Science Forums 2

[Boerseun]

This might be mere whimsical speculation. If it doesn't fit in here, please feel free to move it.

But here's the premise:

A thousand years from now, what would be humanity's place in the universe?

I personally believe that nobody alive today (or in the foreseeable future) will venture any further than, say, Mars. There's really no point to it.

I think that seeing as evolution brought us to where we are today, we're at the nexus of intelligence and consciousness about to be transported from a biological basis to a electric/mechanical basis. This is important.

We might eventually build computers (not even remotely comparable to today's slow machines, either in layout or design) that can be said to be truly conscious and aware of their own existence within the next hundred or so years, as the study fields of neurology, psychology and electronics work towards a common goal. And once that happens, humans can just as well say bye-bye to any interstellar dreams.

We can send thousands of totally aware individuals, all massed in a single interstellar craft's database. This won't be 'uploaded human brains', this will be real, true individuals, born and raised as mechanical intelligent thought patterns with real consciousness and intelligence. This craft will travel to another star, and there use the local material to reconstruct bodies for all the entities stored in its databanks. These 'entities', or 'robots', will then investigate and colonise a solar system, and they won't be nearly as inefficient energy-wise as we are. They won't need thermal protection for a much wider range of conditions than we do. They'll be perfectly able to walk around and live on atmosphereless moons, hot or cold planets, they might battle to live on places like Venus, but you get the idea. They'll be able to communicate with each other at the speed of light, dissemminating discoveries and thoughts throughout any colonised solar system to all 'robots' interested in the topic.

If we include proper psychological elements in these 'robots', two might decide to 'breed', whereby they 'merge' their personalities, like DNA might merge to come up with a unique being. Personalities will also be dynamic, so that the environment basically shapes it. A few 'generations' down the line, and those entities will be completely different than what was launched from Earth. And a few thousand years down the line, they will have colonised millions of star systems, being an exponential progression.

But this is not necessarily a bad thing for humankind. After all, we're the offspring of ape-like primates. And those silicon and steel beings will be the offspring of humans. We're simply another link in the chain. And it's up to us to shed our biological shackles, and transplant our intelligence to mechanical beings who'se only needs are electricity. They can feed on sunlight. They will be much more efficient than we are, and will be truly 'immortal', only having to change bodies every couple of years as the old one wears out. I think this is a noble and worthy goal to pursue in the face of the sheer size, scale and age of the universe.

After all, what would humanity's legacy be in the universe if we don't do this? Given enough time, 'beings' such as these intelligent robots, can cross intergalactic distances. But all they have to do is to switch their circuits off and coast unconsciously through intergalactic space for a few million years. I don't think there's any way in which a biological organism can do this. And these machines won't be alien or foreign to us; they will be our actual cultural and intellectual descendants.

Like I said, this is mere whimsical speculation, but I personally believe that humanity in its current form will never leave this solar system, much like crocodiles can't leave the marshes and bogs.

Any thoughts?