosion.

The current situation with flesh humans living some 70 years and then dying
does not lend itself to progress.  We have done better with books to
organize this information over the last 400 years but it is becoming obvious
that with our current learning and memory limitations, humans can't keep up
with what is happening without improvement.

And without continuity of knowledge in the individual mind, it means that
each unit human has to start from scratch with each birth.  Not an efficient
system to put it mildly!

Clearly this problem has to be overcome for any civilization to rise much
above our level of material control.  I strongly suspect that they are not
only out there but that we may have never been as "alone" as our scientific
community currently believes.

But, whether that speculation is true or not, your observation that any
meaningful contact would uplevel the human condition past mortality makes
perfect sense to me.  If "they" cared about us at all, they would want to at
least remove us from this short-lived condition which ensures our species'
knowledge limitations.

Meaningful schooling can't begin if the pupil dies before surviving first
grade!

Thank you for the excellent posting.

Sincerely,

George Smith

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