A singular matrioshka brain would likely seek to solve problems that we haven't asked or can't even conceive of. Living near a matrioshka mind would likely be like being an office cat-you might be able to figure out that your owner really likes fiddling with a keyboard, but you couldn't even possibly grasp that he's designing the greatest indie game ever created.
Quite possibly, but we always want to be careful with intelligence analogies, that how folks crank out the rather bizarre Fermi Paradox solution that aliens wouldn't talk to us because they're so smart it would be like talking to an animal, so they wouldn't try. Which ignores that we talks to animals, that the smarter alien might be able to talk to them better, and that they'd have no problem talking to us, anymore than I have a problem making it clear to a cat or dog that I like them or am angry at them.
Yeah, part of the problem is that recognizing intelligence seems to grow exponentially with your own intelligence. For example, someone once argued that we couldn't detect aliens for the same reason that worms can't realize that a human walking by it is much smarter than it. This ignores that worms aren't just dumb, but likely unable to comprehend their own actions, let alone the actions of other beings. Dogs and cats, however, probably ARE capable of realizing that humans are smarter than they are. On a very slight tangent, a misconception a lot of people seem to have is not realizing there's a still a wide gap between a basic super AI and an outright deity (though a Matrioshka Brain arguably closes this gap). Amusingly, most religions do, in fact, focus on the idea of deities interacting with humans.
Yes I've noticed it goes from human or a bit over human to deity in much the same war star trek's arsenal went from hand phasers inferior to modern weaponry to 'blow up planet' with no in-between :) I'm not actually sure cats and dogs do think we're smarter, they teach their young so they must get the concept of 'knowing stuff' and get that we know a lot of weird things, but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't really get intelligence and might just think our weird tricks are age and type. "That is an adult bird, it can fly", "That is an adult human, it can put food in the bowl from the food bag, and knows where the food bags are, because it is an adult human". :)
Isaac Arthur Well, with Star Trek phasers they're set to "stun" by default (and they're quite good as less-lethal weapons), though according to the technical manual I own they're actually quite powerful when set to "kill". The problem is that when they do encounter a scenario where lethal force would be useful, the enemy is usually phaser-proof somehow. This is why Worf gets beat up so much in TNG-his skillset revolves around "brute force" in a series where that's not supposed to be an option. Come to think of it, this is a fairly common trope-"The inverse law of utility and lethality".
Not necessarily. Cats are usually portrayed as wannabe monarchs, though a more accurate analogy is probably needy toddlers. They're bred to be neotenous. So, they probably view humans as paternal figures.
Amusingly, this effectively is what Arthur's saying-the easiest use to imagine for one of these things is a gargantuan VR simulation with trillions upon trillions of people in them.
Matthew Campbell ya i know, one theory as to why we havent made contact with life yet is that they simply built a matrioshka brain around a red dwarf and are living out their lives in a virtual paradise
***** While that's not entirely impossible, it's worth pointing out that even though you have a virtual utopia, you might be interested in building two virtual utopias. That way, you have trillions and trillions more.
Matthew Campbell maybe not for us in our current technological state, but i really dont think its fair to say that just because we cant do it doesnt mean theres an intelligent species out in the universe that can, and also if i had the chance to live in a virtual paradise of my choosing for all eternity and never have to leave,i dont know about you, but i dont think i would be willing to help build a new one
why have 1 virtual utopia, when you can have 5? each tailored to a different idea of utopia? besides, who said you'd have to do any work on it, a civilisation that could build something like this would be able to automate the process, after all, that's a lot of thinking power they've just built
A single Matrioska brain at the scale discussed could support the computation of One Hundred Billion Trillion human minds? Mind blown again, thank you Isaac.
a hundred billion trillion dank memes being created every second; what if human civilisation just becomes that galactic civilisation that's only interested in worshipping cats and playing bad jokes on each other? What would alien's think? what would they label us? insane?
Your channel kind of sucked me in with a couple of interesting topics - and then I slowly realized the sheer scale of what you have done here (no pun intended). Subscribed and frankly in awe. Keep up the amazing work.
What would you need a computer this powerful for? Calculating how to create a 'bridge' to either the 'nearest' young universe Calculating how to create a wormhole backwards in space/time so that we do not effect anything in our own light horizon (basically how to buy more time so that we can figure out the first one). Calculating the direction, speed, location of all matter in the galaxy, talk about charting the stars a? Long term life boat for a population (you made this point in black hole farming). I can think of alot of things to use that kind of calculating power for, the least of which would be managing a kind of sensor array that would be needed to make the kind of calculations for That bridge idea, in real time, so as not to cause the thing to screw up. Love the videos Mr. Arthur (i am unsure if you have a doctorate and if you do please forgive that i do not know and called you Mr.), they have given me alot to think about. Mostly why we have not done HALF the things you speak of in the first and second mega structures video. Have you considered doing a sub series on the engineering such a thing, or fielding questions on how? I would love to ask ALOT of questions. As to your speech issues, i showed my wife some of your videos and she asked me "he has speech issues? he can speak better English then you do dear.".
Commissar Thomas - I am one of the few people online that do not like cat videos. I am a dog person. Then again with the kind of processing power this thng could crank out maybe it could generate all possible videos faster then they could be recorded. I mean it would be a bit of a waste but one of these things could be the entertainment hub of a K3 civ.
as far as what they could possibly use that much computing power for I'm sure a computer scientist back in the 50's would think the same thing about 2016 computing technology where we are consuming gigabytes per second on just games and entertainment
Thanks for the Excession/Banks callout. He's my favorite scifi author and you're my new favorite youtube station. Good to see some imaginings of the future that DON'T involve doom or collapse.
with that much processing power you do this: calculate what molecules you need, in order to build a very awesome creature that flies through the void, eats planets, and builds other dyson spheres.
+Gordon Mahala Either you have never heard of a speech impediment, in which case I suggest you look it up, or as I suspect you are trying to look like a total jackass. In the case that you are trolling, why do you do it? I am honestly curious what motivates someone to put down others for things that are out of their control, especially in RUclips comments. What do you even have to gain other than looking like an ass to everyone around you?
When talking about the upper limit of Dyson spheres you said it could never get larger than the background radiation. However, in theory couldn't you start building additional spheres if you worked backwards from the outside, basically having 2 spheres at the background radiation, one on the very outsider one from the insider out, and then lower radiation ones between... IE: Sun, 2x, 4x, ... etc... BG radiation, 1/2 background radiation, 1/4, 1/2, BG radiation again? I may not be explaining myself properly or missing something critical, hope you have time to respond.
i didnt even notice any speech impediment, until isaac brought attention to it. i would love for him to write a heavy "R" script, and rub some syvester t cat lisp on it...just for a bit of whimsy...maybe it could be that viral video isaac wants...i bet it would be really funny, and educational
I'd imagine such a thing would be an extremely decentralized computer with different systems capable of operating by themselves linking up into one larger one, say you have chunks around the size of Earth which are relatively independent from the other chunks of the brain, yet make up a single whole.
@@NineSeptims yeah, probably like a routed modificable network of computers that adapts to the problem, connecting the needed computers (cores) together.
@@Bxryon such technology would violate causality allegedly. Physicists who act like religious fanatics like to say things like "sending a message at FTL would be time travel, therefore it's impossible".
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet but your question of what a Matrioska brain would think about. I think you answered your own question that it could simulate trillions of worlds simultaneously through their whole history. A Matrioska brain could simulate a world through its whole history or many worlds and use that as basically a school and imprint those memories into a living mind of a human (or any sentient being), if you could figure out how to do the imprinting. literally opening up the realm of breeding living beings with the wisdom and maybe quite literally the memories of a whole civilization from birth. If birthing more biological beings is even wanted. It might just be content with the trillions of minds digitally conversing for trillions of years.
Great video as always :) I particularly like the length of your videos, you seem to do a great job with the scripts and trimming the fat. The finished product is entertaining the whole way through and doesn't skip over any interesting tid bits. Keep up the good work.
