[ExI] Von Neumann Probes

[Jason Resch]

On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 3:56 PM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 9:43 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> >>> Answer my question from my previous email: how many non-reversible
>>>> computations can be performed for two computers at those two temperatures,
>>>
>>>
>>> *>> That depends on the mass of the computers in question. Regardless of
>>> what temperature the computers are at, the maximum number of bits of
>>> information one kilogram of mass can process per second is 1.36*1^50 bits .
>>> If all else was equal a computer with a black hole heat sink would be able
>>> to process  **0.0064699999983% more information than a computer that
>>> used empty space as a heat sink. Does that improvement seem worth crushing
>>> Jupiter into a 20 foot wide Black Hole to you? *
>>>
>>
>> *> I see your error.*
>>
>
> *MY ERROR?!*
>
>
>
>> *> You are confusing wasted energy for useful energy.*
>>
>
> *My confusion?!  **The total amount of energy produced has nothing to do
> with the temperature of the cold heat sink, it does have an effect on the
> theoretical limit of how much of the total energy can be turned into work.
> AND the amount is almost exactly the same for both, 0.99353 % can be if
> empty space is used as a cold heat sink, and 0.9999999999983%  can be if an
> unspecified method is used to crush Jupiter into a 20 foot wide black hole
> and that is your cold a heat sink. *
>

Read about Landauer's principle
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle#Statement>. If you
do, it is clear that a computer that is 10 times colder can perform an
irreversible computation for 1/10th the energy, or in other words, can
compute 10 times as many computations as the computer that is 10 times
warmer. Conventionally, we would say the colder computer is 10X as
efficient, just as we might say a car that gets 50 miles per gallon is 10
times as efficient as the car that only gets 5 miles per gallon. Note also
that there is no upper limit to how efficient a computer can be. If we make
one 3.8 billion times colder than the background radiation, it will be 3.8
billion times as efficient. I shouldn't have to spell this out to you like
this, you are smart enough to have figured it all out on your own, but you
insist on playing dumb and intentionally misreading and misrepresenting my
e-mails. I don't send this e-mail for you, but for the benefit of others on
the list that would be happy to learn there is no physical upper bound on
how many computations can be performed per unit of expended energy.

Jason



>
> *I think the gargantuan amount of energy required to crush Jupiter into
> such a dense state, FAR greater than the amount of energy the sun will
> produce in its entire lifetime, could more productively be used in other
> ways.*
>

>
> *> See my email in the other thread which shows how this difference yields
>> a 3.8 billion fold increase in the number of computations that can be
>> performed. (Because it is wasted energy that has been reduced, not the
>> amount of useful energy that has been increased).*
>
>
> *If I had written that email I'd be embarrassed by it and not be urging
> others to read it again.  *
>
> *John K Clark*
>
>
>
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