[extropy-chat] Clock rate or rather communication delays

[Keith Henson]

At 07:34 PM 5/6/2006 -0700, you wrote:
>If the maximum size of a mind is limited by the requirement for all of
>its computing elements be within roughly one clock tick of each other...
>
>Then the Great Old Ones think their vast, incomprehensible thoughts very
>slowly.
>
>By the time a mind was a few trillion times the size of a human, she
>would have to slow down to around a human clock rate.  When she grew to
>a few quintillion times the size of a human, she might start to see the
>stars moving in their slow dance across the sky.
>
>...what's so wrong about that?

It *is* a way to avoid boredom while you wait for the end of the universe.

At warp 8 (slowing your clock by 10 exp -8) and .5 c, you can cross the 
galaxy in a subjective 8 hours while you watch 1000 super novas twinkle.

Subjective time is an element of AIs.  If you knew how to do it at all, you 
could implement an AI on an Apple II.  But I would not expect it to do well 
on a timed intelligence test.

The point being that speed of light and the size of processor elements 
(ultimately the granularity of atoms) will interact to limit the largest 
practical size of an AI's hardware.

And I would bet that limit is a good deal smaller than Jupiter.

Keith Henson