# HG changeset patch
# User Robert McIntyre <rlm@mit.edu>
# Date 1420613733 28800
# Node ID 695c5f257d37921421085b4ecc51969e45c9566e
# Parent  98ba603e251a7f6b54bfb9093685b1ccbf1adcf3
ideas about the furture.

diff -r 98ba603e251a -r 695c5f257d37 org/ideas.org
--- a/org/ideas.org	Sun Nov 30 12:40:33 2014 -0800
+++ b/org/ideas.org	Tue Jan 06 22:55:33 2015 -0800
@@ -31,6 +31,42 @@
 getting credit.
 #+end_quote
 
+- the great computing slow-down :: in general, our computers are
+     getting faster and faster. However, eventually our brains will be
+     made of the same stuff our computers are made of! This has very
+     interesting consequences -- I can add 2+2 and get four in about a
+     second. Since my neurons actually work at around 10-60 hertz in
+     parallel, this means that it takes me around 10-30 operations to
+     do this addition. That's actually not bad in terms of computing
+     time. If my neurons were as fast as the latest transitors, then
+     most calculators would be SLOWER than me at adding numbers. Only
+     the newest, most optimized calculators would be faster, and then
+     only about 10 times faster! This means that once we begin to
+     think at the speed of our technology, that technology will
+     suddenly seem pitifully slow in comparison to how it seems
+     now. And no amount of technical progress will remedy it, because
+     that same progress will also make us all think faster. We'll
+     either have to settle with living in "slow time" to do some
+     computations, or learn to make smarter hardware with special
+     optimizations. But this is actually really hard, because we'll be
+     working with machines that will appear to us about as fast as
+     MECHANICAL computers. So, in the future, all the cool parties
+     will be in cyperspace at vastly accelerated speeds compared to
+     how we exist now. But at these parties, the computers will SUCK!
+     Of course, this is one of the few things that can save us from AI
+     risk, because those AI's won't seem so scary when the're build
+     out of rickety mechanical parts form our perspective. 
+
+- unitary reverse evolution of chaos+minds :: chaotic systems diverge
+     exponentially in state space. Do you get anything interesting
+     when part of the physical system associated with the chaotic
+     system is a object that performs some sort of computation? Is it
+     possible for the computational system to play a
+     percision-enabling role in determining the final/initial
+     conditions of the chaotic system, just by tracing out thoughts in
+     its decision paths? This is probably too vague of an idea right
+     now, I just wanted to write it down.
+
 - microwave time :: the cooking time you enter on most microwaves is
      insane. It's expressed in what I call a "hybrid base", a
      combination of base 10 and base 60. You can get absurd things