[ExI] ETs/Aliens

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 
Sent: Wednesday, 4 September, 2024 8:09 AM
To: spike at rainier66.com
Subject: FW: [ExI] ETs/Aliens



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat
Sent: Friday, 30 August, 2024 2:17 AM
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Cc: Ben Zaiboc <ben at zaiboc.net>
Subject: Re: [ExI] ETs/Aliens


On 28/08/2024 22:05, spike wrote:


	suppose we had a sim which could run a our speed, at one human 
	equivalent.  Would 5 billion years of that make sense?  Well, we like to
	 think so.  But... perhaps not.  Perhaps 50 million years of one human 
	equivalent would be sufficient, and if so, an MBrain, with its latency 
	limits would make perfect sense.


>...Sufficient for what, spike?

...

>...I don't think we can really even guess what 'sufficient' would mean to an upload, alien or human, in terms of subjective lifespan.

Ben



Ben, you are right: we can't really guess.  But Eliezer wrote extensively on this topic years ago under a thread he called Is There an Infinite Amount of Fun?

Answer: we don't know, but I have pondered this for decades, vaguely and reluctantly concluding there is probably a finite amount of fun.  This is bad news indeed, but my "proof" is anything but rigorous.  It goes like this: in any thermal system, eventually equilibrium is reached.  In a chess game, if the same position is reached three times, play stops, the game is a draw.  We learn quickly early in life, but later on we get set in our ways, changes come more slowly and with greater difficulty.  

Maybe it is true that given arbitrarily much time, we could keep finding new fun somewhere, finding new and interesting things to learn.  But we might not be able to do that.  After a certain period of time, we might conclude that OK, we have lived enough.  When we stop learning, thinking, growing, we are the functional equivalent of dead, even if we still draw breath and our hearts still beat.  Perhaps 50 million years at one human equivalent speed is sufficient to reach that end point.  

But of course we don't know that.  It would be equivalent to six million consecutive human lives, so we have no way to comprehend what that would be like.

spike