Nick Szabo  🔑

@gwern @cinnamon_carter Positing leap from nothing to 4^(10^5) complexity prokaryote in short time is "a miracle occured here" assumption.

@gwern @cinnamon_carter Before first self-sufficient ecosystem there could only be random trials with RNA & proteins.

@gwern @cinnamon_carter P atoms in universe limit random trials of RNA at 1e6/second in parallel to << 10^92 in 10e10 yrs.

@gwern @cinnamon_carter Making efficiently compressed 150 base-pair organism may be feasible. For 200 base pairs << ~ 1/10^27.

@gwern @cinnamon_carter In other words, the first self-sustaining ecosystem had to be vastly simpler than efficiently compressed prokaryote.

@NickSzabo4 @cinnamon_carter True and irrelevant. Complexity of minimal life doesn't imply strict linearity of growth over all time!

@gwern @cinnamon_carter The point is not strict linearity, the point is eliminate the hidden assumption of miraculously improbable events.

@NickSzabo4 @cinnamon_carter Huh? the point of that paper *is* strict linearity. It's whole model: assume linearity and project backwards.