From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Tue Aug 17 1999 - 10:03:33 MDT
> O'Regan, Emlyn <Emlyn.ORegan@actew.com.au> wrote:
> ah, if you have gone to the trouble of becoming an SI, why would you
> then snooze on the job?
The same reason that predators (lions/cats) at the top of their
evolutionary niche sleep 12-16 hours/day -- because there is
nothing better to do!
> There's always something you can do with CPU/brain time.
Yes, you can always run the VR for the uploaded minds.
The trick of it is, since all of their senses are fed
in anyway, they have no way of knowing whether they
have been suspended for 1000 years and are just being
fed 1000 year old pictures of the universe! I envision
an interesting game of cat & mouse -- the SI "scheduler"/
sensory management subroutine attempting to convince you
that you have been awake the last 1000 years, while you
(an uploaded mind in a small region of the SI) attempts
to prove that you have only been given 3 minutes of CPU
time in the last 1000 years!
> And wouldn't a permanently awake SI have an advantage over
> a strategically sleepy one, just because it's thinking more?
I think it depends on the rate of "challenges". Remember what
dictates our current longevity -- tradeoffs between energy
devoted to reproduction vs. energy devoted to maintenence &
repair. If the rate of challenges/hazard function is "high",
then thinking more has its advantages. If the rate of challenges/
hazard function is low, then sleeping may be the preferential
strategy for survival (think of the mouse vs. the lion). I
think this works out so that SIs in high density regions
(stars, other SIs, black holes, etc.) prefer to think, while
SIs in low density regions prefer to sleep.
> Or do you mean that doing "nothing" means doing entirely internal
> thinking, ie: not interacting with the outside world, but CPUs at 100%?
No, if Robert Freitas is correct (in his communications to me),
that SIs will dismantle Jupiters/brown dwarfs/stars for long term
fuel requirements, then your rate of fuel consumption is entirely
self-determined (so you can sleep "between" gas stations).
In other words you have an entirely "self-controlled" rate
of fuel consumption, thought rate, heat production/signature.
If my thinking is more correct, that fuel management is
"expensive" (from a material resources perspective) for
"young" SIs, then you want to run "full-out" using all
of the material/energy resources available, until you
get to the point where you either (a) have computed
future paths with a high degree of confidence or (b)
have computed everything of interest to you and are
willing to sacrifice the computational resources to
energy management (fuel tanks, star atmosphere harvesters,
etc.)
You always have the ability to turn the CPU clock rate to
zero, but you don't have the ability to turn off the star
(and therefore the energy production). So in even a moderately
engineered system you will radiate heat (and waste energy).
Only if you go to the trouble of constructing what I call
Externally Powered SIs (EPSIs), that use materials harvested
from Jupiters/Brown Dwarfs/Stars, can you completely control
both the though rate and the waste heat production rate.
> I just don't like the idea that SI's work like an office photocopier
AH, but an office photocopier doesn't rate the "entertainment
value" or the "survival value" of the material it is copying.
If, you as an SI had the ability to judge these factors, then
presumably you would optimize your operations to maximize
these values.
Robert
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