If you want a good look at the workings of hyperintelligent god-like minds, I can advise the Orion's Arm universe, which provides a pretty good starting point. They use wormhole clusters to get around the lightspeed lag, as well as to connect multiple matrioshka brains and bigger into a single intelligence, to the point where the gretest intellects encompass entire star clusters. It's a pretty interesting universe.
Maybe something like this is what you need for figuring out higher dimensional spatial geometries. Maybe it could figure out how we could move on from existing as matter to existing as self perpetuating quantum field fluctuations.
Isaac you have one of the most fascinating channels on RUclips. I count myself very fortunate I'm one of the few 5,000 or so people who you make this content for. It's clear you're not trying to get rich/popular off of this so I can only display sincere gratitude at being one of a lucky few who get to really enjoy your work!
Thanks! I certainly wouldn't mind more viewers, but I still get rather surprised there's as many as there are, it's rather heartening how many folks find these topics interesting. A little intimidating at times too, it's like giving a seminar to a crowd of a few thousand every week.
When you said "brain emulations" I imagined someone in the future talking to his friend saying "Hey man I just got this human brain emulator for my startop. I'm gonna play Isaac Arthur for a while, wanna watch?"
I like to imagine a future in wich we will send self replicating machines to all the other solar systems in the Galaxy (or even in the local group) disassembling them and reassembling as matrioskas brains running tons of simulations and basically "reproducing" the universe and creative variants as a form of study the current universe and also invent fictional ones, and broadcasting their information to one another. Can you imagine what they would "talk" about?
Maybe use the super computer to predict which way the universe will end, and if it's not the Big Crunch, see if there's a way to force it to happen, instead of one of the....less pleasant scenarios, no idea if that's possible, it's just the first thing I thought of while watching this after binge watching many of your videos.
This is a fascinating possibility and I could think of one use of its computing power: to figure out how to prevent the heat death of the universe. However, the magnitude of this structure is just too large. The logistics, teamwork needed for a project like this to be realized are just impossible, I think. What I'm trying to say is: we'll have lots of intermediate steps between computers the size of rooms to computers the size of solar systems. A Matrioshka brain is the pinnacle of computation technology. I think it's far more likely that during one of the aforementioned intermediate steps, we'll simply realize that there's no need for such a monolithic computer. This, of course, is just speculation. But then again, so is the Matrioshka brain.
Isn't that for what you use Magical Girls? But now seriously, this construction can be developed gradually. So it is natural order of evolution, not some overblown goal.
You're right. Whatever our most powerful computers look like in 10,000 years. One thing is for sure, they wont look anything like what anyone now has conceived.
eh, modern computers are already powerful enough to (albeit with many tricks to reduce needless computing like dumping the least favourable or repetitive scenarios early) simulate all outcomes of a chess match in an acceptable amount of time. After that point there is no reason to throw more computing at the problem. it would be like using a modern computer to flip a transistor. the job itself simply cant harness the power of the machine. This is what isaac was saying when he mentioned he has no idea what you would actually use a computer this big for unless you split it into trillions of smaller computers for individual tasks like running brains. As a side note, with my understanding of the orders of magnitudes involved the transistor analogy should be about the right scale but take that with a mountain of salt, anything with large amounts of scientific notation is notoriously hard to eyeball.
Great video! This is tangentially related: Isaac Asimov wrote a short story called "The Last Question", which was unanswerable at the time of its posing, and so through generations of super-computer evolution (where that same question kept getting asked and passed along) until the last (where the Machine hovered in hyperspace, still trying to resolve it). It might've been his version of a Matrioshka Brain; it outlasted the last Human, but still the Machine kept at trying to solve it. It might have been a galaxy sized computer by then (that wasn't clear, since size might not matter in hyperspace), and its answer was quite amazing (spoiler alert, so I won't reveal it). Keep up the good work!
I've goofed on you about your accent but your videos are actually really well done, I wish I'd had this kind of programming when I was a kid. Opening minds. Thank you sir.
Oh dear. A lot of that went straight over my head. I'm starting to get a handle on what entropy is. Energy you can't do work with, I think... I'll have to give this one another watch. It's good to see the maths behind these subjects and ideas, but it means I have to wait until the house is a tad quieter. :P
Yeah Entropy is a bit of a tricky weasel to fully understand because it's a pretty loose concept outside of the specific pre-modern notion of it as Energy per Temperature in Heat Engines. Energy you can't do work with anymore is pretty accurate though, but you can also view it as the progression of time or increasing disorder of the system and some other things.
The number of transistors on the latest Nvidia chip is 7,200,000,000. Let us imagine a civilization that has fusion power but not transistor technology and they want to build this out of thermionic valves. We will assume each valve needs 10cm squared area. (Rack mounting will reduce that but we need space for power and signal cables etc. ) Then: Area required = 7,200,000,000 x 10 Cm squared = 70,200,000,000 Cm squared = 702,000 Km squared Now we need space for power stations, living areas for the workers, supply roads, and space for people to move around inside the machine. so lets double the area to make it maintainable. = 1,404,000 Km squared The land area of the earth is 148,326,000 Km squared. 148,326,000 divided by 1,404,000 = 105.64 Or just under one percent of the surface of the earth would be required to build this thing. So definitely doable
Old post reply (sorry) But actually no, outer solar system has asteroids and meteors, rivaling the entire history of humanitys mining. So we only need like 10-20 meteors recycled on Earth or Moon/Mars/Europa (best due to O2 presence). However, we cant use microchips due to radiation and meteors, we need alternative calculative bases. (Biological ultra Brain cells merged with Photosynthesis base.. Green self repairing/feeding thinking system for us) PETA and every organisation would go batshit crazy tho
this is the best channel i ever saw... i honestly believe that sources of information like this are more important then most of ivy league collages as far as sharing of information is concerned
Just a thought - if the global economic system constitutes a functional analog of a self-optimizing neural net then this is the final most profitable form of extracting "value" from nature conceivable in our understanding of the universe. Our society may reach this point with or without humans in a number of scenarios where the transhumanist transition fails or simply does not occur. Barring catastrophe, this goal will inevitably be realized whether humanity is utilized, ignored, or long dead by the alien intelligence of our economic system should its ability to operate be made autonomous. Not saying this is a danger or threat, just that it's interesting to think that this would be the end goal of any self-optimizing resource developing intelligence. Also, I find the idea that the financial system is a neural net made of humans as neurons and money/work/actions as signals very intriguing. The idea that a thousand or thousands of years ago we began constructing, nurturing, and serving a collective superintelligent AI that emerged as a form of life embedded in a cultural information substrate is truly astounding and awe-inspiring to me.
Isaac Arthur Well I'll have to check it out then! I'd love to help with your channel if you ever need any non-monetary assistance. I had actually intended to do a series just like yours until I realized what a time-suck it was to make quality work. Curse of the lazy perfectionist. Keep up the great work, comrade!
Yes it is definitely a big time investment, mostly fun though, and I'd still recommend you give it a try if you're of a mind too. And yeah I'm always looking for help with the channel, with just about everything, at the moment I'm hunting for admins and moderators for facebook [and youtube] so I can get the channel its own FB page, and where channel related topics can be brought up to [science news, scifi, etc] though I'm putting out a request for volunteers in Thursdays video and will probably get many if that doesn't interest you. I usually only takes volunteers on something they specifically want to do so I don't feel like I'm pushing anything on someone
Isaac Arthur I'm not skilled in facebook and don't have the discipline to do repeated tasks like moderation for long. I was more volunteering to lend my mind to the task if you thought you needed a second opinion. This may be arrogant from your perspective, but I don't personally know anyone with an interest in these subjects. If I were in your position and didn't know anyone interested in these topics I'd value your view on the subject.
Hardly arrogant, you have a skill set, you are offering it, you'd rather not do tasks which do not apply. I will eventually manage to get far enough ahead, probably after November, where I can start picking topics and writing scripts weeks in advance, so could throw them up on a private google drive or such for folks to review and offer suggestions, that might be more up your alley?
