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Mitchell_Porter comments on Open Thread: March 2010, part 3 - Less Wrong
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Can the tiles have states that change and interact?
Only if that doesn't violate the "simple" condition.
What counts as simple?
If something capable as serving as a cell in a cellular automaton would count as simple enough, I'd choose that. And I'd design it to very occasionally malfunction and change states at random, so that interesting patterns could spontaneously form in the absence of any specific design.
Basically, the "simple" condition was designed to elicit answers more along the lines of "paperclips!" or "cheesecake!", rather than "how can I game the system so that I can have interesting stuff in the universe again after the tiling happens?" You're not playing fair if you do that.
I find this an interesting question because while it does seem to be a consensus that we don't want the universe tiled with orgasmium, it also seems intuitively obvious that this would be less bad than tiling the universe with agonium or whatever you'd call it; and I want to know what floats to the top of this stack of badness.
Mission accomplished! c=@
Now, since there seems to be a broad consensus among the posters that paperclips would be the optimal thing to tile the universe with, how about we get to work on it?
And that is a good thing. Long live the munchkins of the universe!
I think orgasmium is significantly more complex than cheesecake. Possibly complex enough that I could make an interesting universe if I were permitted that much complexity, but I don't know enough about consciousness to say.
Cheesecake is made of eukaryotic life, so it's pretty darn complex.
Hmm... a universe full of cheescake will have enough hydrogen around to form stars once the cheesecakes attract each other, with further cheescake forming to planets that are are a perfect breeding ground for life, already seeded with DNA and RNA!
Didn't think of that. Okay, orgasmium is significantly more complex than paperclips.
What? It's products of eukaryotic life. Usually the eukaryotes are dead. Though plenty of microorganisms immediately start colonizing.
Unless you mean the other kind of cheesecake.
I suppose that the majority of the cheesecake does not consist of eukaryotic cells, but there are definitely plenty of them in there. I've never looked at milk under a microscope but I would expect it to contain cells from the cow. The lemon zest contains lemon cells. The graham cracker crust contains wheat. Dead cells would not be much simpler than living cells.