[ExI] ET Emergence (Was Re: Uploads as a group of AI agents)

Tue Mar 31 21:05:50 UTC 2026

On Tue, Mar 31, 2026 at 4:19 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> *>  It's true that with a reversible computer you could theoretically
>>>> complete any calculation using an arbitrarily small amount of energy,
>>>> however the smaller your energy usage is the slower your calculation is,
>>>> and as your energy usage approaches zero the time to complete your
>>>> calculation approaches infinity.  *
>>>>
>>>
>>> *>What's your source for this?*
>>>
>>
>> *Reversibility and Adiabatic Computation: Trading Time and Space for
>> Energy* <https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9703022>
>>
>
> *> This seems to confirm what I said. From the paper:*
> *"Considerations of thermodynamics of computing started in the early *
> *fifties. J. von Neumann reputedly thought that a computer operating at *
> *temperature T must dissipate at least kT ln 2 Joule per elementary bit
> op-eration"*
>

*That's how much energy you need to erase one bit of information and,
unless you have infinite memory or are using reversible computation, you're
going to need to erase information. *

*I just had this conversation with Gemini:*
*==*

*Me: Is it true that with a reversible computer you could theoretically
perform a calculation with an arbitrarily small amount of energy?*

Gemini: It is theoretically true. In classical computing, we are used to
the idea that running a processor generates heat, but physics suggests that
this heat isn't necessarily a byproduct of the *calculation* itself—rather,
it's a byproduct of erasing information.

The Landauer Principle

The fundamental link between information and energy is defined by *Landauer's
Principle*. It states that any l*ogically irreversible* manipulation of
information, such as *erasing a bi*t, must dissipate a minimum amount of
heat to the surroundings.

The theoretical lower limit for the energy cost of erasing one bit of
information is:

E=K*T*ln2

Where K is the Boltzmann constant and T is the absolute temperature of the
circuit. In standard "irreversible" computing, operations like *AND* or *OR*
gates are inherently dissipative because they have two inputs but only one
output. You cannot "undo" the operation to find the original inputs,
meaning information has been lost (erased), and heat must be released.
*The Practical Catch: Entropy and Speed*

While the "energy per logic operation" can go to zero in theory, we face
two massive engineering hurdles:

   1.

   *The Adiabatic Requirement:* To keep energy dissipation near zero, the
   system must change states very slowly (adiabatically). *The faster you
   want the answer, the more energy you inevitably dissipate* due to
   non-equilibrium effects
   2.

   .*Error Correction:* In the real world, thermal noise causes bits to
   flip. Correcting these errors usually involves measuring a state and
   resetting it—which is an irreversible act of erasure that triggers
   Landauer’s limit anyway.

*Me: So the less energy you use the more time it would take to get an
answer? *

Gemini: *Exactly*. That is the fundamental trade-off in *adiabatic*
(reversible) computing. In a perfect world, *if you wanted to use zero
energy, you would have to take an infinite amount of time to complete the
calculation*.

In physics, this is often described as staying in *thermodynamic
equilibrium*.
*The Time-Energy Trade-off*

To understand why speed costs energy, you can think of the computer's state
like a ball in a landscape of hills and valleys (potential energy).

   -

   *Fast Calculation:* To flip a bit quickly, you have to "push" the system
   hard. This creates turbulence, friction, and heat. The faster you move the
   system from state A to state B, the more you deviate from equilibrium, and
   that deviation results in energy being lost to the environment as entropy.
   -

   *Slow (Reversible) Calculation:* If you move the system
   "infinitesimally" slowly, you can keep it in a state of near-equilibrium.
   By the time you reach the end of the calculation, you haven't "splashed"
   any energy out of the system.

The "Friction" of Information

In a standard processor, we use a lot of energy to slam transistors on and
off to reach gigahertz speeds (10^9 cycles per second). In a reversible
system, we use *adiabatic switching*, where the energy used to charge a
logic gate is actually recovered and "recycled" back into the power supply
instead of being dumped as heat.

