Re: [ExI] Power sats and the industrial development of space (was global waming again)
Bryan Bishop
> Sure be nice to know how much that mini combine would weigh. Yo,
> Bryan, care to comment? What basic tool set would my thousand
> hamster-sized robots need in order to process the raw materials, build
> the moon base, and make more bots? Minimum mass; lunar regolith
> starting materials;...
That really depends on the context. What gets to become a vitamin
part, and what has to be made on the spot? I'd start by looking over
Freitas' KSRM book for a list of the different types of tools that you
might need. Recently I saw a good paper on a thermodynamic analysis of
different manufacturing processes, which might provide a starting
point for energetically-analyzed processes (as opposed to just random
guessing about the parametric variables). This is partly why I've been
wanting to do a diagram-based explanation of what it takes to build
different manufacturing process units, i.e. the dependency
requirements of the machines, such as what it requires to build those
machines that build the machines, and whether or not they are
satisfied by machines already "in use" or "on the list". It's a big
job, certainly something that could be computerized .. if I had more
data.
Jeff Davis
>
> On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 1:37 AM, Jeff Davis <jrd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Sure be nice to know how much that mini combine would weigh. Yo,
>> Bryan, care to comment? What basic tool set would my thousand
>> hamster-sized robots need in order to process the raw materials, build
>> the moon base, and make more bots? Minimum mass; lunar regolith
>> starting materials;...
>
> That really depends on the context.
Absolutely. I was a bit coy with you. The design space --137
practical multivalued replicator design properties which may be
grouped into 12 primary design dimensions in four principal categories
:
http://www.molecularassembler.com/KSRM/Figures/5.5.JPG
presents a challenge that I'm fond of comparing to the Gordian knot.
Remember how Alexander solved that problem? Took out his sword and
chopped it up. Refused to be constrained by imposed definitions of
impossibility. That's the view I've adopted. Evaluating the design
space for the "best" approach, and then working up a design -- these
are paralyzing pre-conditions. Screw that. Go pure ad hoc. Pick an
approach and go for it. Let the chips fall where they may. This is a
winner take all venture. That's all as in ALL.
As a race to the next stage of industrial production, it can easily
boil down to the first one out of the starting blocks. Get enough of
a lead before the rest of the world figures out the implications, and
they'll never catch up. And, regarding design choices, if you can
generate enough excitement in the global internet-connected "game
space", you can promote competition among teams whose members have
chosen different design approaches.
I hope this doesn't offend your dedication to open-source values.
"I don't have time to bleed."
Best, Jeff Davis
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at
you, then they fight you, then you win."
Mahatma Gandhi
Bryan Bishop
> On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 1:20 AM, Bryan Bishop <kan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 1:37 AM, Jeff Davis <jrd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Sure be nice to know how much that mini combine would weigh. Yo,
>>> Bryan, care to comment? What basic tool set would my thousand
>>> hamster-sized robots need in order to process the raw materials, build
>>> the moon base, and make more bots? Minimum mass; lunar regolith
>>> starting materials;...
>>
>> That really depends on the context.
>
> Absolutely. I was a bit coy with you. The design space --137
> practical multivalued replicator design properties which may be
> grouped into 12 primary design dimensions in four principal categories
> :
> http://www.molecularassembler.com/KSRM/Figures/5.5.JPG
>
> presents a challenge that I'm fond of comparing to the Gordian knot.
> Remember how Alexander solved that problem? Took out his sword and
> chopped it up. Refused to be constrained by imposed definitions of
> impossibility. That's the view I've adopted. Evaluating the design
> space for the "best" approach, and then working up a design -- these
> are paralyzing pre-conditions. Screw that. Go pure ad hoc. Pick an
> approach and go for it. Let the chips fall where they may. This is a
> winner take all venture. That's all as in ALL.
Under what authority were those 137 properties designed? This reeks of
bullshitting. There's no master data set of all possible manufacturing
processes. And I have yet to find a partial data set of said
manufacturing processes (except perhaps the recent one I sent to the
list re: thermodynamic analyses), which would be somewhat useful in a
slightly different way. But anyway, there are certain properties of
self-replication that need to be well-defined, otherwise you're just
flinging poo like a monkey. This is why Freitas put a significant
amount of time thinking about 'vitamins'.
