There’s a minimum level of energy consumption (and thus heat) that has to be produced by computation, just because of physics. However, modern computers generate billions of times more heat than this minimum level.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer's_principle

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RhysU 2 days ago | parent [-]

It'd be super fun to take that as an axiom of physics then to see how far upwards one could build from that. Above my skills by far.

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ruined 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

it's called the first law of thermodynamics

	▲	RhysU a day ago \| parent [-]
		The first law involves cwork. The axiom I am thinking of involves information.

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UltraSane 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The minimum amount of energy needed to compute decreased asymptotically to 0 as the temperature of space goes to 0. This is the reason a common sci-fi trope where advanced civilizations hibernate for extremely long times so that they can do more computation with available energy.

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ctmnt 2 days ago | parent [-]

That’s a common trope? Can’t say I’ve run into it. But I’d like to! What are some good examples?

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Supermancho 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

In the book Calculating God, a character notes that this is a common civilization-wide choice. Living in virtual reality, rather than trying to expand into the vast expanses of space, is a common trope as much as it's a logical choice. It neatly explains the Fermi Paradox. In some fiction, like The Matrix, the choice might be forced due to cultural shifts, but the outcome is the same. A relatively sterile low-energy state civilization doing pure processing.

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ithkuil 2 days ago | parent [-]

I wonder if it's illogical to think that all civilizations must always pick the most logical of the options

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yetihehe 2 days ago | parent [-]

Those civilisations that make too much illogical choices probably die off.

	▲	ithkuil 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		True. But it's not a binary choice. All it takes is to make one sub-optmial choice for the universe to be filled up with von-neuman probes in all star systems

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triMichael 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Kurzgesagt just made a video on it a couple months back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMm-U2pHrXE

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CamperBob2 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Here you go: https://pastebin.com/raw/SUd5sLRC

And it only cost 0.006 rain forests!

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UltraSane 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aestivation_hypothesis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9sh9NpL4i8

https://mindmatters.ai/2020/10/researchers-the-aliens-exist-...

https://aleph.se/andart2/space/the-aestivation-hypothesis-po...