subject:"Re\: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom \- The Great Filter"

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-23 Thread Bruno Marchal


> On 22 Feb 2018, at 18:45, John Clark  wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 7:21 AM, Bruno Marchal  > wrote:
> 
> > You are playing with word. “Comp” has been used as a shortcut for 
> computations since more than 20 years on this list.
> 
> I know what computations are and and know what computationalism is, but 
> that is not how you use your homemade word "comp". For about a decade I've 
> heard you say stuff like "according to comp blah blah" when it is crystal 
> clear it is  not according to  computations or computationalism at all; 
> I have no way of knowing if it really is according to "comp" because I don't 
> understand your baby-talk.


Of course, you were using the Weak AI thesis instead, which is sheer nonsense.

Bruno




>  
> > The step 3 is vary easy,
> 
> It is not very easy, step 3 is very simple, but not simple in a good way.
> 
> John K Clark 
> 
>  
> 
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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-22 Thread John Clark

On Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 7:21 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> 
> You are playing with word. “Comp” has been used as a shortcut for
> computations since more than 20 years on this list.
>

I
know what

computations

are and and know what computationalism is, but that is not how you use your
homemade word "comp". For about a decade I've heard you say stuff like
"according to comp blah blah" when it is crystal clear
it
 is  not according to  computations

or
computationalism
 at all
; I have no way of knowing if it really is according to "comp" because I
don't understand your baby-talk.

> > 
> The step 3 is vary easy,
>

It is not very easy, step 3 is very simple, but not simple in a good way.

John K Clark

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-22 Thread Bruno Marchal

> On 21 Feb 2018, at 19:07, John Clark  wrote:
> 
> 
> On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 4:26 AM, Bruno Marchal  > wrote:
> 
> > But you betray yourself recently by defining comp by [blah blah]
> 
> I have never in my like defined "comp”,

You are playing with word. “Comp” has been used as a shortcut for computations 
since more than 20 years on this list.
You recently provided a definition of a behaviourist form of computationalism 
which has nothing to do with the (indexical) computationalism use here since 
the beginning. 

> I have often asked you to define your baby-talk word but have never received 
> a coherent reply.

That is a lie.

>  
> 
> > As long as you are sick in step 3...
> 
> Yes that is exactly my problem, I am sick of your stupid step 3.

Which does not make it invalid, and does not help anyone to understand your 
point. The step 3 is vary easy, and has not lead anyone to misunderstand it, 
except you. I asked you to try to find someone else to explain your point, as 
you can’t, but I guess there is nobody.
Of course step 3, although very obvious, is a key step in the understanding of 
the consequence of comp (indexical computationalism, I survive with a digital 
brain, etc.).

Bruno

> 
> John K Clark 
> 
> 
> 
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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-21 Thread John Clark

On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 4:26 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> 
> But you betray yourself recently by defining comp by
> [blah blah]
>

I have never in my like defined "comp", I have often asked you to define
your baby-talk word but have never received a coherent reply.

> 
> As long as you are sick in step 3
> ...
>

Yes that is exactly my problem, I am sick of your stupid step 3.

John K Clark

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-21 Thread agrayson2000

Please tell us how you acquired such intimate knowledge of alien 
psychology. You seem convinced that since galactic empires haven't been 
detected, aliens do not exist. Why would they build a galactic empire? 
Share with us your knowledge of their psychology. TIA, AG

On Saturday, February 3, 2018 at 10:21:00 AM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjtOGPJ0URM
>
>
>  John K Clark
>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-21 Thread Bruno Marchal

> On 20 Feb 2018, at 00:54, John Clark  wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 6:48 AM, Bruno Marchal  > wrote:
> 
> >>>  the (conscious) mind comes from the relation between the brain and 
> truth
>> 
>> >> OK, but then how do you figure mind does not come out of the brain?
> > The conscious mind does not.
> 
>  You just said " the (conscious) mind comes from the relation between the 
> brain and truth"!
> 
> >> So tell me, if changing the brain change the mind and changing the mind 
> change the brain then how would things be any different if mind DID come 
> out of the brain? How could anyone tell the difference?
> 
> > Which brain?
> 
>  Which brain?? The fourth brain from the left of course. 
> 
> The man who said there is no such thing as a stupid question was wrong.
>  
> > This sentences is full of ambiguity.
> 
> So says the master of personal pronouns with no clear referent. 

