baggers

Maybe building a full Dyson Sphere is not a viable way to trade work for energy? Who need that much energy, after all? If it's only for one or 2 local planet consumption? Even if you need room and energy, a very partial Dyson sphere, like a relatively small "ring" over the planet it give it's energy will largely have a dozen of hundert time the surface of the planet and be absolutely not noticeable for any of our telescopes. - - - Updated - - - Look: If the ring of Saturn were an artificial surface like an embryonal Dyson sphere: So, it a surface of Pi*2*140.000² - Pi*2*67.000² = 109 billions square kilometers Earth full surface is about 0.5 billions square kilometers So, Saturns main ring "surface" is more than 200 times the earth surface, including oceans, blabla. Pull solar panel all over a "small" artificial ring over earth, and you solve all energy problems. And it's still a dust of a dust of a "real" dyson sphere, undetectable from the next solar system. And even detected, undiscernable from "natural" rings until very close. And it will look pretty cool too: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/20130626-earths-skies-saturns-rings.html

You have no idea of how vast the "local universe" was, and how small and pierced our bucket is ^^

At a side note: how to be sure consciousness is "transfered" or not, if nothing can differenciate a perfect copy from you? You can take an ancephalogramme, and see that both brains are working, and high-energy consuption process are taking place in it. Both copy and original were conscious and sentient, so... Wouldn't both be "humans" and should be considered that way? Why destroy the original, for that matter? Making a perfect copy of an human is certainly a high-energy task. And destroying a full fonctional human a waste. If it's for travelling 100 years in space, I will certainly send the data by light-speed to the target planet and order to make the copy. The copy will work, as the original, that will rest on his original planet and continue to live a long life ^^

That's the point of view of society or humanity about your "you", yes. It don't matter at all for your boss or even your wife if a perfect copy is send home when your "old" is trashed or used as laboritory experiements. But for "you"? Note that for what we know about how brain function, consciousness is not "movable". A man is "conscious" when some high-energy consuption process can be tracked in the neuronal web. And is unconscious when no process are active. ( flat encephalogram ) So, a perfect copy of yourself is as conscious and sentient as yourself. And the "conscious process" in each brain are not relateds.

Yeah-yeah. First, answer the question "what is consciousness".

A non-guided projectile main problem is accuracy. I don't thing a small RCS on the ass of a arrow is "sophisticated tech", way less in any case than a 1/100.000.000 degre laser turret gear. You can't hit anything less than 4 meter large pass 30km with your lasers. Shouldn't you take that into account? ^^

For me, it as alway been "railgun guided projectiles". You can call them "kinetic missiles electro-magneticaly catapulted", maybe.

Some problems come to my mind about lasers: Imagine a 1s ligth-speed engagement: from earth to moon orbit or so. - The laser turret will need an insanely precise turret gear: a laser is not a guided projectile, it's can't correct it's trajectory like a railgun guided missile: At 300.000.000 meters distance, for hitting a 2 meters target, you need a precision of 1/100.000.000 of a degree. Today laser gear is more 1/10.000 of a degree for top of the top. So 30km for a miss. Not impressive at all in space engagements. - You need to have absolutely perfectly mesured the ennemy speed and trajectory: if the ennemy is traveling relatively at 11.002m/s and you anticipated a 11.000m/s, you miss. Taking that into account, Laser fall to "close-range" secondary armament, no? ^^ Guideds projectiles rules the (gravity) waves! [burned from an entire page, sorry]

I find politics opinions about actuals war a bit unconfortables to read here.

The alternative way is naturally the microscopes ^^ From telescopes to microscopes, which one will see the oddity first?

Even worse: Even if it react perfectly as you will have if you say "hello" or slap them, how would you know it as "someone" inside? And not just a soulless biological mechanism? That's the "philosophical zombie" thing. As memory, personality, reactions and all cognitive process are handle by the cells, and there no need for a "soul" to an human for function, who is in that zombie?

