RE: Dennis May replies/was Re: One solution to the Fermi Paradox

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Feb 16 2003 - 10:27:19 MST

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    In the debate about the Fermi paradox Dennis May has
    written (as supplied by Dan)

    > > it's not that advanced ETIs would be afraid of humans
    > > as they are now, but of giving themselves away to
    > > other advanced ETIs that might see them as threats
    > > or rivals, right?
    >
    > If you give yourself away to humans there is some
    > chance you are giving yourself away to many other
    > groups as well. An advanced group might be aware
    > that humans are a single breakthrough away from
    > regular space travel and WoMD which cannot be
    > guarded against.

    I consider all this quite silly. Civilizations that
    reach approximately our level of achievement, which
    takes merely a million years from the animal state,
    quickly undergo some sort of singularity and expand
    to encompass all solar systems in their galaxy. This
    requires far less than one additional million years.
    So all told, we are talking about it taking less than
    two million years for an animal to conquer a galaxy.

    These arguments are bolstered to a rather definitive
    degree IMO in Frank Tipler's "The Physics of Immortality"
    and Barrow and Tipler's "The Cosmic Anthropological
    Principle". He points out that using "Von Neumann probes"
    a civilization converts the remaining part of its galaxy
    to its own tissue (my words) in a geological eye-blink.

    The civilization, of course, continues to expand at the
    speed of light, with at every moment the singularity at
    the center retaining the most advanced state.

    Talk about "advanced ETI's" somehow remaining aloof
    from our planet is merely emotionally appealing SF.
    "There aren't any"; that's the answer to the Fermi
    question.

    Lee Corbin



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