I see that you did say "for any specific task", but, as I noted in my response to that, it seemed inconsistent with the much stronger nature of the claim that seemed to me to be either implicit or explicit in the other things you said. So I was confused about exactly what position you were taking. I'm clearer about it in view of this post; see below.
Per my understanding of relativity and the present state of physics (significantly received from others but I think that I followed it at the time) this is simply not the case (in particular, if time is finite then "everything our light cone will encompass before the end of time" is finite - and I think an expansionary universe makes things worse).
If you think this, then your understanding of relativity is wrong. As I responded to your other post upthread, "time is finite" only if space is finite, per the Einstein Field Equation. And the expansion of the universe does not "make things worse" in any sense that I can see, because the only reasonable solutions for the universe as a whole are dynamic (the only static solution, Einstein's static universe with a nonzero cosmological constant, is unstable, like a pencil balanced on its point, so it's not really reasonable as a real-world solution).
You hold that, for any task in any situation, with sufficient knowledge, the resources it can take can approach arbitrarily close to zero?
Yes (with an appropriate definition of "any task in any situation"). Julian Simon, AFAIK, was the first to defend this claim in detail, in a series of economics papers in (IIRC) the 1980's. It was in this same time period that he made his famous bet with Paul Ehrlich (of "Population Bomb" fame) about whether the price of 5 common resources would fall (Simon's bet) or rise (Ehrlich's bet) over a period of some years. Simon won the bet for all 5.
I don't think the bounds given by physics have any impact yet. I'm not convinced they ever will
Then what's the point of talking about them? If you think there are more practical bounds, what are they?
My original point, which I think too much was read into, was simply that there are situations in which some having more can lead to others having less, and that paying attention to whether we're in such a situation is worthwhile.
But this is a different statement from "resources are finite". Some having more can lead to others having less even if there is plenty to go around (for example, consider investment banks and the economy tanking in 2008). I would say that skewed incentives, and our failure as a society to properly punish people who undermine basic institutions, are far more pressing problems than resource limits.
I see that you did say "for any specific task", but, as I noted in my response to that, it seemed inconsistent with the much stronger nature of the claim that seemed to me to be either implicit or explicit in the other things you said. So I was confused about exactly what position you were taking. I'm clearer about it in view of this post; see below.
Per my understanding of relativity and the present state of physics (significantly received from others but I think that I followed it at the time) this is simply not the case (in particular, if time is finite then "everything our light cone will encompass before the end of time" is finite - and I think an expansionary universe makes things worse).
If you think this, then your understanding of relativity is wrong. As I responded to your other post upthread, "time is finite" only if space is finite, per the Einstein Field Equation. And the expansion of the universe does not "make things worse" in any sense that I can see, because the only reasonable solutions for the universe as a whole are dynamic (the only static solution, Einstein's static universe with a nonzero cosmological constant, is unstable, like a pencil balanced on its point, so it's not really reasonable as a real-world solution).
You hold that, for any task in any situation, with sufficient knowledge, the resources it can take can approach arbitrarily close to zero?
Yes (with an appropriate definition of "any task in any situation"). Julian Simon, AFAIK, was the first to defend this claim in detail, in a series of economics papers in (IIRC) the 1980's. It was in this same time period that he made his famous bet with Paul Ehrlich (of "Population Bomb" fame) about whether the price of 5 common resources would fall (Simon's bet) or rise (Ehrlich's bet) over a period of some years. Simon won the bet for all 5.
I don't think the bounds given by physics have any impact yet. I'm not convinced they ever will
Then what's the point of talking about them? If you think there are more practical bounds, what are they?
My original point, which I think too much was read into, was simply that there are situations in which some having more can lead to others having less, and that paying attention to whether we're in such a situation is worthwhile.
But this is a different statement from "resources are finite". Some having more can lead to others having less even if there is plenty to go around (for example, consider investment banks and the economy tanking in 2008). I would say that skewed incentives, and our failure as a society to properly punish people who undermine basic institutions, are far more pressing problems than resource limits.