[extropy-chat] Bluff and the Darwin award

[KAZ]

----- Original Message ---- 
From: Russell Wallace 
To: ExI chat list 
Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 5:55:43 PM 
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Bluff and the Darwin award 

> A computer the size of the galaxy wouldn't be powerful enough to simulate a 
> single protein molecule, much less a single living cell, in the absence of 
> feedback from real world laboratory experiments. (The required computing power 
 
Again this seems like a decidedly not-extropian-stereotypical lack of imagination. Just a century ago, scientists confidently explained that the amount of energy required to launch an object into orbit, much less to the moon, was beyond all hope. More than could even be contained in a vessel built by and to carry human beings.
 
Science and technology constantly turn the "logistically impossible" into the simple and obvious.
 
> is exponential in the number of electrons and nuclei involved. That doesn't mean 
> simulations aren't useful, but it does mean they are only complements, not 
> replacements, for laboratory work.) 

Actually, this is untrue. It is akin to saying "if you're going to count to 100, you need 100 items to do the counting on". No, for a computer to count to 255 it only needs 8 bits. 24 bits, and it's counting into the millions. Likewise, though more subtlely, you can track any level of complexity with less than the actual components therein. 
 
And, of course, you're assuming the simulation has to be purely deterministic. But you can also fudge the data. One could write a model in which specific data was only generalized unless used for a specific interaction...much like the hypotheses behind quantum mechanics, where quantum events aren't actually set until measured, and light is nothing but a relatively economical wave, unless it NEEDS to be particular.

> Actually it doesn't stop at the extreme cases. You can say 
> "maybe there are ways to do X which you and I simply haven't 
> anticipated yet" for absolutely any value of X. Here, I'll prove it: 
> What if there are ways to travel faster than light or explore the 
> 11 dimensional universe which you and I simply haven't anticipated yet? 
> See how easy that was? Heck, what if there are ways to talk to ghosts 
> or build a perpetual motion machine or cast a magic spell to fly 
> on a broomstick which you and I simply haven't anticipated yet? 

Yes, but this reductio ad absurdum is an example of why people try to claim that logical method to be fallaceous. You're setting up a factorless system, ignoring what makes "perhaps we can compress data for calculations" and "perhaps we can get objects into space without throwing them at the atmosphere at escape velocity within a few miles of the planet's surface" different than "perhaps we can make 1+1=3".
 
It's entirely possible that the limit of mass-energy /can/ be overcome, but at the moment it seems impossible in a much more primal sense than figuring out how to get objects into orbit economically. As I noted earlier, at one time it was considered a cold, hard scientific fact that you couldn't get into orbit in ANY fashion, as a human being with human technology.
 
I can present perfectly rational scenarios in which there could be ghosts and perpetual motion within this, our observable universe...but at least the factors against that are of many orders of magnitude stronger than "you can't count particle interactions without having one raw computer cycle dedicated to each and every particle's reaction to every other particle's existence in every cycle". 

> It is precisely because "what if there are ways which you and I simply 
> haven't anticipated yet" can be used in absolutely all cases, that its 
> information content in any particular case is zero. 

Only if we pretend that there is no information, whatsoever, in ANY particular case, and we're having to guess entirely based upon the aphorism at hand.
 
But, in reality, there is usually some other information, allowing a more rational analysis to be carried out. Even if we didn't already know of plenty of ways to get objects into space economically...and we do...the question is one on the right kind of level where one can easily anticipate technology coming up with a solution, even without some universe-as-we-know-it-shattering revelation.
 
On the other hand, making a 3d object move in 10 dimensions (leaving out time as a dimension for the sake of this scenario) seems utterly impossible on a far more primal level. Just having the "probe" from our universe exist when removed from its 'brane seems unlikely, as its very existence may simply be that of quirks in our flat little universe's surface. It's going to take a lot more to discover THAT to be soluble.
 
But the people who said "our best engineers have determined that heavier-than-air flight could never be practical, because of the energy requirements" 150 years ago, or the same thing about space flight shortly after Jules Verne wrote about it, were failing to anticipate /simple/ improvements in access to energy and information, which is what "space flight can't be economical" and "computers can't run raw physics simulations" do.
 
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