In few billion years our descendants may spread across billions of galaxies. Even so, if they do not drastically change the structure of space-time, then within a trillion years they will fragment into billions of isolated galaxy-sized “universes”. Standard physics, you see, says that in a trillion or two years all the galaxies near the Milky Way will merge into one big galaxy, and other galaxies will be too distant to see in any way. For all practical purposes, that merged galaxy will be a separate universe.
Why avoid eternal recurrence? If you find a lossless substrate, program a rich hedonic consciousness narrative into it, then loop. It doesn't have to be daft like "one orgasm"; if you have enough storage capacity, program epic millennia of diverse bliss, then loop those.
As long as we're speculating about a trillion years into the future and the entropic iron grip of the Second Law, I have to express one doubt based on our existence.
To put this consideration into the context of the Second Law, "everything" (in the broadest sense) is, by definition, a closed system. Yet, there exists order in our universe, as evidenced by our own existence. Yet, the Second Law appears to forbid going from nothingness in a closed system to order.
So, one of these must be true:(1) I'm unreasonably assuming that nothingness is the original state of everything.(2) My interpretation of the Second Law is flawed; order from nothingness is possible.(3) The Second Law isn't universally true; there are secrets to entropy we have yet to unlock.
If #3 is the case, there is reason to doubt a conclusion of inevitable, extinction-causing scarcity on a galactic scale.
The sweep here is breathtaking. I wonder if it is performance art, or perhaps a modern parable tweaking our own deeply loved beliefs? Lovers of this blog enjoy and believe in the broad sweep of reason beyond the bonds of knowledge. Why SHOULD there be a limit?
If you can gain twice of what you want in any given time by burning resources twice as fast, then you will conclude you should burn resources as fast as possible. Such agents will burn fast and bright and then be gone, leaving other agents to sift among their ashes.
As long as there are resources, and more than one entity-with-preferences which is made out of resources and requires resources, I think most of Robin's very basic assumptions hold water.
Proper Dave's saying that "years of life remaining" ceases to have meaning if you're, say, an emulated mind running on the most efficient hardware possible, and you don't care much about keeping up with the scenery in realtime. In this case, your remaining lifespan is how many "processor cycles" you have remaining; and extending those processor cycles by using your resources slowly has no subjective effect.
It isn't obvious to me what the incentive is to post-pone resource consumption, at least if resource consumption scales to faster computing speed. If agents prefer a subjectively long lifespan the best plan is to use all their resources immediately to run their software as fast as possible. Agents get a long, fulfilling life doing whatever in simulated environments while minimizing external threats (using their resources before anyone has a chance to steal or tax them). Maybe some would have a quixotic desire to be around in the end or aspire to escape heat death but in general "slowing down the universe" seems like a better strategy than "lasting longer".
Robin,Isn't the real problem with your line of thinking that it is almost certainly wrong? We have the history of billions of years of the universe to examine and this idea that some organism spreads all of the place just doesn't happen. Of course the past is not completely predictive of the future, but it is a pretty good guide after all these years. Most likely we won't be around to spread or we will lose the energy somehow.
But what if you reach the fundamental limits on efficiency? In that case you how “fast” or “slow” you use your resources are meaningless.
No it isn't. If you use the resources quickly, you may enjoy a high standard of living, but you'll run out sooner. If you conserve them via low population growth/low consumption, you'll last longer before starving to death.
You're extrapolating 100-fold in terms of the age of the universe, and 10^6-fold in terms of the age of humanity. It's not that it's not real, it's that we can't have even minimal confidence in our predictions. Yes, we hope to be able to rely on the laws of physics, but it is greatly under-appreciated in the popular consciousness how unsure physicists are about things like black holes and dark matter, much less proton decay. Further, we have zero idea what out descendant will want/do (your Darwinian arguments notwithstanding). Seeing as that the dawn of (a) life and (b) consciousness happened within the last 4 billion years, how could you possibly think it likely that nothing as world-shattering will come along in a trillion years?
I agree with Michael Howard. It does seem like a good argument for a Friendly singleton.
A possible alternative to letting those other galaxies split into their own isolated "universes" is to send out robots to convert all of their matter into photons (using the Hawking radiation of small black holes), and then send those photons back to us before the universe expands too much.
These might be matter sent on very long secret orbits, to return back to galaxy central after a very long time.
This is a cool idea for the scenarios without strong property rights. Presumably, you want to come back as late as possible, because the central black hole will grow bigger and colder with time, but you're constrained by how long you can keep yourself alive while you're out on the secret orbit.
Won't happen; the obvious reason is that when quallitropping the ghiklenoot field, the resulting horstthrof effect is sufficient, interdimensionally speaking, to project matter and energy indefinitely into the jukilovook highway. As to terms such as 'discounting' and 'property rights' we have no idea why you think these meaningless anarchisms from a 19th century human philosophy would have any relevence, it should obvious that our social organization is based on stryoloopic mind melding and fretalayic weaving of cognitive youlippic star points.
Why avoid eternal recurrence? If you find a lossless substrate, program a rich hedonic consciousness narrative into it, then loop. It doesn't have to be daft like "one orgasm"; if you have enough storage capacity, program epic millennia of diverse bliss, then loop those.
As long as we're speculating about a trillion years into the future and the entropic iron grip of the Second Law, I have to express one doubt based on our existence.
To put this consideration into the context of the Second Law, "everything" (in the broadest sense) is, by definition, a closed system. Yet, there exists order in our universe, as evidenced by our own existence. Yet, the Second Law appears to forbid going from nothingness in a closed system to order.
So, one of these must be true:(1) I'm unreasonably assuming that nothingness is the original state of everything.(2) My interpretation of the Second Law is flawed; order from nothingness is possible.(3) The Second Law isn't universally true; there are secrets to entropy we have yet to unlock.
If #3 is the case, there is reason to doubt a conclusion of inevitable, extinction-causing scarcity on a galactic scale.
what, you think there is a universe external to yourself? how silly ..
tis all a projection of consciousness, lasts as long as there is consciousness ... and that is eternal ... not infinite, eternal ..
enjoy being
The sweep here is breathtaking. I wonder if it is performance art, or perhaps a modern parable tweaking our own deeply loved beliefs? Lovers of this blog enjoy and believe in the broad sweep of reason beyond the bonds of knowledge. Why SHOULD there be a limit?
If you can gain twice of what you want in any given time by burning resources twice as fast, then you will conclude you should burn resources as fast as possible. Such agents will burn fast and bright and then be gone, leaving other agents to sift among their ashes.
As long as there are resources, and more than one entity-with-preferences which is made out of resources and requires resources, I think most of Robin's very basic assumptions hold water.
Proper Dave's saying that "years of life remaining" ceases to have meaning if you're, say, an emulated mind running on the most efficient hardware possible, and you don't care much about keeping up with the scenery in realtime. In this case, your remaining lifespan is how many "processor cycles" you have remaining; and extending those processor cycles by using your resources slowly has no subjective effect.
It isn't obvious to me what the incentive is to post-pone resource consumption, at least if resource consumption scales to faster computing speed. If agents prefer a subjectively long lifespan the best plan is to use all their resources immediately to run their software as fast as possible. Agents get a long, fulfilling life doing whatever in simulated environments while minimizing external threats (using their resources before anyone has a chance to steal or tax them). Maybe some would have a quixotic desire to be around in the end or aspire to escape heat death but in general "slowing down the universe" seems like a better strategy than "lasting longer".
Robin,Isn't the real problem with your line of thinking that it is almost certainly wrong? We have the history of billions of years of the universe to examine and this idea that some organism spreads all of the place just doesn't happen. Of course the past is not completely predictive of the future, but it is a pretty good guide after all these years. Most likely we won't be around to spread or we will lose the energy somehow.
But what if you reach the fundamental limits on efficiency? In that case you how “fast” or “slow” you use your resources are meaningless.
No it isn't. If you use the resources quickly, you may enjoy a high standard of living, but you'll run out sooner. If you conserve them via low population growth/low consumption, you'll last longer before starving to death.
Anarchisms? Anachronisms maybe?
You're extrapolating 100-fold in terms of the age of the universe, and 10^6-fold in terms of the age of humanity. It's not that it's not real, it's that we can't have even minimal confidence in our predictions. Yes, we hope to be able to rely on the laws of physics, but it is greatly under-appreciated in the popular consciousness how unsure physicists are about things like black holes and dark matter, much less proton decay. Further, we have zero idea what out descendant will want/do (your Darwinian arguments notwithstanding). Seeing as that the dawn of (a) life and (b) consciousness happened within the last 4 billion years, how could you possibly think it likely that nothing as world-shattering will come along in a trillion years?
Cosmologists talk regularly about the big bang 0.014 Trillion years into the past; why should 1.0 Trillion years into the future be any less real?
I agree with Michael Howard. It does seem like a good argument for a Friendly singleton.
A possible alternative to letting those other galaxies split into their own isolated "universes" is to send out robots to convert all of their matter into photons (using the Hawking radiation of small black holes), and then send those photons back to us before the universe expands too much.
These might be matter sent on very long secret orbits, to return back to galaxy central after a very long time.
This is a cool idea for the scenarios without strong property rights. Presumably, you want to come back as late as possible, because the central black hole will grow bigger and colder with time, but you're constrained by how long you can keep yourself alive while you're out on the secret orbit.
Reply from trillion year old beings:
Won't happen; the obvious reason is that when quallitropping the ghiklenoot field, the resulting horstthrof effect is sufficient, interdimensionally speaking, to project matter and energy indefinitely into the jukilovook highway. As to terms such as 'discounting' and 'property rights' we have no idea why you think these meaningless anarchisms from a 19th century human philosophy would have any relevence, it should obvious that our social organization is based on stryoloopic mind melding and fretalayic weaving of cognitive youlippic star points.
feministx: electrons are matter. Also, "energy" is really just a way of talking about the properties of various configurations of matter.