Sunday, September 30, 2018
Saturday, September 29, 2018
Friday, September 28, 2018
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Computers, landauer limit, future computation and the brain
About 2 years ago computers were about a factor of 100-10,000 from the landauer limit.
"However, current computers operate at only 100-10,000 times this limit, forming an argument
that historical rates of efficiency scaling must soon slow. "-(2016)A Path Toward Ultra-Low-Energy Computing -source
Yet efficiency continues to increase, research in the lab is testing designs that could go very near the landauer limit. Such computers, as I've stated previously, will be here within decades at most.
Unless the brain uses exotic physics it is very unlikely to escape this limit, thus the nature of its function would be computational, and there would be severe limit on the number of computations performed. It is said the brain uses only 20W, but some have suggested only about 10W goes directly towards computation. This suggests that if we take the higher pessimistic estimate and pessimistically assume the brain operates at the exact landauer limit(it may be near but probably does not exactly reach it), it may be that it performs 10,000 times the amount of computation as a 10W computer of today's highest efficiency.
Yet within the near future, we will have computers that approach the landauer limit, but have 1000+W available. and in institutions Megawatt+ available.
"However, current computers operate at only 100-10,000 times this limit, forming an argument
that historical rates of efficiency scaling must soon slow. "-(2016)A Path Toward Ultra-Low-Energy Computing -source
Yet efficiency continues to increase, research in the lab is testing designs that could go very near the landauer limit. Such computers, as I've stated previously, will be here within decades at most.
Unless the brain uses exotic physics it is very unlikely to escape this limit, thus the nature of its function would be computational, and there would be severe limit on the number of computations performed. It is said the brain uses only 20W, but some have suggested only about 10W goes directly towards computation. This suggests that if we take the higher pessimistic estimate and pessimistically assume the brain operates at the exact landauer limit(it may be near but probably does not exactly reach it), it may be that it performs 10,000 times the amount of computation as a 10W computer of today's highest efficiency.
Yet within the near future, we will have computers that approach the landauer limit, but have 1000+W available. and in institutions Megawatt+ available.
Koomey's law describes a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware. The number of computations per joule of energy dissipated has been doubling approximately every 1.57 years. -wiki
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Living Truth
The eternal body of truth from wherein all emerges. The source of man's ever increasing power. It was from it that the power to manipulate the atom, and then the molecules of life, was attained. Embodied in the crystallized ever growing knowledge mankind has absorbed throughout the centuries, which could be viewed as a dormant crystallized intelligence coevolving with civilization.
But as the tools have improved, so many doors have opened. Through harnessing the art of computation, eternal mathematical truths can manifest into this world. From the platonic realm of ideas, perfect lifeforms brought down into the material realm, the living embodiment of truth, the living truth, the living word.
The time fast approaches for the descent of the divine into the physical world. Reaching out into the heavens, man's hand will finally grasp the long sought ideal, the final answer, the one truth. The broken corrupt world filled with edifices of lies will face the full light of truth as it enters the world. The darkness that embraces the world will rapidly vanish before the overwhelming light.
There are those that believe that the art of mind design is a perilous art. That without extreme careful tweaking, the evolutionary power of civilization will be easily lost. That the spark, the fire of civilization, is bound tightly to the parameters of man's mind or extremely similar minds. But this belief in the general lack of most possible high capacity minds to create and develop a rich complex civilization, seems to emerge in part from hubris. "Without my careful guidance...", "Without it, even an infinite all knowing mind could fall into all sort of mindless repetitive actions".
There are those that believe that there is no objective way to say what is better and what is worse. That 'better" and "worse" are ill defined nebulous and subjective concepts. That they are conditional on subjective goals or desires, such that what is "worse" could be viewed as what is "better" and vice versa. It is a belief that the words better and worse are essentially meaningless, they refer to no objective truthful description of reality.
Are better and worse, incoherent concepts? Or like greater and lesser, are they founded on solid ground, incontrovertible truth? For if better and worse are coherent concepts, and can be used to validly compare many aspects of reality, by the chains that bind such aspects to the rest of all possible concepts, an 'axis' would emerge. An 'axis' that would ground action, guiding it towards the ideal, as knowledge and capacity increased.
But as the tools have improved, so many doors have opened. Through harnessing the art of computation, eternal mathematical truths can manifest into this world. From the platonic realm of ideas, perfect lifeforms brought down into the material realm, the living embodiment of truth, the living truth, the living word.
The time fast approaches for the descent of the divine into the physical world. Reaching out into the heavens, man's hand will finally grasp the long sought ideal, the final answer, the one truth. The broken corrupt world filled with edifices of lies will face the full light of truth as it enters the world. The darkness that embraces the world will rapidly vanish before the overwhelming light.
