[ExI] we know how things are today...

[spike]

>... On Behalf Of Keith Henson
Subject: Re: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 127, Issue 18

On Tue, Apr 15, 2014 at 5:00 AM,  "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

snip

>>... Ok think about these two sentences, how you would answer them.  Do 
> offer a continuation please:
>
> We all know how things are today.  Things are going to get even worse 
> because _____________ .
>
> We all know how things are today.  Things are going to get even better 
> because _____________ .

>...It depends on where you are.  Are there prospects of the economy getting
better?  Has the region run into resource limits and more population than
can be sustained at the current technology level?...World wide, the
situation would look a lot brighter if we can solve the energy problem.  As
you know, I work on this.
http://htyp.org/design_to_cost     Keith

> I have answers for both of these, but which sentence is easier to answer
and why?
>
> spike
_______________________________________________

OK thanks Keith.  The reason I posted these two questions is that I have a
hard time answering the first one and in a way a hard time answering the
second one in a form that is short enough to make it thru the 500k limit for
the ExI-chat moderator box.

I will try.

> We all know how things are today.  Things are going to get even worse 
> because ...

...increasing awareness of how the energy hogs of the world live (that would
be us) cause the overpopulated regions of the world to want our lifestyle.
Imagine that.  We energy hogs will be forced to get a bit smarter in how we
produce and how we consume energy.  In those areas where the people are
learning of our lifestyle, emulation costs a lot of money, and causes unrest
in those regions.  There is a bright side to this, but the question I am
struggling to answer here is how things are going to get worse.

 > We all know how things are today.  Things are going to get even better 
> because ...

...oh boy, it is hard to figure out even where to begin on that vast topic.
We have today at least a theoretical solution to pretty much all the world's
most fundamental problems.  But instead of going there, for now just let us
look close to home, shall we?  It is a glorious time indeed to be into
astronomy, especially if one is old enough to know what was going on in
astronomy in Feb 1987, and those who were paying attention to astronomy news
in September 2011.  The reason this Jan 2014 typa 1a is so special to us is
the contrast between the two type 1a supernovae between the 2011 event and
this one: we had computer sims in place to explain that which was driving us
nuts after the 2011 event.  That one confirmed what had been observed: type
1a SNs were detonating about 1% earlier than theory would predict.  Now we
get glorious confirmation of the insights that sim gave us: that turbulence
in the core sends a hot plume of ash upward thru the fusible elements above,
catalyzing the runaway fusion process.  COOL!

OK sure spike, but why is it such a great time if one doesn't care much
about that esoteric interest?  Well, if a sim can explain how a supernovae
works, could not a sim explain other things that are completely mysterious
at this time?  I think so; I consider the whole notion a completely
reasonable extrapolation.  To get a sim to demonstrate turbulence given only
fundamental characteristics of plasma required astonishing heaps of
computing power, but it worked: it explained two baffling phenomena: both
the early detonation problem and the unsymmetrical remnants problem.  You
know the guys are going to get a Nobel Prize: whacked both vexing mysteries
with just a buttload of repetitive calcs.  Kewalllll!

So if that, why not theorize that we can get ever closer to simulating a
brain?  Sure we know brains are vastly more complicated than stars, but
turbulence wasn't at all obvious to me and the theory was not widely
accepted until it was demonstrated.  Is a star's core less complex than a
fly's brain?  And if we ever manage a fly's brain, could not we extrapolate
to theorizing a sim of a mouse brain?  Perhaps we would discover things
about the workings of a brain analogous to how we discovered why type 1a
supernovae do what they do, just from first principles.  Mice pretty stupid,
but if we could sim a mouse brain, then why not add pile of processors in
parallel and do a cat and a chimp and why not a generic human?  And if we
simulated a human brain, could not we figure out why certain patterns emerge
in there, and why some forms of what we call mental illness occur, and
perhaps how to fix it?  And if we simulate a generic human brain, could not
we select the ones which (who?) like to program and let them do what they
like to do?  And with the help of a bunch of smart generic human brain sims,
could not we simulate a particular human brain from reading the
configuration of a deep-frozen brain?  Perhaps we could etch away a frozen
brain a few molecules at a time with a laser fly-cut, read the surface after
each etching with a scanning electron microscope and create a map of the
neurons, dendrites, synapses and things in there, then put all that data
into the sim, and maybe the whole exercise would result in a reasonable sim
of the person who had perished and was frozen.

We all know how things are today.  Things are going to get even better.

Is this a glorious time to be alive, or what?

spike