RobertWiblin comments on That Magical Click - Less Wrong

58 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 January 2010 04:35PM

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Comment author: Blueberry 21 January 2010 05:03:01PM 6 points [-]

It seems unlikely that people would be revived in those scenarios, especially in 1 and 2. As for 3, biological evolution takes a long long time, and even then it's likely the future humans would provide a decent environment for us if they revive us. Unlike apes, we and future humans will both be capable to communicate and engage in abstract thought, so I don't think that analogy works.

Comment author: MichaelGR 21 January 2010 05:13:19PM 4 points [-]

As for 3, biological evolution takes a long long time, and even then it's likely the future humans would provide a decent environment for us if they revive us. Unlike apes, we and future humans will both be capable to communicate and engage in abstract thought, so I don't think that analogy works.

Evolution by natural selection is indeed too slow to be a problem, but self-modification via technological means could mean rapid change for humanity.

It might still not be a problem since it's doubtful that a smarter civilization would totally lose the capability to communicate with humans v1.0 (knowing they have a bunch of frozen people around, they'd at least keep a file somewhere about the 21st century, or scan a bunch of brains to learn what they need to know).

And if they could improve themselves, there's a good chance that they'll also be able to improve the revived people so that they can fit in the new society, or at least accomodate comfortably humans 1.0 who don't want to be modified (who knows how a smarter than human friendly intelligence with highly advanced technology would deal with that problem? All we can guess is that the solution would probably be pretty effective).