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/e4c375acce772250
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/browse_thread/thread/113d5a39898e061a?hide_quotes=no#msg_2000b6278e1af0ea
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/4ff7a92e2425dde2
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/AASM53.html#536
http://www.molecularassembler.com/KSRM/5.6.htm
Why is an ad hoc design not as interesting- or indeed why have all of
the current ad hoc designed systems so completely failed to do
self-replication? By picking up a single pebble, or grain of sand on
the beach, you do not completely isolate the tides and the geological
processes that led to that grain of sand; similarly, if you buy a part
from the hardware store, you probably know very little about what into
making that part. By just randomly starting at some place, such as 'at
this part', means that you- ideally- are going to go traverse the
linear chain of processes that made that part; however, in most cases
these are commercial businesses and aren't too happy about a fellow
reverse engineering every square inch of their facilities. In some
cases, there are craftsmen who still make parts by hand, who are still
interested in community involvement, and perhaps there are still
handcrafted versions of every item that we see out there, and then
perhaps it would be a legitimate and comprehensive task to go find all
of those skillsmen and learn their trade for each item that they make?
That's an intriguing prospect, but there's no guarantee that you're
ever going to be able to find those people, let alone the subset of
those people that might be working with manufacturing processes that
would be useful in self-replication, and whether or not the time that
you invest will at all reveal to you in a useful order the set of
processes that could become a comprehensive whole of a
self-replicating system. That's the thing- it either self-replicates
or it doesn't, none of this "it almost self-replicates!" nonsense. How
could it be partially doing something that it's not doing? How can you
have a 36% of a 'self'? It's a binary thing- it's either within the
limits of uncertainty or it's not, and if it by definition is
'partial' then it's not going to be near any of the error bars of the
target. I don't know if we've ever had our pow-wow here on the list
about whether or not partial self-replication is worth our time, or
the different thinking going into that, so if anyone wants to raise up
a few comments, that'd be neat.
Anywho, time to quote Freitas.
"""
Consider, for example, the problem of parts closure. Imagine that the
entire factory and all of its machines are broken down into their
component parts. If the original factory cannot fabricate every one of
these items, then parts closure does not exist and the system is not
fully self-replicating .
....
The fraction of total necessary resources that must be supplied by
some external agency has been dubbed the "Tukey Ratio" (Heer, 1980).
Originally intended simply as an informal measure of basic materials
closure, the most logical form of the Tukey Ratio is computed by
dividing the mass of the external supplies per unit time interval by
the total mass of all inputs necessary to achieve self-replication.
(This is actually the inverse of the original version of the ratio.)
In a fully self-replicating system with no external inputs, the Tukey
Ratio thus would be zero (0%).
It has been pointed out that if a system is "truly isolated in the
thermodynamic sense and also perhaps in a more absolute sense (no
exchange of information with the environment) then it cannot be
self-replicating without violating the laws of thermodynamics"
(Heer,1980). While this is true, it should be noted that a system
which achieves complete "closure" is not "closed" or "isolated" in the
classical sense. Materials, energy, and information still flow into
the system which is thermodynamically "open"; these flows are of
indigenous origin and may be managed autonomously by the SRS itself
without need for direct human intervention.
Closure theory. For replicating machine systems, complete closure is
theoretically quite plausible; no fundamental or logical
impossibilities have yet been identified. Indeed, in many areas
automata theory already provides relatively unambiguous conclusions.
For example, the theoretical capability of machines to perform
"universal computation" and "universal construction" can be
demonstrated with mathematical rigor (Turing, 1936; von Neumann, 1966;
see also sec. 5.2), so parts assembly closure is certainly
theoretically possible.
An approach to the problem of closure in real engineering-systems is
to begin with the issue of parts closure by asking the question: can a
set of machines produce all of its elements? If the manufacture of
each part requires, on average, the addition of >1 new parts to
product it, then an infinite number of parts are required in the
initial system and complete closure cannot be achieved. On the other
hand, if the mean number of new parts per original part is <1, then
the design sequence converges to some finite ensemble of elements and
bounded replication becomes possible.
The central theoretical issue is: can a real machine system itself
produce and assemble all the kinds of parts of which it is comprised?
In our generalized terrestrial industrial economy manned by humans the
answer clearly is yes, since "the set of machines which make all other
machines is a subset of the set of all machines" (Freitas et
al.,1981). In space a few percent of total system mass could feasibly
be supplied from Earth-based manufacturers as "vitamin parts."
Alternatively, the system could be designed with components of very
limited complexity (Heer, 1980). The minimum size of a self-sufficient
"machine economy" remains unknown.
"""
That last part might be a hint towards future (as in, current- as in
stuff you can do today) analyses, towards figuring out the minimum
'size' of a self-sufficient 'machine economy'. Anyway, reprap went
(started!) pure ad-hoc, wanted to do self-replication, and then lied
to the NY Times and so on. I'm still upset about that I guess. In
truth it began as a goo squirter- but where did the idea of
self-replication jump in? Does anyone know the history of this
specifically? Now, you could legitimately claim that I have not seen
an ad hoc design process for a non-goo-squirting self-replicating
machine (that may or may not involve goo squirting in it at some
point, of course, just not "let's build a goo squirter and call it
self-replicating")- and so if you showed me plans for an ad hoc design
process for a self-replicating machine, I'd definitely look over it
and put a lot of thinks into it.