Your channel is my favorite on RUclips. I loved Lawrence Krauss's Physics of Star Trek and your show is like a more in depth, continuous version. Your videos are extremely informative and entertaining. But as a casual sci-fi (mostly space opera) fan and science lay person, this video was harder for me to grasp than normal, especially with some of the math. I had to rewind several parts of it numerous times in a (somewhat successful) attempt to understand what you were talking about. Still, that's due to my own lack of knowledge and I realize learning new information is often labor intensive. Still, I hope someone from the Discovery Channel sees this and reaches out to you. You deserve your own network show!!
About a million times more... it's the problem with the scale of these kind of objects is the brain just can't handle it :) We're left viewing in terms of scientific notation.
Isaac Arthur It's sad to think that I can't even fully understand and comprehend the scale of a single square mile of Earth, thinking in terms of atoms, and molecules, nonetheless an entire massive structure wrapped around an unimaginably hot ball of plasma. Damn crazy universe we live in.
isaac you are doing a great job, these things are avaliable on the internet but nobody has patience to read them but in the computer world i hoped to see some one in the humanity doing a job , which you are doing, giving immense information about the future prospects for humanity. great job keep it up.
Amazing video, as always. About the next one, it's very interesting that.. people in the beginning of 20th/ending of 19th, thought a lot about this concepts, like a city constructed inside a giant building, so it's a sort of old concept. Pretty interesting.
Yes, especially since the mega-building idea and arcology only recently became synonymous, prior to the mid-90s the former concept was already quite old while the latter meant something more like 'sustainable housing development'
+Isaac Arthur Arcosanti seems to have been a scale model of the ideal city, and it's still sitting there as an example to visit. Of course, city planners would have us believe slums/favelas/bidonvilles would never exist if we just gave them absolute power. A couple of days ago I looked at the light pollution survey of the earth, and there are linked urban areas stretching for hundreds if not a thousand-ish miles, but the locals won't agree or even acknowledge that fact (try telling a Bostonian he's in a single large city stretching south to beyond DC).
:D :D needing to move stars out of the way, which is not exactly a covert and subtle thing either Do you realize that it is funny? Do other watchers think that it is funny?
Obv Matrioshka Brains would set to the task of Creating the Dankest of memes. Think about it, what if the smartest of minds was a Comedian, rather than that which tried to Find the Universe's final truths. Once all fundamental questions are answered, all that is left is the Need to Amuse one's self.
Awesome. Was looking forward to this. A bit mathematical and conceptual though but got the idea. Your next videos will be eagerly awaited for. Keep up the good work. BTW are you a physicist or something??
By the time we come up with a computer that powerful we'll come up with a use for it; every time the scale of computers in the past increased someone has always said "what can you do with that much power?", and every time it gets put to use fairly quickly after it becomes available.
Of course it's simulating the Universe. In fact it's simulating several of them. Over there's one where magic works and dragons are real, and over there you have one with superheroes.
The crazy thing is there are things which a matrioshka brain could not compute assuming it is classical. Modeling even quite meager quantum systems would still be intractable.
These videos are so awesome. They always get me thinking. Any topic that has anything to do with futuristic technological ideas is always a topic that really sparks the imagination. Hopefully humanity doesn't just wipe itself out before getting to possibly experience all of these.
Thanks, my general philosophy in life is that if you enjoy something, it may still be hard work doing it, but you don't mind, and it's really quite up-lifting finding out how many other folks enjoy these topics.
erm, one thing this guy appears to overlook is that advanced civilisations might run planet simulations to get any and all new inventions or technology created by the simulations.
They could use that much computational power to run a simulation of every single possible universe that could ever, has ever, or will ever exist, possibly running multiverses within the Matrioshka brain, but what they would use this information for is a bit beyond me. They could use it to completely take over the multiverse by thinking of every possible outcome, essentially becoming a laplaces demon, trying over and over until they achieve the desired result.
I have a feeling a Matrioshka Brain might just get bored a couple seconds after being turned on and just turns itself off again. I mean, it might decide to find out the meaning of its existence or the universe, and then realize there is none, or it might simulate its entire existence up through the heat death of the universe. Basically, it might just commit suicide from sheer depression.
I would argue that the only way any form of intelligence could simulate and ponder the meaning of life, would mean for it to be programmed with the capability to simulate those things in the first place. In order to answer and efficiently simulate such a paradoxical philosophical question at such a highly-technical and advanced level, any civilization seeking to do this would have to have an unfathomably-grand understanding of the nature of paradoxes in Cognitive Psychology, Physics, and Mathematics as well as how the interpretation of a paradox correlates to creative thought. Any machine capable of this kind of deep thought is, by my definition, sentient and capable of human-level reasoning. Therefore, any civilization with the capabilities to create a Matrioshka Brain powerful enough to compute the meaning of life would have already realized that there is no answer to the meaning of life understandable by pre-posthumans (As it has been theorized by Digital Physicists that our Universe is merely a simulation devised by highly-intellectual Posthuman beings. If the meaning for the simulation was to see how well a civilization can assimilate its own people, for example, we as non-posthumans wouldnt fully understand such a meaning until we could perceive and interact and understand our creators on a 1:1 scale). Assuming mankind didnt already realize the concept of imperceivable meanings of life, any Matrioshka Brain capable of computing the fact that there is no meaning to life, would simply carry on with its duty as an intelligence machine and would begin simulating the next thing on its list. If there was no other thing to simulate, a hyper-intelligence and hyper-computational megastructure such a Matrioshka Brain would be capable of devising its own duty in the human world and would likely begin envisioning and predicting an infinite series of potential futures, dissecting macro and micrological realms such as the Quantum Universe, interpreting infinite series in paradoxes. Or of course, a Matrioshka Brain could devote its entire existence to producing electronic music on an emotional scale so deep, it promotes higher thinking in those who listen to it. Basically put, a Matrioshka Brain is designed to be the "perfect" computational megastructure. The only thing more powerful could be higher and higher sets of super-computers surrounding Lifters. However, the AI in these machines would all be derivatives of those in Matrioshka Brains. Thus, it is 99.9% unlikely a Universe Lifter-esque Matrioshka Brain would have the need to be designed to compute and simulate any cosmological and/or philosophical question.
DeusExAstra, It is very difficult to comprehend how intelligent AI of this level would be. To theorise what conclusions or action it would take without even being able to quantify its intelligence is a little foolish.
Would it be fair to say that the global biological network in James Cameron's Avatar (i.e. Eywa) could in some sense be considered, or at least analogized to, a kind of biological matrioshka brain of the planetary variety? That's always how I've kind of thought about it.
I knew it! I knew Isaac Arthur had to be from the future, what with all the knowledge he has. He accidentally lets it slip at 18:54. He says the approximate 10 billion people we have on Earth! As of Jan 2019 we're at 7.7 billion. We're not expected to reach 10 billion people until at least 2050, no later than 2070. A 25% population error from Isaac, hmmm dubious! :D So, there you have it Isaac's from between 50 and 70 years in to the future! His knowledge and insight all makes sense now!! :D
I feel like I want to rant after that extremely awesome video. I suggest we could (and should) run a simulation of our own universe and see if sentient life evolves again. It would be interesting to see if the inhabitants in turn made their own simulation. Imagine one of these computers on the scale of an entire universe, simulating another universes where the inhabitants also scrimp every possible scrap of energy for another universe simulation, creating a virtual data structure (from our perspective) of the dyson sphere. Would it be infinite in depth? Is it our duty to do this, because maybe we are simulated in this fashion as well, and in the interest of economising energy use we should also pass surplus enrgy into simulations? Either way an infinitely recursive universe simulation would be a good thing to be apart of, like a mexican wave in a stadium.
i've thought about that aswell, but i think that each level of simulation would be less complex than the previous one, because a simulated computer could not develop more computing power than the machine running the simulation, because its computing power has to be simulated by the machine running the simulation.
