[ExI] Cryonics punched cards and the brain

[Mike Dougherty]

On Jan 24, 2016 1:55 PM, "Anders Sandberg" <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
> It might not be a simple number. But generally it is clear that there is
a fair bit of redundancy given the noisiness of the environment.

I wonder if redundancy is an appropriate word to use.  I'm not
criticizing,  more adding to the distinction.  Some schema of RAID uses
redundancy for fault tolerance.  Weather prediction uses multiple models
with slightly different assumptions to generate possible outcomes,  then
takes some "best fit" among the data.  While in the first case we might
have such perfect hardware that a mirrored state is unnecessary,  i would
need some assurances before I committed my mind to "redundancy
elimination."  In the second case, how many/few predictive models do we
need to feel confident that we know where the world's threats will be in
the next moment/minute/day?

Junk DNA was proposed as unnecessary too.  Now we're learning that it isn't
junk, but simply not active.  Who knows what impact it would have to remove
what was previously believed to be useless dna when a section is switched
on but had been removed?  (Yes,  i know genetics is not electrical
engineering)

I'd like to keep my "redundant" parts. Evolution has had many generations
trading resource allocation between liability and necessity.  I'm still in
a "wait & see" on technological improvement on Nature. :)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20160124/c5d139f3/attachment.html>