Given the choice, Laurinda prefers not to reenter Gaia but to stay with Christian, thus to be united with Wayfarer, then with Alpha, although they will be only memories within the node.
"'...they desired humanness.'
"'They could have it again.'" (p. 246)
Of all the galactic nodes, only Gaia creates emulations and she will not take back these two uploads after what they have experienced in her but:
"Gaia lacked both the data and the capability necessary to model the entire universe, or even the entire Earth. Likewise did any other node, and the galactic brain. Powers of that order lay immensely far in the future, if they would ever be realized."
-PART ONE, V, p. 145.
But such powers might be realized or, failing that, some nodes might see value in creating emulations to resurrect their uploads.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Assuming, of course, that such massively powerful AIs are even possible.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Since brains exist and generate consciousness, it seems possible that some artificial system will duplicate their functions and will then be able to control the powerful technology that we know is possible as an extrapolation of what has already been achieved since the scientific and industrial revolutions.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I am more skeptical about that, and I think Poul Anderson was as well, despite him being willing and imaginative enough to go with that idea in his late phase works. A computer merely having massive computing ability does not mean being capable of being self aware and conscious.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I agree that a computer is not conscious. An artificial brain presumably would be since a brain is conscious.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And, as of now, I find that kind of "artificial brain" implausible.
Ad astra! Sean
Seam,
Find out how a brain performs, then duplicate that performance. It should work.
If you make something that sounds like a nightingale, then it will sound like a nightingale.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But I think it will be easier for engineers to build an artificial nightingale than any kind of AI equal to or superior to the human brain.
Ad astra! Sean
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