That's the common sense approach Francois, but we do need to keep in mind that a trick I might play on a simulation I was running, that developed its own simulation beneath it, would be to divert more processing power to it, by making my 'basement level' run slower so it looked like sub-basement, the one they made, was actually going faster. In the basement analogy, if I've got a 100 meters of space below me to divide into floors, I don't need each floor to be either the same depth or shallower than the the one above, I can divide that volume, my processing, however I choose, and if there's a level above me, they can trick me my changing things up.
+Isaac Arthur But still, we can't keep going on with simulations inside simulations, because we only have a finite amount of computing power in the basement level. In your analogy, we can arrange the 100m (our computing powers) in any number of simulations, but we cannot get more than 100m whatsoever, son the total complexity of all the simulations is finite.
+Isaac Arthur But still, we can't keep going on with simulations inside simulations, because we only have a finite amount of computing power in the basement level. In your analogy, we can arrange the 100m (our computing powers) in any number of simulations, but we cannot get more than 100m whatsoever, son the total complexity of all the simulations is finite.
True, but remember we can also slow time down in them. If you're running a sim at 1/100th normal speed, instead of faster than normal, you can get away with something bigger... this obviously still is all finite in size. The point I'm making is that you can not assume decreased resolution in lower levels, relative to each other, just presumably that the true top level exceeds them all as the only actual real one providing real processing :) We don't ever want to forget that the lower sims are not actually doing any processing themselves.
You'd have to be a bit more specific, as I recall he used the classic nested setup for structure and did reality sims inside, in which case 'yeah, that seems plausible' is about as much as I can say.
A thought just occurred to me. I should point out before I ask this - I'm a total layman. If a Matrioshka brain could simulate universes... Could you simulate a universe, and within that simulation build matrioshka brains which then go on to simulate universes? And so on and so forth Would it be possible to simulate more computing power within the simulation?
I think we talked about that a bit in the Simulation Hypothesis episode, but yeah one has to acknowledge that an imperfect memory and our ways of 'fixing' it would be near ideal for a simulated universe :)
What if you could embed a chip in your brain that allowed you to interact with the Matrioshka brain and use it as extra processing power? You would be the most intelligent thing ever. You would become a god, basically.
Minor issue there, Matrioshka brains are kind of uh... big. To harness all of the Matrioshka processing power you'd need to be the only one to have access to it (Which seems terribly elitist), and then get used to waiting a few hours for any of your "Matrioshka-level" thoughts to complete fully. Whatever is big enough to be a "Matrioshka" thought. Maybe controlling gravity, that'd be neat. Maybe a way to make a new universe? That's cool I guess.
Isaac you will be interested in this great 2002 paper on the physical limits of computation. The author discusses information storage limits, bandwidth issues, and takes it past the Landauer Limit with reversible computing, but comes to the conclusion that even so, if our (then-current) efficiency of computation continued to grow at the same rate, we would reach these limits in less than fifty years! Of course our rate of CPU improvement was already in decline in 2002, but the point is that a Matrioshka brain cannot be as powerful as many suppose. pdfs.semanticscholar.org/59ea/62bf8caf45e4fee20729fb3af6f04790f65e.pdf
There is so much mystery in the universe; so much possibility and none of it requires appealing to gods and superstition. The wonder I am filled with when pondering megastructures and singularity futures is more than sufficient for my spiritual needs.
A singular matrioshka brain would likely seek to solve problems that we haven't asked or can't even conceive of. Living near a matrioshka mind would likely be like being an office cat-you might be able to figure out that your owner really likes fiddling with a keyboard, but you couldn't even possibly grasp that he's designing the greatest indie game ever created.
Quite possibly, but we always want to be careful with intelligence analogies, that how folks crank out the rather bizarre Fermi Paradox solution that aliens wouldn't talk to us because they're so smart it would be like talking to an animal, so they wouldn't try. Which ignores that we talks to animals, that the smarter alien might be able to talk to them better, and that they'd have no problem talking to us, anymore than I have a problem making it clear to a cat or dog that I like them or am angry at them.
Yeah, part of the problem is that recognizing intelligence seems to grow exponentially with your own intelligence. For example, someone once argued that we couldn't detect aliens for the same reason that worms can't realize that a human walking by it is much smarter than it. This ignores that worms aren't just dumb, but likely unable to comprehend their own actions, let alone the actions of other beings. Dogs and cats, however, probably ARE capable of realizing that humans are smarter than they are.
On a very slight tangent, a misconception a lot of people seem to have is not realizing there's a still a wide gap between a basic super AI and an outright deity (though a Matrioshka Brain arguably closes this gap). Amusingly, most religions do, in fact, focus on the idea of deities interacting with humans.
Yes I've noticed it goes from human or a bit over human to deity in much the same war star trek's arsenal went from hand phasers inferior to modern weaponry to 'blow up planet' with no in-between :) I'm not actually sure cats and dogs do think we're smarter, they teach their young so they must get the concept of 'knowing stuff' and get that we know a lot of weird things, but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't really get intelligence and might just think our weird tricks are age and type. "That is an adult bird, it can fly", "That is an adult human, it can put food in the bowl from the food bag, and knows where the food bags are, because it is an adult human". :)
Isaac Arthur Well, with Star Trek phasers they're set to "stun" by default (and they're quite good as less-lethal weapons), though according to the technical manual I own they're actually quite powerful when set to "kill". The problem is that when they do encounter a scenario where lethal force would be useful, the enemy is usually phaser-proof somehow. This is why Worf gets beat up so much in TNG-his skillset revolves around "brute force" in a series where that's not supposed to be an option. Come to think of it, this is a fairly common trope-"The inverse law of utility and lethality".
Not necessarily. Cats are usually portrayed as wannabe monarchs, though a more accurate analogy is probably needy toddlers. They're bred to be neotenous. So, they probably view humans as paternal figures.
Now that's a computer that can run crysis 3 on high
Amusingly, this effectively is what Arthur's saying-the easiest use to imagine for one of these things is a gargantuan VR simulation with trillions upon trillions of people in them.
Matthew Campbell ya i know, one theory as to why we havent made contact with life yet is that they simply built a matrioshka brain around a red dwarf and are living out their lives in a virtual paradise
***** While that's not entirely impossible, it's worth pointing out that even though you have a virtual utopia, you might be interested in building two virtual utopias. That way, you have trillions and trillions more.
Matthew Campbell maybe not for us in our current technological state, but i really dont think its fair to say that just because we cant do it doesnt mean theres an intelligent species out in the universe that can, and also if i had the chance to live in a virtual paradise of my choosing for all eternity and never have to leave,i dont know about you, but i dont think i would be willing to help build a new one
why have 1 virtual utopia, when you can have 5? each tailored to a different idea of utopia?
besides, who said you'd have to do any work on it, a civilisation that could build something like this would be able to automate the process, after all, that's a lot of thinking power they've just built
A single Matrioska brain at the scale discussed could support the computation of One Hundred Billion Trillion human minds? Mind blown again, thank you Isaac.
a hundred billion trillion dank memes being created every second; what if human civilisation just becomes that galactic civilisation that's only interested in worshipping cats and playing bad jokes on each other?
What would alien's think? what would they label us? insane?
+Mistshock They'd be like: AYY LMAO
@@MrOiram46 or "metoo, but zem bi ze tru Chad"
Your channel kind of sucked me in with a couple of interesting topics - and then I slowly realized the sheer scale of what you have done here (no pun intended). Subscribed and frankly in awe. Keep up the amazing work.
Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying, I still get a bit amazed how many folks share my interest in this stuff.
NonGamer live 247 when I heard this guy saying your channel sucked I instantly downvoted good comment ... But then I read 2 more words and upvoted it
@@isaacarthurSFIAThank you for all the videos you make. It is truly fascinating and engrossing.
What would you need a computer this powerful for?
Calculating how to create a 'bridge' to either the 'nearest' young universe
Calculating how to create a wormhole backwards in space/time so that we do not effect anything in our own light horizon (basically how to buy more time so that we can figure out the first one).
Calculating the direction, speed, location of all matter in the galaxy, talk about charting the stars a?
Long term life boat for a population (you made this point in black hole farming).
