What could a future earth space ship look like.

[Crazy Eddie]

You are talking about AI here.

So are you, whether you realize it or not. I suppose you're some sort of mind-body dualist who thinks there's some kind of electromagnetic twinkle floating around in human brains that can simply be transferred to another device of a proper configuration (this being a Star Trek board, you're not alone). Since transferring your mind to an artificial body does not necessarily remove your mind FROM your body, it follows that ANY method you can use to transfer your mind from a natural to an artificial body would be identical to copying and emulation, the act of which produces what is essentially an A.I. in the image of an existing person.

Because Human mind traped in a None-organic Artificial Body(noAB) will not be abel to reproduce, so no " taking life of its own or becoming a separate organism ".

Reproduction is not essential to the definition of life, but in this case "taking a life of its own" means exactly that. The synthetic copy you just made of yourself is now a fully functional person with a distinct point of view and distinct motivations that--due to the altered tolerances and requirements of an artificial body--differ slightly from yours.

The difference is: AI is born through programming code, so it can reproduce it self the same way. Human mind in noAB wont be abel to do that, you will need a Human body for that.

Or it could just keep on making copies of itself as many times as it chooses, assuming that a method could not be found to mix and match personality traits from other copies to produce a unique new organism. Again, because the artificial body has different tolerances and requirements, those who inhabit it will be driven by different survival goals and may or may not seek different solutions to meet those goals.

The point of noAB is to completley or partly remove astrounauts dependence on:
1) Air
2) Water
3) Food
4) Pressure
5) Tempreture.
6) Age and Time

Once we start making progress in this, Space exploration will be 1000 times easier.

We already have robots that can do this, so the entire artificial body issue is a non-starter. If you have to be artificial in order to explore space to begin with, there's no logical requirement to also be an artificial human.

Again, the whole point of exploring space is exploitation and eventual colonization by humans; this serves one of our survival needs by giving us access to new habitats and new resources for our collective use. If colonization and exploitation are NOT the end goal of this, then conventional A.I. in the form of probes are more than sufficient and a sophisticated artificial mind is wasted energy.

Of course the most important factor in all of this is Age and Time. The Space is a big place, to big for Humans short lifespan.

So what? That's never stopped us before.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Reproduction is going to be critical to interstellar travel, if that ever comes about. The only populated vessels that ever leave this solar system will be generational ships, with an Earth-like environment, including a biological ecosystem and an economic state, since everyone will have to be productively employed to make it remotely attractive for participants. It would probably be a perfect communist state, mind. Marx would be proud. However the idea that people would happily live and die in any of the sterile environments depicted in sci fi, aside from Babylon 5 (which was static as regards space travel), is true fantasy. I'm not including sci fi literature here because I don't know anything about it and this board is primarily video orientated.

Would you really like to spend all of your life in the same city with limited choices for work and advancement?

No, but this is America so I don't really have a choice.

Knowing that you will never see or feel the real Earth under your feet, breath the real air, experience the real weather, miss out on all the advancements that Humanity will achieve while you were stuck in a Space between 2 Stars?

Why not? On a ship that size there are plenty of things to keep me busy, and my children would grow up never knowing the difference; they wouldn't miss anything.

I reckon on a planet of 7 billion people you could find enough people willing to give it a try.

Indeed... and even then, assuming you take volunteers. I could totally see this (or possibly interplanetary colonization at least) as a creative solution by some heavy-handed regime to deal with an excessively large prison population. "Good news! You're all going to be set free! Everyone take a space suit and a shovel and start digging shelters because your oxygen runs out in twelve hours and the atmosphere here is incredibly toxic!"

 

[Deckerd]

So what? That's never stopped us before.

You mean all that interstellar travel our ancestors did?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I havent really considered mind transfering technic... is it even possible in theory?

In theory? Absolutely. The practical side of it is another matter altogether.

My vision of noAB process is removal of the brain from a Human body and placing it in to an Advanced one.

That would accomplish nothing, considering the brain still has a requirement for nourishment, oxygen, favorable ranges of temperature and pressure and various g-force limitations. All you're really doing is slightly reducing the life support requirement for a manned space ship, but if you have the technology to do THAT, you might as well just build a better space ship.

You don't get a real change in the nature of space flight until you completely remove humans from the equation by producing a space-faring life form totally optimized for the role. But that's recon and research, not colonization, not habitation.

