Genetic manipulation of human beings for the purposes of space exploration

[Zkribbler]

Re: Genetic manipulation of human beings for the purposes of space exploration

Originally posted by Lancer
People were made for this earth but when the environment changes so should our bodies and genetics gives us the tools we need....

I agree that this is the best, perhaps the only, course of action to take.

But before we head off to the other planets and then to the stars, don't forget that 73% of the earth is covered with water. We need merpeople first.

This shouldn't be too hard: transplant some gill genes from fish & alter legs to become a fish tail. (I haven't yet figured out what to do about genitalia.)

[Lorizael]

Re: Re: Genetic manipulation of human beings for the purposes of space exploration

Originally posted by Zkribbler
This shouldn't be too hard: transplant some gill genes from fish & alter legs to become a fish tail. (I haven't yet figured out what to do about genitalia.)

Oh Family Guy.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Re: Re: Genetic manipulation of human beings for the purposes of space exploration

Originally posted by Zkribbler
This shouldn't be too hard: transplant some gill genes from fish & alter legs to become a fish tail. (I haven't yet figured out what to do about genitalia.)

Remember, genes are NOT blueprints. This means you can't, for example, inse * suddenly gets trampled by an army of Hive genejack infantry *

[Aeson]

Re: Re: Genetic manipulation of human beings for the purposes of space exploration

Originally posted by Zkribbler
But before we head off to the other planets and then to the stars, don't forget that 73% of the earth is covered with water. We need merpeople first.

This is the most sensible post I've ever read!

Merpeople

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Elok
Well, they're laughably implausible, for starters. The idea of computers outperforming millennia of evolution is silly, and as for biological tinkering there's always a tradeoff to be made.

Yes I agree with Elok.
The idea of computers outperforming millennia of evolutia is as silly as the idea of machines "out speeding" (going faster than) bodies evolved over millennias, for example (not to talk about artifical materials outperforming natural material evolved over millenia etc..)

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Elok
Yes, they replace us or outperform us...by using far more energy and specializing in one area at the expense of others. A car can't feed itself, climb trees, or swim, and the gas it consumes is the product of millions of years' accumulation of dead plant and animal tissue.

It seems your criterion of success for a single machine is whether it can replicate everything a human can do.

What's wrong with specialization?

Heck even life forms are all somewhat specialized for different things.
Pretty much all Earth life forms can do one thing or another that a human can't. By your criterion, humans are failures (and so is everything, incidentally). A human can climb a tree, but can't swim deep like a salmon say. So what?

Plus your example of car is pretty dumb, most cars are built for being cheap, not efficient or climbing trees.

We can build vehicles that go faster and longer than a human while running on solar power . How do YOU feed yourself by the way? You eat at a restaurant or a grocery store (aka gas stations for humans) where the food (aka gas) also comes from plants.

Originally posted by Elok
It's just a tool.

As our tools have become more advanced, they have allowed us to do more things.
The OP's can just be viewed in the same vein, as a more advanced tool.

All in all I really fail to see what your point it.

Humans have developed better and better tools, to allow them to do more and more things.

What is proposed can be viewed as OP just a more advanced tool.

I'm not saying it will actually happen that way, there may even be easier ways to solve the problem.

Originally posted by Elok
And many of our recent breakthroughs in engineering have come about through aping nature's solutions to similar problems, e.g. spider-robots and beelike miniature flying drones.

Irrelevant.
Even if that's how something came about, what does it matter?

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Elok
Yes, they replace us or outperform us...by using far more energy and specializing in one area at the expense of others. A car can't feed itself, climb trees, or swim, and the gas it consumes is the product of millions of years' accumulation of dead plant and animal tissue. It's just a tool. And many of our recent breakthroughs in engineering have come about through aping nature's solutions to similar problems, e.g. spider-robots and beelike miniature flying drones.

If a computer could improve on the human brain's performance--while consuming comparable amounts of energy, lasting for about forty years before starting to break down, and having the ability to self-assemble in utero--it would still not be human. It would be an alien creature. I prefer computers as our slaves.

But remember, though, we're not talking about robots or AIs - we're talking about transhumans. We're talking about humans who have moved beyond humanity through technology.

We don't need machines that are better humans; we need machines that can enhance or transform what humans already do.

[Lul Thyme]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Elok
Yes, they replace us or outperform us...by using far more energy and specializing in one area at the expense of others. A car can't feed itself, climb trees, or swim, and the gas it consumes is the product of millions of years' accumulation of dead plant and animal tissue. It's just a tool. And many of our recent breakthroughs in engineering have come about through aping nature's solutions to similar problems, e.g. spider-robots and beelike miniature flying drones.

Originally posted by Elok
If a computer could improve on the human brain's performance--while consuming comparable amounts of energy, lasting for about forty years before starting to break down, and having the ability to self-assemble in utero--it would still not be human. It would be an alien creature. I prefer computers as our slaves.

First you were objecting that they will never outperform humans.
Now you're sidestepping and just saying that they wouldn't "be human" (who cares?).

Again, not how your criterion for succes is imitation of humans (why is being able to self-assemble "in utero" a goal?).

Your energy comment is also completely misguided. Most tabletop computers could easily be built to consume a fraction of the energy a human brain does, if people actually were willing to pay for this.

[Elok]

I assumed that the goal of transhumanism was to enhance human capabilities while retaining the ones we already had, more or less. Which is absurd. If you want to create a human being that can breathe underwater without losing efficiency at breathing air, for example, you will probably fail. Even if you do succeed, there's still the matter of costs not only to develop but in space and in energy consumed, etc. Bioengineering sounds more plausible than mechanical parts, as they are more compatible with what we have (and to be fair, evolution did have to make some compromises--look at our weak backs). But you're still going to have to consume more energy to do more work, and the energy has to come from somewhere.

That's what it really comes down to, energy and efficiency. Yes, we can send a rocket to the moon, but the cost in fuel is absolutely enormous and the risks high. The vehicles are also prone to breaking down over time, as they are not designed for self-repair the way most of the human body is. They require expensive facilities to manufacture, and so on. By contrast, our current system can run off a startling variety of fuels, constructs itself from those same fuels, repairs itself, and has the versatility to accomplish just about any task. You want specialization, build yourself a special tool and use it. You'd have to be mad to want to be a living tool.

Finally, I repeat: Is there a computer that can run continuously for forty years without major malfunctions, and continue to run, albeit with decreases in performance, for another forty?

[Lorizael]

... How many computers were there during the 1920s, Elok?

[Elok]

None. How will we send rockets to the moon when we've expended the millions and millions of years of fossil fuels that got us so far, Lori?

[Lorizael]

You think running out of fossil fuels is going to slow our growth?

...

Computers are young. And they can already do so much. Give 'em a few thousand years and I'm sure they will far outstrip human capacity.

Will they require more energy? Sure. But that's another thing we've gotten better at over time. Whether it's fusion power or solar or geothermic or antimatter or whatever, we'll find a way.

We've got a brain with millions of years of evolution trying to solve these problems. I trust it.

[Pekka]

I guess we can never know because well, environment...

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Lorizael
... How many computers were there during the 1920s, Elok?

at least one

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_analyser

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Elok

Finally, I repeat: Is there a computer that can run continuously for forty years without major malfunctions, and continue to run, albeit with decreases in performance, for another forty?

given how long the voyager space probe computers have held out with their less than totally solid state technology I'd imagine the answer is yes.