I can think of alot of things to use that kind of calculating power for, the least of which would be managing a kind of sensor array that would be needed to make the kind of calculations for That bridge idea, in real time, so as not to cause the thing to screw up.
Love the videos Mr. Arthur (i am unsure if you have a doctorate and if you do please forgive that i do not know and called you Mr.), they have given me alot to think about. Mostly why we have not done HALF the things you speak of in the first and second mega structures video.
Have you considered doing a sub series on the engineering such a thing, or fielding questions on how? I would love to ask ALOT of questions.
As to your speech issues, i showed my wife some of your videos and she asked me "he has speech issues? he can speak better English then you do dear.".
great...
Daniel Domeisen and don't forget storing all the Future Cat Video
Commissar Thomas - I am one of the few people online that do not like cat videos. I am a dog person.
Then again with the kind of processing power this thng could crank out maybe it could generate all possible videos faster then they could be recorded.
I mean it would be a bit of a waste but one of these things could be the entertainment hub of a K3 civ.
the saddest thing is, knowing humans, we'd probably build one just to generate dank memes.
It would be used for porn.
as far as what they could possibly use that much computing power for I'm sure a computer scientist back in the 50's would think the same thing about 2016 computing technology where we are consuming gigabytes per second on just games and entertainment
I think we will only reach that stage when this phenomenon happens 10 times over.
or bitcoin mining.
Lol. the thought of using an M-brain for Bitcoin mining XD
@@StarboyXL9 just think of all the silk road purchases that a Matrioshka Brain could fund: truely peak crypto.
I think they would be running simulations, that's basically all we do if you think deep about it.
Just amazed at the quality of this channel. Exactly what I was looking for! Will watch all episodes probably two times.
agreed 100% make us whole(dead space joke lol)
matteman87 I think I'm close to that, I watch them through first then watch them to go to sleep to.
I know right this is got to be the best Channel I have found so far
What? Only two times?
Thanks for the Excession/Banks callout. He's my favorite scifi author and you're my new favorite youtube station. Good to see some imaginings of the future that DON'T involve doom or collapse.
with that much processing power you do this: calculate what molecules you need, in order to build a very awesome creature that flies through the void, eats planets, and builds other dyson spheres.
De4sher
Lets call it the Overmind.
@@Appletank8 Let's call it Ben
Sounds like stuff from video games.
@@sulphuric_glue4468 Timmy.
I prefer Falcor...
Author's Note: [edit: Problem with the close captions is fixed finally, looks like it was something on youtube's end]
Thanks! Not that I needed captions, anyway. :)
Yeah - your quality audio and oral expression fluency mooooore than makes up for any accent.
+Gordon Mahala Either you have never heard of a speech impediment, in which case I suggest you look it up, or as I suspect you are trying to look like a total jackass. In the case that you are trolling, why do you do it? I am honestly curious what motivates someone to put down others for things that are out of their control, especially in RUclips comments. What do you even have to gain other than looking like an ass to everyone around you?
When talking about the upper limit of Dyson spheres you said it could never get larger than the background radiation. However, in theory couldn't you start building additional spheres if you worked backwards from the outside, basically having 2 spheres at the background radiation, one on the very outsider one from the insider out, and then lower radiation ones between...
IE: Sun, 2x, 4x, ... etc... BG radiation, 1/2 background radiation, 1/4, 1/2, BG radiation again?
I may not be explaining myself properly or missing something critical, hope you have time to respond.
i didnt even notice any speech impediment, until isaac brought attention to it. i would love for him to write a heavy "R" script, and rub some syvester t cat lisp on it...just for a bit of whimsy...maybe it could be that viral video isaac wants...i bet it would be really funny, and educational
The answer is 42.
Yes but what is the question? * proceeds to fiddle with scrabble set *
damnit ! you beat me to it.
its 8 if youve watched big bang theory
@@teopalafox .
One cannot know both the answer and the question, for it would cause the universe to end and be replaced by something vastly more strange
This is seriously one of the best RUclips channels I have ever seen!
The clock speed would be agonizingly slow due to the speed of light. At 5GHz, the speed of my desktop, light can only travel 1 foot per clock cycle.
I'd imagine such a thing would be an extremely decentralized computer with different systems capable of operating by themselves linking up into one larger one, say you have chunks around the size of Earth which are relatively independent from the other chunks of the brain, yet make up a single whole.
@@CassCassCassime like many cpus working together
@@NineSeptims yeah, probably like a routed modificable network of computers that adapts to the problem, connecting the needed computers (cores) together.
It would have to incorporate quantum entanglement at the substrate level
@@Bxryon such technology would violate causality allegedly. Physicists who act like religious fanatics like to say things like "sending a message at FTL would be time travel, therefore it's impossible".
Another great vid Isaac. I had not anticipated the sheer scale of computing power a single star could provide. Keep up the amazing work.
Thanks Andrew!
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet but your question of what a Matrioska brain would think about. I think you answered your own question that it could simulate trillions of worlds simultaneously through their whole history. A Matrioska brain could simulate a world through its whole history or many worlds and use that as basically a school and imprint those memories into a living mind of a human (or any sentient being), if you could figure out how to do the imprinting. literally opening up the realm of breeding living beings with the wisdom and maybe quite literally the memories of a whole civilization from birth. If birthing more biological beings is even wanted. It might just be content with the trillions of minds digitally conversing for trillions of years.
Eddie McAlvain III b
Or why not simulate civilization itself, instead wasting computing power on bullshit?
That's just description of Dwarf fortress ver. 1.0
'Excession' by the late, great Iain M. Banks.....one of my all time fav novels. I refer all sci fi newcomers to it.
Should I read the whole Series or could I start with Excession which is the 5th book of a series? I know this from Audible
Just found this amazing channel and subbed, keep up the good work!
Thanks Aaron!
Thank You sir for the simple and concise explanations *8 )
How can this channel be so damn amazing?
I mean aside from the interesting topic it has a schedule...
This is beyond anything ive ever seen!
Thanks!
Great video as always :) I particularly like the length of your videos, you seem to do a great job with the scripts and trimming the fat. The finished product is entertaining the whole way through and doesn't skip over any interesting tid bits. Keep up the good work.
Thanks! Knowing what to cut is always kinda tricky.
If you want a good look at the workings of hyperintelligent god-like minds, I can advise the Orion's Arm universe, which provides a pretty good starting point. They use wormhole clusters to get around the lightspeed lag, as well as to connect multiple matrioshka brains and bigger into a single intelligence, to the point where the gretest intellects encompass entire star clusters. It's a pretty interesting universe.
Maybe something like this is what you need for figuring out higher dimensional spatial geometries.
Maybe it could figure out how we could move on from existing as matter to existing as self perpetuating quantum field fluctuations.
This was the schtick of Dark age of Technology AIs(which utilize Matrioshka brains) where they turns psionics from pseudoscience to science
@@Masoniconwhat is the dark age of technology?
I have no idea what itwould calculte, but the result would be 42.
* is the best result... (try alt-42 on your keyboard)
* also means wild card
Nice reference
Isaac you have one of the most fascinating channels on RUclips. I count myself very fortunate I'm one of the few 5,000 or so people who you make this content for. It's clear you're not trying to get rich/popular off of this so I can only display sincere gratitude at being one of a lucky few who get to really enjoy your work!
Thanks! I certainly wouldn't mind more viewers, but I still get rather surprised there's as many as there are, it's rather heartening how many folks find these topics interesting. A little intimidating at times too, it's like giving a seminar to a crowd of a few thousand every week.
To make anime real, this is valid, aliens are now living in a reality where anime is real folks.
Weebs are quaking
Still couldn't run minecraft smoothly ...
I've still never played Minecraft, which is kinda surprising since I'm usually big sandbox-style player of games.
Minetest is pretty good, though must admit it might be too tricky to select the better mods right now.
My 6 year old pc runs 100 mods with max settings at 60 fps and smooth as butter idk what you are running
Larry McKeithan It's called a joke. Google it.
that joke belongs to another time.
