From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Sun Feb 16 2003 - 11:13:33 MST
On Sunday, February 16, 2003 12:27 PM Lee Corbin lcorbin@tsoft.com
wrote:
> In the debate about the Fermi paradox Dennis May has
> written (as supplied by Dan)
I've also cross-posted your response back to Star_Ship forum to keep the
discussion going.
>> 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.
I'm not so sure I consider it silly. You are accepting one of the
premises of May's argument: any two civilizations would eventually
become rivals for the same resources. So, coexistence is not
possible -- or, at least, one can't assume another civilization will
want coexistence even if yours wants it. The next point to be made
would be how does one prevent oneself from being destroyed or overcome.
May believes nomadism combined with stealth would be the answer. This
way you don't draw the attention of current or future enemies. (Also,
you might advance your own weapons and technology in the interim being
more ready for conflict should it come in the future. A more
destructive/aggressive civilization might adopt the strategy of just
pre-empting all potential rivals. A more peaceful one would be absorbed
and not be around to tell about it. This all within May's model.)
> 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.
This, however, would tend to support the idea that civilizations would
want to stop each other -- though likely the differences in
technological levels would make this an unequal battle with the more
advanced civilization destroying or absorbing the less advanced one.
> 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.
I tend to agree with the last point: There are no ETIs yet.
I also think that absent centralized control -- as would happen with a
civilization expanding into space -- there would be some chatter and
we'd have picked it up by now if they were such a civilization active in
our galaxy. So, again, I accept the null hypothesis here.
(But darn if Smart's transcension model doesn't entice me.:)
Cheers!
Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Feb 16 2003 - 11:17:14 MST