Felstar's Ponder
Ethical Dilemma of Human Teleportation
Teleportation of humans may involve an ethical dilemma depending on the method used. If we assume that teleportation is done by sending only information, reconstruction would be done at the destination. If you were teleported the issue would then become is the reconstructed copy still you.
In data only teleportation the original would be destroyed after reconstruction at destination. Otherwise there would be two of you and that may not be desirable.
The received copy would seem like you to all of your friends and loved ones. In question is whether you would cease to exist when the original was destroyed. Would the received copy be a continuation of you or a new entity exactly the same. Does this question have any meaning?
If there is part of us that survives after death would that part attach itself to the new copy. Put another way would there be a new soul or a continuation of the old soul.
Our body is in a constant process of replacing itself bit by bit. Old cells die and are replaced by new cells. However our brain cells do not regenerate. Suppose it were possible to regenerate and slowly replace brain cells. If our life span were to be extended more than just by a few decades that would probably become necessary. If that were possible would the same kind of dilemma apply? What happens when you reach a point where all of your brain cells have finally been replaced? Are you still you?
Perhaps it will not be possible to regenerate brain cells but the brain can be enhanced by computer chips. As more brain cells die more of the load would be taken over by computer replacement. Would you still be you when the last organic cell dies even though all of your memory is intact and your cognitive functioning continues? How is that situation different than a complete upload of your personality to computer all at once?
I’m not sure that I have the answer to all of these questions but would certainly not want to hold back the technology when and if it becomes available. I‘m just not sure whether I personally would be willing to have my original destroyed.
Perhaps as a compromise I would allow myself to be teleported but would want my original kept in suspended animation. At some future time when I return to my starting point, perhaps my memories since teleportation, could be fed back into my original. This however leaves me with the dilemma of what to do with my teleported copy? I guess it would be handy to have an extra me in suspended animation in case I die accidentally.
However would reanimation of that copy, after death of the original, be to my benefit or only to the benefit of my loved ones? I guess there are no easy answers. It could become expensive keeping a bunch of suspended copies of yourself.
Would you kill yourself for an organ transplant? How about a full body transplant as you were when young?
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The immortality trap
One reason why we have not found extraterrestrial intelligence may be that they were victims of there own peaceful biological progress. A race capable of overcoming the challenges of star travel should also be capable of conquering old age and disease. (Eliminating accidental death may not be as easy.)
We earthmen are far from reaching the stars but can already imagine ways in which near immortality could be obtained. Modified cloning or other duplication, along with advanced transplant technology and enhancement methods, will probably get us there eventually. As enticing as that might be the results may not be desirable.
Once that happens we would become conservative and stagnant. Why risk a life in exploration that could go on for eons? The worse horror that a near immortal man could imagine would be to become marooned in space, drifting forever with no company or change.
Also with the old guard not dieing off, there would be no place for new ideas and further innovation. Power would tend to remain with the oldest who would be unwilling to give it up. Even someone as smart as Albert Einstein never accepted quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics led to microchips and the personal computer revolution. We are all born with certain prejudges that limit us. Without the torch being passed to new generations advancement in all areas would grind to a halt.
Population pressure would cause us not to have new generations at all, except to replace the occasional accident victim.
The immortality trap may be one of the challenges all civilizations must face. Maybe none close enough to contact us have avoided it. Aliens who considered humanity as a threat might even decide to offer us near immortality as a way to eliminate us as competitors.
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Disclaimer
Scientists may be missing key assumptions in their investigation of physics and cosmology. The truth may be such that it will seem obvious once it is discovered. I would like to present some fresh views. Not because I think that they are correct, but only because they are different. I am not a scientist and cannot speak math, which is the language of science. My understanding of physics and cosmology come largely from science magazines and science television programs that are made understandable to the non-scientist. Please accept my views in this blog as fresh looks possible worthy of further exploration by some one unlike myself who actually knows what they are doing.
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Quantum mechanics and parallel universes
Perhaps quantum mechanics involves movement between similar parallel universes, instead of probabilities within one universe. The percentage chance that one photon of light will be a wave instead of a particle may actually be the percentage chance that the observer is in the universe where it is a wave instead of being in the universe in which it is a particle. We could be constantly moving between the most similar off these universes without noticing.
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Reality is the intersection between our perceptions and the unlimited possibilities of the multiverse.
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The separation illusion
The universe contains no matter and no energy. It simply contains the illusion that nothingness is separated in half.
When you separate the big bang from the big crunch it appears that you have two universes. One is a complement or mirror image of the other. To the occupants of each (half) universe the arrow of time appears intact but one to the other they run in opposite directions
Everything that looks to exist has an equal but opposite that supports it. The sum of everything and anti everything is nothingness, 1-1=0.
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The universe is said to have been created by a random quantum fluctuation. Space and time did not/do not exist outside of the universe. Still there must have been some sort of domain in which this quantum fluctuation occurred. Let’s call this domain the supra universe. The supra universe must also have had a higher order domain supporting it-or the supra supra universe. The problem is that this would seem to go on with out end to a supra supra supra universe, supra supra supra supra universe and so on.
Instead of never ending stacked domains it may be that they curl in a circle (rather than continue as a straight line). A point would then be reached where the highest order domain is encased in the least order domain or, in other words, the greatest of the great leads into the lesser of the least. The opposite would also be true. The lesser of he least leads into the greatest of the great.