However, the efficiency of this recycling depends entirely on the speed:

   1.

   *Energy dissipation* in these circuits is generally proportional to the
   clock frequency .
   2.

   Therefore, *if you want to cut your energy loss in half, you have to cut
   your processing speed in half*.

*   John K Clark*

>
>
>> *>> For great intelligence to be useful an animal needs hands with
>>>> opposable thumbs or some other organ that can delicately manipulate matter,*
>>>>
>>>
>>> *> When there are social dynamics and kne must kit think others of your
>>> same species to win mates, then there's no upper bound on selection
>>> pressure for intelligence. That may explain what happens with whales.*
>>>
>>
>> *Perhaps so, and echolocation requires a great deal of data processing,
>> but bigger animals require bigger brains than smaller animals do, and I
>> think the intelligence of whales has been overestimated. Whales were hunted
>> almost to extinction and water is an excellent conductor of sound so the
>> sounds of whaling boats must have been audible for hundreds of miles, and
>> yet they never learn to avoid them. And there is the phenomenon of mass
>> whale beachings which doesn't exactly enhance their reputation for being
>> bright. Whales certainly never made a radio telescope, or made anything at
>> all for that matter except for other whales.  *
>>
>>
>>> *> Their bodies are so large that it costs them very metabolically
>>> little to have a much larger brain. The relative benefits even if minor,
>>> can be justified. I think this explains why larger animals tend to have
>>> larger brains. Not because so many larger brains are needed to control a
>>> larger body, but because a larger brain can be supported more easily*
>>>
>>
>> *A whale's brain is about 5 times as massive as a human brain but a
>> whale's body is about 500 times as massive as a human body, and pound for
>> pound a brain uses about 10 times as much energy as any other parts of the
>> body.  *
>>
>> * >> **If a zebra on the African Savanna had an IQ of 200 that wouldn't
>>>> help get its genes into the next generation very much, and that's why it
>>>> never evolved to get that smart. *
>>>>
>>>
>>> *> Why then are crows so smart?*
>>>
>>
>> *Crows are not smart enough to build a radio telescope nor are they
>> likely to evolve into something that could because, although they can learn
>> to open milk bottles with their beaks, they have no way to manipulate
>> matter delicate enough to repair a watch in the way that a human can. It's
>> unclear what environmental factors caused our hominid ancestors to walk
>> bipedally, but the first one to do so had a brain no larger than that of a
>> chimpanzee; but after that and it had 2 limbs that could be used for things
>> other than locomotion the brain size of its descendants grew at an
>> extremely rapid rate. *
>>
>> *>> And yet none of those species have even come close to building a
>>>> radio telescope, in the last 3.8 billion years only one species has managed
>>>> to do so. *
>>>
>>>
>>> *> You could have said the same about us only a few tens of thousands of
>>> years ago.*
>>
>>
>> *It's much worse than that, you could say the same thing about us just a
>> century ago. And that is exactly why it's so bizarre that we have seen no
>> evidence that this galaxy, or any other galaxy, has been engineered. The
>> most obvious explanation for that anomaly is that we are the first.
>> Somebody has to be. *
>>
>> * John K Clark  *
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> *Perhaps a brilliant zebra would have a few minor advantages but
>>>> unless it had opposable thumbs or something equivalent it would not
>>>> be worth the price it would have to pay for being smart. The human brain
>>>> only amounts to  2% of the body weight of a human but it consumes 20% of
>>>> the body's energy.  *
>>>>
>>>> *And there are other disadvantages in having a large brain, a baby must
>>>> get through a female's birth canal, and that means most of the growth of
>>>> the brain must occur after birth, and that means for many years after birth
>>>> the young are completely helpless, and that places a huge burden on the
>>>> parents that can last for over a decade.  *
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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