The future of Intelligence in space...

[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?

[jackson33]

in agreeing with your conclusion, the reasons may be determined in the need for human interaction. machines, whether robotic or instrumental are far more accurate than a human, not subject to conditions and capable limitation only to the power available.

unless C plus speed is attained and to many times C, mans desire for lifetime spent attempting inter-galactic travel will never be a reality, a thousand or tens of thousand years in the future. though i think the life span in the distant future could be increased, the body modified to adapt to conditions now not imaginable and the brain conditioned to operate also beyond current imagination, so will the technology for the alternative means to achieve observations, even communications with other places in this galaxy or others as time progresses.

[Tormod]

It's a very interesting thought, and something I find a lot in hardcore science fiction: the idea that humans may be computerized or mechanized. We could even envision the possibility that we could encode our "mental pattern" and transmit it as light to planets around nearby stars (in Richard Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs novels, this is called "needlecasting").

I don't know if it's possible or not. I would like to see humans explore the solar system by sending actual people, but as Jackson points out we need faster travel and possibly adapted human beings to avoid the extreme timespans we currently face.

I do think we will venture past Mars. After all, it's not *that* far out to Jupiter...

[max4236]

This reminds me of a couple sci-fi novels. Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Charles Sheffield. And these two by Dennis Danvers, Circuit of Heaven and End of Days. I thought they were all pretty good. The distinction between artificial intelligence and what's human becomes blurred and sometimes interchangable.

I think we're going to reach other solar systems. I wouldn't mind being a part of that. A breakthrough could happen any day now. If I had a cute willing girlfriend and a hyperdrive I'd be out there in a couple weeks. I'll probably retire out there somewhere on a quiet forest planet on the edge of the Small Magellanic Cloud, really great view of the galaxy from there. If not there then somewhere overlooking that sparkly blue Pleiades cluster. I kinda had my hopes up that there'd be something interesting at Alpha Centari but I think we'll have to go out a couple dozen more light years. It's still worth a look though, eh?

[snoopy]

To Boersun,

Don't give up.

There are many ways humans might get to the stars.

Some ideas to ponder.

1 Geometric progression of energy.

In 10,000 years time if the 'geometric progression of energy' holds we will be producing enough energy to probe the nature of space itself, we could feasibly create wormholes between stars and collapse them at will, other stuff might become possible too once we know the true nature of space.

2 Probability field

If it is true that you only exist where you do in spacetime because your probability field has a high peak in that particular area of spacetime simply adjust this to somewhere else like Eridani and 'puff' your gone teleported from one side to the other like a quantum leaping electron.

3 Time dilation

Speed up at a modest 10/m/s and you will get their eventually taking advantage of relativity and not aging very fast. Sure back on Earth maybe 10,000 years has passed. But stuff them you are a brave warrior and can live without all that sentimental nonsense as you carry the seed of humanity to the stars.

Unless of course in that 10,000 years the earth humans have found a way to fold spacetime and arrived before you taking up the good real estate. Then it's war relativity old style.

4 Rely on Alien Ancient Technology to do it for you. Admittedly this is the laziest of my 4 suggestions but weirdly crops up in many sci-fi stories like Babylon 5 or Stargate.

Hope this helps you Boersun.