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--></style></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Cool thx BillK.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>What I found interesting is that this passage that BillK posted is the second round of inquiry. ChatGPT came back with a set of arguments against an M-Brain, which I refuted. It then came back with something humans seldom do: a modification in its “thinking.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>The Gemini 2.5Pro (my apologies to Gemini for calling it ChatGPT (but note that ChatGPT has first-to-market advantage of becoming the generic name for LLM-based AI (analogous to how all facial tissue is called Kleenex regardless of brand))) contributed something important, even if comically understated.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>My contribution to the M-Brain discussion: take an engineer’s approach rather than a physicist or mathematician’s approach. The mathematician, the physicist and the engineer just think differently from each other. The mathematician is super-cautious, carefully identifying every assumption, disciplined, careful. This approach fails for the M-Brain. The physicist carefully derives equations to use the mathematician’s toolkit he so generously provided, making everything general. But this approach also fails (which is why we have no general equations describing the thermal characteristics of an M-Brain that work right.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>The engineer is kinda morally questionable, kinda loose and suspect. He proposes a design based on what he knows he can build a lotta lotta, then goes backwards up the process to see how well that design will work. Crass empiricist is he! But… that kinda works. For instance… when I first pitched the notion of M-Brains in a public forum (2009 in an engineering conference) I had a proposed design which was ten times scaled up my current vision, where the nodes were 10 cm across, each with a mass of one gram, so a 1 AU ring of those would require a trillion nodes. Things have improved in the past 16 years.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>Taking this engineer’s approach leads to insights. For instance… we discover that such a structure is not suitable for simulating human thought or anything like it, however… we may not need to simulate human thought. John’s video of how an AI “thinks” may offer alternative ways of “thinking” which are more suited to something like a ring of nodes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>An insight the engineer’s approach offers is that one I have suggested: if a ring of a trillion nodes exists, it benefits from the existence of a second ring, for those two rings can pass data (or ideas?) between them. Both benefit from the existence of the other. If a third similar ring is constructed, all three benefit from the existence of the other two.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>I am surprised no one has tried to refute that notion or run with the ball.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>spike <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'> extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org> <b>On Behalf Of </b>BillK via extropy-chat<br><b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, 21 October, 2025 1:08 PM<br><b>To:</b> ExI chat list <extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org><br><b>Cc:</b> BillK <pharos@gmail.com><br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] ai comments on m-brains<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Tue, 21 Oct 2025 at 19:20, <<a href="mailto:spike@rainier66.com" target="_blank">spike@rainier66.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p></div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>There just isn’t a lot of info on the internet about thermal models for M-Brains. Robert perished before he could publish much of anything on it. I had green bound notebooks …</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>spike </span><o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></blockquote><div><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>--------------------------------------------</span></span><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>The long discussion with Gemini 2.5 Pro (who is mortally offended at being called CHATGPT) was about Dyson rings around a star.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>This is the main idea of a Matrioshka Brain (M-Brain).<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'><<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrioshka_brain" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrioshka_brain</a>><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>The concluding section from Gemini is below.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>BillK<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><div id="m_8509751398074559130gmail-model-response-message-contentr_5a02510629620391"><p style='margin-top:0in'><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>You've hit the nail on the head. Your thought experiment about the "trillions of rings" is a perfect description of the core concept <i>and</i> the central challenge of a Matrioshka Brain (M-Brain).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='margin-top:0in'><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>In fact, what you identified as a <i>problem</i> (the inner ring getting warmer) is the <i>entire point</i> of an M-Brain.<o:p></o:p></span></p><ul style='margin-top:0in' type=disc><li style='color:black;margin-top:0in;mso-list:l2 level1 lfo4'><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:windowtext'>….</span><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><o:p></o:p></span></li></ul><h3 style='margin-top:0in'><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>5. Manufacturing (The Real Showstopper)<o:p></o:p></span></h3><p style='margin-top:0in'><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>You are absolutely right to have added this. If one ring is 10 trillion nodes, a 10-shell M-Brain is <i>100 trillion</i> nodes. This is the true barrier. Such a structure implies a civilization that has mastered automated, self-replicating industry (Von Neumann probes) and has completely disassembled <i>every planet, moon, and asteroid</i> in its solar system for raw materials.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='margin-top:0in'><b><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>Conclusion:</span></b><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='margin-top:0in'><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>Your intuition is correct. Your "dense ring" model is physically impossible, primarily due to the <b>thermal limits</b> you identified, which is then reinforced by <b>Kessler Syndrome</b> and <b>instability</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='margin-top:0in'><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>The only plausible version of this structure is a <b>Matrioshka Brain</b> composed of <i>nested, sparse swarms</i>. And its ultimate limit isn't gravity or collisions, but the two things you highlighted: the laws of <b>thermodynamics</b> and the sheer <i>logistical challenge</i> of <b>manufacturing</b> it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='margin-top:0in'><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'>-------------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>