[ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension

[spike]

>.Subject: Re: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension

 

On 12 September 2012 23:02, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:

 

>.Talking to someone on the far side of a one AU orbit has a subjective
delay of a few thousand years.

 

Ja, but we have a solution to that: we have MBrain nodes which relay
messages to the recipient on the far side of the orbit.

 

Here's something cool for you.  We know that EM signals drop off as the
inverse square of the distance.  If you need to send a signal 1 distance AU
and it takes 1 erg with some transmitter/receiver combination, then sending
that same signal 2AU requires four ergs, 4 AU takes 16 erg and so on.  But
if you get a second transmitter/receiver pair and station it between the 4AU
points at 2 AU, then receive and retransmit the signal, then you have 2
transmitters, each using 4 ergs for a total of 8 ergs.  If you add two more
receiver/transmitters, you have a total of 4 transmitters using 1 erg each,
for a total of 4, and so on.

 

There is no theoretical limit to the process: adding more transmitters each
sending the signal a shorter distance decreases the total energy needed to
send a signal, at the expense of signal delay.

 

Here's the cool part: the interconnections between our nerve cells are not
electric wires, but rather a waveguide of sorts which is a functional
equivalent to a signal path of continuous receivers and transmitters.  The
signal along a dendrite is constantly amplified all along the path, which
means it is optimized in a sense for using the least amount of energy
possible.  This comes at the expense of speed, for signals do not pass
through the brain at the speed of light or at the speed of current in a
wire, but rather create a series of chemical reactions along the dendrite at
a speed of about 100 meters per second.  In return for the loss of speed,
our brains do not cook us inside our own skulls from waste heat.  Sounds
like a fair trade to me, ja?

 

Evolution has discovered a wicked cool solution to electrical resistance of
a neuron signal to the next neuron.

 

The MBrain model I suggested yesterday would have something vaguely
analogous: each node would communicate directly with only about 5000 to
10000 other nodes, possibly less than that.  Then for signals to be passed a
long distance, they would need to be received and retransmitted by other
nodes along the path.

 

spike

 

Actually I think I may have gone off on a tangent Keith did not intend.  He
said subjective delay, which makes me think he was talking about something
else, but I missed the original post somehow.

 

 

 

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