[ExI] Computational equivalence (Was: FTL drive)

[Stefano Vaj]

On 16 December 2011 00:05, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> There are also major differences in the abilities between computational
> systems; I am not convinced at all by Wolfram's reasoning - he is
> essentially just arguing that everything is equivalent to Turing-machines,
> and since any of them can compute any other (with a bit of overhead) they
> are the same. The snags are that 1) the overhead can be *enormous* -
> constant factors in theoretical computer science are often amazingly large
> numbers, the kind that cannot even be expressed with exponent notation. 2)
> That a Turing machine can compute program X and Y doesn't mean X and Y are
> equivalent in power [*], and one might be tremendously slower on the
> machine despite being faster on some other machine.
>
> So implementing ones mental processes on the right substrate matters: do
> it on the wrong substrate and you cannot interact efficiently with the real
> world, or even think within the history of the universe. Solid state
> societies seem to have advantages here (variable speed, compactness,
> resiliency, resource use) in many domains that matter if one wants to go to
> space.
>

As long as we admit that it is a quantitative, rather than a qualitative,
difference, I am OK with that.

Heck, quantities do matter in almost every aspect of life. And differences
which makes some quantities practically uncountable or vanishingly small
even more. I deal with that with an article on AI in English of which
Anders should have a preview copy and that I expect soon to land on the Web
somewhere.

OTOH, my issue here was about the concept, which is discussed I believe in
some Egan's book or other,  of an AI which would be supremely
"intelligent", and yet deliberately slowed down (possibly by itself) to
avoid "boredom" or to make some future developments to arrive faster in
subjective time.  This idea is akin IMHO of walking in a pit and then raise
on your toetip...

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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