From: Russell Wallace (russell.wallace@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Jan 26 2006 - 16:19:33 MST
On 1/26/06, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky <sentience@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> When I saw the subject line, I immediately thought of a bumper sticker
> reading "Great Old One or Bust".
*laughs* That's not a bad idea actually.
1: A finite computer has only a finite number of possible states. In
> the long run, then, you *must* either die (not do any processing past a
> finite number of operations), go into an infinite loop (also implying no
> further processing), or grow beyond any finite bound. Those are your
> only three options, no matter the physics. Being human forever isn't on
> the list. That is not a moral judgment, it's an unarguable mathematical
> fact. In the long run - the really long run - humanity isn't an option.
This is of course mathematically true; whether it's physically relevant is
still an open question. (In particular, we don't know whether the ultimate
laws of physics permit infinite computation; currently known physics
suggests a limit much less than 2^N operations for relevant values of N, but
this is not certain.)
[arguments snipped and mostly agreed with]
So thee wishes not to be a Great Old One, Russell Wallace? I should
> like to know what is thy alternative.
I don't know; I'm not even sure about the yes/no, let alone the alternative.
It would depend in part on the answer to the above question about the limits
of computation, and I think in part on the answer to certain questions about
intelligence and consciousness that I haven't coherently formulated yet. Not
like we have to decide by next week.
(I have a sudden vision of Eliezer and the rest of the SIAI guys saying
"Well actually Russell, now that you mention that..." :))
- Russell
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:00:55 MDT