Bryan Caplan: Robin Hanson has repeatedly told me that during the next million years, we’ll discover all useful science/technology; there’s only so much to know, and by then, we’ll have it all figured out. But would Robin see art the same way? By his logic, it seems like you could also say say: During the next million years, will we discover all interesting art; there’s only so much art to create, and by then we’ll have created it.
It may be possible to manufacture novelty for its own sake in some instances: Perhaps those 'canon' artworks and books that already exist (far greater in number than any person could properly consume in today's average lifetime) could be catalogued and only re-released for consumption once every hundred years for a limited time, say, five years. Thus, the novelty of art that already exists could be reused and perhaps the volume of poor quality, derivative works would have a limited shelf life and disappear thereafter. Truly unique works would be more valuable and added to the re-release cycle. This wouldn't, of course, be an option for those areas (science, technology, medicine etc) where even incremental added value is important.
This is not about "infinity" - it is about whether science and technology will continue to improve - over large timescales. I think the case that some limit will be reached is pretty weak. As for the hypothetical limit being reached in the "ten thousand more years" of the "Nature is Doomed" article - that sounds *very* unlikely to me. That is not enough time to conquer this galaxy - let alone mastering the art of moving on to fresh ones.
Sure, we will be resource-limited long before then. Indeed, we are highly resource-limited *now*.
Those *very* many ways to "arrange atoms" are largely entropic, i.e. of no value. Growth rates are only critical if complexity is infinitely valuable. Otherwise it won't be of any use to add more rules to games, i.e. make things more complicated. Then it is just about endless repetition.
That would be a non-sequitur from your end; recall that the issue is a limit to knowledge and originality. An upper limit to material harnessed implies nothing about our ability to know every useful arrangement of that material.
Nor is it clear that, were Hanson correct on science and technology, we would come to a wall for economic growth rates. We simply have no idea what it would be like to know every interesting true proposition. That is a rather unimaginable state and we can't adequately speculate about what possibilities lie within it.
Caplan's argument is fundamentally different in kind from Hanson's argument. Hanson is arguing that the limits to propagation create limits to economic growth. Caplan is arguing, in essence, that the limit to propagation doesn't clearly limit economic growth because all parties concede that economic growth is about subjective value, i.e. brain states, and not about actual accumulation.
That would be an interesting debate, but I don't think anyone here is actually knowledgeable enough across physics, economics, philosophy and computational neuroscience to create an argument which is impressive under scrutiny.
Re: "Seems like Hanson is sounding a little too Malthusian today"
How can someone be "too Malthusian"?!? Malthus - after all - was right on the money with his key insight - that population growth typically outstrips resource growth - and so ecologies are typically resource-limited.
"We’ll eventually learn everything worth knowing about how to arrange atoms, and growth in available atoms will be limited by the speed of light."
That seems misleading or wrong - there are *very* many ways to "arrange atoms" - and we will probably never find them all - and we may well continue to improve our abilities in that area *well* past the million year timescale.
However - the idea that there are limits to growth rates seems obviously right - though relatively uncontroversial - to me. I rather doubt that aspect is what others are complaining about.
That's not true. Robin has given actual metrics before (as again, he does here briefly noting the speed of light limit). Indeed, even in the post above, Robin linked to precisely one of his estimates. In case you missed it it was this essay.
Aren't most things of value a novelty at first? Doesn't novelty have huge value? Why else would we demand such novelties? I think how you qualify a novelty needs further clarification.
Please explain how the current system all of the sudden breaks down in a million years.
Seems like Hanson is sounding a little too Malthusian today (only relatively). Is Caplan - speaking as Julian Simon perhaps would - wrong? I don't think so.
There is already so much great art that it is hard to take it all in even if you do nothing except consume art. The poet Louise Bogan wrote, "There were so many things to love. I could not love them all."
The reality is that he has no means of guaging just how much scientific or technological knowledge there is to be had or what its value actually is. He has speculations and arguments given premises no one should grant or ask, but nothing that you could call a well-formed argument.
This, like a couple of running themes here, is Hanson's debate about dancing angels. I leave it to you to figure out where the pinhead is.
I should add convenience and novelty problems should also be solvable pharmaceutically, in much fewer than 1 million years (not wanting convenience or novelty is also a solution). Although the desire for safety could also be solved that way, I prefer to keep living the Woody Allen way.
Is another way to say this that all new innovations are valuable to us because the increase our safety, our convenience, or our status (the last one always being zero sum). I see convenience problems being essentially solved for folks like us within a million years (that's just logistics and IT). Status doesn't really require new stuff, though it seems to me to drive heroic economic activity. Safety is trickier as far as I can tell. Even staying creatures like us, it's not clear to me all safety problems will be essentially solved or proved unsolvable within 1 million years.
"My claim is that within a million years economic growth due to innovation will have essentially ceased, at least relative to our innovation rates, in terms of giving value to creatures like us."
What's with the "creatures like us"? Surely you don't think many "creatures like us" will be around in a million years? Why can't we just measure the economy in terms of gold atoms?
"our economy will at least grow with our slowly expanding sphere of resources. But this growth rate is far below familiar growth rates"
Right - that is essentially Malthus's observation.
