Re: The Singularity and the Impossible

Eliezer Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Wed, 11 Dec 1996 13:28:56 -0600


> 1) Faster than light travel is impossible.
Wrong.
> 2) Faster than light signaling can not be done.
Wrong.
> 3) We can never communicate with the past.
Unknown.
> 4) Inertia-less space drive would violate today's physics and tomorrow's too.
Can the laws of physics be altered? How do *you* know?
> 5) Spinning super conductive disks will never create an anti-gravity effect.
Neither will sacrifices of goat cheese and ketchup.
> 6) Picotechnology is impossible because structures would not be rigid.
Wrong. Rigidity is the last refuge of the computationally
disadvantaged.
> 7) An advanced extraterrestrial civilization will never be discovered.
Seems likely. If they existed, they'd have had their own Singularity
and shown up by now. See 1 & 2.
> 8) A Quantum Computer will not be made in the next 15 years.
Just plain wrong. Why not?
> 9) A Quantum Computer will never be made.
See above.

http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/workarounds.html

-- 
         sentience@pobox.com      Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
          http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/singularity.html
           http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/algernon.html
Disclaimer:  Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I know.