Assuming that we someday can travel to the stars, Which type of method do you think is most practical? That is, the one that you think can really be done.
Faster than light
Near light sub light
Mind transfer
Banned
Assuming that we someday can travel to the stars, Which type of method do you think is most practical? That is, the one that you think can really be done.
Order of Kilopi
I've Always Thought The BEST Method Would Be By Marrying a NAFAL (Nearly as Fast as Light) Drive to a C-T (Continuous-Time) Drive ...Originally Posted by SAMU
That Way, you'd Thiink you Arrived Soon After you Left, and The People There Would Agree With you, Although they Wouldn't Actually See your Departure for Another "t" Years ...
Essentially The Way it Would Work, Is The C-T Drive Would Swap a Tiime Dimension for One of Space, And The Ship Would Simply Accelerate Upon it Towards NAFAL Speeds, Without Ever Actually Moving Along The Timelike Space Dimension!
So, What Do you Guys Thiink, Plausible?
Order of Kilopi
If by mind transfer you mean sending infomation via electromagnetic radiation (radio waves, laser, etc.) then dumping that program into a computer or a robotic or cloned body, that sounds the easiest and not too far from what we can do today. We like to pretend we're complex but the fact is that as long as you have enough general knowledge on hand, a couple of pages of infomation should be enough to recreate someone well enough so that only close friends or familly could really tell the difference.
Perhaps we could shoot pea sized probes at a near by star system at 10% the speed of light with a powerful accelerator. When they approach the system they use a tiny antimatter drive to deaccelerate, constantly repairing any radiation damage they suffer. Finally a grain of sand sized speck lands on an asteroid or other body and starts building systems for energy collection and material processing. Eventually the probe has enough resources to build a radio reciever. It can use this to download infomation, instructions and people and go on to construct bodies and facilities for people if they are required.
Order of Kilopi
Ah Yes, Travel Through Teleportation ...
Personally, While I Thiink REAL Matter Transport Will Hafta Be The Norm at Fiirst ...
Ultimately, Unless The System has Absolutely No Raw Materials, In Which Case Why Bother, Who'll Have The Tiime to Do Anythiing, But?
Established Member
A small problem with mind transfer is that you need to errr.. dispose of the original afterwards. Even if you do that it wouldn't be real travel because you, the master copy so to speak, do not go anywhere. You stay firmly on the transmitter's end of things while your perfect copy crawls out of the receiver. It is mind duplication, followed by transfer of the newly created person. But it is not yourself that travels. You are disposed. Killed. Volunteers? Anybody?
Order of Kilopi
SURE ...
As for The Killing Part, Fahgettaboutit ...
If I Don't Have at Least One of me On Every Inhabited Planet, I'm Not Half Trying!
Order of Kilopi
Missed one:
D. None of the above.
At least not for the forseeable future.
Established Member
Nahhhh... that would be... overkill!SURE ...
As for The Killing Part, Fahgettaboutit ...
If I Don't Have at Least One of me On Every Inhabited Planet, I'm Not Half Trying!
Banned
No I didn't miss that one. That is covered by:
Established Member
IMO, it will be many generations (probably many centuries) before we get a technology that could transport humans to another star system in a timeframe that is semi-reasonable compared to a human lifespan (lets say 15 years one-way). In the mean time, the best we could hope for would be probes sent out at speeds that are a tiny fraction of the speed of light in hopes that they would still be functioning hundreds or thousands of years later when they reached their destinations. In fact, it would be likely that probes/ships launched later on with presumably better propulsion would overtake the older probes and actually arrive first.
Order of Kilopi
Not true. Your options were:
Faster than light
This appears to be impossible.
Near light sub light
This may be physically possible, but it would be very energy intensive. It is most likely that starflight would be at some small fraction of the speed of light, not near the speed of light.
Mind transfer
Even granting that this would become feasible, how do you do a mind transfer without sending a "receiver" first? So, this too would be impossible in itself.
The option I would pick as most practical would be star travel at a small fraction of the speed of light.
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
Order of Kilopi
Gotcha, mark me for near sublight. I'd love to be wrong, but somehow I get the feeling Mr. Einstein trapped us rather nicely this side of c.
Order of Kilopi
Yeah ...
That's Why I Thiink Time-Bending Will Become a Useful Technology, a Lot Sooner ...
So, Should I Start a Thread Asking Which, If Either, Will Likely Be Developed First?
Banned
I am agreeing with you. I know that I have thousands of copies of some of my stuff on this planet alone.SURE ...
As for The Killing Part, Fahgettaboutit ...
If I Don't Have at Least One of me On Every Inhabited Planet, I'm Not Half Trying!
But how can we keep all those bloodthirsty ones above from deleting our copies? I guess we'll have to be interesting enough that somebody is willing to support our copies with hardware and wetware and defend them against malicious attackers. I do find it discouraging that what I think is the most practical method, mind transfer, has only one vote, my own.
Order of Kilopi
Eh ...
Even in The MOST Blase of Societies, I Suspect Killing a Cloned Body Will Still Be Classed as Murder ...
At The Very Least, Because There'll Be No Appreciable Way of Telling The Difference!
Order of Kilopi
What do you mean by "time bending"? Cryonic suspension? Hibernation?Yeah ...
That's Why I Thiink Time-Bending Will Become a Useful Technology, a Lot Sooner ...
So, Should I Start a Thread Asking Which, If Either, Will Likely Be Developed First?
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
Order of Kilopi
DIRECT Alteration Along The Tiime Axis ...
Not So Muuch Time-Travel, as That Is Pretty Muuch Prohibited By Reletivity, But More, Transitions to Alternate Focal Points of Now ...
So, Which Would Be Fiirst, Interstellar Travel or a Time Warp Sufficient to Alter your Participation in The Present?
Order of Kilopi
Ok, so you're talking magic/new physics.
I won't comment on unknown physics, but we have the first - the Pioneer 10, 11 and Voyager 1,2. That is, something going far below the speed of light. Getting to a near star in several tens of thousands of years is possible. Getting there usefully will have to wait. Energy requirements at 1% of the speed of light and above starts getting substantial for large masses, but you probably need to go at least that fast to make sense on human time scales.So, Which Would Be Fiirst, Interstellar Travel or a Time Warp Sufficient to Alter your Participation in The Present?
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
Order of Kilopi
HOPEFULLY Not Magic ...
But Yeah, it'd Be Well Beyond Cutting Edge ...
Still, Loopholes in Relativity Theory Would Seem to Allow it, But it Looks Liike Quantum Mechanics May Disallow it Instead!
True, Not Enough for My Tastes, But True ...
However, Assuming The Chronology Protection Conjecture Either Turns Out to Be Complete Handwavium or at Best a Surmountable Obstacle ...
Do you Thiink we'll Explore These Ramifications of M-Theory, Before or After we Fiirst Get to The Stars Through Other Means?
Established Member
Well you know, it takes multiple scientific revolutions at the most fundamental level before anything of this becomes remotely possible. And you can't predict scientific revolutions, they just fall out of the blue sky (or they don't). But I do know one thing. It takes someone blissfully optimistic, stubborn and completely shortsighted and likely under 25 of age to come up with these sort of discoveries. Even if it won't take us to the stars, any progress is welcome!
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