I sometimes reflect about this and one aspect that was not mentioned and I believe will have a lot of weight on how all this evolves is the maltusian limits of the real world vs the cornucopian and limitless aspect of the virtual.
Simple economics tell us that as population grows and natural resources are depleted, real physical goods and services will become scarce and costly especially compared to virtual ones which seem to be created with a shrinking amount of matter and energy.
The implication of this are interesting for the evolution of humanity.
Will reality become a luxury, where the common people will be able to afford nothing more than basic subsistence including low cost per calorie diet and a few cubic meters of real word dwelling? Will only the rich be able to afford the additional matter and energy to provide for further floor space, better food and physical travel?
The cost difference between virtual experiences and real world experiences might become so large that most people will prefer to get the better bang for the buck available virtually.
What are the implication for jobs, how will value be created and distributed when people spend most of their time in a virtual world? Here, I don't mean just entertainment goods that are only worth something in the context of a game. I mean things like education, artistic virtual experiences, virtual social events, virtual performances, movies, music, etc. The virtual economy will be greatly influenced by intellectual property laws and I assume, a lot of these goods will have to include DRM for sustaining jobs even if the goods are really cheap compared to real world goods.
What activities will give meaning to human life? Intellectual endeavors, artistic endeavors and socializing should remain low cost and may still offer a lot of depth and complexity to people's lives, especially as the tools to support these activities become better. In fact, if you evaluate your life by the breath of ideas, relationships and arts you are able to master, a life lived virtually might become more fulfilling than one encumbered by the limits of the real world.
How will serious social relationships evolve in virtual worlds? What are the implications for reproduction?
In a virtual world, it is going to be really easy to move away when not getting along with a community. It will also be really easy to create new communities for like minded individuals. People might not have to get along they might just isolate themselves in smaller communities. What are the implications for the way politics will be performed. What are the implication for law enforcement? What are the implications for war and how will all this spill over into the real world? The communities will still have to collaborate to maintain real world security and defense.
Then there is the issue of the physical body's health needs. Will the human body be able to adapt to this type of life?
Will resource scarcity push humanity to a virtual existence? When you look at people living in their parents' basement spending all their time online, sometimes because of the lack of economic opportunity in the real world, it sure makes it look like the transition has already begun.
Yet behind each bread and butter eater there is a mind. Maltusian limits are only limits when the incremental human produces helps humanity extract a lesser ratio from what is to what could be. With the information age upon us I do not believe this is the case.
I was in an engineering class called "sustainable development" at Waterloo and got into an argument with my professor about a "maximum human population". My point, that I still hold to this day, was that the average extra human will increase our capacity for more humans by more than one. Whether it is from space cities or virtual realities we are not a virus that the movie The Matrix portrays us to be. We will expand to the stars, the sea, the deep earth, and other realities; whether they be on silicon chips or other dimensions. Just wait until Gataca comes or mind-computer interfaces. The average IQ in 2011 terms will be 150.
You can push the logic even further : as even sustaining your body in a small tank becomes unsustainable, one might really go all virtual : get rid of your body, and upload your mind in a piece of silicon (or whatever replaced silicon). The silicon would be much less expensive to run than your meat brain.
Even if you don't believe your upload wouldn't truly be you, you might take the option, if the alternative is certain death by starvation. Better die and spawn a ghost, than die and leave nothing.
Now it's not all pretty: if you assume a capitalistic, competitive environment, one could set up "interesting" forms of exploitation. An upload could be saved, stopped, restarted, spied on, tortured… Robin Hanson produced quite interesting (though horrifying) speculation about how such a world might look like.
"Better die and spawn a ghost, than die and leave nothing." What's the point of a ghost? How does this make your situation "better"? Your point is based on the assumption that death is inherently "bad".
Darwinism suggests that if ghosts can continue to exist (and reproduce?) and affect the world to create more of themselves (e.g. tell people that it's not so bad), then they will be selected-for.
Ceasing to exist is, in a strict Darwinian sense, bad. Reproduction and, to an extent, continued existence are good.
Seconded. It should be noted that some people see making children as a form of immortality. My own mom thinks along the lines of "what's the point of living forever, you just have to make children".
I say the immortality of my genes pale in comparison to the immortality of my thought processes. Even if the copy isn't really "me", it will have the same influence I could have had if it was. I may have other goals besides not dying. My ghost would have at least a chance of carrying them out.
