[ExI] Perception of time was Wrestling with Embodiment

Eugen Leitl eugen at leitl.org
Tue Jan 24 19:32:50 UTC 2012


On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 11:00:35AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote:

> I get 11.6 ms for light to cross a lunar diameter.  Collectively you
> could talk to such a thing because it wouldn't be any faster than a
> human brain.

The question is why we seem to assume a monolithic "thing"
instead of a city, an ecosystem, or at least a hierachical
process assembly.
 
> Taking 1 GHz as the processor node speed (not much over current clock

There won't be any clocks. Relativistic limit for
computation is some 10^17 refreshes/second, the power dissipation
will limit it to a lot lower.

> rates for low power) and giving it a factor of 3000 processor cycles

No cycles. You're thinking in terms of serial sections.
Think asynchronously firing assemblies, and sychronisation
by locally coupled oscillators on a much higher level.

> to wait for the far side of a conversation to return, (1000 latency
> out, 1000 for the far node to think about it, 1000 back) the whole
> assemblage can't exceed 300 meters in diameter.

Human cities can never be larger than 500 m in diameter.
Because otherwise you can't yell loud enough for the others
to hear. 

Biological organisms can never be larger than a few microns.
Because, otherwise, how can cells communicate over large
distances?

 
> At human class volume, a ten cm cube, and configured as a disk there

You'd want spherical assemblies.

> would be 100 per square meter x 70,000 square meters or seven million
> in a "community."  Configured as a sphere, (with a hole to pump
> cooling water) 28 million human brain class minds.  At 20 kW per mind,
> (1000 times the 20 W/brain we run on) such a community would draw 540
> MW.  I am assuming the rest of the million to one speed up comes from

We really can't tell how hot these things will run because we
don't have anything other than CMOS.

> hardware being more efficient than biological brains.
> 
> If each 10 cm square section had a 0.1 m/s water flow through it, that
> would be 1 l/s, which would carry off 4.2 kW per deg C rise in
> temperature, about 5 deg C.
> 
> Would you want to move from a slum where there was only a 100,000 to
> one speed up to one of these "elite" places with a million to one
> speed up?

Species will occupy every niche available.
 
> Unless we can find a way around the speed of light, then I don't see a
> future for M brains, S brains or even Luna sized brains.

Help! I'm trapped in a sphexic loop, and can't get out!
 
> YMMV
> 
> Keith
> 
> (And please check my numbers)
> 
> > spike
> >
> >
> 
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Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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