Surely human beings are more than the sum of their parts, but they're not LESS either; if you don't bring your body with you, you're not all the way there.

I reckon on a planet of 7 billion people you could find enough people willing to give it a try.

Its usualy best and brightest, not shady and average.

Actually, it's usually the most ambitious with the least to lose.

So what? That's never stopped us before.

You mean all that interstellar travel our ancestors did?

It took them HOW many generations to spread from Africa to cover every corner of the globe?

 

[Deckerd]

So what? That's never stopped us before.

You mean all that interstellar travel our ancestors did?

It took them HOW many generations to spread from Africa to cover every corner of the globe?

Uhuh. Good luck with colonising space with a loin cloth and spear.

 

[KJbushway]

Reproduction is going to be critical to interstellar travel, if that ever comes about. The only populated vessels that ever leave this solar system will be generational ships, with an Earth-like environment, including a biological ecosystem and an economic state, since everyone will have to be productively employed to make it remotely attractive for participants. It would probably be a perfect communist state, mind. Marx would be proud. However the idea that people would happily live and die in any of the sterile environments depicted in sci fi, aside from Babylon 5 (which was static as regards space travel), is true fantasy. I'm not including sci fi literature here because I don't know anything about it and this board is primarily video orientated.

Would you really like to spend all of your life in the same city with limited choices for work and advancement? Knowing that you will never see or feel the real Earth under your feet, breath the real air, experience the real weather, miss out on all the advancements that Humanity will achieve while you were stuck in a Space between 2 Stars?

What that person was saying is that it would be hard to stay up there for generations doing the same old thing. but there is one solution to that, dont be apart of the generation ship if you can't handle or aren't up to the task.
As for missing earth, as of right now you would probably breath better air on a star ship than you would on earth now. Not everyone absolutely loves earth and wants to stay here, some actually feel stuck. As far as missing out on advancements they will also be missing out on the all possible world wars, famine, and world shortages on natural resources.

 

[Deckerd]

I still don't think you'll get enough volunteers. It's not like they're going to a new world or anything, perhaps not even to several generations. No matter how keen you are to 'explore' space, most folks would think twice about committing their progeny. After all, the progeny could just say fuck this and turn around, even with a really attractive environment on a generational ship.

 

[KJbushway]

Well then the poeple you talk to and the people I talk to are totally different. I myself would love to go onto a generational trip. Plus, there wouldn't be a need for a generational ship if they didn't have a planet in mind like the one they resently found.
The people who have a real problem with staying aboard a ship for their life would probably be religious people. Only because the majority of the poeple I have talked to about staying aboard a generational have been the atheist or non-believers. Would you want to stay aboard a ship with people who absolutely different from you and have no problem mentioning it when ever?

 

[KJbushway]

Well first its in the future, so we could invent something like a replicator and an on board fusion generator could be just as likely. In the case of a generational ship your looking at something that would be huge, most likely not for the amount of people but the raw materials, growing rooms. I mean once I get my own pc, I will definitely be putting out ship designs of my own.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

You mean all that interstellar travel our ancestors did?

It took them HOW many generations to spread from Africa to cover every corner of the globe?

Uhuh. Good luck with colonising space with a loin cloth and spear.

Non-sequitor, as technology alone was neither sufficient nor necessary for the task of colonizing Earth, all it really took was THE WILL TO EXPAND.

For those who are willing, even a basic level of technology is sufficient for the task, it's a simple matter of how much resources you're willing to expend. If the price is too high, you simply wait until technology develops that will make the price lower; if you don't want to risk crossing the bering strait in a loin cloth, wait a few generations until somebody invents dogsleds.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

You will become immune to allmost all know deseases and illnesses that strike your body this days. You will be abel to easy monitor and repaire any damage cells in your brain. Which will result in prolong life.

Not exactly. Your BRAIN would still be vulnerable to them, and easy monitoring and repair is hardly a given. Really, the only way to eliminate those factors is to move your mind to something more durable and easier to replicate than a meat-brain.

Your food would be replaced by specially designed nutrines to give your brain everything it needs. You wont need Toilets anymore on your Space Ship.

Which, all in all, stands to reduce the volume of your ship by some 60% while at the same time eliminating the capacity to LAND anywhere and walk around on the world you just found: you're pretty much describing a glorified probe with a brain attached to it.

