singularity, cant we tell a computer to think of a better computer

[sexualjesus]

hey guys and gals, i had a thought a long time ago that the binary system is shitty and obsolete, the only reason we use it is because its all we have, we made electricity, we then made the digital age, but whos to say when they were thinking up the binary system they could of strayed from the path and thoght up something completely different and more efficient, rather then now when there pumping billions into developing what we have now.

long intro i know but recently ive been reading up in the technological singularity, a smart computer that can make itself smarter, they think a computer will eventually become so fast that its smarter then us, which means since it can think like us it can figure out complex problems like how to make itself faster. computers these days can solve problems, its what there made for, they cant think up new ideas but they sure can add up to give the best idea out of the lot, so whats to stop us from makeing a computer present day from thinking up an entirely different computer system.

think about it, we write a whole lot about how computers work and how electricity works and tell it to think up a different solution.

i plan to post this in the maths and tech forum because its more relevant there but im posting it here to give everyone a chance to tell me how stupid this sounds or if its a good thought, or just give you something to think about when you sleep tonight, also id like to know if theres anything similiar, i remember back at school we was taught about a massive group of servers that would judge each others ideas, each computer taught to think differently to the next and all of them coming up with different solutions like a bunch of retards thinking up ways to get out a crayon from inside a persons nose

cheers for any replies

[Agent 008]

Our modern-day computers are essentially Turing machines. They can perform computations - deterministic and pseudo-nondeterministic. We don't yet know how exactly human creativity works, and where exactly free will comes from. Therefore, we can't really simulate that.

Computers don't solve the problems - humans solve the problems, and computers compute the answers based on the solutions that humans came up with,

But in theory, yes, it's possible. One example of that would be us cloning a human brain, filling the appropriate areas with the correct "memories" and "information", connecting its senses and its "reward" systems to a virtual environment, and making it work on whatever we want it to work, while keeping it satisfied and unaware that it's being used.

[mrgoodbar]

the next step is a floating point bit system. like instead of 1 or 0 a bit could equal .83

[Agent 008]

the next step is a floating point bit system. like instead of 1 or 0 a bit could equal .83

..Why?

The most efficient numerical system is a system base e (look up a proof, it's fairly easy). The closest integer base to that is base 3. The only reason we use base 2 and not base 3, is because base 2 is easier to implement in hardware.

However, this is just about increasing "quantity", not "quality".

[NamelessNom4d]

Guys... quantum computing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing

/thread

[mrgoodbar]

Guys... quantum computing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing

/thread

sweet

[NaiveMonarch]

A switch can be on or off, until we get 10 different ways to express on and off, we're sticking with binary brosef.

[IdentityCrisis]

Guys... quantum computing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing

/thread

and this clicky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_computer)

[Agent 008]

and this clicky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_computer)

But all it does, is it makes the computations faster. It's still just a Turing machine.

[Cir]

...a massive group of servers that would judge each others ideas, each computer taught to think differently to the next and all of them coming up with different solutions...


I can't remember where I first read it, but there was some kind of talk about evolving computer programs, starting out with a set number of 'behaviours', five of them I think. So there was one very conservative version, a mildly conservative one, a neutral one, a mildly ambitious one and a very ambitious one. That's how I think they described it.

The programs would go up against a kind of obstacle course, and would note ways of going faster or completing an obstacle they had to skip. They would copy themselves five times, each copy having one of the five different behaviors. Then they implement whatever modifications they decided on, and then run them. Only one in a million or so worked, and an even slimmer percentage of those worked better than their predecessors. But over several million generations, the programs evolved to go faster and be more flexible than any human could have designed them. There was something like a thousand line program evolved to have only one line of code, with hundreds of nested functions.

If anyone knows what I'm talking about, let me know...

[Waxxumus]

We are computers, ones that suck incredibly bad at harnessing their cpu's.

[ergoat]

We are computers, ones that suck incredibly bad at harnessing their cpu's.
And at basic english apparently.

[dawk]

google is only the beginning heh

[JANUS]

the nice thing about binary is that it fits so well into logic math stuff, where all you have are true and false.

[sexualjesus]

but maths sucks, imagine a picture, now the fact that you can see that picture inside of your head is just plain awesome, imagine having computers just create images randomly all the pixels floating around freely as if there not pixels, watch some equiliser video's like on winamp (milkdrop) it would be so cool to see something like that, when were high we can see such random moving images in our heads, pretty colours and rainbows fusing togethor to form something identifiable. a computer should be like that.

floating point system is interesting but theres a really cool system that i read about that works differently, completely visual, cant find it and it probably doesnt exist but if i find it ill link you all to it