You must read the posts, and perhaps the papers. And I recall you that the 
referents are clear when you keep the distinction between the 1p and 3p views. 
But you betray yourself recently by defining comp by the weak behaviourist 
comp, which would indeed make disappear all the 1p referents, confirming that 
you eliminate the first person discourse (the diaries that you said hating so 
much).

As long as you are sick in step 3, it is obvious that you can’t understand 
anything in the mind-body problem in the (indexical) computationalist frame, 
nor in Everett QM (who use the First Person Indeterminacy of computationalism 
implicitly, and wrongly (Everett like many physicists ignores that all 
computations are run in arithmetic, in the sema relative way than his relative 
state in quantum mechanics).

Bruno

> 
> John K Clark
> 
> 
>  
> 
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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-19 Thread John Clark

On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 6:48 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:


> >
> >>
>  the (conscious) mind comes from the relation between the brain and truth


> >> 
>> OK, but then how do you figure
>>  m
>> ind does not come out of the brain
>> ?
>>
> > 
> The conscious mind does not.
>


You just said "
 the (conscious) mind comes from the relation between the brain and truth
"!

>> 
>> So tell me, if changing the brain change the mind and changing the mind
>> change the brain
>>  then how would things be any different if 
>> mind
>> *DID*
>>  come out of the brain
>> ? How could anyone tell the difference?
>>
>
> > 
> Which brain?
>

 Which brain?
? The fourth brain from the left of course.

The man who said there is no such thing as a stupid question was wrong.


> > 
> This sentences is full of ambiguity.
>

So says the master of personal pronouns with no clear referent. 

John K Clark

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-19 Thread Brent Meeker

On 2/19/2018 3:48 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 19 Feb 2018, at 00:12, John Clark > wrote:

On Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 1:43 PM, Bruno Marchal >wrote:

>
>>
mind does not come out of the brain

>> 
Then why does changing the brain change the mind

> 
Because the (conscious) mind comes from the relation between the
brain and truth

OK, but then how do you figure
mind does not come out of the brain
??

The conscious mind does not. The brain only change the relative 
probability of manifestation. But of course we need the FPI for that.

This seems to me to be the matheological version of Boltzmann's brains.  
If consciousness is instantiated by threads in the UD, then it seems 
that almost all consciousness would be independent of brains.  After 
all, computing the brain would take a lot more UD steps than just 
computing the conscious sentences.

Brent

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-19 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Monday, February 19, 2018 at 10:22:47 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 19 Feb 2018, at 13:13, Lawrence Crowell  > wrote:
>
> On Monday, February 19, 2018 at 5:46:16 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 18 Feb 2018, at 21:38, Lawrence Crowell  
>> wrote:
>>
>> On Sunday, February 18, 2018 at 9:57:37 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 10 Feb 2018, at 14:29, Lawrence Crowell  
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 8:05:09 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
>>> wrote:



 On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 5:58:04 PM UTC-7, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>
> It occurred to me a case of hard emergence. The outcome of a quantum 
> measurement is such. I have iterated how I think this is connected to 
> self-reference, so I will not repeat that here. 
>

 It would be useful IMO, if you did just that. How can random 
 measurement results be connected with "self referential", whatever that 
 means? A good idea, sometimes even a bad one, is worth repeating for 
 evaluation. AG

