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I dislike the word "never". As individuals and as a species we are addicted to short term gratification measured in years or decades. We also have a narrow view

I dislike the word "never". As individuals and as a species we are addicted to short term gratification measured in years or decades. We also have a narrow view of the concept of "self" and what constitutes consciousness and experience. If we could stand building for the future and experiencing by proxy, a few more options become available: e.g. We could transport a set of human "blanks" or a "blank" creating machine to a distant star at 10% of c. It would take a few hundred years. When it arrives and deploys, we upload our consciousness at the speed of light with no acceleration and deceleration into a "blank" human. Copies of ourselves could be regularly transported to and from a distant star over a few decades. A few technological breakthroughs would be required to make this a reality: * True Artificial Intelligence. A machine that is capable of self-awareness and analysis. * A complete understanding of the human brain and how to replicate the organism and it's contents. * A complete understanding of the human body, the life support mechanism for the brain - and how to duplicate it. * How to turn nuclear fission or fusion into propulsion at a high level of efficiency. * How to build factories that can stay dormant for a thousand years, wake up and operate as well as the day they were built. This probably will be solved as a result of AI and the ability to create self-repairing and self-improving machines. Many of these problems are in the CS and Biotech fields. That's what we do. Now get to work!

jacobolus 15y ago
Okay. You just wave 5 or 6 magic wands and then it works out. Isn’t that precisely what the essay claimed?
- bad_user 15y ago
  Yeah, but give it another 200 years and those magic wands may be possible. I'm not holding my breath as neither me nor my children or grandchildren are leaving this planet, but look at the progress in technology we've made since the industrial revolution happened.
  - adrianN 15y ago
    Indeed. Two hundred years ago it seemed impossible to cross the Atlantik in less than a week, now we can send people to the Moon and back in that time.
    - ericb 15y ago
      How unlikely would the iPhone in my pocket have seemed 80 years ago? Magic wands? 1-computing, 2-wireless data transmission, 3-display (television), 4-rechargeable batteries, 5-touch interface, 6-price drops.
- berntb 15y ago
  E.g. nuclear pulse fission/fusion is literally 1960s tech. See the Orion project (or NERVA). There are other proposals, which haven't gotten much funding. The whole field of propulsion research has been underfunded since the 1970s, probably because NASA didn't want to risk creating competition for their big job program -- the Shuttle...
- hackermom 15y ago
  His point is that exactly every single notable achievement in the history of mankind has been preceeded by people saying things just like these - skeptics who keep saying "it can't be done" up until the very last second before "it" is done. It was said about crossing the seas. It was said about colonizing the surface of the planet. It was said about diving deep into the seas and it was said about taking off ground. It was said about leaving the atmosphere. It was said about reaching out into space. It is currently being said by some about colonizing our solar system, and most people currently feel that the thought of us not colonizing our solar system is ridiculous, and in time the thought of us not leaving this solar system to go on to the next one will be considered just as ridiculous. "Scientists" like these often suffer from the common problem of never being able to see farther than their own nose; they constantly forget that we grow, and grow, and grow. Without meaning to sound pretentious and cheesy, here's a nice quote from a certain sci-fi series that came to mind: "It's our destiny to walk among the stars", and you can be damned sure that we will, providing we won't kill ourselves on the way.
  - billswift 15y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Was_a_Dope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Was_a_Dope
- scott_s 15y ago
  I suspect most people have not read the full essay, so they never saw this paragraph: The long and the short of what I'm trying to get across is quite simply that, in the absence of technology indistinguishable from magic — magic tech that, furthermore, does things that from today's perspective appear to play fast and loose with the laws of physics — interstellar travel for human beings is near-as-dammit a non-starter. And while I won't rule out the possibility of such seemingly-magical technology appearing at some time in the future, the conclusion I draw as a science fiction writer is that if interstellar colonization ever happens, it will not follow the pattern of historical colonization drives that are followed by mass emigration and trade between the colonies and the old home soil. Many people here are arguing for "magic tech that ... does things that from today's perspective appear to play fast and loose with the laws of physics." I suspect that many of the people doing this either don't realize they are, and/or don't really understand physical laws as we currently understand them.

jacobolus 15y ago

Okay. You just wave 5 or 6 magic wands and then it works out. Isn’t that precisely what the essay claimed?

bad_user 15y ago
Yeah, but give it another 200 years and those magic wands may be possible. I'm not holding my breath as neither me nor my children or grandchildren are leaving this planet, but look at the progress in technology we've made since the industrial revolution happened.
- adrianN 15y ago
  Indeed. Two hundred years ago it seemed impossible to cross the Atlantik in less than a week, now we can send people to the Moon and back in that time.
  - ericb 15y ago
    How unlikely would the iPhone in my pocket have seemed 80 years ago? Magic wands? 1-computing, 2-wireless data transmission, 3-display (television), 4-rechargeable batteries, 5-touch interface, 6-price drops.
berntb 15y ago
E.g. nuclear pulse fission/fusion is literally 1960s tech. See the Orion project (or NERVA). There are other proposals, which haven't gotten much funding. The whole field of propulsion research has been underfunded since the 1970s, probably because NASA didn't want to risk creating competition for their big job program -- the Shuttle...
hackermom 15y ago
His point is that exactly every single notable achievement in the history of mankind has been preceeded by people saying things just like these - skeptics who keep saying "it can't be done" up until the very last second before "it" is done. It was said about crossing the seas. It was said about colonizing the surface of the planet. It was said about diving deep into the seas and it was said about taking off ground. It was said about leaving the atmosphere. It was said about reaching out into space. It is currently being said by some about colonizing our solar system, and most people currently feel that the thought of us not colonizing our solar system is ridiculous, and in time the thought of us not leaving this solar system to go on to the next one will be considered just as ridiculous. "Scientists" like these often suffer from the common problem of never being able to see farther than their own nose; they constantly forget that we grow, and grow, and grow. Without meaning to sound pretentious and cheesy, here's a nice quote from a certain sci-fi series that came to mind: "It's our destiny to walk among the stars", and you can be damned sure that we will, providing we won't kill ourselves on the way.
- billswift 15y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Was_a_Dope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Was_a_Dope
scott_s 15y ago
I suspect most people have not read the full essay, so they never saw this paragraph: The long and the short of what I'm trying to get across is quite simply that, in the absence of technology indistinguishable from magic — magic tech that, furthermore, does things that from today's perspective appear to play fast and loose with the laws of physics — interstellar travel for human beings is near-as-dammit a non-starter. And while I won't rule out the possibility of such seemingly-magical technology appearing at some time in the future, the conclusion I draw as a science fiction writer is that if interstellar colonization ever happens, it will not follow the pattern of historical colonization drives that are followed by mass emigration and trade between the colonies and the old home soil. Many people here are arguing for "magic tech that ... does things that from today's perspective appear to play fast and loose with the laws of physics." I suspect that many of the people doing this either don't realize they are, and/or don't really understand physical laws as we currently understand them.