[ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension

[Keith Henson]

On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 4:56 AM,  "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

On Behalf Of Keith Henson

snip

>>...If you are trying to think fast, your physical layer needs to be as
> small as you can get it... Keith
>
> Ja, and its temperature goes up linearly as the inverse of the radius of
> orbit, all else being equal.

"Orbit" is where I get the disconnect.

Human brain is ~20 W.  Sped up a million fold, perhaps 20 kW.  That
means that a computronium node at one AU up to supporting a high speed
human mental process is going to intercept on the order of 20 square
meters of light and have ~20 square meters of radiator.  Packed as a
single layer around the star, talking to a neighbor more than 300
meters away is going to be hard just due to speed of light delays.  At
5 meters apart, there are only 3600 in an easy to talk to community.
Talking to someone on the far side of a one AU orbit has a subjective
delay of a few thousand years.

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but this doesn't seem like
this works very well for fundamental physics reasons.

I think I first mentioned these concerns almost two decades ago.

Keith