[ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension

[Anders Sandberg]

On 13/09/2012 14:53, Stefano Vaj wrote:
> Sure, adjacent nodes and modules will speak more often and much faster 
> to one another than polar opposed ones.
>
> But I suspect this to be true also in existing organic brains and 
> networks.

Typical time delays in a human brain is a few milliseconds at most for 
nearby synaptic transmission, up to a hundred in some frontal-brainstem 
circuits (where speed is probably not important).
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Axonal_conduction_delays
And yes, most connectivity is local within the same cortical column, 
with a sparse (but small-world) network of column-column axons.

For a human brain-like architecture, the ratio of local processing (~1 
ms) to transmission delays (0.10 m / 100 m/s = ~1 ms) is about unity 
(give or take an order of magnitude). If the transmission delays are 
longer the local processing needs to slow down for the system to work. 
So if you have a speedup of the upload by a factor S, the maximum 
distance to remote processors has to be 300*F km (assuming lightspeed 
comms).

There is no reason to think other kinds of useful minds would not have 
different ratios. A more naturally multitasking mind might have a 
hierarchical structure of smaller, somewhat localised subsystems and a 
slower less local supersystem. This could continue several levels, 
producing a slow (compared to the smallest scale processors) broad 
mind/society. Incidentally, this is why I am not entirely convinced 
about the "fast procesisng implies distances get too large for 
communications" argument - top-level entities might be so slow that they 
find the universe small.




-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University

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