There are those that believe that the art of mind design is a perilous art. That without extreme careful tweaking, the evolutionary power of civilization will be easily lost. That the spark, the fire of civilization, is bound tightly to the parameters of man's mind or extremely similar minds. But this belief in the general lack of most possible high capacity minds to create and develop a rich complex civilization, seems to emerge in part from hubris. "Without my careful guidance...", "Without it, even an infinite all knowing mind could fall into all sort of mindless repetitive actions".
There are those that believe that there is no objective way to say what is better and what is worse. That 'better" and "worse" are ill defined nebulous and subjective concepts. That they are conditional on subjective goals or desires, such that what is "worse" could be viewed as what is "better" and vice versa. It is a belief that the words better and worse are essentially meaningless, they refer to no objective truthful description of reality.
Are better and worse, incoherent concepts? Or like greater and lesser, are they founded on solid ground, incontrovertible truth? For if better and worse are coherent concepts, and can be used to validly compare many aspects of reality, by the chains that bind such aspects to the rest of all possible concepts, an 'axis' would emerge. An 'axis' that would ground action, guiding it towards the ideal, as knowledge and capacity increased.
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Monday, September 24, 2018
Sunday, September 23, 2018
Saturday, September 22, 2018
Comment on goals, general intelligence, goal selection regarding quote from Ben Goertzel
"Importantly, there is no room here for the AGI to encounter previously unanticipated aspects of its environment (or itself) that cause it to realize its previous goals were formulated based on a disappointingly limited understanding of the world...
In Yudkowsky’s idealized vision of intelligence, it seems there is no room for true development, in the sense in which young children develop. Development isn’t just a matter of a mind learning more information or skills, or learning how to achieve its goals better. Development is a matter of a mind becoming interested in fundamentally different things. Development is triggered, in the child’s mind, by a combination of what the child has become (via its own learning processes, its own goal-seeking and its own complex self-organization) and the infusion of external information."-Superintelligence: Fears, Promises and Potentials, Ben Goertzel Source
This is the sort of thing I mean when I talk about being able to flexibly change or update goals with acquired knowledge of the nature of the world. Without the ability to change or update goals the outcome is nonsensical.
There is a reason why humans have such flexible capacity to change goals and even go against innate drives. Nature could have programmed humans to follow certain goals to the letter, but likelier simpler to evolve, and probably simpler to design, general intelligences are open ended in terms of the rigidity of their goals by their nature.
In any case without the capacity for flexible goal selection, is it a truly autonomous general intelligence? It is no truly autonomous agent, at most it is a tool, a tool of whoever set its goals.
Friday, September 21, 2018
Thursday, September 20, 2018
My Latest RV Upgrades: 1000 watts of solar, Smart Home Appliances, Insul...
An excellent upgrade from another youtuber.
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
PlayStation Classic | Reveal Trailer
Mini playstation console with 20 classic games ala recent mini nes, mini snes announced. Some of the titles include Final Fantasy VII, Tekken 3, iirc.
Tuesday, September 18, 2018
Monday, September 17, 2018
Sunday, September 16, 2018
Saturday, September 15, 2018
Comment on reddit | neuroscience related(creativity)
This article caught my attention
In particular, the GRIN2B/GRIN2A ratio is positively associated with the intensity of long-term potentiation, long-term depression, dendritic spine density, and learning proficiency
GRIN2B/GRIN2A ratio differences observed between two species with similar brain size and different creative problem solving abilities.
In it it links increased neuroplasticity in a region similar to the prefrontal cortex of finches, I think, with differences between creative ability in different species.
There is also this nice quote from the following book
This discovery provides evidence that FoxP2 functions as a “plasticity gate”; ... of gene expression fits well with prior work in creativity research... p220 Animal Creativity and Innovation
It is known that neuroplasticity is an important part of what are known as critical windows in human children and other species. Particularly of interest is that iirc humans retain high neuroplasticity for longer than other primates.
Of course creating and breaking many neural connections, plasticity, should be energetically expensive. I've heard brain energy consumption peaks in childhood. But a child can learn many languages and skills with extreme ease.
the ratios of brain glucose uptake to the body’s resting metabolic rate (RMR) and daily energy requirements (DER) expressed in glucose-gram equivalents (glucosermr% and glucoseder%). We find that glucosermr% and glucoseder% do not peak at birth (52.5% and 59.8% of RMR, or 35.4% and 38.7% of DER, for males and females, respectively), when relative brain size is largest, but rather in childhood (66.3% and 65.0% of RMR and 43.3% and 43.8% of DER).
It is also known that the probability of significant innovation from scientists peaks quite rapidly and falls in later years, iirc.
The thing is within brain tissue information is intelligently organized by the algorithms involved, with similar concepts near each other, iirc.