>>>
>>> I have outlined on this forum how a quantum measurement is really where 
>>> quantum states measure quantum states. This is then self-referential and 
>>> the odd properties of quantum measurement may then be due to the emergence 
>>> or occurrence of principles outside of causal principles of quantum 
>>> mechanics.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> It has to be like that if we assume mechanics, and indeed we recover 
>>> quantum logic at the place we expect a logic for the first person plural 
>>> observable of the machine. Physics can no more be the fundamental science, 
>>> it becomes a branch of computer science, or better, of the “theology of 
>>> number” (itself a branch of pure number theory).
>>>
>>> Bruno
>>>
>>
>> Or as a quote from a person named Butterfield I read earlier today is 
>> paraphrased as "Mathematics is the syntax of the world, while physics is 
>> the semantics of it.”
>>
>>
>>
>> That is rather misleading, given than in mathematical logic we keep well 
>> the distinction between syntax (the theories, proofs, …), and the semantics 
>> (usually infinite non syntactical mathematical object). The physical 
>> reality can be seen as a semantics of a physical theory, but physics cannot 
>> be seen as a semantic for many other mathematical theories. Then with 
>> mechanism, there is no physical universe at the ontological level. It is a 
>> phenomenological first person plural reality. 
>> That Butterfield remarks will add to the confusion of many between a 
>> theory and a semantic in mathematics. It looks like the older 
>> conventionalist view of mathematics, which does no more make sense since 
>> Gödel (Imo), and even less with Mechanism (the ultimate reaiity becomes any 
>> models (in the logician sense) of arithmetic or of any Turing complete 
>> theory).
>>
>
> Consider Newton's second law F = ma. The right hand side of this equation 
> consists of the mass m that is a kinematic quantity. The acceleration a = 
> dv/dt = d^2x/dt^2 is a geometric and kinematic quantity. On the left the 
> force F is a dynamical quantity. This is an elementary form of what 
> Einstein commented on with his field theory "spacetime curvature = matter 
> dynamics," where he called the left hand side gold and the right hand side 
> wood. What we do is to interpret these formula, which in some sense is 
> semantics. Nature gives us not so much the formula for interpreting how the 
> LHS and RHS are equal, but rather we impose that on nature.
>
>
> OK. We do semantics when doing applied physics, but we do that in 
> mathematics too, where it is also quite important to distinguish the 
> theories and the interpretation of the theories. Indeed logic provides 
> tools so that the theorem remains true in all interpretations (completeness 
> theorem, when possible). 
> This is made more problematical by the fact that logicians use the term 
> models for “semantics” and the term “theory” for the machine, syntax or 
> even the observer, but physicists use “models” for theories. 
> Then with mechanism, it can be shown that we cannot assume physics. To get 
> the mind-body relation right, we have to explain the physical without 
> physical assumptions. I don’t expect you to understand this without 
> studying my papers (to be franc: it is not obvious at all).
>
> Bruno
>

My primary interest in all of this is to see if the problem of quantum 
measurement can be looked at this way. I am not sure about matters with 
mind, though Zeh has this idea of "Many Minds Interpretation" of quantum 
mechanics. My sense is that there is in a sense an existent system prior to 
self-reference. In other words there is mathematical system in existence 
before predicates are formed that act on their own Godel numbers as the 
subject or free variable. I see that in a way with quantum mechanics, where 
there is a dynamical wave physics that then acts upon itself, say quantum 
states (qubits) encod

