Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

That's a severe misunderstanding of what it means to have a unified physical theory. The current standard model of physics allows us to theoretically predict the evolution of physical systems with an insanely high precision. A precision so great that there wouldn't be any meaningful error simulating macroscopic objects like human brains, given sufficient computing power.

Sure, like I said, I'm just thinking out loud here. Obviously TOE in and of itself doesn't automatically translate into full knowledge of everything in practice. But in principle, it would given sufficient computing power, allow us to simulate anything, which I think would yield additional understanding. But here's the thing, and where this all ties back together: sufficient computing resources may not be possible, even in principle, to allow use of that TOE to do $X. But an upper bound on the amount of computing resources should also reflect something of an upper bound on what our hypothetical AI can do as well.

Or to put it all slightly differently.. if we had a TOE, we'd have shown, at least, that humans are smart enough to develop a TOE. Which I think at least raises the issue of "how much smarter can a machine be, or what would it mean for a machine to be much smarter than that?"

Note to that I'm not necessarily arguing for this position. It's more of a thought experiment or discussion point than something I'm firmly convinced of.



Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: