Is this a closed environment, that supports 100000 cell-generations? In that case, the 15th generation and predecessors will have eaten 65535 units of food, so the 16th generation will only be partial—either 65536 cells that live about half their normal span, or more likely, a bunch will eat each other, to collapse to a much smaller number that lasts a few more generations.
Regardless, it’s worth exploring where your intuition flips—would 1 cell that repeats for 100K generations be preferable? 50K for 2 generations? For myself, I’m mostly indifferent in the case of individual cells. For beings with culture, there’s a lot of value in existing during a growth phase, which I don’t know how to model. And thinking beings (if such a thing existed), when there are sufficient numbers and knowledge about the impending limits, can work to increase the limits, and to decrease the per-unit usage.
>Is this a closed environment, that supports 100000 cell-generations?
Good question! No. I was envisioning it as a system where a constant population of 100 000 would be viable. (RA pipettes in a constant amount of nutritional fluid every day or something). Now that you asked the question, it might make more sense to investigate this assumption more.
Is this a closed environment, that supports 100000 cell-generations? In that case, the 15th generation and predecessors will have eaten 65535 units of food, so the 16th generation will only be partial—either 65536 cells that live about half their normal span, or more likely, a bunch will eat each other, to collapse to a much smaller number that lasts a few more generations.
Regardless, it’s worth exploring where your intuition flips—would 1 cell that repeats for 100K generations be preferable? 50K for 2 generations? For myself, I’m mostly indifferent in the case of individual cells. For beings with culture, there’s a lot of value in existing during a growth phase, which I don’t know how to model. And thinking beings (if such a thing existed), when there are sufficient numbers and knowledge about the impending limits, can work to increase the limits, and to decrease the per-unit usage.
Related: https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/shut-up-and-multiply .
>Is this a closed environment, that supports 100000 cell-generations?
Good question! No. I was envisioning it as a system where a constant population of 100 000 would be viable. (RA pipettes in a constant amount of nutritional fluid every day or something). Now that you asked the question, it might make more sense to investigate this assumption more.