It may be possible to manufacture novelty for its own sake in some instances: Perhaps those 'canon' artworks and books that already exist (far greater in number than any person could properly consume in today's average lifetime) could be catalogued and only re-released for consumption once every hundred years for a limited time, say, five years. Thus, the novelty of art that already exists could be reused and perhaps the volume of poor quality, derivative works would have a limited shelf life and disappear thereafter. Truly unique works would be more valuable and added to the re-release cycle. This wouldn't, of course, be an option for those areas (science, technology, medicine etc) where even incremental added value is important.
This is not about "infinity" - it is about whether science and technology will continue to improve - over large timescales. I think the case that some limit will be reached is pretty weak. As for the hypothetical limit being reached in the "ten thousand more years" of the "Nature is Doomed" article - that sounds *very* unlikely to me. That is not enough time to conquer this galaxy - let alone mastering the art of moving on to fresh ones.
Sure, we will be resource-limited long before then. Indeed, we are highly resource-limited *now*.
Those *very* many ways to "arrange atoms" are largely entropic, i.e. of no value. Growth rates are only critical if complexity is infinitely valuable. Otherwise it won't be of any use to add more rules to games, i.e. make things more complicated. Then it is just about endless repetition.
@Joshua Zelinsky
That would be a non-sequitur from your end; recall that the issue is a limit to knowledge and originality. An upper limit to material harnessed implies nothing about our ability to know every useful arrangement of that material.
Nor is it clear that, were Hanson correct on science and technology, we would come to a wall for economic growth rates. We simply have no idea what it would be like to know every interesting true proposition. That is a rather unimaginable state and we can't adequately speculate about what possibilities lie within it.
Caplan's argument is fundamentally different in kind from Hanson's argument. Hanson is arguing that the limits to propagation create limits to economic growth. Caplan is arguing, in essence, that the limit to propagation doesn't clearly limit economic growth because all parties concede that economic growth is about subjective value, i.e. brain states, and not about actual accumulation.
That would be an interesting debate, but I don't think anyone here is actually knowledgeable enough across physics, economics, philosophy and computational neuroscience to create an argument which is impressive under scrutiny.
Re: "Seems like Hanson is sounding a little too Malthusian today"
How can someone be "too Malthusian"?!? Malthus - after all - was right on the money with his key insight - that population growth typically outstrips resource growth - and so ecologies are typically resource-limited.
http://www.overcomingbias.c...
http://www.overcomingbias.c...
Robin says:
"We’ll eventually learn everything worth knowing about how to arrange atoms, and growth in available atoms will be limited by the speed of light."
That seems misleading or wrong - there are *very* many ways to "arrange atoms" - and we will probably never find them all - and we may well continue to improve our abilities in that area *well* past the million year timescale.
However - the idea that there are limits to growth rates seems obviously right - though relatively uncontroversial - to me. I rather doubt that aspect is what others are complaining about.
That's not true. Robin has given actual metrics before (as again, he does here briefly noting the speed of light limit). Indeed, even in the post above, Robin linked to precisely one of his estimates. In case you missed it it was this essay.
Aren't most things of value a novelty at first? Doesn't novelty have huge value? Why else would we demand such novelties? I think how you qualify a novelty needs further clarification.
Please explain how the current system all of the sudden breaks down in a million years.
Seems like Hanson is sounding a little too Malthusian today (only relatively). Is Caplan - speaking as Julian Simon perhaps would - wrong? I don't think so.
truth is relative to values. finite values means finite truths.
Steven,That seems wrong to me, but hopefully someone else will jump in with a better refutation.
There is already so much great art that it is hard to take it all in even if you do nothing except consume art. The poet Louise Bogan wrote, "There were so many things to love. I could not love them all."
There aren't really any.
The reality is that he has no means of guaging just how much scientific or technological knowledge there is to be had or what its value actually is. He has speculations and arguments given premises no one should grant or ask, but nothing that you could call a well-formed argument.
This, like a couple of running themes here, is Hanson's debate about dancing angels. I leave it to you to figure out where the pinhead is.
Is there a link to Robin Hanson's previous arguments on this?
I should add convenience and novelty problems should also be solvable pharmaceutically, in much fewer than 1 million years (not wanting convenience or novelty is also a solution). Although the desire for safety could also be solved that way, I prefer to keep living the Woody Allen way.
Is another way to say this that all new innovations are valuable to us because the increase our safety, our convenience, or our status (the last one always being zero sum). I see convenience problems being essentially solved for folks like us within a million years (that's just logistics and IT). Status doesn't really require new stuff, though it seems to me to drive heroic economic activity. Safety is trickier as far as I can tell. Even staying creatures like us, it's not clear to me all safety problems will be essentially solved or proved unsolvable within 1 million years.
"My claim is that within a million years economic growth due to innovation will have essentially ceased, at least relative to our innovation rates, in terms of giving value to creatures like us."
What's with the "creatures like us"? Surely you don't think many "creatures like us" will be around in a million years? Why can't we just measure the economy in terms of gold atoms?
"our economy will at least grow with our slowly expanding sphere of resources. But this growth rate is far below familiar growth rates"
Right - that is essentially Malthus's observation.