Can you imagine yourself in competition for resources with ... yourself?
There are several future cases where multiple copies of people may be quite likely and normal. Multiple personal instances could arise to repair medical damage, to make a backup, to have a physical and a digital version, to extend the capability of an individual and because the technology exists, to name a few possibilities. Regulation and legal rights of multiple personal instances are interesting issues but not considered here.
It is likely that there will always be some scarcity of resources whether tangible (matter, energy, processing power, etc.) or intangible (status, reputation, attention, etc.). So it is likely that individuals and groups will always compete for resources.
Whether in the physical domain, digital domain or across domains, if you have copies of yourself, you will be competing with yourself for resources.
Initially, you will know exactly what your other self is thinking and strategizing and you might share resources effectively.
Then, although identical at the outset, any copies, if not mind-synced, will increasingly diverge. In situations of multiple personal instances, regular mind-syncing will probably be desirable but there will be many cases where this will not be possible or desired.
Even if two copies of the same entity are experiencing the same situation, it will not be equal in interpretation by both, the physical experience will not be completely equivalent and the mental experience will be even more different with the randomness of the brain and micro differences in cell chemical states triggering different experiences and interpretations.
Divergence in experience and interpretation could lead to divergence of goals. As with any current or historical examples of resource competition, divergent goals lead to destruction or collaboration.
The multi-self team
An optimal and evolutionarily superior final state would be one's selves coming together in a new entity, a multi-self team, a pool of many nuances of self and abilities, a borg being broader and more capable than any individual.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
The multi-self team
Posted by LaBlogga at 2:26 PM
Labels: competition, evolution, fitness, identity, mindfile, multi-self, multi-self team, multiple personal instances, resource distribution, scarcity, self-replication
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Email me
Twitter
Subscribe to blog
MS Futures Group
Data Visualization Wiki
Economic Fallacies
4 comments:
"It is likely that there will always be some scarcity of resources whether tangible (matter, energy, processing power, etc.) or intangible (status, reputation, attention, etc.). So it is likely that individuals and groups will always compete for resources."
I hope you're wrong about this!
I think that it is quite possible that at some point in the medium-long term future, there will not be competition for either tangible or intangible resources. The competition for tangibles is perhaps the hardest to shrug off, because it appears that there is a limited amount of low-entropy energy in the universe. Nevertheless, new physics may rid us of this limitation.
Hi Roko, Thanks for the comment. I think survival resource scarcity will continue to be diminished as we already see today. I also think that as long as there are multiple and separate entities of intelligence, one of their interaction dynamics is competition and the basis of competition is scarce resources, presumably more of which will be intangibles like attention, good idea generation, etc. in the future.
Perhaps there is another useful model beyond competition for resources. Competition or perhaps more clearly seeking profit, is a way that a group of intelligences decide on the most optimal allocation of time and cooperative effort as well as other more or less limited resources. When many of the physical and energy resources are no longer constrained for practical purposes and the base needs (and likely much more) of all participants are guaranteed then on what basis will this optimization of effort and time occur? What are the feedback mechanisms as to whether the effort is succeeding and worthwhile? Are we likely to go into a considerable hothouse plant stage where a lot of time and energy are poured into things that do not add at all to individual or collective increase and perhaps even strongly detract from it? Will we use the time to explore and seek to achieve all those wonderful ideas and ideals or given such great comfort and ease or will we become like some cultures in paradisaical settings throughout history?
Hi Samantha, thanks for the comments.
I. Persistent Scarcity
I think that despite revolutionary technology advances, physical and energy resources (matter, time, energy, space, attention, information, thought and ideas) will always be constrained to some degree, and therefore that allocation mechanisms like competition will persist. Intelligences will seek to outcompete each other for available computation resources.
II. Resources and Productivity
I don't think that there is any correlation between people spending time extending individual or collective intelligence and the resources at their disposal.
As people increasingly transition to the PSE (post-scarcity economy), where basic needs are met with small percentages of available resources, an increase in both productive advances and entertainment activities is to be expected.
Post a Comment