> As a race to the next stage of industrial production, it can easily
> boil down to the first one out of the starting blocks. Get enough of
> a lead before the rest of the world figures out the implications, and
> they'll never catch up. And, regarding design choices, if you can
> generate enough excitement in the global internet-connected "game
> space", you can promote competition among teams whose members have
> chosen different design approaches.
I am not against competition, but I would express caution when
comparing different design decisions, because some decisions are made
for totally different reasons, like in the case of reprap- it's not
really about replication, for instance- and comparing it to somebody
who is designing an artificial synthetic organic lifeform chemistry
out of, say, silicon. So while I'm not going to get worked up about
the existence of alternative designs, I'm going to very clearly make a
big stink when you're not actually working on self-replication, or
when you make erroneous claims about the capabilities of your machine
:-). A friendly big stink, of course, but still, a stink. I don't know
if you're referring to the SKDB design methodology for
self-replication when you say evaluating a solution space for a 'best'
design. There's a difference between evaluating the possibility space
for *actual* designs versus selecting from those actual designs and
finding the best among them. I agree that finding the 'best' among
them at this point is a non-starter-- but at this point, we don't even
have preliminary designs for self-replicating systems, just a lot of
hand-waving.
Jeff Davis
> Under what authority were those 137 properties designed? This reeks of
> bullshitting.
Huh? This is Freitas authority. I hold that pretty high. Me? I'm a
bullshitter, no question. But Freitas?
> There's no master data set of all possible manufacturing
> processes. And I have yet to find a partial data set of said
> manufacturing processes (except perhaps the recent one I sent to the
> list re: thermodynamic analyses), which would be somewhat useful in a
> slightly different way. But anyway, there are certain properties of
> self-replication that need to be well-defined, otherwise you're just
> flinging poo like a monkey.
> This is why Freitas put a significant
> amount of time thinking about 'vitamins'.
I don't mean to be rude, but which is it: is he a bullshitter or a
citation-worthy source?
I think we can both agree that Freitas is a serious authority -- a
demi-god maybe, but no god. ;-)
<snip>
> That's the thing- it either self-replicates
> or it doesn't, none of this "it almost self-replicates!" nonsense.
Strongly disagree on this.
In my early enthusiasm for the concept of self-replication, I was a
"100% closure" purist. No more.
I went back to economic basics: all costs are labor costs (anything
that doesn't look like labor is, in fact, just labor repackaged). It
is precisely because of this that self-rep (or any transitional
intermediate) represents the next step, a quantum improvement in
industrial productivity through a radical reduction in labor costs per
widget. But of course you know this.
The cost of any replicated SRMS module (one basic unit) =
[(the design cost (human labor)
+ programming cost (human labor)
+ materials (labor repackaged)
+ construction cost (human labor) for the first "seed"/module)]
divided by the total number of modules..
As the number of modules increases -- to an arbitrarily large module
count -- and absent any additional human inputs (more labor) the unit
cost drops to an "almost" arbitrarily small amount. The lower limit
determined by the minimum human labor costs -- the three cost factors
listed above -- for creating the first seed.
The situation is the same if you expand the cost envelope to include
the costs of human labor involved in start-up, shakedown, and
optimization.
But this is an idealized condition -- an "upper bound", a theoretical
construct -- the purest, most extreme version of self-replication.
More than is necessary to tap into the productivity advantages that
self-rep offers.
So I reasonably and rationally gave up my "purist"("fundamentalist"?)
rigidity, and adopted a more relaxed view regarding parts closure and
post-implementation human inputs. The bottom line -- the crossover to
competitive viability -- is not parts closure or autonomous function,
but whether the system beats conventional tech in productivity --
dollars per widget. So the new cost basis for the reality-based (such
as it is) SRMS (vs the purist über-SRMS) includes additional
labor-based costs:
((per module vitamin cost) + (per module "operating/operator" costs
per unit time)) x module count = additional system cost per unit time
Of course, longer-term optimization efforts would seek to minimize
"operator" duties/costs.
My point is: you can say it's binary, define yourself into a corner,
and say "That's not a self-replicating system." Fair enough. And
correct. But it just seals you out of exploiting the advantages of
"impure" first generation human-assisted self-rep. Baby, bathwater.
<snip>
> I don't know if we've ever had our pow-wow here on the list
> about whether or not partial self-replication is worth our time, or
> the different thinking going into that, so if anyone wants to raise up
> a few comments, that'd be neat.
>
> Anywho, time to quote Freitas.
>
> """
> Consider, for example, the problem of parts closure. Imagine that the
> entire factory and all of its machines are broken down into their
> component parts. If the original factory cannot fabricate every one of
> these items, then parts closure does not exist and the system is not
> fully self-replicating .