Again: if you're not bringing your body along for the ride, why did you go into space in the first place? If you're just looking around researching planets, you could have accomplished that with a CONVENTIONAL probe; if you're trying to establish a new home, you'll need to have your body shipped up there sooner or later anyway, so all you've done is added an extra step. If you're not colonizing OR exploring... well, you're just plain lost, aren't you?

Besides, as with MANY exotic technologies, this one depends on technological prerequisites that would instantly render it irrelevant: if you had the technology to build those kinds of devices, you could more efficiently implement that technology in a more efficient space craft that allows natural humans to emigrate without the extra step of transferring to a prosthetic body. And this is leaving out the SOCIAL pre-requisite of getting everyone to make the switch, figuring out how much it will cost, and what to do with people who can't afford that cost.

With a noAB body, space walks, construction, future mining operation in Solar System - would become your everydays life, with out fearing of dieng. No more need for clumsy giant space suits.

All it takes to mitigate the fear of dying is cash incentive and an abundance of volunteers. As for clumsy giant space suits; assuming the tradeoff is worth the complication, remote controlled robots are more than sufficient for this.

Just seems like you're trying to develop a faster car by re-inventing the wheel when the better solution is to just buy a faster car. At the end of the day, when the thing you just invented totally changes everything about the way cars drive, it's not really a car anymore is it?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I still don't think you'll get enough volunteers. It's not like they're going to a new world or anything, perhaps not even to several generations. No matter how keen you are to 'explore' space, most folks would think twice about committing their progeny. After all, the progeny could just say fuck this and turn around, even with a really attractive environment on a generational ship.

Except it wouldn't take MOST people, in fact it never does. All it takes is SOME people, and from those you can take your pick of the best and brightest; if only one in ten thousand people have any inclination of being involved, you've got six hundred thousand potential volunteers already lined up, and from those you can take the 1,000 best candidates for the trip.

And this is assuming interstellar travel right from the Earth; colonizing the rest of the solar system is the logical first step before this, by which time the human population could easily swell to the tens of billions and the idea of spending your entire life in an artificial environment would already be familiar to most of us.

 

[Deckerd]

And this is assuming interstellar travel right from the Earth; colonizing the rest of the solar system is the logical first step before this, by which time the human population could easily swell to the tens of billions and the idea of spending your entire life in an artificial environment would already be familiar to most of us.

I don't think anyone would want to live in an artifical environment for their entire lives. You still haven't answered the problem of the people who don't volunteer, namely the progeny. What possible incentive do they have not to turn around and go home? The human population is unlikely to thrive on any other planet because of the gravity problem, aside from Venus, and there you have a whole new set of problems.

 

[trekkiedane]

And this is assuming interstellar travel right from the Earth; colonizing the rest of the solar system is the logical first step before this, by which time the human population could easily swell to the tens of billions and the idea of spending your entire life in an artificial environment would already be familiar to most of us.

I don't think anyone would want to live in an artifical environment for their entire lives. You still haven't answered the problem of the people who don't volunteer, namely the progeny. What possible incentive do they have not to turn around and go home? The human population is unlikely to thrive on any other planet because of the gravity problem, aside from Venus, and there you have a whole new set of problems.

But did you choose your parents, or any specific country -or even Earth- to be the place to be born?

Whomever is to be born on a generation ship has the same say that anyone else has ever had about the situation they're born into: none.

I seriously believe it would be a greater problem to choose who is not to go on such a trip from the hundreds of thousands who would actually prefer going to staying here! As a matter of fact, I think you could begin selling tickets now.

 

[Deckerd]

Whomever is to be born on a generation ship has the same say that anyone else has ever had about the situation they're born into: none.

I seriously believe it would be a greater problem to choose who is not to go on such a trip from the hundreds of thousands who would actually prefer going to staying here! As a matter of fact, I think you could begin selling tickets now.

And I think you're living in a romantic dream world. We have a say in our country and how it is run. That's why we don't torture or kill prisoners, or why every child is educated, or why the internet exists. Knock that down to the size of a small town and you have a more dynamic system. You get enough younger people who say sod this we're going home and suddenly you have a democratic majority. Did you want to follow your dad's dream? How many people do you know who think exactly the same way their parents did? How many people do you know who have the identical goals in life as their grandparents?

