[ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension

[BillK]

On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 4:32 AM, spike wrote:
> I imagine the nodes being about the disk about size of a DVD only much
> thinner, running a processor similar to about what we had 30 yrs ago during
> my misspent youth, a Z80-ish level processor with about a million
> transistors, except with today's 20 nm features and today's power-conscious
> CMOS components.  Each node would have something like a Bluetooth
> transmitter/receiver, able to transmit about 12 meters or so which is about
> as far as a Bluetooth connection normally goes on the power levels available
> to an MBrain node the size of a DVD.  This allows each node to communicate
> directly with about ~7000 other nodes.
>
> The processor's job is to simulate a neuron and the related dendrites.  I
> have imagined a roughly spherical grouping of about 100 billion nodes with
> an average spacing of about a meter, so that each node would occupy about a
> cubic meter and the roughly spherical cluster would have a radius of about 3
> km, or 10 light milliseconds.
>
> For what I have in mind, the processors need not be particularly fast or
> sophisticated.
>
> Note this isn't Rober't vision of an MBrain.  I never could convince him
> that we can't really capture all the star's energy, or even most of it.
>
>


Perhaps the future Mbrain processors will need very little of the
sun's energy and be much more compute capable than just basic
processors.

At the latest Intel conference their tame futurist talked about the
2020s (only 10 years ahead!) when he expected processors to become
nearly invisible and require almost zero energy.  I think he may be
talking about Smart Dust. His vision is that everything will contain
processors and talk to other processors.

See:
<http://www.extremetech.com/computing/136043-intel-predicts-ubiquitous-almost-zero-energy-computing-by-2020>

Now, if he is expecting all this in only ten years..... what will be
possible by the time Mbrains come along?
They might not even need to be near the sun at all. If they are
orbiting further out, then heating and cooling might be negligible.
And smaller nodes will be more powerful.  A DVD sized disk might be a
whole Mbrain civilisation.


BillK