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-19 Thread Bruno Marchal


> On 19 Feb 2018, at 13:13, Lawrence Crowell  
> wrote:
> 
> On Monday, February 19, 2018 at 5:46:16 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> On 18 Feb 2018, at 21:38, Lawrence Crowell > > wrote:
>> 
>> On Sunday, February 18, 2018 at 9:57:37 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> 
>>> On 10 Feb 2018, at 14:29, Lawrence Crowell > 
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 8:05:09 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
>>>  wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 5:58:04 PM UTC-7, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>> It occurred to me a case of hard emergence. The outcome of a quantum 
>>> measurement is such. I have iterated how I think this is connected to 
>>> self-reference, so I will not repeat that here.
>>> 
>>> It would be useful IMO, if you did just that. How can random measurement 
>>> results be connected with "self referential", whatever that means? A good 
>>> idea, sometimes even a bad one, is worth repeating for evaluation. AG
>>> 
>>> I have outlined on this forum how a quantum measurement is really where 
>>> quantum states measure quantum states. This is then self-referential and 
>>> the odd properties of quantum measurement may then be due to the emergence 
>>> or occurrence of principles outside of causal principles of quantum 
>>> mechanics.
>> 
>> 
>> It has to be like that if we assume mechanics, and indeed we recover quantum 
>> logic at the place we expect a logic for the first person plural observable 
>> of the machine. Physics can no more be the fundamental science, it becomes a 
>> branch of computer science, or better, of the “theology of number” (itself a 
>> branch of pure number theory).
>> 
>> Bruno
>> 
>> Or as a quote from a person named Butterfield I read earlier today is 
>> paraphrased as "Mathematics is the syntax of the world, while physics is the 
>> semantics of it.”
> 
> 
> That is rather misleading, given than in mathematical logic we keep well the 
> distinction between syntax (the theories, proofs, …), and the semantics 
> (usually infinite non syntactical mathematical object). The physical reality 
> can be seen as a semantics of a physical theory, but physics cannot be seen 
> as a semantic for many other mathematical theories. Then with mechanism, 
> there is no physical universe at the ontological level. It is a 
> phenomenological first person plural reality. 
> That Butterfield remarks will add to the confusion of many between a theory 
> and a semantic in mathematics. It looks like the older conventionalist view 
> of mathematics, which does no more make sense since Gödel (Imo), and even 
> less with Mechanism (the ultimate reaiity becomes any models (in the logician 
> sense) of arithmetic or of any Turing complete theory).
> 
> Consider Newton's second law F = ma. The right hand side of this equation 
> consists of the mass m that is a kinematic quantity. The acceleration a = 
> dv/dt = d^2x/dt^2 is a geometric and kinematic quantity. On the left the 
> force F is a dynamical quantity. This is an elementary form of what Einstein 
> commented on with his field theory "spacetime curvature = matter dynamics," 
> where he called the left hand side gold and the right hand side wood. What we 
> do is to interpret these formula, which in some sense is semantics. Nature 
> gives us not so much the formula for interpreting how the LHS and RHS are 
> equal, but rather we impose that on nature.

OK. We do semantics when doing applied physics, but we do that in mathematics 
too, where it is also quite important to distinguish the theories and the 
interpretation of the theories. Indeed logic provides tools so that the theorem 
remains true in all interpretations (completeness theorem, when possible). 
This is made more problematical by the fact that logicians use the term models 
for “semantics” and the term “theory” for the machine, syntax or even the 
observer, but physicists use “models” for theories. 
Then with mechanism, it can be shown that we cannot assume physics. To get the 
mind-body relation right, we have to explain the physical without physical 
assumptions. I don’t expect you to understand this without studying my papers 
(to be franc: it is not obvious at all).

Bruno



> 
> LC
>  
> 
> 
>> There is an open question on Lob's theorem, where this has a modal 
>> construction called semantic soundness.
> 
> ? 
> 
> 
> 
>> In the case of state reduction or why we observe certain outcomes we might 
>> just be faced with this as a hard emergence that has no causal or prior 
>> reason for being. There is no derived reason for it, but it just is.
> 
> 
> Then it is like the (classical) first person indeterminacy. You are read and 
> cut in Helsinki, and reconstitute in Sidney and Beijing: the 1p-ouctome of 
> that experience is indeterminate, even for God. But I would not say it has no 
> reason or no cause: on the contrary, it is because everything is 3p 
> determinate that the 1p is absolutely not determinate.
> 
> Bruno
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>> L

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-19 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Monday, February 19, 2018 at 5:46:16 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 18 Feb 2018, at 21:38, Lawrence Crowell  > wrote:
>
> On Sunday, February 18, 2018 at 9:57:37 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 10 Feb 2018, at 14:29, Lawrence Crowell  
>> wrote:
>>
>> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 8:05:09 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 5:58:04 PM UTC-7, Lawrence Crowell wrote:

 It occurred to me a case of hard emergence. The outcome of a quantum 
 measurement is such. I have iterated how I think this is connected to 
 self-reference, so I will not repeat that here. 

