On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 8:57 PM, Tim Tyler via AGI <[email protected]> wrote: >> One bit per generation with respect to knowing what improves >> reproductive fitness. I realize that information can be transmitted to >> offspring epigenetically and through language. That's not the same >> thing. > > A thought experiment should disprove that. Imagine a musical > supervisor allows organisms to reproduce if they play back the > correct Simon sequence [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_%28game%29] - > and they add an extra 5 notes to the correct Simon sequence in each > generation, tell the parents, and allow them to transmit the knowledge > to their offspring (either culturally or via genetic engineering). That's > ten > bits per generation. Want more bits? Just add more notes. > > This surely qualifies as "knowledge that improves reproductive fitness" > in the specified environment. There isn't much of a limit to how fast > such knowledge can grow.
That's a good point. But we can distinguish the genetic and epigenetic knowledge here. The genetic knowledge that can only be learned at 1 bit per generation is the knowledge that the agent needs to learn the Simon sequence and communicate it to its children. The actual sequence is epigenetic. Maybe the distinction is not important most of the time. Human civilization has advanced almost entirely on epigenetic transfer of knowledge through language. We are genetically not much different than our ancestors from 10,000 years ago. The crucial genetic knowledge making civilization possible is the changes in our brains that allowed us to learn language and communicate. That knowledge had to be learned at 1 bit per generation. But sometimes the distinction is important. We can use epigenetic knowledge to help us achieve our evolved goals. But if our goals are wrong, then we need slow, genetic learning to fix them because that's not our goal. Here is an example. Evolution programmed us to fear dying and then die. It is efficient, but seems cruel. We might develop advanced technology to "fix" this problem by building simulated worlds containing avatars that look and act like us, then kill our biological bodies so we can upload into a world with magic genies and be eternally happy. If this turns out to be a bad solution, it will require evolution to fix this problem. Happiness and immortality will be thwarted because the world will be dominated by agents that don't want to upload to virtual worlds. Evolution knows better. But it isn't something that we can learn quickly. >> You might think that advanced technology can speed up testing. But >> once you start thinking in terms of computation rather than magical >> intelligence, you'll realize otherwise. Simulating even simple >> chemistry requires solving Schrodinger's equation, which is >> exponential in the number of particles unless it is run on a quantum >> computer. This is why there are no programs that can input a chemical >> formula like "H2O" and output the properties of that chemical such as >> its melting point. I expect that we will develop better quantum >> computers, but remember that what you do to program a quantum computer >> is to build a physical system that obeys the same equations. It's not >> going to run significantly faster than doing a physical experiment >> like putting a thermometer in ice water. > > That's sounds pretty pessimistic - but it also sounds wrong. Simulation has > already > sped up all kinds of thing. We simulate bridges, skyscrapers and areoplanes > before we build them. Newtonian mechanics can be simulated in polynomial time without a quantum computer. But not chemistry. -- -- Matt Mahoney, [email protected] ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