Great link. At this stage, I must say i'm into the "you is a lie" You were not "you", it's just an (usefull) illusion made by a neural brain process for Darwin-like purposes But i'm still curious about the "real answer at this question" because I feel it can be something else not discovered at the moment and even not "physical". After all, I'm pretty sure my brain will work and handle process as well if nobody is into it. And pretty convinced that "I" am into it! But if it's not a "physical" thing, it has no effect on our universe, and it's why we are unable to identifies a "philosophical zombie" from a consciousness one. Or maybe I'm fooled about all of these. Too much tinking process at the moment. - - - Updated - - - But i'm OK with the conclusion of that article: Research about how the brain and brain cells handles conscious and unconscious process is the way to go.

Please note that in the previous statements, I, and the majority here, assumed consciousness is a "emergent" faculty of a complex neural web, no matter the nature of the web. At the state of science we are today, we absolutely don't know, and maybe will never know if an "artificial" neuronal complex made of silicium is capable of consciousness, or is only what we call a "Philosophical zombie". (It's called the "hard problem" of consciousness) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie So, I previously assumed, as the majority of forumers, that a "artificial neuronal web" will "implies" consciousness, just like a biological human one. But we will probably never be sure about that. (how to test it? At a side note, budhhist have a interresing picture for that: "can the blade cut herself?" ^^) But neuronals sciences have learned many thing about how "process of conscience" work. It's firmly stated that they may be handled by any neural cell, and that many "unconscious process" co-inhabit with the "conscious" ones. I will not enter in the details (i'm not a specialist in that thing) but "consciousness" implies high-levels process that burn more energy than "unconscious ones" and that can "take control" at will on "small priority" process (like, earing, breathing...) that can too "claim priority" and more energy for switching to "conscious stage" depending of the situation. Note that some low priority "emergency process" (called for example "panic" ^^) can "take control" over even conscious process in certain cases (especialy when theses process "see" - stress levels, that sort of things - that the "conscious process" seem unable to handle a emergency situation) So consciousness is closely related to all theses process, and how they work. You can totaly lose consciousness, and we are able to see that because no area of the brain is actually consuming energy, and track the active consciousness process by their energy consuption. As stated before, the consciousness "use" for it's work a picture of "yourself" as an human, made by the brain (other process): if any of theses process isn't working well, it can result in catastrophic failures as the "consciousness" use that picture (illusion of "being one") for handle all actions along your life. Shyzophrenia ou Alien Hand Syndromes are examples of "consciousness broken". Total loss of consciousness (no energy consumption in the brain: flat encephalogram) and miraculary recovering as the cells were able to reboot a conscious process are possible after accidents. All of that for saying that yes, it's a very close relation between "consciousness" and the actual cell working to made it ^^. Have you a link? I have a doubt about that asumption. Even if true, a progressive replacement isn't the same as a brutal one like dispose of your previous entire corpse! In fact it can be true and don't matter: What's "you" at the moment is the actual bunch of atoms assembled and controled by a conscious process working by brain cells ^^

A maybe more "promishing" cloak of invisibility: OK, that don't look impressive at all, but it's a 1,300 square microns cloak at the moment. They say they can make a bigger one. here the link: https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/09/17/making-3d-objects-disappear/ They say that sort of chinese things too: But it's more a "flat mirror cap" than a "transparency cap": Still look cool, and I want one. [burn] Ach, sorry, PB666 previous link is on the same thing. I'm burned.

But if the "somethingless" let "something" to be "born" (like an universe) it's because it have a set of "somethingless" rules that allow it and rules how a universe is born. Who came first: the rules, or the somethingless? At a side note, I think it exist 2 set of "rules" for an universe: - The rules of physics: the one we start to know well, that rules how the things in the universe interacts. - The rules of "born by somethingless", that we don't know well: rules how the univers "is". or "born" The vaccum expansion of our universe is an observation of the second set of rules, I believe. Like a gaz expand itself in vacuum is a rule of physic, the vacuum expanding itself in (???) is a "somethingless" rule. The "big-bang" is an indirect observation of a somethingless rule too, in that case. That the sort of observation that let me think our universe is not the "only thing that exist": We observe theses indirect signs of "somethingless rules" of how an universe "must born and expand", so theses rules at least exist, and seem to exist "elsewhere" in the "somethingless".