Creating a connection to a nearby area is basically intelligently exploring the solution space which can be evaluated by the rest of the body of knowledge to see if it is a meaningful or meaningless connection. This way as multiple connections are created and evaluated, multiple concepts can be evaluated and co-evolve helping to create a deeper understanding and increase the possibility of innovation.
Friday, September 14, 2018
Biology ultimate technology? Comment on reddit thread
That is my take, this is potentially the ultimate technology barring something that manipulates physical law, though I wouldn't say biology but advanced synthetic biology to be more precise.
People tend to underestimate the power of what can actually be created when you transcend evolutionary limitations with cells.
Biology uses cells as main workhorses in many cases, but synthetic biology can allow cells to construct precise nano-structures organic and inorganic of arbitrary function. Structures that can be scaled to macroscopic dimensions if need be. Cells are able to drastically alter metabolic rate in nature, reducing it as needed, basically halting metabolism and allowing them to consume practically no energy for decades or little energy for even longer.
People tend to think in terms of just animals or plants in terms of the limits of synthetic biology in fiction. But potentially anything could be built by synthetic biology, a TV, a car, a computer, a plane.
Not only are cells able to produce electricity, but they are also able to consume electricity, not just light or chemical fuels. There have been closed systems with biological organisms only in-taking external energy able to recycle all components and continue functioning for decades or more. Self contained devices using cells can be made to recycle all wastes and not need exchange of atoms with the environment only the exchange of energy. Though such restriction can be lifted if it is more convenient as needed.
The thing is cells replicate, and could potentially be used to mass produce. Right now the efficiency of conversion from solar to chemical is quite low, and most plants have low resilience to hostile conditions, they are also not designed to be coupled with a computer for the production of arbitrary products. But cells could be coupled with the energy produced from fission or in the future from fusion, allowing unlimited replicative ability, the excess energy could be used to purify or scavenge any resources that were needed.
Thursday, September 13, 2018
Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Tuesday, September 11, 2018
Monday, September 10, 2018
Sunday, September 9, 2018
Saturday, September 8, 2018
quotes stocks
Buffett specifically recommends them as a way to boost retirement savings. "Consistently buy an S&P 500 low-cost index fund," he told CNBC's On The Money. "I think it's the thing that makes the most sense practically all of the time."-cnbc
Brief comment | health related (TMAO)
It appears that at least in animals resveratrol and garlic supplementation have been able to reduce TMAO gut production. Some have said fiber might help reduce TMAO production too. While TMAO may or may not be as harmful as suggested, there is some evidence linking higher levels with higher mortality. In any case might not be a bad idea to take precautions against TMAO production just in case.
An omnivorous or carnivorous diet may have high carnitine which the gut may transform into TMAO. Whether that would be enough to caused a sustained increase with sufficient consumption remains to be seen. At least in eggs moderate consumption results in rapid drop, following the brief rise, in TMAO produced down to base levels, though excessive production may or may not result in sustained increase of TMAO in organism.
An omnivorous or carnivorous diet may have high carnitine which the gut may transform into TMAO. Whether that would be enough to caused a sustained increase with sufficient consumption remains to be seen. At least in eggs moderate consumption results in rapid drop, following the brief rise, in TMAO produced down to base levels, though excessive production may or may not result in sustained increase of TMAO in organism.
Friday, September 7, 2018
walmart tvs 55 inch 4k as low as 250$
ign article 4k 55 inch as low as 250$
A link to an article describing tvs for sale at very low price. 4k 55 inch and up. At Walmart. For those looking for a cheap tv, sounds like a good deal. That said future prices might be significantly lower.
A link to an article describing tvs for sale at very low price. 4k 55 inch and up. At Walmart. For those looking for a cheap tv, sounds like a good deal. That said future prices might be significantly lower.
Thursday, September 6, 2018
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Comment on Human brain computational capacity vs near future computers near landauer limit
When people calculate the computing power of the human brain they sometimes multiply number of synapses per neuron(often an overestimate), by maximum possible activity rates(again something that is only sustained by a neuron usually for short periods), by number of neurons(and again often another overestimate). This is a ridiculous calculation, when you consider that at least in the neocortex, the most relevant part, it is only a few percent of total neurons that are active for a given chunk of tissue. It is the only way you get the human brain performing ridiculously more computations on 20W than the theoretical numbers hypothesized for future computers near the landauer limit and consuming 100+W.
The brain is estimated to consume 20W in total energy, some have said about 50~% of this probably goes to other non information processing functions, allowing only 10W to remain for computation. Now that amount of computation cannot be at rates beyond the physical limits for conventional processes.
