From: Greg Jordan (jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu)
Date: Fri Apr 25 2003 - 16:04:38 MDT
On Fri, 25 Apr 2003, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 12:23:27 -0700
> From: Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal@smigrodzki.org>
> Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Subject: RE: Doomsday vs Diaspora
>
> Greg Jordan wrote:
> > It seems improbable that a civilization spread out over various star
> > systems would be using radio or any other light-speed communication
> > system, which would be far too slow. So most likely, we are simply not
> > able to monitor their communications medium, and perhaps it is also
> > not "broadcast" but rather pointed with a little more privacy.
>
> ### This possibility is covered by the "common loss of interest in the above
> activities" part of the Fermi paradox explanation.
What I meant was that an interstellar civilization might communicate by
means that do not easily permit eavesdropping, by curious primitives or
anyone else.
I don't think intelligence, as we know it, could "lose interest" in
exploration.
gej
resourcesoftheworld.org
jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu
>
>
> Rafal
>
>
> >
> > On Thu, 24 Apr 2003, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> >
> >> Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 12:02:48 -0700
> >> From: Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal@smigrodzki.org>
> >> Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
> >> To: extropians@extropy.org
> >> Subject: RE: Doomsday vs Diaspora
> >>
> >> Civilizations which travel in space and loudly proclaiming their
> >> existence by radio and other means we can detect, are apparently
> >> uncommon. This fact can be the result of either uncommon genesis,
> >> common loss of interest in the above activities, or common doom. No
> >> a priori anthropic argument can decide between the alternatives. The
> >> optimist, then, will hope to be the result of an uncommon event,
> >> which allows a reasonable expectation of extreme longevity, perhaps
> >> disinterested in talking to primitives and not contravened by
> >> observation. The pessimist worries that we are the products of a
> >> common event, and therefore consigned to the outcome most compatible
> >> with what we see.
> >>
> >> Since our data on either the likelihood of spontaneous life
> >> emergence, or the future of average sentient interest development,
> >> or the actual cumulative extinction risk for a civilization of our
> >> type, are woefully inadequate, the optimist and the pessimist will
> >> reach their conclusions according to their predilections, while the
> >> Bayesian will not conclude anything at all, aside from the need to
> >> search for new knowledge and to carefully incorporate it in his
> >> reasoning.
> >>
> >> Rafal
>
>
>
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