>>>
>>> It would be useful IMO, if you did just that. How can random measurement 
>>> results be connected with "self referential", whatever that means? A good 
>>> idea, sometimes even a bad one, is worth repeating for evaluation. AG
>>>
>>
>> I have outlined on this forum how a quantum measurement is really where 
>> quantum states measure quantum states. This is then self-referential and 
>> the odd properties of quantum measurement may then be due to the emergence 
>> or occurrence of principles outside of causal principles of quantum 
>> mechanics.
>>
>>
>>
>> It has to be like that if we assume mechanics, and indeed we recover 
>> quantum logic at the place we expect a logic for the first person plural 
>> observable of the machine. Physics can no more be the fundamental science, 
>> it becomes a branch of computer science, or better, of the “theology of 
>> number” (itself a branch of pure number theory).
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>
> Or as a quote from a person named Butterfield I read earlier today is 
> paraphrased as "Mathematics is the syntax of the world, while physics is 
> the semantics of it.”
>
>
>
> That is rather misleading, given than in mathematical logic we keep well 
> the distinction between syntax (the theories, proofs, …), and the semantics 
> (usually infinite non syntactical mathematical object). The physical 
> reality can be seen as a semantics of a physical theory, but physics cannot 
> be seen as a semantic for many other mathematical theories. Then with 
> mechanism, there is no physical universe at the ontological level. It is a 
> phenomenological first person plural reality. 
> That Butterfield remarks will add to the confusion of many between a 
> theory and a semantic in mathematics. It looks like the older 
> conventionalist view of mathematics, which does no more make sense since 
> Gödel (Imo), and even less with Mechanism (the ultimate reaiity becomes any 
> models (in the logician sense) of arithmetic or of any Turing complete 
> theory).
>

Consider Newton's second law F = ma. The right hand side of this equation 
consists of the mass m that is a kinematic quantity. The acceleration a = 
dv/dt = d^2x/dt^2 is a geometric and kinematic quantity. On the left the 
force F is a dynamical quantity. This is an elementary form of what 
Einstein commented on with his field theory "spacetime curvature = matter 
dynamics," where he called the left hand side gold and the right hand side 
wood. What we do is to interpret these formula, which in some sense is 
semantics. Nature gives us not so much the formula for interpreting how the 
LHS and RHS are equal, but rather we impose that on nature.

LC
 

>
>
> There is an open question on Lob's theorem, where this has a modal 
> construction called semantic soundness. 
>
>
> ? 
>
>
>
> In the case of state reduction or why we observe certain outcomes we might 
> just be faced with this as a hard emergence that has no causal or prior 
> reason for being. There is no derived reason for it, but it just is.
>
>
>
> Then it is like the (classical) first person indeterminacy. You are read 
> and cut in Helsinki, and reconstitute in Sidney and Beijing: the 1p-ouctome 
> of that experience is indeterminate, even for God. But I would not say it 
> has no reason or no cause: on the contrary, it is because everything is 3p 
> determinate that the 1p is absolutely not determinate.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
> LC 
>
> -- 
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>
>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-19 Thread Bruno Marchal


> On 19 Feb 2018, at 00:12, John Clark  wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 1:43 PM, Bruno Marchal  > wrote:
> 
> >>> mind does not come out of the brain
> 
> >> Then why does changing the brain change the mind
> 
> > Because the (conscious) mind comes from the relation between the brain 
> and truth
> 
> OK, but then how do you figure mind does not come out of the brain??

The conscious mind does not. The brain only change the relative probability of 
manifestation. But of course we need the FPI for that.



> 
> >> and changing the mind change the brain?
> 
> > Same reason.
> 
> So tell me, if changing the brain change the mind and changing the mind 
> change the brain then how would things be any different if mind DID come 
> out of the brain? How could anyone tell the difference?

Which brain? This sentences is full of ambiguity.



> 
> > You need of course to swallow the step 3
> 
> Ah, you've put your finger on the problem, that is too much for me to 
> swallow. 

Which explains the ambiguities. 