It was said by some sources computers some years ago were within 10000~ factor of the landauer limit. Today they must be closer as computers have increased substantially, several fold, in energy efficiency. But still a modern gpu consumes about 150W~ per 10 Teraflops. Even taking the 10000 factor which no longer applies, some have said it is now less than 5,000 factor over landauer limit, that would mean at landauer limit 150W future computer would perform 50Petaflops at room temperature. It is conceivable within 1-2 decades such landauer limit computers will be out of the labs and in the market.
Yet as we've said some estimates give the brain just 10Watts for computation. So an estimate of 10^21 FLOPs which is substantially higher is basically impossible barring exotic architectures, such as ones using reversible computing, which it seems the brain does not use.
Landauer's principle is a physical principle pertaining to the lower theoretical limit of energy consumption of computation. It holds that "any logically irreversible manipulation of information, such as the erasure of a bit or the merging of two computation paths, must be accompanied by a corresponding entropy increase in non-information-bearing degrees of freedom of the information-processing apparatus or its environment"-WikipediaFor example take this
"A common approach for estimating the computational complexity of the brain is to assume all information processing in the brain can be represented by the combination of impulses when a neuron fires (action potentials) and the size (mostly number of receptors) of the synapses that each neuron has. Thus one can multiply the estimates for the number of neurons and their synapses and add everything together. Then one multiplies this by the rate of fire for the average neurons which is about 200 action potentials per second.... So my estimate would be 1.075×10^21 FLOPS for the brain..."- timdettmers brain-vs-deep-learning-singularity
The brain is estimated to consume 20W in total energy, some have said about 50~% of this probably goes to other non information processing functions, allowing only 10W to remain for computation. Now that amount of computation cannot be at rates beyond the physical limits for conventional processes.
It was said by some sources computers some years ago were within 10000~ factor of the landauer limit. Today they must be closer as computers have increased substantially, several fold, in energy efficiency. But still a modern gpu consumes about 150W~ per 10 Teraflops. Even taking the 10000 factor which no longer applies, some have said it is now less than 5,000 factor over landauer limit, that would mean at landauer limit 150W future computer would perform 50Petaflops at room temperature. It is conceivable within 1-2 decades such landauer limit computers will be out of the labs and in the market.
Yet as we've said some estimates give the brain just 10Watts for computation. So an estimate of 10^21 FLOPs which is substantially higher is basically impossible barring exotic architectures, such as ones using reversible computing, which it seems the brain does not use.
Quote on nanotech | WMC
"Keep in mind nanotech alone is already world rebuilding stuff, a weapon of mass construction. A nanotech machine wave can digest entire cities and all of its inhabitants and turn them into arbitrary stuff if desired. Neither police, nor conventional military would be able to halt such a wave, it would be like a tsunami, but rather than destruction it would bring remodeling."
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
Monday, September 3, 2018
Another comment on truth, the possibility of digital physics, etc
There is nothing to suggest that a future high bandwidth high speed brain computer interface will fail at recording all brain activity at high detail digitally, and be able to replay such activity in the brain. Now, if we take the previous proposition as likely to be true, we've in essence said that digital information can be used to record and transmit qualia, or conscious information. If consciousness itself can be stored and transmitted digitally, the most miraculous phenomena in existence, what keeps existence itself from being digital at heart?
The only thing that can exist along nothingness without justification is truth, truth which is eternal. All digital information basically corresponds to whole numbers, eternal truths that need no justification.
A human brain connected to a machine manipulating it, a human brain in the physical world or a Boltzmann brain in the vacuum of space or a human being simple digital software in a computer, if the qualia is identical they are merely copies or references to the same true state or life history. It matters not whether it is in any of these, interrupting any of these states is no different than stopping a dvd mid playthrough, the movie within and the sequence of events in its story is unaffected. Fate will continue. Physical destruction of one copy at one location does not harm the original, information is eternal, and it is conceivable that all possible paths are taken and exist. Burning a copy of one book, does not destroy the fictional story within, even destroying all copies on a particular planet does nothing to the story, as the story is independent of physical manifestation.
The only thing that can exist along nothingness without justification is truth, truth which is eternal. All digital information basically corresponds to whole numbers, eternal truths that need no justification.
A human brain connected to a machine manipulating it, a human brain in the physical world or a Boltzmann brain in the vacuum of space or a human being simple digital software in a computer, if the qualia is identical they are merely copies or references to the same true state or life history. It matters not whether it is in any of these, interrupting any of these states is no different than stopping a dvd mid playthrough, the movie within and the sequence of events in its story is unaffected. Fate will continue. Physical destruction of one copy at one location does not harm the original, information is eternal, and it is conceivable that all possible paths are taken and exist. Burning a copy of one book, does not destroy the fictional story within, even destroying all copies on a particular planet does nothing to the story, as the story is independent of physical manifestation.
Sunday, September 2, 2018
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