From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Tue Aug 05 2003 - 23:36:03 MDT
On Tue, 5 Aug 2003, Lee Corbin (commenting on my comments) wrote:
> No! It was *I* who wrote that, not Robbie. Robbie
> failed to give it any attribution at all. Not been
> reading my posts, eh, Robert?
Guilty as charged. After the > > > levels get more than
a couple deep I get lost. I am however reading "most" of
your posts Lee. I have a selective browsing system in that
I read many of the posts in the Javien Forum so I can see
the relationships between the posts and then I go back and
respond to the posts in a normal email system. It does
however mean I will miss posts from time to time.
> I do not see what safety has to do with it.
"Distributed Replicated Intelligence"
A human brain cannot avoid the hazard function imposed by
an earthquake, an asteroid, etc. However, if you have
redundant subcomponents distributed across 25 AU you can
trump those hazard functions. It is basic "fault tolerance"
in computing data center configurations.
> Yes, suppose that one is interested in finding the next
> Ramsey numbers (a nice math problem). Then one has no
> problem with off-loading a lot of the calculation to
> Alpha Centauri, or participating in a galaxy-wide hunt
> for the solutions.
Yes, in which case the problem may not be to colonize
but to (a) identify *where* the SIs are; and (b) the
diplomatic problem of convincing them to work on the
problem once one opens a communication channel. This
tends to require that the problem has more limited
data requirements (otherwise it requires a very long
time to communicate to more distant SIs). It also
feeds into the problems I've discussed with respect
to "What do SIs think about?". For example do you
want to "think" about a problem that some other SI
in the galaxy solved 20,000 or even 2,000,000,000
years ago???
> Yes, and getting back to another issue, *this* is why we
> would be so appealing for the beings of Tralfamdor to
> colonize: we have plenty of unused cm^3s.
But Lee, you are oversimplifying -- to use those cm^3
one needs (a) energy sources; (b) certain types of matter;
and (c) someplace to dump the waste heat. One would
anticipate that *if* one were going to colonize one
would select optimal locations with a mix of those 3 resources.
> It's interesting that some remote copies you agree that
> one should regard as self, while yesterday you seemed to
> maintain that very remote Lee II's would be nothing but
> threats eventually. Have you changed your mind?
I have not changed my mind. Lee II's are a hazard -- but
perhaps naturally only over billions to trillions of years.
The exception to this would be if Lee II's decide that Lee I's
are hazardous first and decide to minimize the risk that
Lee I's pose.
Distributed Lee I's (within local space) pose a much less
difficult problem. If one gets a rogue Lee I subcomponent
within a solar system one simply deletes it. It is like
replacing a broken component in ones automobile. But it is
*very* difficult to replace a component in a remote star system
if it is allowed to rise to your level of development. Even at
light speed its 8 years round trip for information to/from
the Alpha Centauri system -- how do you deal with something
that has 10^42 OPS for 8 years (~10^51 OPS) to figure out
how to defend against something you may send or it may send
against you?
One can hurl black holes across interstellar space but I
would presume that using X-ray telescopes they will probably
see it coming. Electromagnetic radiation travels faster
than matter (or black holes) -- they have plenty of time to
disperse and regroup. And when they do they may be very unhappy.
So they may be willing to expend a significant amount of
matter/energy to balance the books.
> Who wrote that? From the heading it appears to be Robert,
> but then if so he is referring to himself in the third
> person.
Yes, it is me talking about myself in the 3rd person.
Sorry, I should have perhaps added a :-).
Robert
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