TransVision 2010 Presentation by Anders Sandberg

"Thermodynamics of advanced civilizations: living in a unsustainable universe
Civilizations are thermodynamic objects, fundamentally bound by considerations of energy, entropy and information. While their purposes for manipulating the physical world could be almost anything, they are constrained by available resources and physical laws. This gives us some bounds on what can be achieved in the truly long-term given our current understanding of the universe.
This talk will look at what constraints we are facing, giving some estimates for how much information processing, beings and activity can take place in the far future. I will also discuss the ethical consequences of these considerations here and now: how they force us to consider existential risk more seriously, how our current limitation to a single planet is an important opportunity for coordination, and the ethical problems of initiating radical interstellar expansion."
ANDERS SANDBERG
 
Anders Sandberg is a researcher, science debater, futurist, transhumanist, and author. He holds a Ph.D. in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, and is currently a James Martin Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. Sandberg’s research centres on societal and ethical issues surrounding human enhancement and new technology, as well as on assessing the capabilities and underlying science of future technologies.
TRANSVISION 2010 MILANO 22/24 10 2010