X-Message-Number: 30748 From: Francois <> Subject: Re: Web site recommendation Date: Tue, 20 May 2008 21:12:35 -0400 Yes, a fascinating article. Transcension into inner space would also provide a solution to the thorniest problem faced by the immortal beings emerging from a technological singularity. They would find themselves trapped inside a mortal universe. It is known today that the universe will not collapse into a Big Crunch, but will instead vanish in a puff of cosmological smoke as its expansion rate accelerates without end. The path to true immortality sketched by Tipler in his book 'The physics of immortality' is therefore unavailable. What good is it to be immortal if the universe you live in is not? Fortunately, the final collapse of the universe is not the only physical singularity that can be engineered into the infinitely powerful computing system portrayed by Tipler. The singularity at the heart of a black hole will do just as well. It will provide an infinite time span and infinite virtual space for the immortals to enjoy their infinite lives, and will also offer an escape from the ultimate death of our universe. Therefore, transcension into inner space should be a far more likely outcome to the technological singularity than global colonization of the universe. >Nice logic. >But the assumption that a civilisation transcending through a technological >singularity would expand outwards into real space as opposed to virtual or >other types of artificial ones is conjecture. >Hence the absence of detectable industrial activity in our light cone does >not contradict the technological singularity hypothesis (even more so given >your unstated assumption that the Drake equation has a value of >1) >For a most excellent discussion of one aspect of this issue see John Smarts >"Exploring the Mechanisms of Universal Transcension" at >http://accelerating.org/articles/answeringfermiparadox.html Francois Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=30748