Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: cphoenix@csli.stanford.edu (Chris Phoenix) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Some problems of super-intelligence Message-ID: Date: 18 Dec 90 18:32:14 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U. Lines: 35 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article gjf00@duts.ccc.amdahl.com (Gordon Freedman) writes: >The thought occurs to me that rather than speeding up the brain ALL >the time, it might be useful to have the capability to speed it up sometimes. >Normally, you would run in "real time", so you wouldn't go nuts with a >world running at 1e-6 slower. Here's a radical thought. If nanotech can (as some people claim) give us immortality, why bother speeding up the brain at all? It could be nice to "freeze" the world while I thought, but not really necessary except in "emergencies". Though the example of a car skidding, I think, shows a lack of vision--surely it would be easy to make people crash-proof, and we wouldn't be using cars anyway! As has been pointed out, the main advantage of speeding up the brain is to enable "pure thought" research, and most of us don't have good enough thoughts to take advantage of that. Assuming immortality, I would *much* rather have limitless perfect memory and a math coprocessor than a speeded-up brain with its current limitations. After all, what is speed relative to? Your lifespan; the world; other people or communicating entities. If everyone speeds up, you haven't gained anything by that. And if you speed up part-time and attempt to deal with other people doing the same, you will run into mundane communication problems. As for the world, we have many years before the sun gives out, and then we can just find another. Speaking of which, space flight could get pretty boring. Maybe we want to be able to slow down the brain, so you can stay awake and watch the stars whiz by! [Speeding up and slowing down can both be useful in appropriate circumstances. Another possible use (albeit one involving more tinkering with the nature of the brain) of the extra speed is to timeshare and run yourself as a group of intellects each proceeding at realtime (or whatever). Only one of you need be running the body and the rest could operate in simulated environments. (Of course, this only works well if you are the sort that can get along with yourself...) --JoSH]