Bruno




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> 
> 
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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-19 Thread Bruno Marchal


> On 18 Feb 2018, at 21:38, Lawrence Crowell  
> wrote:
> 
> On Sunday, February 18, 2018 at 9:57:37 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> 
>> On 10 Feb 2018, at 14:29, Lawrence Crowell > > wrote:
>> 
>> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 8:05:09 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
>>  wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 5:58:04 PM UTC-7, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>> It occurred to me a case of hard emergence. The outcome of a quantum 
>> measurement is such. I have iterated how I think this is connected to 
>> self-reference, so I will not repeat that here.
>> 
>> It would be useful IMO, if you did just that. How can random measurement 
>> results be connected with "self referential", whatever that means? A good 
>> idea, sometimes even a bad one, is worth repeating for evaluation. AG
>> 
>> I have outlined on this forum how a quantum measurement is really where 
>> quantum states measure quantum states. This is then self-referential and the 
>> odd properties of quantum measurement may then be due to the emergence or 
>> occurrence of principles outside of causal principles of quantum mechanics.
> 
> 
> It has to be like that if we assume mechanics, and indeed we recover quantum 
> logic at the place we expect a logic for the first person plural observable 
> of the machine. Physics can no more be the fundamental science, it becomes a 
> branch of computer science, or better, of the “theology of number” (itself a 
> branch of pure number theory).
> 
> Bruno
> 
> Or as a quote from a person named Butterfield I read earlier today is 
> paraphrased as "Mathematics is the syntax of the world, while physics is the 
> semantics of it.”


That is rather misleading, given than in mathematical logic we keep well the 
distinction between syntax (the theories, proofs, …), and the semantics 
(usually infinite non syntactical mathematical object). The physical reality 
can be seen as a semantics of a physical theory, but physics cannot be seen as 
a semantic for many other mathematical theories. Then with mechanism, there is 
no physical universe at the ontological level. It is a phenomenological first 
person plural reality. 
That Butterfield remarks will add to the confusion of many between a theory and 
a semantic in mathematics. It looks like the older conventionalist view of 
mathematics, which does no more make sense since Gödel (Imo), and even less 
with Mechanism (the ultimate reaiity becomes any models (in the logician sense) 
of arithmetic or of any Turing complete theory).


> There is an open question on Lob's theorem, where this has a modal 
> construction called semantic soundness.

? 



> In the case of state reduction or why we observe certain outcomes we might 
> just be faced with this as a hard emergence that has no causal or prior 
> reason for being. There is no derived reason for it, but it just is.


Then it is like the (classical) first person indeterminacy. You are read and 
cut in Helsinki, and reconstitute in Sidney and Beijing: the 1p-ouctome of that 
experience is indeterminate, even for God. But I would not say it has no reason 
or no cause: on the contrary, it is because everything is 3p determinate that 
the 1p is absolutely not determinate.

Bruno



> 
> LC 
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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-18 Thread John Clark

On Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 1:43 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
>>> >>
>>> mind does not come out of the brain
>>
>>
> >> 
>> Then why does changing the brain change the mind
>
>
> > 
> Because the (conscious) mind comes from the relation between the brain and
> truth
>

OK, but then how do you figure
mind does not come out of the brain
??

>> 
>> and changing the mind change the brain?
>
>
> > 
> Same reason.
>

So tell me, if changing the brain change the mind and changing the mind
change the brain
 then how would things be any different if 
mind
*DID*
 come out of the brain
? How could anyone tell the difference?

> 
> You need of course to swallow the step 3
>

Ah, you've put your finger on the problem, that is too much for me to
swallow.

