X-Message-Number: 14473
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
Subject: alien life and sumulations
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 16:49:23 +0100

With regards to comments made about alien life forms, it may be worth
looking at durability. What would be the most durable life form if you could
transform yourself into whatever you like?

How about this one:

*****
A highly diffuse cloud of nanoparticles each one being a single neuron, with
a density of one or two per cubic mile of space, the whole lot covering a
radius of several light years in total. These link to their nearest
neighbours  by broadband jam-proof radio to form a computer. (Aerial size
problem? - new technology is making aerials much smaller, though.) The whole
network would have massive redundancy and therefore be as near to being
invulnerable as one could hope to get.

In this computer you can simulate whatever you like - a human riding in a
space ship, a human on a planet (with all the other inhabitants being like
the "holo" simulations of Star Trek or radio-linked "holo" simulations
controlled by other real people who have linked from their own cloud) or
whatever you fancy. The simulation would also be able to scan the rest of
the universe and the whole cloud could move through space by some means or
other.  Redundancy and the object's huge size (and small overall mass) would
make it virtually impossible to destroy even if it hit a star.
****

Things like that could pass through the solar system totally unoticed, and
maybe wouldn't even bother to notice us unless they were deliberately
scanning the universe for life.

--
Sincerely, John de Rivaz
my homepage links to Longevity Report, Fractal Report, music, Inventors'
report, an autobio and various other projects:
http://www.geocities.com/longevityrpt
http://www.autopsychoice.com - should you be able to chose autopsy?

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