"One of the main problems of exploring the stellar systems of the galaxy even for very advanced civilizations is that a
serial journey even at
the speed of light would take so long time that most of the stars would have died during the journey. One solution is to
parallelize the problem: the explorer travels to a new system, creates a number of copies (
xoxes) of himself and sends them to other systems, while he remains behind exploring the system (this is a variant of exploring the galaxy using
von Neumann machines). After around 10 million years, when all of the galaxy has been explored, the explorers gather together at a prearranged place, and exchange or merge their memories ('The Far Edge Party'). This was proposed by
Keith Henson as a possible method for a single
individual to visit all of the
galaxy within a reasonable time."
For an imagined account of a Far Edge Party, keep your eyes open for Ed Regis' Excerpt from the Great Mambo Chicken.
- return to the Transhumanist Terminology metanode