3 ms·

An interesting question to ask is how far does it go up the emergence ladder. E.g. do the organisms dissipating more energy have better chances of survival? Or

An interesting question to ask is how far does it go up the emergence ladder. E.g. do the organisms dissipating more energy have better chances of survival? Or perhaps even whether industries producing more infrared radiation are the most effective ones? Ultimately (if this is true) - would it be possible to increase efficiency of a complex system (social, financial, computational - doesn't matter) by consciously shifting the radiation it emits to the lower end of the spectrum?

jbdistaken 10y ago
>E.g. do the organisms dissipating more energy have better chances of survival? in general, no. E.g., a child with a high fever will dissipate more energy than a child without a fever over the same time period. who is more likely to survive? We can even consider a specific type of dissipation that an organism uses to store memories (longer lifetime of memory = less reversible = requires more dissipation), there's no guarantee that the memories stored will be useful for survival. storing a memory that lasts 100 years costs dissipation that could be better spent elsewhere for an organism that typically lives 1 week... but with appropriate restrictions on what is meant by dissipation, organism, ... the timescales involved, the driving ... then the reverse statement can be true "more likely evolutionary outcomes" <among all possible trajectories of configurations of 'organisms'> "are going to be the ones that absorbed and dissipated more energy from the environment’s external drives on the way to getting there.”
- mike_ivanov 10y ago
  Let me reframe my question this way: given the child you mentioned, would he/she be better off in life if you construct and provide such a framework where that child could consume and dissipate more energy than other children? That is, can we control (not just predict) the outcome by manipulating dissipation patterns?
visarga 10y ago
> increase efficiency of a complex system (social, financial, computational - doesn't matter) by consciously shifting the radiation it emits to the lower end of the spectrum You take energy too literally here. You could say a spoiled child has evolved to be an efficient money dissipation system.

jbdistaken 10y ago

>E.g. do the organisms dissipating more energy have better chances of survival? in general, no. E.g., a child with a high fever will dissipate more energy than a child without a fever over the same time period. who is more likely to survive? We can even consider a specific type of dissipation that an organism uses to store memories (longer lifetime of memory = less reversible = requires more dissipation), there's no guarantee that the memories stored will be useful for survival. storing a memory that lasts 100 years costs dissipation that could be better spent elsewhere for an organism that typically lives 1 week... but with appropriate restrictions on what is meant by dissipation, organism, ... the timescales involved, the driving ... then the reverse statement can be true "more likely evolutionary outcomes" <among all possible trajectories of configurations of 'organisms'> "are going to be the ones that absorbed and dissipated more energy from the environment’s external drives on the way to getting there.”

mike_ivanov 10y ago
Let me reframe my question this way: given the child you mentioned, would he/she be better off in life if you construct and provide such a framework where that child could consume and dissipate more energy than other children? That is, can we control (not just predict) the outcome by manipulating dissipation patterns?

visarga 10y ago

> increase efficiency of a complex system (social, financial, computational - doesn't matter) by consciously shifting the radiation it emits to the lower end of the spectrum You take energy too literally here. You could say a spoiled child has evolved to be an efficient money dissipation system.