"M. E. Smith" <mesmith@rocketmail.com> writes:
> > I don't find it hard to imagine the SI one day
> > realizing "Aha! So that
> > is how it all works..." and then feeling a bit of
> > dissapointment (it
> > was rather trivial when you think about it) which
> > quickly turns into
> > the determination of creating something better,
> > something more
> > interesting.
>
> You misunderstand. My hypothetical SI was not trying
> to figure out how the universe works, but WHY.
Well, my above paragraph works in that case too. After all, maybe the universe doesn't have a *good* reason?
I'm reminded a bit of the civilization mentioned briefly in Vinge's _A Fire Upon the Deep_ that was created as a joke by a transcendant power. Maybe the universe is a bad joke? Maybe we want to escape into real literature?
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y