What can you do with galaxy sized computers?

[RainDreamer]

If you have read Asimov's "The Last Question" you probably remember that the Universal AC, in its quest to reverse entropy, grows to this size and larger. And in another lesser known sci-fi trilogy, "A Requiem for Homo Sapiens", one of the central themes is the human ascendance to Godhood through uploading one's mind to galaxy-sized computers made of clouds of nanomachine connecting to each other, ever expanding, with computing power so powerful that you can simulate realities indistinguishable from the real thing in any aspects imaginable.

So setting aside post-singularity technology that our mind can't even begin to comprehend, say if we are given a galaxy sized computer (by an alien race, perhaps?) with the current processing power multiply to galaxy scale, what can we do with all of that?

Edited April 22, 2016 by RainDreamer

[p1t1o]

12 minutes ago, RainDreamer said:

If you have read Asimov's "The Last Question" you probably remember that the Universal AC, in its quest to reverse entropy, grows to this size and larger. And in another lesser known sci-fi trilogy, "A Requiem for Homo Sapiens", one of the central themes is the human ascendance to Godhood through uploading one's mind to galaxy-sized computers made of clouds of nanomachine connecting to each other, ever expanding, with computing power so powerful that you can simulate realities indistinguishable from the real thing in any aspects imaginable.

So setting aside post-singularity technology that our mind can't even begin to comprehend, say if we are given unlimited resources and time to build a galaxy sized computer with the current processing power, what can we do with all of that?

Simulate another universe? Figure out a fair and immutable tax system?

"The Last Question" is one of my favorite stories, not least because of the quasi-humorous link to religion - "Let there be light".

And frankly, if there were a religion that claimed "god" is an omnipotent computer from a previous universe, that'd be one of the more plausible religions out there...

Your question does fall into that weird category though, where the premise of the question [we have the capability to build a galaxy sized computer] kind of makes the question itself moot - ie: the answer is probably some version of "any darn thing we want"

One with those abilities might actually be concerned with the final fate of the universe, and ask it similar things as in "The Last Question"...

 

[RainDreamer]

2 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Your question does fall into that weird category though, where the premise of the question [we have the capability to build a galaxy sized computer] kind of makes the question itself moot - ie: the answer is probably some version of "any darn thing we want"

Right, I should rephrase it: We are *gifted* with a galaxy sized computer. Creation of such computer is probably kind of a post singularity thing already.

[peadar1987]

On 22/04/2016 at 0:16 PM, RainDreamer said:

Right, I should rephrase it: We are *gifted* with a galaxy sized computer. Creation of such computer is probably kind of a post singularity thing already.

What should we do? Use its incredible power to answer some of the most fundamental questions about science, design new and hitherto impossible solutions to the problems that face humanity.

What would we do? Naughty pics and cat videos. Probably.

[RainDreamer]

I wonder if we can use it to help us figure out what to do with it.  

[p1t1o]

36 minutes ago, RainDreamer said:

Right, I should rephrase it: We are *gifted* with a galaxy sized computer. Creation of such computer is probably kind of a post singularity thing already.

Ooh right, that is better, I guess then that a pretty good thing to use it for would be to figure out who gave it to us and how they built it? It would not be a waste of effort to dedicate several million man-years into figuring out how said machine works.

Failing that I think the most likely use would be to test and refine our models of how the universe works and that sort of thing. Plug in all of our current knowledge into an almost 1:1 fidelity simulation of a universe, or a significant chunk of one, and see if it comes up with something recognisable, or refine our theories until it does. Then we can do things like tweak various parameters to see what sort of universe arises.

This would probably be easier if the creators of said galaxy machine would also have it come pre-loaded with a universe-sim, like kerbal universe or something, because I think that is probably just as difficult to do as building the machine in the first place, or in the same ball park.

[kerbiloid]

Almost nothing due to the 100000-years lightspeed delay between its memory registers.

[Scotius]

8 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Almost nothing due to the 100000-years lightspeed delay between its memory registers.

