From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Wed Dec 08 1999 - 13:34:37 MST
On 8 Dec 1999, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> Damien Broderick <d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au> writes:
>
> > But maybe I've misunderstood him as well. (I also suspect that the kind of
> > mad-dog ravening exponential runaway that *could* happen under, say,
> > Robert's scenarios changes everything so wildly that *anything* we say
> > makes no difference - Eliezer's long-held position, of course.)
Well, I do say we can exponentially build the hardware, I haven't
commented very much on what we run on it. If its anything like
today's software development process, its going to take us the
lifetime of the universe that remains to do anything with it
(which is I suppose what Eliezer is trying to solve), though
probably not for the same reasons.
>
> This explosion would at the same time be competitive for
> all the resources, and likely post-economical in the sense that the
> huge amount of resources becoming accessible would likely make each
> individual richer and richer unless they multiplied faster than the
> econosystem could grow.
You should read Science News Nov. 27 1999, pg 340-341 citing an article
in Nov. 25, Nature by Jef Huisman and Franz J. Weissing who appear to
have a mathematical rationale for why sub-fit species can survive
and prosper. Its fundamentally wrapped up in the number of essential
nutrients there are. The more nutrients there are the more species
an environment can support, precisely because of the exponential
growth problem. A species grows until it exhausts the supply of
the essential nutrient it is best at harvesting, then another species
that depends on different nutrients grows until that nutrient
becomes limiting, etc.
So in switching from bio-life (with a few essential elements,
C/H2O/N/Fe) to computronium you get dozens of elements that
can be used in interesting ways (thats in the MBrain architecture).
Then at an entirely different level, you have uploaded, evolving copies
where "memes" become the nutrients. Pity poor Damien or Gina who have
to sit around waiting for people to come up with new information so they
can organize and redistribute it. Pity poor Anders waiting for new
ideas for character traits for his role-players to occur to him.
Pity poor Greg waiting for new laws to be made...
While, these individuals are spinning their electrons, entities
that aren't dependent on those "nutrients" are multiplying away
on some underutilized meme-set getting ready to become the dominant
species.
It may be that one of the reasons that "everyone" is so "busy" in
our society is that the "nutrients" in our society have gone "virtual".
We have graduated from "hard-memes" to "soft-memes" which are much easier
to copy and distribute and intermix in different proportions.
We are facing a nutrient deluge.
>
> [snip] but it could also (and I believe this is more likely)
> diversify into an evolutionary radiation into the new resources, where
> the distribution of resources would be less competitive.
The discussion & paper I've pointed out above seems to suggest that.
The problem now is that nature, and to a much lesser degree,
humanity, are dealing with a limited nutrient sets. Think of
something like the fashion industry as supplying nutrients for
the masses and what would happen if someone new came up with
something really different. The people who consumed that new
nutrient would be viewed as chic, cool, hip, etc. In the meantime
the old-nutrient users would be saying, "I don't need that".
Who dominates? I don't know. It probably depends on the nutrient
and the environment and the degree to which substitute nutrients
are available. But the theory seems to say that the more nutrients
there are, the more species there will be.
Robert
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