From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Jun 08 2002 - 09:03:34 MDT
Eugen writes
> Fitness changes shape, but it still remains fitness. In the early stage,
> where there are atoms to be incorporated into living (in the widest sense,
> whether habitats or bodies) beings, high processivity and low cost of
> replication are certainly strongly selected for.
You appear to me to have succeeded in lumping our lifestyle
into the same category as that of Earth's most primitive eras.
Yes, at the dawn of time Earth creatures began ingesting atoms,
and then---thanks to the technological advent of jaws and tails
---proceeded to scoop up atoms with gusto and with real efficiency.
This began to include other creatures, presently, bringing about
the familiar forms of food chain.)
> In a mature environment all atoms (or computronium bits) are
> being locked up in the living,...
I described this as a struggle among algorithms. From Earth,
or perhaps even a smaller domain (hopefully not Redmond), ever
more advanced algorithms will be transmitted by EM radiation,
and conquest by ingestion of atoms will be thus superseded by
"new releases".
High densities of computation per cubic meter will still take
place in collections of atoms, don't you think? Perhaps versions
of me will endure beyond the Oort cloud, in tiny local collections
of matter unimportant enough for physical conquest by advanced
algorithms dominating nearby stars. N'est pas?
> ...so the only way to replicate is to prey upon resources of
> others.
(Shades of war between pre-20th century entities we call nations!)
But hasn't that always been true, about replication, I mean?
Today, humans, for example, replicate by going to the supermarket
and preying upon the resources of lesser creatures harvested from
fields and oceans (and then with that energy, participating in
conception and growth of more people).
So, to quote you again in a single swoop (because I appreciate it
a lot):
> In a mature environment all atoms (or computronium bits) are
> being locked up in the living, so the only way to replicate
> is to prey upon resources of others.
So by then, true entities (like people now) will be algorithmic
in nature, not sets of atoms. (That is, for anyone not following
this, a snail is a piece of hardware, but Eugen Leitl is a program.)
So you are pointing out that algorithms will prey on each other?
I get the feeling that you're seeing even more, but are holding
back.
> Here's a mechanism to limit longevity of individuals to far
> below the 10^10 Ga time scales we usually assume for granted.
Now I'm lost completely. *Why* does some argument here limit the
longevity of individuals? Why is it unlikely that some algorithms
(maybe even me on a deep space snowball) might last a very, very
long time? Why won't the universe be dominated by powerful
algorithms controlling the resources of massive objects like
star systems, but rather immortal algorithms?
Lee
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:14:40 MST