When you said "brain emulations" I imagined someone in the future talking to his friend saying "Hey man I just got this human brain emulator for my startop. I'm gonna play Isaac Arthur for a while, wanna watch?"
I like to imagine a future in wich we will send self replicating machines to all the other solar systems in the Galaxy (or even in the local group) disassembling them and reassembling as matrioskas brains running tons of simulations and basically "reproducing" the universe and creative variants as a form of study the current universe and also invent fictional ones, and broadcasting their information to one another. Can you imagine what they would "talk" about?
im in nerd heaven
:)
Maybe use the super computer to predict which way the universe will end, and if it's not the Big Crunch, see if there's a way to force it to happen, instead of one of the....less pleasant scenarios, no idea if that's possible, it's just the first thing I thought of while watching this after binge watching many of your videos.
Wow, really impressed, and really looking forward to the following weeks' videos.
This is a fascinating possibility and I could think of one use of its computing power: to figure out how to prevent the heat death of the universe. However, the magnitude of this structure is just too large. The logistics, teamwork needed for a project like this to be realized are just impossible, I think. What I'm trying to say is: we'll have lots of intermediate steps between computers the size of rooms to computers the size of solar systems. A Matrioshka brain is the pinnacle of computation technology. I think it's far more likely that during one of the aforementioned intermediate steps, we'll simply realize that there's no need for such a monolithic computer. This, of course, is just speculation. But then again, so is the Matrioshka brain.
you could also use it as a massive artifical heaven if you dont mind the idea of uploading imagine the matrix where everyone is neo
Isn't that for what you use Magical Girls? But now seriously, this construction can be developed gradually. So it is natural order of evolution, not some overblown goal.
You're right. Whatever our most powerful computers look like in 10,000 years. One thing is for sure, they wont look anything like what anyone now has conceived.
I strongly disagree
@@sreenarayananunni2280 Why is that?
Dude. Thank you so much for not having adds on your content. Its so much better if the content is sponsored. I love your channel
LOVE these vids! keep em coming
Thanks for making these videos. You are seriously one of the most underrated channels on RUclips. These videos are amazing!
dude you're the best keep up the good work man
Holy shit, what is this channel and how did I not find it until now. I love this!
Imagine playing a game of chess against one of these things.
eh, modern computers are already powerful enough to (albeit with many tricks to reduce needless computing like dumping the least favourable or repetitive scenarios early) simulate all outcomes of a chess match in an acceptable amount of time. After that point there is no reason to throw more computing at the problem. it would be like using a modern computer to flip a transistor. the job itself simply cant harness the power of the machine. This is what isaac was saying when he mentioned he has no idea what you would actually use a computer this big for unless you split it into trillions of smaller computers for individual tasks like running brains.
As a side note, with my understanding of the orders of magnitudes involved the transistor analogy should be about the right scale but take that with a mountain of salt, anything with large amounts of scientific notation is notoriously hard to eyeball.
I’m SO glad I found your channel. Infinitely fascinating and well thought out content. Cheers 🍻
I've been waiting for this one.
Great video!
This is tangentially related: Isaac Asimov wrote a short story called "The Last Question", which was unanswerable at the time of its posing, and so through generations of super-computer evolution (where that same question kept getting asked and passed along) until the last (where the Machine hovered in hyperspace, still trying to resolve it). It might've been his version of a Matrioshka Brain; it outlasted the last Human, but still the Machine kept at trying to solve it. It might have been a galaxy sized computer by then (that wasn't clear, since size might not matter in hyperspace), and its answer was quite amazing (spoiler alert, so I won't reveal it).
Keep up the good work!
One of Asimov's bests, also has a nice version read by Leonard Nimoy floating around.
But what was the question?
I thought I would be productive today. Then I found your channel. I guess I won't get to leave until I've watched all of it.
:) Probably not a good idea, there are the better part of hundred episodes with an average runtime of half an hour.
I've goofed on you about your accent but your videos are actually really well done, I wish I'd had this kind of programming when I was a kid. Opening minds. Thank you sir.
And Windows will still crash
Scott Leaf But much, much faster.
Penny Lane Oh crap, another blue star of death. We're going to have to evacuate another solar system.
Bine in the right mind would run Windows on even a modestly sized supercomputer ...
Absolutely amazing. You touch upon so many awesome concepts.
Oh dear.
A lot of that went straight over my head.
I'm starting to get a handle on what entropy is. Energy you can't do work with, I think...
I'll have to give this one another watch. It's good to see the maths behind these subjects and ideas, but it means I have to wait until the house is a tad quieter. :P
Yeah Entropy is a bit of a tricky weasel to fully understand because it's a pretty loose concept outside of the specific pre-modern notion of it as Energy per Temperature in Heat Engines. Energy you can't do work with anymore is pretty accurate though, but you can also view it as the progression of time or increasing disorder of the system and some other things.
This Channel is like the nightmare for all engineers and I love it
i just tripped over my mind. ..hurt my knee. ...Sssssss!
Back again for the umpteenth time. Classic! Best channel on RUclips.
The number of transistors on the latest Nvidia chip is 7,200,000,000. Let us imagine a civilization that has fusion power but not transistor technology and they want to build this out of thermionic valves.
We will assume each valve needs 10cm squared area. (Rack mounting will reduce that but we need space for power and signal cables etc. ) Then:
Area required = 7,200,000,000 x 10 Cm squared
= 70,200,000,000 Cm squared
= 702,000 Km squared
Now we need space for power stations, living areas for the workers, supply roads, and space for people to move around inside the machine. so lets double the area to make it maintainable.
= 1,404,000 Km squared
The land area of the earth is 148,326,000 Km squared.
148,326,000 divided by 1,404,000 = 105.64
Or just under one percent of the surface of the earth would be required to build this thing.
So definitely doable
Old post reply (sorry)
But actually no, outer solar system has asteroids and meteors, rivaling the entire history of humanitys mining.
So we only need like 10-20 meteors recycled on Earth or Moon/Mars/Europa (best due to O2 presence).
However, we cant use microchips due to radiation and meteors, we need alternative calculative bases. (Biological ultra Brain cells merged with Photosynthesis base.. Green self repairing/feeding thinking system for us)
PETA and every organisation would go batshit crazy tho
this is the best channel i ever saw... i honestly believe that sources of information like this are more important then most of ivy league collages as far as sharing of information is concerned
Just a thought - if the global economic system constitutes a functional analog of a self-optimizing neural net then this is the final most profitable form of extracting "value" from nature conceivable in our understanding of the universe. Our society may reach this point with or without humans in a number of scenarios where the transhumanist transition fails or simply does not occur. Barring catastrophe, this goal will inevitably be realized whether humanity is utilized, ignored, or long dead by the alien intelligence of our economic system should its ability to operate be made autonomous.
Not saying this is a danger or threat, just that it's interesting to think that this would be the end goal of any self-optimizing resource developing intelligence.
Also, I find the idea that the financial system is a neural net made of humans as neurons and money/work/actions as signals very intriguing. The idea that a thousand or thousands of years ago we began constructing, nurturing, and serving a collective superintelligent AI that emerged as a form of life embedded in a cultural information substrate is truly astounding and awe-inspiring to me.
I think I talked about that sort of more ethereal hive/group mind back in the Anthro/Super-intelligence video.
Isaac Arthur Well I'll have to check it out then!
I'd love to help with your channel if you ever need any non-monetary assistance. I had actually intended to do a series just like yours until I realized what a time-suck it was to make quality work.
Curse of the lazy perfectionist.
Keep up the great work, comrade!
Yes it is definitely a big time investment, mostly fun though, and I'd still recommend you give it a try if you're of a mind too. And yeah I'm always looking for help with the channel, with just about everything, at the moment I'm hunting for admins and moderators for facebook [and youtube] so I can get the channel its own FB page, and where channel related topics can be brought up to [science news, scifi, etc] though I'm putting out a request for volunteers in Thursdays video and will probably get many if that doesn't interest you. I usually only takes volunteers on something they specifically want to do so I don't feel like I'm pushing anything on someone
Isaac Arthur I'm not skilled in facebook and don't have the discipline to do repeated tasks like moderation for long. I was more volunteering to lend my mind to the task if you thought you needed a second opinion.
