Comment by dilawar
2 months ago
Something similar: Kolmogorov complexity.
There is a finite size program that can generate infinite digits of pi (in infinite time). Kolmogorov's complexity of pi is finite even when the object is infinite.
It's not very surprising that it takes a few GB of a program to encode conscious 'us'. Humbling to think about it though...
For a demonstration of Kolmogorov complexity, it's good to watch "A mind is born"[0] by lftkryo. It's only 256 bytes, but can generate over 2 minutes of complex music and video. Also, the name is appropriate for this topic :D
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWblpsLZ-O8
Yeah but pi digits are essentially random noise, but any human is a precisely build system. E.g. there are exactly two identical eyes with nerves going to this precise area of brain, every time.
It's more like mega-efficient archive utility that unzips a few GB into a human, I just can't fathom it.
That's exactly the wrong way to think about it, and I'm surprised that so many devs think of it that way. We already have programs that works exactly like that (i.e. producing rich, complex output that would be many times the size of the input code + data if encoded raw): procedural generators. It's emergent complexity, not compression.
> It's emergent complexity, not compression.
They might be the same thing.
See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31003493
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