# Evolution Continues: "Human v. 2.0" and Beyond **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 27, 2003, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-continues-human-v-2-0-and-beyond/157963 "2003-02-27T19:57:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![FranticMad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c68b51/32.png) [@FranticMad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FranticMad)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-continues-human-v-2-0-and-beyond/157963/21 "2003-02-28T02:09:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ludovic \* > \*\*And ya know what? The actual development of an artificial neuron is, IMO more feasible than developing a “hard” AI from scratch! The delivery method, however, would be a problem. \*\* I agree, though I think it is more likely that stem cells can be used to make small biological neural blobs that connect to a silicon chip, such as is being done with rat neurons at Georgia Institute of Technology. Probable applications are, of course, curing Parkinson’s disease. Possible applications are…well, you’ve all seen Matrix, right?[Here](http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/849269.asp?cp1=1). I don’t like Kurzweil, but I agree that the potential is profound. I’m just not going to build my life around the expectation that flying cars or intelligent computers will exist by January 1, 2030. I’m not going to join the cult and wear robes while chanting “2030, 2030” ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-continues-human-v-2-0-and-beyond/157963/22 "2003-02-28T10:39:05Z")
> [@](#): > > - originally posted by Terrifel\* > I have to wonder how posthuman entities would police themselves. Obviously you couldn’t have just anyone drexlering up a universal phage organism or what have you. Policing and safety is going to be a problem assuming any sort of high technology. The hypothetical dedicated policing entities would need to be designed by the most competent posthuman entities available. These defences are sometimes called [Blue Goo](http://www.orionsarm.com/eg/b/Bj-Bn.html#blue_goo) but need to be frighteningly powerful. So I agree with you. > [@](#): > > As the ability of individuals and groups to exercise powerful technologies increases, the policing agencies will have to increase their reach as well simply to avoid catastrophe. Eventually, it may be simpler just to reprogram your citizenry to make such desires impossible. This is certainly one option, another similar option being memetic engineering, using posthuman persuasive techniques to achieve the required consensus. Some may believe that this will be necessarily bad, or evil, but the most efficient strategy would be surely to maximise benefit for the society and the individual without despotism. > [@](#): > > At this point, individuality and identity would no longer exist as we understand them now; at best, such future entities would function much like cells of a greater societal organism, with greatly increased security at the expense of autonomy. This group mind scenario is one possibility, as is the possibility of single gigantic monolithic intelligent entities. Each may occupy a gigantic Dyson sphere or [Matrioshka Brain](http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/MatrioshkaBrains/index.html) but there is also much potential for diverse societies and worlds beyond our imaginings including societies we might recognise and appreciate – and believe me, I have been trying to imagine this stuff. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-continues-human-v-2-0-and-beyond/157963/23 "2003-02-28T12:31:39Z")
Oh joy, wouldn’t this all be so much fun. I’ll take my eternal reward, aisle 3, pelase. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-continues-human-v-2-0-and-beyond/157963/24 "2003-02-28T13:00:32Z")
For dramatic and fictional purposes I assume that bad things will still happen. heh heh Some dedicated Transhumanists may disagree, and expect every thing to be happy ever after, however that doesn’t make for _dramatic tension_. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2003, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-continues-human-v-2-0-and-beyond/157963/25 "2003-03-03T09:09:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ludovic \* > \*\*I think our best bet towards immortality does not lie in the external components of the body. It lies in the brain. (I will disregard every speculation in the OP after the “Artificial brain” since I am not sure that if one teleports one will keep one’s stream of consciousness.) > > Imagine, however, if we could completely replicate the neuron. Yeah, tweak it to make it a bit faster and reliable, maybe, but essentially the same. Oh, and make it have a steady state RAM so that if it doesnt have power, it will keep its memories. > > So, we would implant these into people’s brains and they would start to become one with the brains. Then implant more and more. Soon, your personality will have effectively transferred to the artificial brain. I would trust this more to keep my stream of consciousness than teleportation, I can tell you that much. > > The bonus is not only improved performance, but a brain that will not die, barring severe trauma. So we would lose people to accident and murder, but thats about it (barring unforeseen techical problems with the artificial neurons.) > > And ya know what? The actual development of an artificial neuron is, IMO more feasible than developing a “hard” AI from scratch! The delivery method, however, would be a problem. \*\* Have you read Greg Egan’s _Learning to be me_? ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2003, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-continues-human-v-2-0-and-beyond/157963/26 "2003-03-04T11:09:11Z")
Yes, Egan is very smart. Things to do if you sucessfully upload by this neuron replacement method… copy your entire database, once, twice, a million times, and send copies off in spaceships around the galaxy (when you meet up again you can have a ‘far edge party’). or inhabit a virtual world of your own design, meeting other virtual people and having apparently real interactions with them (‘the tailor-made Matrix’). Increase the processing power and memory available to yourself and become a superhuman computer entity. Adjust, augment, remove any portion of your personality, add portions of other peoples identity and become a composite entity. Build a biological robot, or a mechanical one, and live among the unsuspecting meatheads. And perhaps- transmit your entire database via interstellar commlaser to a nearby star system and do all these things over again. I don’t bother myself too much with continuity of identity in these _rabid_ imaginings because every night we go to sleep, and wake up to a new day… after a discontinuity that is more disorienting than being a virtual person coming back on line after a few days in powersave mode. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2006, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-continues-human-v-2-0-and-beyond/157963/27 "2006-06-07T18:27:23Z")
A posthuman/transhuma related wallpaper. [http://www.nomads.nl/showkxk.php?kxk=81](http://www.nomads.nl/showkxk.php?kxk=81) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2006, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-continues-human-v-2-0-and-beyond/157963/28 "2006-06-07T18:42:20Z")
Come on, **Bosda** , you’ve been around long enough to know better. Your post would have been much better directed to **IMHO** or even **MPSIMS** with a link to the old thread. This zombie is closed. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2006, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-continues-human-v-2-0-and-beyond/157963/29 "2006-06-07T18:43:39Z")
**Moderator’s Note:** Since this thread is over three years old, I’m going to go ahead and close it; if anyone wants to discuss issues relating to the future of human evolution, feel free to start a new thread (and link to this or other old threads as desired). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-continues-human-v-2-0-and-beyond/157963.md?page=1)