This Decades ago it was brought up by Stanislav Lem in his book "Magellanic Cloud". One of the passengers of an slower-than-light exploration spaceship en route to Alpha Centauri system described such sentient galaxy she dreamed about. One of her colleagues, an astrophysicist was quick to burst her bubble pointing out the incredible slowness of such "supercomputer". With the diameter of several thousands of lightyears, solving even a simple task at the speed of light would take many millenia.

[RainDreamer]

21 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Almost nothing due to the 100000-years lightspeed delay between its memory registers.

Right, forgot about that. Though I think we would still be able to use it, just that the ones inputting in data and the ones observing the resulting output will probably be many, many, many generations apart. Which makes it even more important for humanity then to think about this question, because they have this enormous computing power, just limited by the extremely laggy speed of light at that scale, so they must really carefully choose what they want to do with the thing, so that their descendent in far, far future is still capable of making use of the result no matter what have happened.

This sounds like a really good plot for a sci-fi story! Dibs on this!

Millennias ago, our ancestors asked the Galactic Computer a question, and during all these time, while waiting for it to process, humans with their petty conflicts and short sightedness waged wars against each other, resulting in near total destruction of the human race, and now, our protagonist - a descendent of the Inquirers, as our ancestors came to be known - set out on a journey to find the answer at last amidst the ruins that was once the glorious Human Civilization. Will the Answer bring salvation to the dying human race? Or has it already been too late?

Edited April 22, 2016 by RainDreamer

[kerbiloid]

Several years ago I was impressed when I'd read an article.
A distributed computer network, working fine between several cities, became continental and met problems due to the lightspeed delay between its nodes.
Before that article the light speed was a pure astronomical thing for me, not something touchable.

Now I can hardly imagine a Global Mind computer ruling the world. There must be at least a tribe of them.

[p1t1o]

I had assumed that the impossible machine included such technologies as to us also seem impossible, such as internal communications fast enough that the size of the machine didn't cripple it, ergo FTL comms.

"Oh but thats impossible!" you say? We are talking about a galaxy sized computer here...

[Kertech]

25 minutes ago, RainDreamer said:

Right, forgot about that. Though I think we would still be able to use it, just that the ones inputting in data and the ones observing the resulting output will probably be many, many, many generations apart. Which makes it even more important for humanity then to think about this question, because they have this enormous computing power, just limited by the extremely laggy speed of light at that scale, so they must really carefully choose what they want to do with the thing, so that their descendent in far, far future is still capable of making use of the result no matter what have happened.

This sounds like a really good plot for a sci-fi story! Dibs on this!

Millennias ago, our ancestors asked the Galactic Computer a question, and during all these time, while waiting for it to process, humans with their petty conflicts and short sightedness waged wars against each other, resulting in near total destruction of the human race, and now, our protagonist - a descendent of the Inquirers, as our ancestors came to be known - set out on a journey to find the answer at last amidst the ruins that was once the glorious Human Civilization. Will the Answer bring salvation to the dying human race? Or has it already been too late?

it's called deepthought and the answer is:

Spoiler

42 and build earth

 

[RainDreamer]

1 minute ago, Kertech said:

it's called deepthought and the answer is:

  Reveal hidden contents

42 and build earth

 

Ah right, I forgot about deep thought since it not galactic sized, but the concept is the same I guess. Curses, nothing is new under the sun after all. Need to go outside the solar system for better ideas!

[Kertech]

it's also reminding me of the computer from the fourth book whose name eludes me... 

 

also with a galaxy sized computer i'd program it to prove it doesn't exist

[swjr-swis]

2 hours ago, RainDreamer said:

if we are given a galaxy sized computer (by an alien race, perhaps?) with the current processing power multiply to galaxy scale, what can we do with all of that?

We would run KSP with ALL the mods, of course.

It would be capable of total realism and full physics even at maximum time warp. But since there would still be argument about realism vs play levels, and the exact combination of mods at any one time, it'd be multi-instance and customizable on the fly.

And then we'd mind-transfer into it. Because we all secretly want to be Jeb (or Val).