Comments
I sometimes reflect about this and one aspect that was not mentioned and I believe will have a lot of weight on how all this evolves is the maltusian limits of the real world vs the cornucopian and limitless aspect of the virtual.
Simple economics tell us that as population grows and natural resources are depleted, real physical goods and services will become scarce and costly especially compared to virtual ones which seem to be created with a shrinking amount of matter and energy.
The implication of this are interesting for the evolution of humanity.
Will reality become a luxury, where the common people will be able to afford nothing more than basic subsistence including low cost per calorie diet and a few cubic meters of real word dwelling? Will only the rich be able to afford the additional matter and energy to provide for further floor space, better food and physical travel?
The cost difference between virtual experiences and real world experiences might become so large that most people will prefer to get the better bang for the buck available virtually.
What are the implication for jobs, how will value be created and distributed when people spend most of their time in a virtual world? Here, I don't mean just entertainment goods that are only worth something in the context of a game. I mean things like education, artistic virtual experiences, virtual social events, virtual performances, movies, music, etc. The virtual economy will be greatly influenced by intellectual property laws and I assume, a lot of these goods will have to include DRM for sustaining jobs even if the goods are really cheap compared to real world goods.
What activities will give meaning to human life? Intellectual endeavors, artistic endeavors and socializing should remain low cost and may still offer a lot of depth and complexity to people's lives, especially as the tools to support these activities become better. In fact, if you evaluate your life by the breath of ideas, relationships and arts you are able to master, a life lived virtually might become more fulfilling than one encumbered by the limits of the real world.
How will serious social relationships evolve in virtual worlds? What are the implications for reproduction?
In a virtual world, it is going to be really easy to move away when not getting along with a community. It will also be really easy to create new communities for like minded individuals. People might not have to get along they might just isolate themselves in smaller communities. What are the implications for the way politics will be performed. What are the implication for law enforcement? What are the implications for war and how will all this spill over into the real world? The communities will still have to collaborate to maintain real world security and defense.
Then there is the issue of the physical body's health needs. Will the human body be able to adapt to this type of life?
Will resource scarcity push humanity to a virtual existence? When you look at people living in their parents' basement spending all their time online, sometimes because of the lack of economic opportunity in the real world, it sure makes it look like the transition has already begun.
Yet behind each bread and butter eater there is a mind. Maltusian limits are only limits when the incremental human produces helps humanity extract a lesser ratio from what is to what could be. With the information age upon us I do not believe this is the case.
I was in an engineering class called "sustainable development" at Waterloo and got into an argument with my professor about a "maximum human population". My point, that I still hold to this day, was that the average extra human will increase our capacity for more humans by more than one. Whether it is from space cities or virtual realities we are not a virus that the movie The Matrix portrays us to be. We will expand to the stars, the sea, the deep earth, and other realities; whether they be on silicon chips or other dimensions. Just wait until Gataca comes or mind-computer interfaces. The average IQ in 2011 terms will be 150.
You can push the logic even further : as even sustaining your body in a small tank becomes unsustainable, one might really go all virtual : get rid of your body, and upload your mind in a piece of silicon (or whatever replaced silicon). The silicon would be much less expensive to run than your meat brain.
Even if you don't believe your upload wouldn't truly be you, you might take the option, if the alternative is certain death by starvation. Better die and spawn a ghost, than die and leave nothing.
Now it's not all pretty: if you assume a capitalistic, competitive environment, one could set up "interesting" forms of exploitation. An upload could be saved, stopped, restarted, spied on, tortured… Robin Hanson produced quite interesting (though horrifying) speculation about how such a world might look like.
"Better die and spawn a ghost, than die and leave nothing." What's the point of a ghost? How does this make your situation "better"? Your point is based on the assumption that death is inherently "bad".
Darwinism suggests that if ghosts can continue to exist (and reproduce?) and affect the world to create more of themselves (e.g. tell people that it's not so bad), then they will be selected-for.
Ceasing to exist is, in a strict Darwinian sense, bad. Reproduction and, to an extent, continued existence are good.
Seconded. It should be noted that some people see making children as a form of immortality. My own mom thinks along the lines of "what's the point of living forever, you just have to make children".
I say the immortality of my genes pale in comparison to the immortality of my thought processes. Even if the copy isn't really "me", it will have the same influence I could have had if it was. I may have other goals besides not dying. My ghost would have at least a chance of carrying them out.
death is inherently "bad"
Hell, yes. And it is not an assumption, it is an observation.