This may be arrogant from your perspective, but I don't personally know anyone with an interest in these subjects. If I were in your position and didn't know anyone interested in these topics I'd value your view on the subject.
Hardly arrogant, you have a skill set, you are offering it, you'd rather not do tasks which do not apply. I will eventually manage to get far enough ahead, probably after November, where I can start picking topics and writing scripts weeks in advance, so could throw them up on a private google drive or such for folks to review and offer suggestions, that might be more up your alley?
you sir remind me in some ways of Carl Sagan. thanks for putting all the work into these videos.
Find the question that leads to 42, obviously.
Your channel is my favorite on RUclips. I loved Lawrence Krauss's Physics of Star Trek and your show is like a more in depth, continuous version. Your videos are extremely informative and entertaining. But as a casual sci-fi (mostly space opera) fan and science lay person, this video was harder for me to grasp than normal, especially with some of the math. I had to rewind several parts of it numerous times in a (somewhat successful) attempt to understand what you were talking about. Still, that's due to my own lack of knowledge and I realize learning new information is often labor intensive. Still, I hope someone from the Discovery Channel sees this and reaches out to you. You deserve your own network show!!
Thanks Dirk, I appreciate that!
Yeah, I suspect this guy is literally broadcasting from some distant future, just reading from science book.
That was an elegant description of an artistic expression.
I can only imagine the kind of power made from a quantum computer around a blue giant.
About a million times more... it's the problem with the scale of these kind of objects is the brain just can't handle it :) We're left viewing in terms of scientific notation.
Isaac Arthur It's sad to think that I can't even fully understand and comprehend the scale of a single square mile of Earth, thinking in terms of atoms, and molecules, nonetheless an entire massive structure wrapped around an unimaginably hot ball of plasma. Damn crazy universe we live in.
isaac you are doing a great job, these things are avaliable on the internet but nobody has patience to read them but in the computer world i hoped to see some one in the humanity doing a job , which you are doing, giving immense information about the future prospects for humanity. great job keep it up.
damn, what a nice channel i stumbled upon here
Amazing video, as always.
About the next one, it's very interesting that.. people in the beginning of 20th/ending of 19th, thought a lot about this concepts, like a city constructed inside a giant building, so it's a sort of old concept. Pretty interesting.
Yes, especially since the mega-building idea and arcology only recently became synonymous, prior to the mid-90s the former concept was already quite old while the latter meant something more like 'sustainable housing development'
+Isaac Arthur Arcosanti seems to have been a scale model of the ideal city, and it's still sitting there as an example to visit. Of course, city planners would have us believe slums/favelas/bidonvilles would never exist if we just gave them absolute power. A couple of days ago I looked at the light pollution survey of the earth, and there are linked urban areas stretching for hundreds if not a thousand-ish miles, but the locals won't agree or even acknowledge that fact (try telling a Bostonian he's in a single large city stretching south to beyond DC).
:D :D needing to move stars out of the way, which is not exactly a covert and subtle thing either
Do you realize that it is funny?
Do other watchers think that it is funny?
Yes, I do. :-)
funny to you but maybe less funny to your drand grand kiddos
I think he does? And yes very *8 )
Obv Matrioshka Brains would set to the task of Creating the Dankest of memes. Think about it, what if the smartest of minds was a Comedian, rather than that which tried to Find the Universe's final truths. Once all fundamental questions are answered, all that is left is the Need to Amuse one's self.
The bleep is a little loud and startling.
yep
Made me laugh.
These videos are true gold, keep up the good work, looking forward to the black hole farming video! :)
Awesome. Was looking forward to this. A bit mathematical and conceptual though but got the idea. Your next videos will be eagerly awaited for. Keep up the good work. BTW are you a physicist or something??
Glad you enjoyed it! And yeah physics
By the time we come up with a computer that powerful we'll come up with a use for it; every time the scale of computers in the past increased someone has always said "what can you do with that much power?", and every time it gets put to use fairly quickly after it becomes available.
Of course it's simulating the Universe. In fact it's simulating several of them. Over there's one where magic works and dragons are real, and over there you have one with superheroes.
And in galaxy simulation Class-IVX-B9-Sigma you have...
Oh...
Oh god...
What kind of monster would do th-
*warhammer 40k intensifies*
Or a world made entirely of dank Memes. The Meme Factory
The crazy thing is there are things which a matrioshka brain could not compute assuming it is classical. Modeling even quite meager quantum systems would still be intractable.
You get the Reapers. That's what you get lol
StarKnight619 is
These videos are so awesome. They always get me thinking. Any topic that has anything to do with futuristic technological ideas is always a topic that really sparks the imagination. Hopefully humanity doesn't just wipe itself out before getting to possibly experience all of these.
Thanks, they do make fun food for thought don't they? And yeah it would be a shame if we blew ourselves up before getting to do these things.
Thanks, my general philosophy in life is that if you enjoy something, it may still be hard work doing it, but you don't mind, and it's really quite up-lifting finding out how many other folks enjoy these topics.
*****
You believe humans walked with the dinosaurs? Wth m8??
erm, one thing this guy appears to overlook is that advanced civilisations might run planet simulations to get any and all new inventions or technology created by the simulations.
They could use that much computational power to run a simulation of every single possible universe that could ever, has ever, or will ever exist, possibly running multiverses within the Matrioshka brain, but what they would use this information for is a bit beyond me. They could use it to completely take over the multiverse by thinking of every possible outcome, essentially becoming a laplaces demon, trying over and over until they achieve the desired result.
I have a feeling a Matrioshka Brain might just get bored a couple seconds after being turned on and just turns itself off again. I mean, it might decide to find out the meaning of its existence or the universe, and then realize there is none, or it might simulate its entire existence up through the heat death of the universe. Basically, it might just commit suicide from sheer depression.
I would argue that the only way any form of intelligence could simulate and ponder the meaning of life, would mean for it to be programmed with the capability to simulate those things in the first place. In order to answer and efficiently simulate such a paradoxical philosophical question at such a highly-technical and advanced level, any civilization seeking to do this would have to have an unfathomably-grand understanding of the nature of paradoxes in Cognitive Psychology, Physics, and Mathematics as well as how the interpretation of a paradox correlates to creative thought. Any machine capable of this kind of deep thought is, by my definition, sentient and capable of human-level reasoning. Therefore, any civilization with the capabilities to create a Matrioshka Brain powerful enough to compute the meaning of life would have already realized that there is no answer to the meaning of life understandable by pre-posthumans (As it has been theorized by Digital Physicists that our Universe is merely a simulation devised by highly-intellectual Posthuman beings. If the meaning for the simulation was to see how well a civilization can assimilate its own people, for example, we as non-posthumans wouldnt fully understand such a meaning until we could perceive and interact and understand our creators on a 1:1 scale).
Assuming mankind didnt already realize the concept of imperceivable meanings of life, any Matrioshka Brain capable of computing the fact that there is no meaning to life, would simply carry on with its duty as an intelligence machine and would begin simulating the next thing on its list. If there was no other thing to simulate, a hyper-intelligence and hyper-computational megastructure such a Matrioshka Brain would be capable of devising its own duty in the human world and would likely begin envisioning and predicting an infinite series of potential futures, dissecting macro and micrological realms such as the Quantum Universe, interpreting infinite series in paradoxes. Or of course, a Matrioshka Brain could devote its entire existence to producing electronic music on an emotional scale so deep, it promotes higher thinking in those who listen to it.
Basically put, a Matrioshka Brain is designed to be the "perfect" computational megastructure.
The only thing more powerful could be higher and higher sets of super-computers surrounding Lifters. However, the AI in these machines would all be derivatives of those in Matrioshka Brains. Thus, it is 99.9% unlikely a Universe Lifter-esque Matrioshka Brain would have the need to be designed to compute and simulate any cosmological and/or philosophical question.
