X-Message-Number: 29297 Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 19:56:13 -0500 (EST) From: Charles Platt <> Subject: wish fulfillment Eugen Leitl very kindly mentions a book that I wrote, exploring the possibilities for copying multiple human intelligences into a very large computer system. First, I have to point out that almost every idea in that novel came from Mind Children, the wonderful speculative nonfiction book by Hans Moravec. I gave him attribution, and he gave me a quote for the back cover of my hardcover edition--what a great guy! Vernor Vinge also helped me a lot with the concepts. Second, there isn't much cryonics in it. I have always seen cryonics as a stopgap, an inadequate answer to the problem of mortality. Biology is a horrible mess of insanely complicated processes supported by extremely vulnerable reactions, and the sooner we copy ourselves into something more stable, the better. That said, I'm happy that Eugen read the book. Not many people get to write their precise recipe for ultimate wish fulfillment; and if someone else reads it, and even likes it, who could ask for more? Well, actually, I could, because the possibilities that I imagined for 2030 seem increasingly unlikely. Progress moves much more slowly than those of us with an Extropian mindset might like to believe. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=29297