Re: Singularity: Generation gap

Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
28 Sep 1997 15:35:39 +0200


Wei Dai <weidai@eskimo.com> writes:

> But time does not matter if you are immortal. I agree with Anders that
> technological development will level off, but what's important in the long
> run is whether the ultimate limit of technology bounds the total amount of
> computation that can be done before the universe ends (or as time goes to
> infinity if the universe does not end). If the answer is no, we don't have
> to build a better galaxy brain, we can just simulate one.

If the answer is yes, we may still have a chance if we can find a way
to change the answer (like making basement universes with new physical
laws).

> My intuition says that the universe is computationally bounded, but
> probably this is only because a life-time experience of scarcity has
> limited my imagination.

Nicely put. I think the opposite, but that is because I'm partially
a mathematician and hence thinks that "the answer is always infinity,
one or zero". :-)

-- 
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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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