🚀 go-pugleaf

A few comments on Robin's idea:

The term "upload" doesn't really seem appropriate here.  I think of
that as referring to a person who is living in a computer-simulated
virtual reality.  What we have here is more of a transformation or
alteration.  We would still live and work in the physical world.  It's
true that our brains (and perhaps some or all of our bodies) would be
changed from organic matter to nanotech machinery, but we would still
have the same basic relationship to the world that we do now.

Given that the point of this is to provide some of the advantages of
nanotech, like the mental speedup, while still allowing a familiar
world, some people might want to make the world as familiar as
possible.

If we kept the "mind speedup wrt body" term at 1, and shrunk our
bodies by a factor of about 250 (speeding up our minds by the same
amount), some aspects of the world would still seem normal.  Inertia
would be unchanged, the heft and resistance to acceleration of objects
being based on their composition of wood or stone just as they are for
big people.  (This is assuming our arms still get their power from
organic muscles.)

But gravity would seem lower, by a factor of 16 (square root of 250).
We would be living in a 1/16 g gravitational field.  We could jump
a dozen of feet in the air, carry 16 people on our backs, etc.  This
would have lots of implications for architecture - we'd probably build
upwards more, with poles in place of ladders for easy climbing between
levels, or simple jumping-off areas.

Living in a 1/16 g field may not be normal enough for some people.
They could slow their minds down by another factor of 16.  (They would
still be 16 times faster than normal people.)  Things would then fall
at a normal rate.  But inertia would now be screwed up.  Things would
have almost no resistance to motion, and gravity would seem very weak,
these two factors exactly cancelling each other to allow for a normal
rate of fall.

This wouldn't be right.  What they need to do is to also weaken
themselves by a factor of 16 - make their muscles 16 times less
strong.  Now, inertia is right, gravity is right, and they can lift
just the right amount.

I'm not sure about the metabolic aspects.  I think, given the higher
surface to volume ratio, that the slowed-down people could breath at
what would be for them a normal rate.  (The fast people would have to
breathe unnaturally slowly.)  I suspect, not having worked it out,
that body temperature would actually be about normal for the
slowed-down people.  They'd probably have to eat at about a normal
frequency as well.  Maybe someone could check the details.

The big problem with the 16-factor slowdown and 16-fold weakening is
that such people would be vulnerable to other animals, particularly
the insects with whom they would be competing.  Perhaps they could
have two modes of operation, a normal mode for day-to-day life and a
"turbo" mode where they become 16 times faster and stronger, a fit
opponent for a marauding beetle.

Hal Finney
hal@ghs.com