Samantha Adkins writes:
>I simply expect intelligence, esepcially much higher
>intelligence, to manage to make and keep agreements that increase its
>overall benefits and avoid too much conflict and chaos. I would rather
>bet on that than bet that a model based on replicating bacteria is more
>applicable.
I am in complete accord with Samantha on this issue, and Carl Sagan, and
Fritz Freiheit, from whose treatment of the subject--
The Possibilities of FTL:
Or Fermi's Paradox Reconsidered
by F.E. Freiheit IV
Copyright (c) 1993 by F.E. Freiheit IV
which can be found in its entirety at;
http://alumni.engin.umich.edu/~fritx/Ftlessay/essay.html
--I submit the following excerpt, one of several suggested possible
explantions of the Fermi Paradox:
2.9 A galactic community exists with the capability of enforcing some
viewpoint concerning life bearing worlds.
The final possibility is one where a long term stable galactic community of
civilizations exists. At some point during the 10 to 13 billion years that
advanced civilizations have had the opportunity to arise in either a single
civilization or a cooperative group of civilizations would almost certainly
have spanned the galaxy. Once such a pattern of galactic community takes
hold, it is self reinforcing as it has an inherent survival value (32).
Cooperative pooling of resources generally produces a more efficient use of
the resources. It can be seen in Earths ecosystem, both
biologically and sociologically, that cooperative behavior is reinforced.
The "Anti-Social" civilizations that arise would have a harder time
surviving in a galactic
environment where pre-existing civilizations could bring their more
advanced resources into play against such upstart civilizations. Likelihood
of the survival of an "Anti-Social" civilization is low, either initially
or in the long run.
It would appear that this galactic community is opposed to the haphazard
colonization of life
bearing worlds. The reasons for this are legion. Current attitudes in
Western civilization here on
Earth towards Third World cultures give some possible reasons. A short list
of possibilities are:
Interest in unspoiled Native Cultures
Indigenous creativity may produce previously unknown items
Code of Non-interference
(end of excerpt)
Reference (32) above is:
Carl Sagan & I.S. Shklovskii, Intelligent Life in the Universe, Holden-Day
(1966), page 418.
----------------------------------------------------
I would also like to draw attention to the idea, either Robin's or Gene's,
that the autoreplicators of the expansion wave achieve their maximal
expansion capability through a Darwinian selection process. That being the
case, those *fastest* replicators will be one among a vast family of
replicators, whose various capabilities make them most suited to various
galactic niches. Which is to say, this *family* will constitute an
ecosystem, and drawing again from the above excerpt, Mssr. Freiheit writes:
>It can be seen in Earths ecosystem, both
>biologically and sociologically, that cooperative behavior is reinforced.
--------------------------------------------
One additional comment. The high-speed, stripped down, pony-express model
replicator, would not want to drop in on a large planet or one with an
atmosphere, because both of these factors requires a larger, and therefore
more time-consuming-to-build re-launch system. No. To minimize the
turnaround time they want to drop in on an asteroid, maybe. But even this
might not be optimal, because consider, escaping the gravity well of the
star itself is going to slow things down for the next jump. Unless you
simply blast right on through without stopping, using the star's gravity
for the old slingshot effect. Stopping in the oort cloud reduces the
gravity well problem, and although solar energy at that distance is meager,
fusion power from low-nucleon-number matter should do the trick. Heck,
under the right circumstances the replicator could map out its route
through the system ahead of time, calculate the slingshot and desired
course correction, blast on in and through at high fractional c, never
stopping, collect and process local materials on the fly, build the landing
replicator and restock its own fuel/supplies, then deccelerate the lander
by using it as reaction mass, as it gives itself a fractional boost off to
its next stop. Just a thought.
Best, Jeff Davis
"Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
Ray Charles
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