From: Eugene Leitl (eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
Date: Thu Oct 05 2000 - 02:04:19 MDT
J. R. Molloy writes:
> Robin Hanson writes,
>
> > All of these things aren't coming from chimps, or rocks, or fish - they are
> > coming from humans. Thus the group of humans, taken as a whole, *is*
> > autocatalytic!
>
> Yes it could be thought of as autocatalytic. But not as a positive feedback
> loop, which is the central issue.
Of course it's a autocatalytic and a positive autofeedback loop, but
the growth function would clearly saturate without a substrate
change. However long and hard I study, I won't be able to instantly
factor 2 kBit integers in my head, or even leap tall buildings in a
single bound.
Sure we will change substrate (or create successors in the new
substrate and grow extinct) and the growth will continue, but it would
require extremely clever timing to keep the growth function
continuously smooth.
(If I see this happening, I'll start believing in weird shit like
fairies, the best of all possible worlds, spacetime singularities as
computers and the Omega point.
Sure Moravec claims the linear log plot is being linear despite
repeatedly changed substrate, but I think his metric is rigged. We'll
see where it goes in the next decades, perhaps I'll become acolyte of
the Church of Singularity yet).
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