Blueberry comments on Fast Minds and Slow Computers - Less Wrong

26 Post author: jacob_cannell 05 February 2011 10:05AM

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Comment author: Desrtopa 05 February 2011 05:26:20PM *  4 points [-]

Having your subjective time sped up by a factor of 10^6 would probably be pretty terrible if not accompanied by a number of significant changes. It has required secondary powers. Actually interfacing with other people, for instance, would be so slow as to potentially drive you insane. In fact, there aren't many things you could interface with at a pace that would not be maddeningly slow, so pursuits such as mastering cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, rationality, philosophy, mathematics, linguistics, the history of religions, and marketing might be functionally impossible unless you could generate the knowledge within yourself.

In this case, I think it's not fair to anthropomorphize, because anything with such an accelerated frame of reference would be living a fundamentally different existence to any sort of being alive today. The only thing I can predict with significant confidence that I would do in such a situation is go mad.

Comment author: Blueberry 05 February 2011 08:05:46PM 1 point [-]

It has required secondary powers.

Just noticed that page quotes MoR!

There's also the question of how a sha[p]e shifter thinks with no brain, or just without their normal brain. As Harry Potter noncanonically asked Professor McGonagall, "How can you go on thinking using a cat-sized brain?".