Carrying capacity of the solar system

On 1/24/12 9:39 AM, William wrote:

> At the highest would be a Dyson Sphere, with several layers, to get
> every possible Joule of energy from the sun to support a population.
> 3.839e26 watts, at 10 kw person, would be 3.839e22 or about 38.3
> billion trillion people.

That's the trouble -- "carrying capacity" will be a moving target as
technology continues to advance. We could conceivably go even further
beyond the Dyson sphere, if we imagine (thousands of years from now?)
most people are mind uploads [1], and live either in miniaturized
bodies/environments, or entirely simulated ones.

So, I don't think there's much point in trying to come up with a hard
number now. It suffices to say that the solar system as a whole can
support many orders of magnitude more than just the Earth, in comfort
and style.

Best,
- Joe

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading