This is a very interesting part of an interview with Freeman Dyson where he talks about how computation could go on forever even if the universe faces a heat death scenario.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qo4n2ZYP7Y
Even if a computation goes forever, it doesn’t necessarily perform more than a certain finite amount of computation. And when we are below the Planck’s temperature scale, the further cooling is useless for your heat driven machines. Life stops.
I believe that there is a lot of computing down there in the coldness around the absolute zero. But not an infinite amount.
Yes. But there is another problem. When a super-civilization goes to sleep, for the Universe to cool some more, it has to establish some alarm clock mechanism to wake them up after some time. Which needs some energy. If they circuit their alarm clock to a thermometer to wake them up when it will be cool enough, is that energy free? I don’t think so.
Well, I don’t believe it’s possible to postpone the end of all calculations indefinitely, but I still find this Dyson text fascinating and very relevant.
It seems to me that Dyson’s argument was that as temperature falls, so does the energy required for computing. So, the point in time when we run out of available energy to compute diverges. But, Thomas reasonably points out (I think—correct me if I am misrepresenting you Thomas) that as temperature falls and the energy used for computing falls, so does the speed of computation, and so the amount of computation that can be performed converges, even if we were to compute forever.
Also, isn’t Thomas correct that Planck’s constant puts an absolute minimum on the amount of energy required for computation?
These seem like perfectly reasonable responses to Dyson’s comments. What am I missing?
You understand me correctly in every way. If I am right, that’s another matter. I think I am.
Dyson opens up another interesting question with this. Is it better to survive forever with a finite subjective time T, or it is better to consume 2*T experience in a finite amount of calendar time?
Dyson opens up another interesting question with this. Is it better to survive forever with a finite subjective time T, or it is better to consume 2*T experience in a finite amount of calendar time?
I would guess that most people who want that simply haven’t considered the difference between “how much” and “how long”, and if convinced of the possibility of decoupling subjective and objective time would prefer longer-subjective to longer-objective when given the choice.
(Of course the experiences one may want to have will typically include interacting with other people, so “compressed” experience may be useful only if lots of other people are similarly compressing theirs.)
Well. If one (Omega or someone like him) asked me to choose between 1000 years compressed into the next hour or just 100 years uncompressed inside the real time from now on … I am not sure what to say to him.
Again, the existence of other people complicates this (as it does so many other things). If I’m offered this deal right now and choose to have 1000 years of subjective experience compressed into the next hour and then die, then e.g. I never get to see my daughter grow up, I leave my wife a widow and my child an orphan, I never see any of my friends again, etc. It would be nice to have a thousand years of experiences, but it’s far from clear that the benefits outweigh the costs.
This doesn’t seem to apply in the case of, e.g., a whole civilization choosing whether or not to go digital, and it would apply differently if this sort of decision were commonplace.
This is a very interesting part of an interview with Freeman Dyson where he talks about how computation could go on forever even if the universe faces a heat death scenario. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qo4n2ZYP7Y
Even if a computation goes forever, it doesn’t necessarily perform more than a certain finite amount of computation. And when we are below the Planck’s temperature scale, the further cooling is useless for your heat driven machines. Life stops.
I believe that there is a lot of computing down there in the coldness around the absolute zero. But not an infinite amount.
I believe Dyson is saying there could indeed by an infinite amount. Here is a wikipedia article about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson%27s_eternal_intelligence and the article itself http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Omega/dyson.txt
Yes. But there is another problem. When a super-civilization goes to sleep, for the Universe to cool some more, it has to establish some alarm clock mechanism to wake them up after some time. Which needs some energy. If they circuit their alarm clock to a thermometer to wake them up when it will be cool enough, is that energy free? I don’t think so.
Well, I don’t believe it’s possible to postpone the end of all calculations indefinitely, but I still find this Dyson text fascinating and very relevant.
blather
Thomas’s comment seems quite sensible to me.
It seems to me that Dyson’s argument was that as temperature falls, so does the energy required for computing. So, the point in time when we run out of available energy to compute diverges. But, Thomas reasonably points out (I think—correct me if I am misrepresenting you Thomas) that as temperature falls and the energy used for computing falls, so does the speed of computation, and so the amount of computation that can be performed converges, even if we were to compute forever.
Also, isn’t Thomas correct that Planck’s constant puts an absolute minimum on the amount of energy required for computation?
These seem like perfectly reasonable responses to Dyson’s comments. What am I missing?
You understand me correctly in every way. If I am right, that’s another matter. I think I am.
Dyson opens up another interesting question with this. Is it better to survive forever with a finite subjective time T, or it is better to consume 2*T experience in a finite amount of calendar time?
Isn’t 2*T obviously better? Maybe I’m missing something here...
We are on the same page here. But a lot of people want to survive as long as possible. Not as much as possible, but as long as possible.
I would guess that most people who want that simply haven’t considered the difference between “how much” and “how long”, and if convinced of the possibility of decoupling subjective and objective time would prefer longer-subjective to longer-objective when given the choice.
(Of course the experiences one may want to have will typically include interacting with other people, so “compressed” experience may be useful only if lots of other people are similarly compressing theirs.)
Well. If one (Omega or someone like him) asked me to choose between 1000 years compressed into the next hour or just 100 years uncompressed inside the real time from now on … I am not sure what to say to him.
Again, the existence of other people complicates this (as it does so many other things). If I’m offered this deal right now and choose to have 1000 years of subjective experience compressed into the next hour and then die, then e.g. I never get to see my daughter grow up, I leave my wife a widow and my child an orphan, I never see any of my friends again, etc. It would be nice to have a thousand years of experiences, but it’s far from clear that the benefits outweigh the costs.
This doesn’t seem to apply in the case of, e.g., a whole civilization choosing whether or not to go digital, and it would apply differently if this sort of decision were commonplace.
you are missing the concept of blather
The definition of “blather” that I find is:
“talk long-windedly without making very much sense”, which does not sound like Thomas’s comment.
What definition are you using?