From: hsr4@vax.ox.ac.uk (Auld Sprurklie)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Re: Multiple Experiences
Date: 15 Aug 92 14:24:13 GMT

In article <Aug.14.00.31.41.1992.530@planchet.rutgers.edu>, wreck@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com (R. Cage) writes:
> In article etc. etc. etc.

>>> Solution:  Time-share the hardware.  Add hardware to the neurons
>>> which can restore the state at the beginning of a time-slice, ...
>>
>>I may have missed something here, but I wonder if, having sped up the
>>brain (and what happens about, say, heat dissipation ? {No, it's not a
>>new hat, it's a heat sink...})
> 
> I consider that an engineering detail.  I'm not sure what the
> entropic limits of information processing are, but it would not
> surprise me to find that it's possible to beat neurons by a
> factor of 10^4.  If so, then no additional entropy (heat)
> rejection is required.  If so, you have to re-engineer the
> cooling system a bit as well, which is probably child's
> play if you can speed up neurons that much.

Hmm.  If you're dealing with the biological brain (i.e. the entity
referred to as the primary in previous posts), then increasing the
speed is certain to increase the rate at which metabolism occurs, and
the end result of that (waste) usually results in heat in the organism
if not cleared effectively (hence the silly bit about hats and heat
sinks).

You mention 'beating neurons' which suggests that we may be talking at cross-
purposes - I can see that it would be possible to model the brain and operate
the -model- at a much faster rate, but that's not what I was commenting on.
> 
>>it then doesn't matter about
>>time-sharing or cloning to create agents ready to boldly go forth; if
>>you can operate that much faster, you can achieve all you might want
>>to on your own.

> I think you missed the points:

Maybe, assuming we aren't at cross-purposes :-).

> 1.)	If you're doing something at a distance (say, by
> 	teleoperation or talking by telephone), speeding
> 	yourself up by much makes speed-of-light delay
> 	ever more onerous.  You can only think so fast
> 	in such situations before boredom sets in.  Time
> 	sharing lets threads slow down to match the events
> 	occurring outside while not wasting brainpower.

This points seems to me to refer to manual activities (I include speech in this
category), whereas I thought the original idea was to let a clone loose on a
resource (a network, say) by 'plugging' it in and have it absorb information
rather than indulge in discourse.  I could see even greater pitfalls if your
clones are actually empowered to speak for you.  Just think how many enemies
they could make for you :-).

> 2.)	All the different threads share a common neural network and
> 	long-term memory; they are *all* you.  It is all done on your own.
 
Yep. That was also my point; if you can speed up the biological brain there is
not so much need to clone it and you can do what you want alone.

> 3.)	Because all threads modify the neural network by their
> 	experience, this leaves open the possibility of having
> 	several sets of hardware with passive, "mirror" tasks
> 	taking in and incorporating the experience of threads
> 	on other brains.  Your memories and self stop being
> 	limited to one site, gaining protection from local
> 	disasters.  (Downside:  what happens if the comm link
> 	goes down?  Inconsistent memories, followed by fissioning
> 	of "self"?)

Ah.  This again is different from what I'd originally discussed.  In
this case, (forgive me if I'm wrong) you're talking about a primary
being online to all clones, rather than having the clones go offline
to perform their appointed tasks, and then come back online when
completed (which is where I'd thought that schizophrenia might be a
possible risk).

> 4.)	Many hands make light work.  Cutting the lawn with nail
> 	clippers would be boring as all hell, but if you could
> 	fission into a million selves and do one blade each, it
> 	would be a breeze.  Multiple threads might let you do
> 	jobs which would take huge organizations before, and due
> 	to the common memory, you wouldn't have anywhere near
> 	the communications overhead.
 
Again, I think you're talking about keeping the clones online - I hadn't
realised that was your proposal - my apologies if you'd said that in your post
and I'd missed it.  However, it's still a manual task that you're discussing,
whereas I thought (I could be wrong) that originally we'd been talking about
the possibility of gaining intelligence (as in information gathering) using
offline clones.

When I joined this thread (or barged into this thread :-)) the discussion had 
been about hiving off intellectual tasks rather than manual undertakings, and 
about the possibility of selectively copying certain skills from your own brain
into a number of clones, and having them exercise those skills in information-
gathering, returning upon completion to dump their accumulated experience into
your brain.

At least, that's what this primary thought...

Peter "I'm a seventh clone of a seventh clone, so watch out" Brooks