Cool factor for pluton continue to increase: Its

Maybe you can shot (with railguns! ^^) a solid and big "net" in a suborbital trajectory, and catch some debris previously carefully selecteds. the net may have some sort of airbags for landing. After a while or 2, you should have cleaned at least one safe orbit for spacecraft launchs.

Another solution is making a ship carrying a net after the war, to catch the orbital projectiles remaining afloat. A tough job for those who have lose that war ^^ (Historicaly, it's what happen to many "small" war criminals: 50 years in jail or 5 year of mine-clearing: your move? )

You're right about accuracy: that's why Navy aim for a guided projectile for his railgun.

I must say I find pleasant the little "picture" I paint in that post. A guilty immagination pleasure, naturally! But at a smaller scale, don't you think a swarm of enough projectiles could outclass any laser defence?

Actual small railguns are able to suborbital shots. And are carried/powered by small ships like "spearhead" class high speed catamaran. I assume a nuclear powered specialised battleship will easily handle interplanetary range railguns. (Just for pleasure, if you haven't already see it: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/134317-Big-guns-in-space )

Hey, I assume you can shot all theses from a... regular battleship on the sea ^^ You don't have to send the railgun and ammo to space at first. Or just have a bunch of land railguns connected to the ammo factories, for that matter. (but regular battleships with railguns are way more cool and can easily be refited with ammo all along the day)

Rune, isn't that you who are speaking about the "Arrow Vs Armor" just before? That "armor of lasers" will just fall like all of theses at the long run, I bet ^^ - - - Updated - - - And if you're on the "big war" thing: Imagine a planet. War comes. The ships sail. They have railguns, some, big. And ammo. Many ammo. They shot. One projectile after the other. At a slow pace. Kepping their barrels colds. They fire the entire day. And the entire week. And the entire month. One month after the other. Dozen, hunderds, thousands, millions and billions of railgun guided projectiles. The projectiles are on their way. They have month, maybe year before reaching the target. From a straigh long line, they slowly adjust pace, regroup. Ultimately form a gigantic swarm. That swarm of billions and billions of projectiles came at once on the ennemy territories. Like small baby turtles just born on the coast and reaching the oceans full of dangers. The ennemy lasers are everywhere, the ennemy probes take down hunderds, thousands, millions of thems. But they reach the target: the ennemy fleet, and still are billions. The ennemy fleet lasers fires, warm, hot, all at once. But they can do nothing about theses billions, coming in one inarretable swarm. One projectile pass. One ennemy ship is disabled. The fleets lasers start to overheat, some laser start to fire at a slower pace. More and more projectiles pass and reach the ennemy ships. In less than a minute all of them have silently exploded as the swarm passed. The war is over, in one salvo.

It's more a " very close fly-by" than a "rendez-vous", but I see what you mean ^^

Lets try a simpler scenario: a man replace his brain in 2 stages: first the left hemisphere, then the right one. Lets assume it can live a short amount of time with half-brain, no matter wich one. Here, you immediatly see a problem: have we one human, or 2? If each "half-brain" is alive for a short time? The answer is simple: we have 2 half-brains, that have the illusion to be "one human" because of complexe consciousness process that produce that illusion to be "one". It's the same process for every part of "your corpse": you were a bunch of many atoms. But have the illusion to "being one" because it's the picture created by your brain process. (Side note: theses process don't work alway very well: schyzophrenia, Alien Hand Syndrome are exemples of that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_hand_syndrome ) So, if you replace half your brain by a microchip, assuming it replicate the complex consciousness process, you will still have the illusion to "be one" and the same, naturally! It don't really matter for the process if a bunch of atoms were replaced by another. But half your brain is dead, theses atoms have cessed to be "alive" and what is alive now is a chip. And next stage is all your brain dead and 2 chips alives, that think they were an human before. It's an illusion, but if it's OK, why not?