 

[p1t1o]

2 minutes ago, swjr-swis said:

We would run KSP with ALL the mods, of course.

It would be capable of total realism and full physics even at maximum time warp. But since there would still be argument about realism vs play levels, and the exact combination of mods at any one time, it'd be multi-instance and customizable on the fly.

And then we'd mind-transfer into it. Because we all secretly want to be Jeb (or Val).

 

OR HAS THIS ALREADY HAPPENED OOOOOOOOHHH!!

[HebaruSan]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Almost nothing due to the 100000-years lightspeed delay between its memory registers.

But how many problems we presented to it would require that much computing power? Considering how well the internet is doing at the moment, I would bet that anything we could think of today, unless it's unsolvable in principle, could probably be handled by an Earth-sized or smaller computer, with an analogous delay of just 21 milliseconds. A key design feature of a galaxy-sized computer would be to allocate tasks efficiently among its available resources, and we should only have to utilize a nearby subset of it for most things. Even if you need processors that fill the entire solar system out to Pluto, the delay only gets up to 7 hours.

Other things you could do with a galaxy sized computer: Run out of power, overheat, and collapse into a black hole.

[WinkAllKerb'']

superthreading and mutlithreading once again

can a galaxy sized emulate the whole universe moving each single atoms ?

 

[swjr-swis]

3 minutes ago, WinkAllKerb'' said:

can a galaxy sized emulate the whole universe moving each single atoms ?

The whole universe would include the galaxy-sized computer itself, trying to simulate the whole universe including a galaxy-sized computer that is trying to simulate.... <stack overflow>

[HebaruSan]

5 minutes ago, WinkAllKerb'' said:

can a galaxy sized emulate the whole universe moving each single atoms ?

No, because that would have to include the ability to emulate a galaxy sized computer, i.e. itself, which means it would have to store its own memory plus the memory of the simulated copy, which would be impossible by definition (pouring 2 gallons of water into a 1-gallon jug).

[RainDreamer]

What about the universe minus itself? It would be an imperfect replica of the universe of course, but for being inside the simulation, they wouldn't even know...

[WinkAllKerb'']

i especially like the MIB movie scene metaphor in wich will smith when it open the trainstation locker face small beings in the locker calling him god, regarding that aspect ; ) it's cute :3 kawaï kireï mignon etc ; )

Edited April 22, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''

[HebaruSan]

3 minutes ago, RainDreamer said:

What about the universe minus itself? It would be an imperfect replica of the universe of course, but for being inside the simulation, they wouldn't even know...

Well, remember that ultimately we're talking about energy and particles functioning as a machine. Assuming there's enough matter in the visible universe to construct a galaxy-sized computer, then a universe-simulating computer would still have to track the properties of all of those particles regardless of whether they were assembled into a galaxy-sized computer or spread out across interstellar space. We're already positing the scenario of some life form going out and collecting those particles and building a galaxy sized computer, and that scenario would have to be simulatable!

[p1t1o]

Key word being *simulation*.

You simulate a universe where the galaxy-sized computer has not been built yet.

Or you simulate a portion of the universe (one without said computer in it).

Or you simulate the whole thing, but to a slightly less than 1:1 fidelity, giving plenty of computational "room" but still vastly capable of producing meaningful data.

[HebaruSan]

3 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Key word being *simulation*.

You simulate a universe where the galaxy-sized computer has not been built yet.

Or you simulate a portion of the universe (one without said computer in it).

Or you simulate the whole thing, but to a slightly less than 1:1 fidelity, giving plenty of computational "room" but still vastly capable of producing meaningful data.

This is the scenario we started with:

19 minutes ago, WinkAllKerb'' said:

can a galaxy sized emulate the whole universe moving each single atoms ?

That rules out options #2 and #3, since it wouldn't be the whole universe, and/or it wouldn't be tracking the motion of each single atom. My argument above addresses whether #1 is possible (my contention being that a universe capable of hosting a galaxy-sized computer requires no less power to simulate atom-by-atom than one that already has one).