<snip>
> a system
> which achieves complete "closure" is not "closed" or "isolated" in the
> classical sense. Materials, energy, and information still flow into
> the system which is thermodynamically "open"; these flows are of
> indigenous origin and may be managed autonomously by the SRS itself
> without need for direct human intervention.
>
> Closure theory. For replicating machine systems, complete closure is
> theoretically quite plausible; no fundamental or logical
> impossibilities have yet been identified.
<snip>
******************************
>> As a race to the next stage of industrial production, it can easily
>> boil down to the first one out of the starting blocks. Get enough of
>> a lead before the rest of the world figures out the implications, and
>> they'll never catch up. And, regarding design choices, if you can
>> generate enough excitement in the global internet-connected "game
>> space", you can promote competition among teams whose members have
>> chosen different design approaches.
> I am not against competition,
> but I would express caution when
> comparing different design decisions,
Re this competitive element, my scheme for implementation is
proprietary ("It's mine, all mine! Bwahaha!") Can't discuss it in an
open forum.
> because some decisions are made
> for totally different reasons, like in the case of reprap- it's not
> really about replication, for instance- and comparing it to somebody
> who is designing an artificial synthetic organic lifeform chemistry
> out of, say, silicon. So while I'm not going to get worked up about
> the existence of alternative designs, I'm going to very clearly make a
> big stink when you're not actually working on self-replication, or
> when you make erroneous claims about the capabilities of your machine
> :-). A friendly big stink, of course, but still, a stink.
Fair enough. And I'm committed to friendliness as well, and vigorous
discussion. We share a common goal, seeking the same tech benefits,
just along different paths and with different definitions.
> I don't know if you're referring to the SKDB design methodology for self-replication
I'm not familiar with this, will read up on it.
Paul D. Fernhout
> I went back to economic basics: all costs are labor costs (anything
> that doesn't look like labor is, in fact, just labor repackaged).
Just an off-hand comment that "rent seeking" does not fall in that category
of labor. (I'm not saying you said that, I'm just making a note of it.)
Rent seeking is when you force people (essentially indirectly at gunpoint)
to give you stuff "just because". As in "just because" my great-grandfather
was friends with some king, you have to pay me for the right to mine here.
Or "just because" we got to the patent office first, you have to pay me to
produce your independently developed idea. And so on. Sure there is some
labor involved with rent seeking, but it is the labor of parasitism, not
primary productivity.
However, conventional economics tries to paint "rent seeking" as productive
labor, suggesting great thought goes into deciding who to rent stuff to
(whether it is renting land, fiat dollars, ideas, whatever), and thus rent
seekers should get the lion's share of all primary productivity.
For more on this, see:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
""
Justifications for elites and social hierarchy goes all the way back to the
pharaohs. For 6000 years, society has organized itself into social classes.
The people who do the work are always in the lower classes. The harder and
nastier the work, the lower down in the social order you sink. The people
who don’t do this work must justify their position. They do it by
establishing their “worthiness”, and a variety of cultural devices have been
concocted over the millennia to accomplish this. The pharaohs, you may
recall, weren’t people at all. They were gods. Roman emperors likewise had
themselves deified, and before that Roman Senators justified their position
as “patricians”. Basically, “my great great granddaddy was a big shot,
therefore I should be too.”
The middle ages gave us the notion of the “great chain of being”. Outside
the earthly realm – in the realm of myth, that is – there is Jesus and the
“heavenly host”. Just below the angels and saints is the king, followed by
his entourage of muscle men otherwise known as the “nobility”. Since kings
were chosen “by the grace of God”, they didn’t answer to ordinary mortals.
At least they didn’t before Runnymeade, when the English nobility
straightened out King John about where his power really came from.
This is the historical background for those famous words of Thomas
Jefferson. “Governments are instituted among men, and derive their just
powers from the consent of the governed”. Everyone has heard those words.
School children recite them. Few people appreciate that those words
repudiated 6000 years of mumbo-jumbo to justify the existence of social
classes and fixed elites. Elites don’t get their power from the gods, or
from Jesus or from any other mythological source. Elites get their power
from the people they rule. Power flows from the bottom up, not from the top
down.
Old habits die hard. In fact, we still have a “leisure class”. As capitalism
has grown so has the wealth and privilege of our leisure class. The old
mythologies – gods, the “great chain of being” etc. – are no longer
available to justify the existence and perpetuation of our leisure class,
something our elites are definitely interested in perpetuating. What was
needed was a new “rational” world-view that justified the existence of
privileged elites.
That rationalization came in the form of a brand new science known as
economics, which included a brand new mythology.
"""
--Paul Fernhout