On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 6:25 PM, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 7:38 AM, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> > wrote: > >> > >> To summarize the argument: >> >> 1. A sufficiently advanced civilization is bound to become a galactic >> civilization; >> 2. We do not observe a galactic civilization; >> 3. If other instances of life are found, this means that life is not so >> rare; >> 4. So it is likely that there is a major obstacle that prevents a >> civilization from becoming galactic, > > > I think that's a pretty good summary. > > >> >> > >> and this filter is likely to be >> ahead of us. > > > I wouldn't say its likely I'd say it's unknown if the filter is ahead of us > or if we already passed it and we're the first to make it this far.
Yes, I meant in case ET life is found, and according to the above argument. > >> >> > >> It's an interesting argument but I think it is based on some rather >> strong assumptions: >> >> (a) That becoming a galactic civilization is possible; > > > Right, and it may not be possible, technological civilizations may always > get destroyed or start to become moribund whenever they get much beyond the > point we're at now. Yes, but then the argument ignores the possibility that civilizations might be able to thrive for a very long time without ever expanding much beyond their original planet. Knowing what we know at the moment this seems likely: as Brent mentioned, the speed of light vs size of the galaxy appears to be a very serious constraint. Even if a civilization figured out a way to tolerate interstellar voyages taking thousands or millions of years, this would not be enough to build a civilization. Without fast communication channels, they would fragment -- perhaps like the Roman Empire. > >> >> > >> b) That becoming a galactic civilization is desirable; > > > Right, ET might prefer to become a > navel gazer > and spend eternity in the electronic equivalent of a crack house, but even > if 99% chose that path if just one individual in one civilization choose to > make > one > Von Neumann Probe > then we'd see evidence of that fact. But we see nothing. It could be that this idea that the external space is more interesting than the internal is just an obsession characteristic of our stage of development. Perhaps the mysteries of the external space are exhausted in a few millennia past our current point, and then all that is left is to invent new things within artificial computational environments. Who knows? >> >> > >> (c) That galactic civilizations are observable by us. > > > If its not observable to a blind man in > a fog bank then it doesn't deserve to be called a galactic civilization. Well... you talked about Von Neumann probes. I also imagine that as a way to expand a civilization. But then, who knows what transformations the entities go through? Do they merge with machines, or opt to be totally emulated by machines? At what time scales will they operate then? And needing which type of resource? And how do they obtain them? Aren't you expecting that something absurdly advanced in relation to us is readily recognizable by us? > >> > >> Firstly we don't know if there's an upper limit for technological >> progress, or where that limit could be. > > > We know some things, we know that if the laws of physics work the way we > think they do then perpetual motion machines and time machines and faster > than light spaceships are not possible, but Nanotechnology is. And if > Nanotechnology is possible so are Von Neumann Probe > s. I agree with that. >> > >> Maybe interstellar travel or >> the colonization of other planets will never be feasible. > > > We know for a fact interstellar travel is possible because even asteroids > can do it, it just takes longer than the lifetime of a certain bipedal > animal, but 50 million years is nothing to a > Von Neumann Probe Alright, but you still have the communication issues. For me, a civilization entails fast communication channels. Otherwise it's just a source, sending seeds that generate new fragments. > > https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/faq/interstellar > > >> >> > >> Secondly, we >> are assuming a lot about a civilization that would be dramatically >> ahead of us both culturally and technologically. > > > Yes, I'm assuming they're not electronic drug addicts, if they are there > would be no point in contacting them. "I don't do drugs. I am drugs." -- Salvador Dali > >> >> > >> maybe a galactic civilization does exist but does not wish to be >> detected by the likes of us. > > > I don't see why a galactic civilization would give a damn if we knew about > them or not, and even they can't hide from the second law of thermodynamics. > Where is the galactic civilization's waste heat?? They could do it for our benefit. Or for the opportunity to study us. Or both. If they can maintain a civilization at the galactic scale -- with communication and all -- then they clearly know some physics that we don't. Telmo. > John K Clark > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
