From: Wei Dai (weidai@eskimo.com)
Date: Sun Jun 09 2002 - 16:15:56 MDT
On Tue, Jun 04, 2002 at 04:48:30PM -0700, Lee Corbin wrote:
> > http://www.lucifer.com/exi-lists/extropians/1892.html.
>
> Very interesting. But I choked on the part where you spend
> a lot of energy moving matter around. Were you talking about
> interstellar distances? Boy, I hope not.
I was actually talking about intergalactic distances. If the expansion of
the universe is accelerating, everything outside our local cluster will
eventually disappear behind a causal horizon. So if we want matter outside
our local cluster to contribute to our civilization, we have to go and
bring it back. (And the sooner we start the more we can bring back and
less it will cost.) It's true that moving matter uses up energy, so
there's a tradeoff between the total amount of matter/energy that
contributes to all civilizations versus how big/complex each civilization
can become. That's a value judgement that we may have to make in the
future.
> It also seemed to
> me that we should stay away from black holes, because they
> retard time and because they're such entropy sinks. Why do
> you think it's appropriate to them?
Yes, black holes are entropy sinks, that's why they're good for dumping
excess entropy. So I don't understand that objection. I also don't
think retarding time is big concern. Once you're causally isolated from
the outside universe, there can be no external threats and objective time
is not really relevant anymore.
> No, Eliezer and I have gone around this one before. He didn't
> like total freedom at lower levels because even lower level
> simulatees might be abused. Don't you agree with him? Above
> you stated that a simulatee's permission should always be
> obtained before he was run (which would make most historical
> simulations very difficult). I, on the other hand, favor the
> solution closer to private property.
I think I agree with Eliezer here. Assuming a Meta-Golden rule scenario, I
would be willing to give up the right to abuse simulatees if that meant I
would not be abused as a simulatee by higher levels. I do consider having
someone participate involuntarily in a historical simulation to be
abusive.
If you really want to run a historical simulation, perhaps you
should ask for permission both to be in the simulation and to erase the
memory of being asked for and granting this permission, and reobtain
the permission every so often as the simulation runs.
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