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Rocket propulsion and particle acceleration
The amount of reaction mass that can be carried is a limiting factor in rocket propulsion. However if this mass could be increased in-flight, the limitation would be reduced. This could be done by first accelerating the matter in a circular fashion (as is done in a particle accelerator). As matter is accelerated to speeds approaching the speed of light, its mass increases.
One could imagine a corkscrew like particle accelerator that could keep the matter in circular acceleration while its speed increase continued until its eventually shot out the rear of the spacecraft.
While this would not eliminate the need for reaction mass to be carried, it would allow for more to be stored with less of an impact on the total of the mass that needs to be pushed forward.
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Star Travel Without Hyperspace
Science fiction writers have sidestepped the speed of light limitation by postulating a hypothetical hyperspace that has no speed limit. As much as truth often follows fiction it may be that travel in hyperspace will never be invented or is not possible. Without hyperspace, travel to other stars is thought to be impractical. However that may not be the case.
One method of star travel would involve a combination of time dilation and time travel. The closer one gets to the speed of light the slower time passes for the speedy traveler. However the rate of time does not change for outside observers. Therefore it would be possible for a space ship undergoing sufficient constant acceleration to travel to many stars and explore the galaxy. The problem is that the traveler could not return to those they left behind because millions of years would have passed on earth. That is why the return journey would have to include time travel. Fortunately, unlike hyperspace, there is a theoretical basis for time travel.
The late great Carl Sagan wrote of a method of time travel using wormholes. Wormholes are tunnels in space-time. Sagan noted that if you were able to accelerate one end of a wormhole to a speed approaching the speed of light, then time dilation would cause that end of the wormhole to fall into the past relative to the other end. For this to be useful it would have to be set up before the start of your star travel.
In exploring the galaxy we may well find that alien life forms have already created wormholes spanning time. This would be the star travelers ticket home. Other methods of time travel may also be possible.
Another method of non-hyperspace star travel would involve taking everyone with you. If the entire planet is converted into a space ship than we could all explore the galaxy without being isolated by time dilation.
Freeman Dyson hypothesized that an advanced civilization might someday build a shell around a sun. People would live on the inside of the shell facing the sun in what has come to be known as a Dyson Sphere. Perhaps some of the sun’s energy could be channeled out a hole in the sphere providing propulsion. Of cource it would be easier to do all of this on a smaller scale in a generation ship including an artificial sun.
So let’s not give up on hope of star travel, even if ”warp speed” is never obtained.
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Death Like a Movie
When you die you still have your entire life and can watch it like a movie. Eventually you get tired of your life/movie and begin watching other life/movies. In doing so you experience other lives. Eventually you forget which life/movie was yours and you have all of them.
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Implications of reincarnation
There is no reason why reincarnation needs to be limited by time and space. What is referred to as your past life could just as easily be referred to as your future life. There is kind of a built in time travel that results from being outside of time. Therefore there is no reason why your reincarnations could not overlap. You could be alive more than once at the same time.
This being the case there is no reason that you cannot be simultaneously reincarnated a multiple of times. From there it is a small leap to being all reincarnations at the same time. In other words maybe there is only one soul recycled through all of us. Perhaps in a very real sense you are/have been/will be your neighbor and every person that ever has or will live.
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The Universe as a free lunch
It always bothered me philosophically that the universe could have come into existence out of nothing; a random fluctuation of quantum foam, or so they say. However I think that it can be justified by the equation 1-1=0. This can also be stated as the combination of +1 and –1 each of which are real entities. In other words it’s okay for there to be a universe as long as there is also an anti- universe.
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Multiple Universes
If there are multiple universes, you could think of the identity of the universe you are in as an additional dimension. Thus any object would have length, width, height, time, and universe. Multiple universes may branch off with any outcome so that all possible universes exist. Universes are thought to be non-permeable but I do not see any reason why this must be the case.
Given the size of the universe the odds are against any single difference being in our local area. One photon different half a universe away would not appear to effect us. We could be constantly moving between these universes without noticing. The boundaries between universes could be permeable. The uncertainty principle could arise from not being able to know which universe we are in.
If all possible universes exist then at least one of them should be permeable, that being one possibility. All possible universes could be connected in a manner that one permeable universe could act as a portal allowing this movement between all universes
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Big Picture
What's wrong with the world is that there are too many people. the problem is only going to get worse. Pollution is merely a symptom of this problem. It doesn't mater if one car pollutes the air. When millions of cars pollute the air you have a situation,
Technology can help but its only a stop gap-only a delaying action. If you reduce the pollution of one car by 90% that only helps up to 10 times the number of cars. When you have 20 times the number of cars you will still have twice the pollution that you started with.
As developing nations get their technology revved up we are really going to have a problem. Unless we can find more worlds to live on we are going to have to limit are population or die in our own waste. The future of mankind is in trouble.
Even if we succeed in limiting our population eventually there will be an extinction event. An asteroid may hit us, a nearby sun may go supernova. We have to expand to other planets to insure our survival. Limiting our population would buy us time to get our space technology ready. We need to explore and expand.
Perhaps the reason that we have not met any alien life forms is that they all die out by extinction events, because that do not move their space technology along fast enough to avoid extinction events, Maybe now we have reached a point in the evolution of the universe where the spreading out of matter has reduced the frequency of extinction events to the point where life in general can thrive and expand-but only if we are equal to our challenges.
If would also help if we could avoid killing each other along the way.
posted by Michael Paul Feldman @ 12:42 PM
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