RE: Slashdot - The Computational Requirements for the Matrix

From: Phil Osborn (philosborn2001@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Jun 14 2003 - 15:12:57 MDT

  • Next message: Robert J. Bradbury: "RE: ENERGY: Singularity on hold?"

    The strongest argument that I have not yet heard here:

    "Is this as good as it gets?"

    WHY would anyone in their right mind, much less an SI,
    waste clock cycles simulating our miserable state of
    existence? Can't any one of you think of a zillion
    different, more interesting universes to live in?
    Would YOU choose to simulate a single-celled piece of
    self-replicating proto-life, other than to answer some
    scientific question? Is there some question that can
    only be answered by an SI by simulating 21st Century
    Earth, down to our miserable crawling state of
    consciousness?

    Or, for another take:

    Let's say you are a master programmer, programming is
    your life, it's all you want to do, and your basic
    physical needs are taken care of for your expected
    lifespan, so you can devote your entire life to
    programming. But all you have is a Commodore 64. That
    C64 could handle all kinds of trivial problems in an
    eyeblink, but those aren't of interest. The
    satisfaction of building a tic-tac-toe solver is
    fleeting and afterwards you feel a letdown. What you
    really want is a problem that will take all your
    resources - time and processing power - and use them
    in the most effective possible way, so that the last
    instant of your existence will coincide with the final
    output of the C64.

    Now upgrade that to an SI who has the life cycle of
    the universe to work in. Will the SI spend clock
    cycles creating some protoplasmoid trivial simulation
    of paradise with the 70 perpetual virgins? There are
    natural limits to computational power - speed of
    light, Heisenburg uncertainty, physical mass of the
    universe, etc. Won't the SI look for the most
    difficult problem and devote everything to it?

    Isn't it kind of a stretch to imagine this SI taking
    time out to simulate US?

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