[ExI] Limiting factor to the Intelligence Singularity?

[Adrian Tymes]

On Sun, Dec 24, 2023 at 1:24 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 24, 2023, 12:21 AM Kelly Anderson via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> Something this small would likely be completely undetectable to us.
>>> Further, if alien civilizations shift to using reversible computers, then
>>> energy would no longer be a scarce resource to them as their computers
>>> could run without consuming power.
>>>
>>
>> Reversible computation is possible. However it is not a free ride. That
>> would be a perpetual motion machine and would violate the second law of
>> thermodynamics which appears to be very well established physics.
>>
>
> Think of water in a glass. It's molecules bounce around forever, in
> perpetual motion. It can do this because it does not rely on having a
> concentrated energy source which must leak energy into the environment
> until it reaches equilibrium, the glass of water is already at equilibrium
> with the environment. A reversible computer is the same way, it need not
> leak any energy into the environment unless it irreversibility erases a bit.
>

When the result is harvested, it is leaked into the environment.  The
information, and the energy that goes with it, is irreversibly (from the
computer's point of view) lost.


> When you harvest a result that is not reversed. So don't think of it as
>> free.
>>
>
> It is interesting that the laws of physics are reversible and that
> information is conserved in all physical interactions. This means a
> computer simulation of the physics of our universe can be run on a
> reversible computer for free.
>
> We could run brain emulations and simulate realities on such computers and
> never need to harvest the result -- as the result we're after is what
> happens in, and what is experienced in, the simulation itself.
>

Until and unless we harvest the result, we can never know what the result
is.  If the result is in the simulation, and stays only in the simulation,
it is useless to anyone outside the simulation.  We are outside any
computer we set up, and therefore outside any simulation it runs.  (We have
to be, to trust the result: no one inside the simulation can trust a result
derived from the simulation itself, if the simulation can be changed or
influenced by those outside.)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20231224/8c5cf8d4/attachment.htm>