Re: Natural Boundaries of Exponential Growth

From: Russell Wallace (russell.wallace@gmail.com)
Date: Mon Jan 09 2006 - 11:50:15 MST


On 1/9/06, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky <sentience@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> It seems to me that for planning purposes, the sensible thing is to
> assume that *some* new physics will be discovered, but not that any
> *particular* new physics will be discovered. Apples didn't stop falling
> when Einstein discovered General Relativity, so contemporary physics is
> surely the best bet for any *particular* prediction.

Yes, that's what I meant by "appropriate", perhaps I was too terse: "is our
current understanding of physics the absolute last word", I'm confident in
the answer "no"; "will we ever be able to perform more computation within a
given time than our current understanding allows", I'll tentatively answer
"no" unless/until evidence to the contrary shows up.

My electrical utility told me to "CONSERVE ENERGY!"
> I didn't realize I had a choice about that.
>

*laughs* Good one!

- Russell



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