From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon Oct 25 1999 - 10:59:51 MDT
hal@finney.org writes:
> Dan Fabulich, <daniel.fabulich@yale.edu>, writes:
> > Tipler's argument leads me to hold that unless we actually have infinite
> > computing power, life will not go on forever in any meaningful sense of
> > the word. Infinite time is not infinite life.
>
> Actually I am beginning to think that it is worse than this. We not only
> need infinite computing power, we may need infinite information, that is,
> we may require in effect an infinite amount of "noise".
Yes, this could be an issue. We might want infinite algorithmic
complexity. But I wonder if not quantum noise might be powerful
enough to create it.
Algoritmic complexity (the complexity of something is defined as the
length of the shortest program + data that generates it) is one of the
better complexity measures around, but it is not good enough. If I sit
in a box and come up with a great fantasy world, has the information
and complexity in the box not increased? I think AC fails here because
it is a static measure, intended to denote the complexity from a
"God's eye perspective". What we need is a measure that can denote the
increase in meaningful information.
Hmm... time to go home. It seems my mind is getting very
chaotic. Perhaps good for my algorithmic complexity.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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