 

[trekkiedane]

And I think you're living in a romantic dream world. We have a say in our country and how it is run. That's why we don't torture or kill prisoners, or why every child is educated, or why the internet exists. Knock that down to the size of a small town and you have a more dynamic system. You get enough younger people who say sod this we're going home and suddenly you have a democratic majority. Did you want to follow your dad's dream? How many people do you know who think exactly the same way their parents did? How many people do you know who have the identical goals in life as their grandparents?

I think we have now reached a point in this discussion where we need to also discuss just how large this proposed generation ship is to be: if only tens of people we surely will have the kind of problems aboard you're proposing - if hundreds; a lot less so - if thousands it'll be the same generation-gapping you'd also get if you weren't on a ship but on a planet.

Besides, if one generation born on the ship is to decide to turn around and go back to Earth they'll have to know that they'll be going back to a society that'll (most probably) consider them all something akin to traitors to the ideals that send them on the way in the first place.
And they'll, of course, have been growing up in an environment that taught them they were the very epitome of personhood to be on the ship in the first place - much like (but very much stronger than) any kind of patriotism functions on Earth.
Plus: they'll probably find it difficult to find an explanation to the rest of personhood why they decided to waste the vast resources put into their voyage -if, indeed, it would even be possible to turn around.

 

[Deckerd]

Besides, if one generation born on the ship is to decide to turn around and go back to Earth they'll have to know that they'll be going back to a society that'll (most probably) consider them all something akin to traitors to the ideals that send them on the way in the first place.
And they'll, of course, have been growing up in an environment that taught them they were the very epitome of personhood to be on the ship in the first place - much like (but very much stronger than) any kind of patriotism functions on Earth.
Plus: they'll probably find it difficult to find an explanation to the rest of personhood why they decided to waste the vast resources put into their voyage -if, indeed, it would even be possible to turn around.

So basically you're talking about slavery then.

 

[trekkiedane]

^HUH

I did not see that coming!

What (on earth ) are you talking about?

 

[Deckerd]

It's the logical conlusion to your argument

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The point of Space exploration, is to experiense it first hand. To be there.

I believe you are confusing "exploration" with "tourism." Or hiking, depending on where you're going.

Just look at the ocean. Its less hostile then space and it covers 3/4 of our planet surface. Should be a perfect place to start expanding our borders. And yet we havent Colonized it either.

Why would you want to colonize an ocean, since the only resources that are available in the ocean are accessible from the surface?

Likewise with space travel: there's no reason to bother colonizing it if natural resources in space can be accessed from Earth via robot vehicles and probes (as, currently, the only resources we now exploit already are extracted this way). If you're not going to bother with colonization, just send a robot. That's what we do with the oceans, that's what will probably be done with space until somebody decides to build a home up there.

For the last 200 years Humanity progress was focusing in going one main direction: To satisfy all our body's needs.
But in order to explore and colonize space that wont be enough.

What do you mean "enough?" Colonization either serves that need or it doesn't. If it doesn't, we don't do it (hikers and tourists are another matter altogether). If you develop the technology that makes human beings immortal anyway, there's no NEED to colonize space, you have everything you need on Earth, and space remains entirely the domain of tourists and thrill seekers, neither of whom have any interest in colonization.

We need to change our bodys, to adapt them to the new environment, or forget about Space all toghether.

No, see, the REASON for going into space is to find resources that benefit our species and, indeed, our bodies as well. The reason for COLONIZATION is to place human beings in an environment where those resources can be more easily accessed and where they are in a position to profit from those resources (hence oil drillers live for long periods of time on off-shore oil rigs: that's where the oil is, so that's where they live and work).

Thus the purpose of colonization is to support resource exploitation, and the purpose of resource exploitation is to support the human race. If you can accomplish that end goal without going into space, then nobody needs to go at all.

Space is everywhere. You cant change it, you cant go around it. You must adapt to it through means of changing your self ruther then your surroundings.

Partly true, but the traditional way of adapting to new environments has always been new techniques and new technologies. You don't need to change the entire species, just the tools of the trade. Hence my original appraisal of your theory: if your tech level is good enough to create a functional prosthetic body, it's probably good enough to create a more efficient space ship that would eliminate all those problems anyway. By the same token, if you get the entire human race to go prosthetic, you've pretty much eliminated humanity's reasons for going into space to begin with... although our successors might be able to think of a few new ones.