Where Do You Learn?

Learning occurs at the fringes of what you already know; so that you learn some new things similar to what you know already.  If what you are trying to learn is not too far away from what you already know, you can learn.  The bigger that fringe is — the more you know — the more likely it is, the more possible it is, to discover new things.
—    Douglas B. Lenat
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Fred Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

Up until now, people have lived linear finite lives.  You exist in one place for a time, live for awhile, and then you die.  That’s going to change.  Suppose that you have lots of intelligent agents standing in for you in cyberspace; all sorts of activities involving things you’d like to do.  Your actual consciousness resides in one flesh body.  Suppose that communication bandwidth is high enough that at any given moment you can shift your attention and inhabit these other entities.  After a person died, some of his or her agents would still continue to be around.  Some of Fred is around after Fred is dead.
—    Douglas B. Lenat
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