From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Sat Jul 26 2003 - 09:58:14 MDT
Robin Hanson wrote:
> Some people think that the explanation of the Fermi paradox
> is that there are predators out there that swoop down an destroy
> any civilization that visibly starts to colonize. For that,
> I have a parable:
>
> Imagine a field full of slow plump rabbits, munching on grass.
> Imagine a fox sitting in a tall clump of grass eating the
> rabbits that happen to wander into that clump. This fox is
> thinks that he shouldn't leave his clump, because there are
> meta-foxes out there, who only eat foxes. He thinks the
> reason that there are so many uneaten rabbits out there is that
> any time a fox comes out to eat a rabbit, a meta-fox sees it
> and runs in and eats the fox. And his reason for not seeing
> any meta-foxes out there eating foxes is that this is a very
> rare event, due to the fact that meta-foxes are very efficient
> and foxes are rare.
>
> My key problem with this scenario is: why don't the meta-foxes
> eat the rabbits? Why focus on a few hard to catch foxes?
I'm not sure I understand the analogy.
My guess: We're the fox, the rabbits are the uneaten stars we see all
around us, and the metafoxes are the supposed destroyers of colonizers?
If so, then the scenario constrains its supporter to postulate an Exotic
Meta-Fox Motive: Eat Only Foxes. I'm not sure how much Kolmogorov
complexity a scenario should be penalized for requiring an Exotic Meta-Fox
Motive but it should probably be at least 8 bits. After all, with the
right Exotic Meta-Fox Motive you can explain literally *anything*.
Wouldn't it be sad if, instead of things having simple explanations, in
the end it all turned out to come down to Exotic Meta-Fox Motives?
-- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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