From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@ricochet.net)
Date: Sat May 05 2001 - 20:58:04 MDT
Anders wrote:
>> Massive speedups of computing power will have the same effect, but
>> need hardly wait millions of years to happen. Supposing, as seems
>> extremely reasonable, that the speed of light is a constant, matter
>> will begin to develop so quickly so locally that the horizons
>> separate any two given nodes of sentience just as you suggest.
>
>It is not the same, although it will definitely be irritating. The
>horizon between the computronium here and there will be one of time
>delay - essentially a question of economics. If you wanted to know what
>the there computronium know, you just have to wait long enough. But in
>the remote future, then you will *never* be able to hear what the remote
>colonies know, *ever*. Their light will never reach you.
Yes. But this immediately brings up the question of whether the
singularity has a general S or sigmoid shape or not. If there is
an upper level of progress, (i.e. computation density, speed-up
factor, and so on), then your observation is exactly right.
But if there is no upper limit---which many of the people who have
been thinking more about the singularity than I have appear to
believe---then it's not clear that any information from these
remote sources would be of any interest whatsoever (except perhaps
to satisfy historical antiquarian instincts). In other words, to
the extent that the "singlularity" indeed is a true singularity,
then data from elsewhere becomes redundant as well as boring.
Lee
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