Ghost population?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

You also may be underestimating 401k money. If rejuvenation was available to me I could justify it just to lower the costs of my health insurance. Getting old isn't just hard it's expensive too.

Tell me about it. I'm still in generally decent health, but C and I have medical costs (including insurance costs) that are a bigger share of our budget than anything except housing.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Tell me about it. I'm still in generally decent health, but C and I have medical costs (including insurance costs) that are a bigger share of our budget than anything except housing.

I've got a paid for house and health insurance is simply bigger than everything else for me.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

But physical rejuvenation becomes available in 2088 and there's far less question about who "you" are after that. The "you" that comes out of the rejuve tank is the same "you" that went into it, only younger.

To me arranging the creation of a computer program that will think it is "you" borders on the pointless and it is only the waiting til after "you" die (possibly in the creation process) that enables the illusion that it is more than a copy of "you".

<shrug>_My_ head canon is that only kooks had it done and that a few years after 2100 all the Ghost software starts getting corrupted and crashing. 30 years is a long time for an extremely complicated piece of software to run.

Interesting point, and one THS and most transhumanist scenarios don't spend much time on. It would also tend to apply to the software-based SAIs and such, too, if it's a problem for ghosts it would probably be a problem for the SAIs as well.

OTOH, human brains usually run without crashing for much longer than 30 years, too.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

OTOH, human brains usually run without crashing for much longer than 30 years, too.

If the human brain is a computer it's one that grows its' own hardware and writes its' own software from a common kernal and after it's done that it repairs, updates and generally alters both of those things every day.

Most visions of AIs and uploads see those things existing in static perfection forever. That's not going to work in the real world. With tech far beyond 2100 a computer made of living metal with self-repairing and self-evolving software might achieve extraordiinary longevity. I'd still be doubtful abut uploading human minds.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

OTOH, human brains usually run without crashing for much longer than 30 years, too.

It's possible to do that with computers. Just a lot of work and usually pointless because you're obsolete long before it matters. The computers on the Voyager probes are 46 years old and still operating.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's possible to do that with computers. Just a lot of work and usually pointless because you're obsolete long before it matters. The computers on the Voyager probes are 46 years old and still operating.

Yeah, but they and their software are also relatively simple.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Yeah, but they and their software are also relatively simple.

By 1977 standards, they're probably still pretty modest, but not ridiculously so. You're not going to get something complicated and ancient because high complexity computers haven't been around long enough..

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The computers on the Voyager probes are 46 years old and still operating.

They were built with NASA "zero failure" level engineering. That has much more intensive quality control oversight than any commercial product. They are also largely dormant and have little in the way of internal activity cycles generating heating and requiring cooling. The RTGs probably keep them at a constant temp.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

They were built with NASA "zero failure" level engineering. That has much more intensive quality control oversight than any commercial product. They are also largely dormant and have little in the way of internal activity cycles generating heating and requiring cooling. The RTGs probably keep them at a constant temp.

I was not claiming that they were typical computers. Just that it's possible to make a computer that runs for decades without crashing, it just has to be a sufficiently high priority to do so.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I was not claiming that they were typical computers. Just that it's possible to make a computer that runs for decades without crashing, it just has to be a sufficiently high priority to do so.

We might imagine that computers that are going to run a ghost will be considered to have a fairly high priority, especially early on when only very rich people can afford uploading.