1.1 --- a/org/ideas.org	Sun Nov 30 12:40:33 2014 -0800
     1.2 +++ b/org/ideas.org	Tue Jan 06 22:55:33 2015 -0800
     1.3 @@ -31,6 +31,42 @@
     1.4  getting credit.
     1.5  #+end_quote
     1.6  
     1.7 +- the great computing slow-down :: in general, our computers are
     1.8 +     getting faster and faster. However, eventually our brains will be
     1.9 +     made of the same stuff our computers are made of! This has very
    1.10 +     interesting consequences -- I can add 2+2 and get four in about a
    1.11 +     second. Since my neurons actually work at around 10-60 hertz in
    1.12 +     parallel, this means that it takes me around 10-30 operations to
    1.13 +     do this addition. That's actually not bad in terms of computing
    1.14 +     time. If my neurons were as fast as the latest transitors, then
    1.15 +     most calculators would be SLOWER than me at adding numbers. Only
    1.16 +     the newest, most optimized calculators would be faster, and then
    1.17 +     only about 10 times faster! This means that once we begin to
    1.18 +     think at the speed of our technology, that technology will
    1.19 +     suddenly seem pitifully slow in comparison to how it seems
    1.20 +     now. And no amount of technical progress will remedy it, because
    1.21 +     that same progress will also make us all think faster. We'll
    1.22 +     either have to settle with living in "slow time" to do some
    1.23 +     computations, or learn to make smarter hardware with special
    1.24 +     optimizations. But this is actually really hard, because we'll be
    1.25 +     working with machines that will appear to us about as fast as
    1.26 +     MECHANICAL computers. So, in the future, all the cool parties
    1.27 +     will be in cyperspace at vastly accelerated speeds compared to
    1.28 +     how we exist now. But at these parties, the computers will SUCK!
    1.29 +     Of course, this is one of the few things that can save us from AI
    1.30 +     risk, because those AI's won't seem so scary when the're build
    1.31 +     out of rickety mechanical parts form our perspective. 
    1.32 +
    1.33 +- unitary reverse evolution of chaos+minds :: chaotic systems diverge
    1.34 +     exponentially in state space. Do you get anything interesting
    1.35 +     when part of the physical system associated with the chaotic
    1.36 +     system is a object that performs some sort of computation? Is it
    1.37 +     possible for the computational system to play a
    1.38 +     percision-enabling role in determining the final/initial
    1.39 +     conditions of the chaotic system, just by tracing out thoughts in
    1.40 +     its decision paths? This is probably too vague of an idea right
    1.41 +     now, I just wanted to write it down.
    1.42 +
    1.43  - microwave time :: the cooking time you enter on most microwaves is
    1.44       insane. It's expressed in what I call a "hybrid base", a
    1.45       combination of base 10 and base 60. You can get absurd things