Black Holes Necessary for Absolute Zero? Thursday, May 14 2009
physics 3:23 pm
Wei Dai has an argument:
If it’s true that the only efficient way to cool material down to near absolute zero is with black holes, we should expect all sufficiently advanced civilizations to live near them.
This dovetails with an idea I’ve had for a while, which was independently discovered by John Smart — that an advanced civilization of uploads will have an incentive to turn some of the Earth’s matter into a black hole and huddle around it. It helps you compress your computers and cool them. It also provides a great energy source — you can use shear forces in the accretion disc to efficiently convert matter into energy. As John would put it, “MEST (matter-space-energy-time) compression” would culminate in the literal compression of the planet.
To put it in Tiplerian terms, we would create a local Omega Point “wannabe” (as much computation as possible in finite time instead of infinite computation) instead of a universal Omega Point, which would necessitate a closed universe. (Most cosmologists consider the universe open, due to the dark energy, also known by its cool alternative name, “quintessence”.)
May 14th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
“we would create a local Omega Point”
- surely you can’t get infinite computation in finite time without getting inside the event horizon? You’re speaking figuratively here?
R
May 14th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Have you ever read Gregory Benford’s novel Eater? It kinda/sorta involves a supercivilizations–actually, a single ultra-intelligent entity–that inhabits the event horizon of a black hole and actually steers it around the galaxy by controlling outgassing of matter from the accretion disk. It encounters earth and demands everyone be uploaded to its information-spaces (basically so it has someone to talk to as it travels around) or it will destroy the planet. GREAT concept…terrible ending.
If a sentient black holes comes calling and offers your entire species an eternity of cybernetic samadhi in an essentially infinite processing space and you say NO, your species deserves to be dropped into the accretion disk.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Ha! It resonates well with my tentative hypothesis of alien civilizations living in deep physics instead of expanding in space. Maybe it’s strictly better to dive in the black hole, instead of living outside of it or foraging more matter.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/2l/closet_survey_1/1ll
May 15th, 2009 at 1:01 am
Roko, I guess I mean a local Omega Point wannabe. Get as much computation as possible in finite time.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:18 am
Hmmm I thought so. But this then corroborates vladimir’s point: as a suitable machine approaches the event horizon, current physics cannot rule out the possibility that infinite computation is possible.
I’d like to know why vladimir thinks that advanced civs live in such “deep” physics - then alternative possibility is that there is nowhere to run away to, that we really are locked up in our current model of physics. Is he using this as a way of explaining the Fermi paradox, perhaps?
May 15th, 2009 at 8:35 am
The amount of computing available from a gram of matter is finite, of course.
It is better to create a lot of black holes from all the available matter in the Galaxy and beyond, not just to stay put here forever, sucking the small Earth.
And it is also highly questionable, if the black hole is the best hardware possible. Maybe not.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Michael: If your conjecture is true, it could also explain the fermi paradox. Since the only sign of intelligent life would be blackholes, which is indistinguishable from a lifeless universe.
May 15th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Advanced *hyperspatial* tech would also “explain” the Fermi “paradox”—at least partially. The only one that I know of, however, that is doing real cutting-edge work in this area, though, is physicist Saul-Paul Sirag (and his colleage, Jack Sarfatti).
But Gus, of course, is correct: If “computronium”-cum-black-hole does turn out to be the *sine qua non* signature of an ultra-ultra-advanced civ, then, yeah, it would be *virtually* (nearly, but, perhaps, not quite completely) undetectable. I say not quite completely, as some spacetime perturbations might, at least in-principle, be detectable. But then, on the other hand, one might argue (1) such tech could be “disguised” so as to evince minimal perturbations of whatever sort, and/or (2) that any perturbations beyond the negligible evince one or more sort(s) of inefficiency(s), which, by hypothesis, the ultra-ultra-advanced civ would have incentive to minimize, and even, to the extent possible, eliminate. If a super-civ wanted privacy from such “primitives” as, e.g., US, it could and would forsake a smidge of computational “efficiency” (but actually *gain* in *economic-utilitarian* “efficiency”, given a strong preference within “its” utility function for privacy/autonomy) by “disguising” itself as a “garden-variety”, supposedly-”dumb” black hole system such as the one conjectured (and now pretty much agreed) to constitute the Cygnus X-1 object.
And since I resonate very strongly with John Smart’s conjectures and surmises, I say, along with a chicken in every pot, a mini-black-hole in every hearth (or whatever…)
Ciao…
May 15th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Oh, and Michael A.: THANKS, as always, for (1) Your own original post, and (2) for allowing me to post my own, as the late great George Carlin would characterize ‘em, brain droppings… LOL
May 16th, 2009 at 2:00 am
You’d have a royally miserable day if you discovered that as soon as intelligence concentrates on a specific place in the universe you would start experiencing literal time dillation and redshift as happens around a black hole, i.e. kosmologic lag.
May 18th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I find it much more easier to accept a black hole as a very deep hole curved in time and space with a bottom filled with a tremendous amount of energy. An extremly small hole created by an extremly massive but small object, logicaly created after some sort of implotion. In other words its much easier to see a black hole as a deep well created after a supernova than to grasp the idea of seing black holes as “evidence” or a “sign” of highly developed intelligence out there.
(sorry for my grammar, im young and from sweden)
And btw, i just love the idea
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Alternative solutions to the Fermi paradox…
Sentient Developments has a guest blog from Milan M. Cirkovic which looks at what he calls "solipsistic" solutions to the Fermi Paradox (you know: if the aliens aren’t here why not? I made enough potato salad for everyone!!), although I’l…