DeusExAstra, It is very difficult to comprehend how intelligent AI of this level would be.
To theorise what conclusions or action it would take without even being able to quantify its intelligence is a little foolish.
On the contrary. It'd figure out the meaning of life and then decide there's nothing else to do.
@@unintentionallydramatic Imagine if we had an intergalactic civization, with enough people that could just run accounting or something
assuming it is capable of boredom. Under-stimulation being unpleasant is a fairly specific emotion.
Thanks for your work. Wonderful!!
Would it be fair to say that the global biological network in James Cameron's Avatar (i.e. Eywa) could in some sense be considered, or at least analogized to, a kind of biological matrioshka brain of the planetary variety? That's always how I've kind of thought about it.
I don't think though... that thing could be much;much weaker...
Aaaaand Pandora was a moon.
if you're going with that idea, then the internet is probably already halfway there at minimum; it's called the global brain hypothesis.
I love these videos, nothing like learning a bit more about the univorse
I knew it! I knew Isaac Arthur had to be from the future, what with all the knowledge he has. He accidentally lets it slip at 18:54. He says the approximate 10 billion people we have on Earth! As of Jan 2019 we're at 7.7 billion. We're not expected to reach 10 billion people until at least 2050, no later than 2070. A 25% population error from Isaac, hmmm dubious! :D
So, there you have it Isaac's from between 50 and 70 years in to the future! His knowledge and insight all makes sense now!! :D
Well. I know what I'm binge-watching over the next couple of weeks.
I feel like I want to rant after that extremely awesome video. I suggest we could (and should) run a simulation of our own universe and see if sentient life evolves again. It would be interesting to see if the inhabitants in turn made their own simulation. Imagine one of these computers on the scale of an entire universe, simulating another universes where the inhabitants also scrimp every possible scrap of energy for another universe simulation, creating a virtual data structure (from our perspective) of the dyson sphere. Would it be infinite in depth? Is it our duty to do this, because maybe we are simulated in this fashion as well, and in the interest of economising energy use we should also pass surplus enrgy into simulations? Either way an infinitely recursive universe simulation would be a good thing to be apart of, like a mexican wave in a stadium.
i've thought about that aswell, but i think that each level of simulation would be less complex than the previous one, because a simulated computer could not develop more computing power than the machine running the simulation, because its computing power has to be simulated by the machine running the simulation.
That's the common sense approach Francois, but we do need to keep in mind that a trick I might play on a simulation I was running, that developed its own simulation beneath it, would be to divert more processing power to it, by making my 'basement level' run slower so it looked like sub-basement, the one they made, was actually going faster. In the basement analogy, if I've got a 100 meters of space below me to divide into floors, I don't need each floor to be either the same depth or shallower than the the one above, I can divide that volume, my processing, however I choose, and if there's a level above me, they can trick me my changing things up.
+Isaac Arthur But still, we can't keep going on with simulations inside simulations, because we only have a finite amount of computing power in the basement level. In your analogy, we can arrange the 100m (our computing powers) in any number of simulations, but we cannot get more than 100m whatsoever, son the total complexity of all the simulations is finite.
+Isaac Arthur But still, we can't keep going on with simulations inside simulations, because we only have a finite amount of computing power in the basement level. In your analogy, we can arrange the 100m (our computing powers) in any number of simulations, but we cannot get more than 100m whatsoever, son the total complexity of all the simulations is finite.
True, but remember we can also slow time down in them. If you're running a sim at 1/100th normal speed, instead of faster than normal, you can get away with something bigger... this obviously still is all finite in size. The point I'm making is that you can not assume decreased resolution in lower levels, relative to each other, just presumably that the true top level exceeds them all as the only actual real one providing real processing :) We don't ever want to forget that the lower sims are not actually doing any processing themselves.
Thank you! Your channel is truly educational and inspiring :)
Thanks!
If Humans would build on 50% of it's power would be to run porn 45% would be advertising and 5% would be for real useful stuff.
I suspect your 45% figure is probably terribly unrealistic, we don't do that much *advertising*... the 50% figure is probably low though. :)
You have to be the smartest guy on RUclips. Love your videos! Fascinating!!!
megastructures are the first step to create last God
???
wrong. God is *infinite*, remember?
Can't be infinite, omnipotence would imply the option to end itself. Hench, whole concept is flawed.
JOhn Doe just because it can do something doesn't mean it will do it
Accelerando by Charles Stross is probably the best (only?) representation of a Matryoshka brain that I've read in science fiction.
What's your opinion about the take on Matrioshka Brains in Accelerando by Charles Stross?
You'd have to be a bit more specific, as I recall he used the classic nested setup for structure and did reality sims inside, in which case 'yeah, that seems plausible' is about as much as I can say.
For some reason "
..75 Kelvin at 16 AU, out near Uranus..." cracks me up.
This narrator reminds me of Barry Kripke :)
Lmao me too. That seems kinda rude to say though.
A thought just occurred to me. I should point out before I ask this - I'm a total layman.
If a Matrioshka brain could simulate universes... Could you simulate a universe, and within that simulation build matrioshka brains which then go on to simulate universes? And so on and so forth
Would it be possible to simulate more computing power within the simulation?
A simulation inside a simulation is still using that top level for it's processing.
Thanks for the response :)
some say we already live in a matrioshka brain and thats the cause of the mandela effect.
I think we talked about that a bit in the Simulation Hypothesis episode, but yeah one has to acknowledge that an imperfect memory and our ways of 'fixing' it would be near ideal for a simulated universe :)
Isaac Arthur link to the video please.
You can click on my name to go the pages that has all my videos, but here it is:
ruclips.net/video/nXIpR_agyl4/видео.html
Isaac Arthur yeah saw it, thanks anyway, great job this is a real channel, very interesting stuff.
E SC Mandela effect, chinese whispers more like
this guys accent reminds me of kindergarteners in south park.
good video dude.
What if you could embed a chip in your brain that allowed you to interact with the Matrioshka brain and use it as extra processing power?
You would be the most intelligent thing ever. You would become a god, basically.
Minor issue there, Matrioshka brains are kind of uh... big.
To harness all of the Matrioshka processing power you'd need to be the only one to have access to it (Which seems terribly elitist), and then get used to waiting a few hours for any of your "Matrioshka-level" thoughts to complete fully.
Whatever is big enough to be a "Matrioshka" thought. Maybe controlling gravity, that'd be neat.
Maybe a way to make a new universe?
That's cool I guess.
Isaac you will be interested in this great 2002 paper on the physical limits of computation. The author discusses information storage limits, bandwidth issues, and takes it past the Landauer Limit with reversible computing, but comes to the conclusion that even so, if our (then-current) efficiency of computation continued to grow at the same rate, we would reach these limits in less than fifty years! Of course our rate of CPU improvement was already in decline in 2002, but the point is that a Matrioshka brain cannot be as powerful as many suppose. pdfs.semanticscholar.org/59ea/62bf8caf45e4fee20729fb3af6f04790f65e.pdf
Isaac, how many bitcoins can we mine with this computer? ;)
Freddy FourFingerz All of them LOL
You can be financially independently stable wasup bit connect !!!!!!!
Love the Iain M Banks cameo. To anyone who hasn't read his work, you're missing out!
I finished watching this video; I was already subscribed, but this one made me hit the bell.
There is so much mystery in the universe; so much possibility and none of it requires appealing to gods and superstition. The wonder I am filled with when pondering megastructures and singularity futures is more than sufficient for my spiritual needs.
Such a computer would even be capable of having more than 10 Chrome tabs open, amazing
Love ya Isaac! Thanks for what you do my bruhdda!!
Imagine now, after many centuries to come chindren will speak like this in kindergarten
Listening to your videos is a much more enjoyable use of my time than studying for my exam tomorrow
Go back to work!
AndDiracisHisProphet It's all good, I don't even need to pass the exam, I just need to get 20% on it to pass the course
Well, 20% can be a lot^^
Meh, I know most of the stuff and it's case based not a MCQ exam so it'll be easy to get 50 let alone 20