RE: Fermi "Paradox"

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Aug 03 2003 - 02:12:06 MDT

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    Mitch writes

    > Lee Corbin:
    > > No one has ever advanced even a slightly persuasive reason
    > > why it would be in their interest to remain mysterious and
    > > secretive. No, it's a story just to advance the fairy tale,
    > > so that people can continue to harbor their alluring and
    > > intriguing fantasies about "aliens".

    > It does seem, at this juncture, to be a dead and empty
    > universe, sans Earth. Given that, what should the
    > descendents of humans do with such a cosmos?

    We should bring the cosmos to life. And bring life to the cosmos.

    Serafino writes

    > Lee [writes]
    > > Okay, so it is just the *allure* of playing with the ideas of some
    > > kind of Galactic Club Prime Directive, or what, that accounts for
    > > otherwise sensible people on this list not accepting the obvious
    > > "Because We Are Alone, duh!"?

    > But what do they 'eat'?
    > Energy, time, information?
    > Which are, at least, connected (*).

    Yes, just like the rest of us. In Robin's metaphor, the meta-foxes
    eat the same things as the foxes.

    > I'm not sure they could find 'here' these things.

    I fear that they would! In less than a thousand years, the Earth
    will probably be at the center of a civilization expanding at
    the speed of light. By the same token, if there ever are
    aliens in the skies of Earth, they will be from a civilization
    (when they left it) about a thousand years ahead of ours.

    We could be so low on the scale of evolution when it gets
    here, that it brushes us aside as microbes, using the energy
    and resources of the solar system for its own lifeburst.

    The odds of this happening so close to our own lifeburst
    are miniscule, however.

    > We can offer good dishes, plus Brahms,
    > plus Camus, and Cezanne. Do they like
    > these contextual informations?

    It would be hoped that they would act the same way as we
    will if we (by a fantantic chance) happen to encounter
    a billion light years from here (a billion years from now)
    a civilization on the verge of galactic conquest. We
    should (with our thousand year head start) regard them
    as little brothers who'll join us in bringing life to
    the cosmos---and that would also include treasuring their
    archeological and cultural past.

    Lee



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