From: Damien Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Sun Apr 27 2003 - 09:39:07 MDT
> > Getting back to the original query by Jef; we need to ask if its easier to
> > develop complexity, then it is to use energy to travel? There may or may
Where'd the obsession with complexity come from? What happened to just plain
_knowledge_? And exploration. Spin your bits all you want and it won't tell
you what's going on *over there*. Well, to some extent: you can make big
telescopes and such. But ultimately you can't beat going over and taking a
close look. Maybe the complexity you generate at home is more interesting
than finding new varieites of rock and beetle and stellar instability. OTOH,
the real has a certain cachet from being able to lethally surprise you.
I have a vague idea that the original application of von Neumann machines was
interstellar exploration: send out a probe, have it copy itself, soon you've
got a sphere of probes spreading through the galaxy, bombarding you with
increasing amounts of exploration data. So it needn't even cost that much, at
least the going out and looking part. Storing the data might...
And you can make it a solid sphere, with a probe in every system to monitor it
for changes. Possibly not too exciting in the average red dwarf system (but
you never know for sure) but good for those potential life-producers and the
stars which go boom. Signals schmignals; if there were advanced life out
there there should be something watching us now... which would have been
parked here since before the dinosaurs bought it.
-xx- Damien X-)
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