OT: Sci-fi (was RE: Ultra-portable terminals)

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Esak" <john at valar.com>
To: "Fplist (E-mail)" <filepro-list at seaslug.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 8:21 PM
Subject: RE: OT: Sci-fi (was RE: Ultra-portable terminals)


>> There was a show on the Discovery Channel a few months ago called
>> "How William Shatner changed the world", and was basically how
>> things from Star Trek ended up inspiring some of the people who
>> are responsible for much of today's technology.  (Like the guy
>> who is credited with inventing the cell phone, who got the idea
>> from the Star Trek communicators.)
>>
>> --
>> KenBrody at BestWeb dot net        spamtrap: <g8ymh8uf001 at sneakemail.com>
>
> How funny. Do you remember the filePro Conference "keynote" I did some 
> time
> back where I used clips from the Gary 7 episode (Destination Earth??). I
> showed how the girl was so freaked out by the fact that the typewriter was
> automatically typing everything she said. My comment was to the effect 
> that
> this show aired in 1967, and it was only 30 years since then and we had
> Naturally Speaking working better than that silly typewriter... and Star
> Trek of that period was supposedly in the 22nd (or was it 23d century. 
> The
> geometric development of technology had caused a roughly 10 to 1 time
> dilation  with regard to our perception of the future. What will the next 
> 30
> years bring. 100 to 1? ... assuming we don't blow ourselves up before we 
> get
> there.

I think that geometric or logorithmic rate of progress will lead to a Vinge 
singularity.
Except I don't think it will be as perfect and mysterious as the one 
described in bobble or marooned in real time where anyone who missed the 
boat will be left utterly clueless truely left behind.
It will be sudden from the outside, but gradual from the inside, due to the 
hyper rate of thought and interaction and progress going on inside, and so 
even though it will be sudden from the outside, they will still figure out 
some way to leave info, directions, help, etc behind. Goodbye's if nothing 
else.
Because I don't think in all that progress we will shed our vanity. We will 
care what others think (be they strangers/travellers, left behind humans, 
new races that appear after we're gone etc) and so we will leave behind _at 
least_ some sort of message, more likely a lot more than a mere message 
unless you count a very meaningful message like galaxies of knowledge and 
wisdom as just a message.
I can only explain the Vinge universe by a collosal accident or loss of a 
war or virus etc...

As for the not thinking way out enough, well sure I've thought of all 
different time scales before. it's all old hat.
This conversation was about the very near future.
Thinking a little further ahead my money is on clouds and other masses of 
nano-goo that you think at and does whatever you are smart enough to design.
And of course by then the very same stuff will be augmenting your smarts.
We'll be little primitive kernels of human descision making at the center 
driving cascading or fractal branching layers or levels of tools that are 
impossible to call either software or hardware as they are both at the same 
time.
We'll each be like "vger" from star trek.

Then way later comes the singularity. We need to use the magick putty for a 
while by turning jupiter into a computer and the photosphere into a 
telescope and play with tools like that for a while first.

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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