John K Clark

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-18 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Sunday, February 18, 2018 at 9:57:37 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 10 Feb 2018, at 14:29, Lawrence Crowell  > wrote:
>
> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 8:05:09 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 5:58:04 PM UTC-7, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>>
>>> It occurred to me a case of hard emergence. The outcome of a quantum 
>>> measurement is such. I have iterated how I think this is connected to 
>>> self-reference, so I will not repeat that here. 
>>>
>>
>> It would be useful IMO, if you did just that. How can random measurement 
>> results be connected with "self referential", whatever that means? A good 
>> idea, sometimes even a bad one, is worth repeating for evaluation. AG
>>
>
> I have outlined on this forum how a quantum measurement is really where 
> quantum states measure quantum states. This is then self-referential and 
> the odd properties of quantum measurement may then be due to the emergence 
> or occurrence of principles outside of causal principles of quantum 
> mechanics.
>
>
>
> It has to be like that if we assume mechanics, and indeed we recover 
> quantum logic at the place we expect a logic for the first person plural 
> observable of the machine. Physics can no more be the fundamental science, 
> it becomes a branch of computer science, or better, of the “theology of 
> number” (itself a branch of pure number theory).
>
> Bruno
>

Or as a quote from a person named Butterfield I read earlier today is 
paraphrased as "Mathematics is the syntax of the world, while physics is 
the semantics of it." There is an open question on Lob's theorem, where 
this has a modal construction called semantic soundness. In the case of 
state reduction or why we observe certain outcomes we might just be faced 
with this as a hard emergence that has no causal or prior reason for being. 
There is no derived reason for it, but it just is.

LC 

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-18 Thread Bruno Marchal

> On 13 Feb 2018, at 19:03, John Clark  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 12:33 PM, Bruno Marchal  > wrote:
> 
> > mind does not come out of the brain
> 
> Then why does changing the brain change the mind

Because the (conscious) mind comes from the relation between the brain and 
truth, and with (indexical) computationalism, this involves digital 
representation (numbers, Gödel numbers) involved in *many* true arithmetical 
relations (plausibly a continuum below ours substitution level).

> and changing the mind change the brain?

Same reason. You have to look at the block mindscape view of arithmetic. The 
changes are relative, and the self-referential correctness is only statistical 
below our common substitution level. The “MWI” confirms that aspect of 
indexical mechanism. 

You need of course to swallow the step 3 in sane04(*) of course, and then study 
Mendelson or Boolos & Jeffrey to get the second part. The theology is a simple 
mathematical theory. Only its relation with machine and arithmetic is more 
involved.

Actually I bought the book by Smullyan “A Beginner’s Guide to Mathematical 
Logic”, and its second volume (“A Beginner”s Further Guide to Mathematical 
Logic), both relatively recent. They are very good. 

Bruno

> 
> John K Clark
> 
> 
> 
> 
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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-18 Thread Bruno Marchal


> On 10 Feb 2018, at 14:29, Lawrence Crowell  
> wrote:
> 
> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 8:05:09 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
> 
> 
> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 5:58:04 PM UTC-7, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
> It occurred to me a case of hard emergence. The outcome of a quantum 
> measurement is such. I have iterated how I think this is connected to 
> self-reference, so I will not repeat that here.
> 
> It would be useful IMO, if you did just that. How can random measurement 
> results be connected with "self referential", whatever that means? A good 
> idea, sometimes even a bad one, is worth repeating for evaluation. AG
> 
> I have outlined on this forum how a quantum measurement is really where 
> quantum states measure quantum states. This is then self-referential and the 
> odd properties of quantum measurement may then be due to the emergence or 
> occurrence of principles outside of causal principles of quantum mechanics.


It has to be like that if we assume mechanics, and indeed we recover quantum 
logic at the place we expect a logic for the first person plural observable of 
the machine. Physics can no more be the fundamental science, it becomes a 
branch of computer science, or better, of the “theology of number” (itself a 
branch of pure number theory).

Bruno



> 
> LC
>  
>  
> However, the outcome is completely random and has no causal basis. It emerges 
> for no particular reason, such as initial conditions, and is as I see it a 
> complete hard emergence.
> 
> LC
> 
> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 1:16:58 PM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 9, 2018 at 6:28 AM, Bruno Marchal > wrote:
> 
> > You might try to give at least one example of hard emergence
> 
> One molecule of water can't be wet but 6.02*10^ 23 molecules can be. And H2O 
> at 31 degrees F has none of the properties of a liquid but at 33 degrees F 
> those same molecules have all the properties of a liquid; although usually 
> emergent properties don't appear as suddenly as that, it is more smooth and 
> continuous. Day is very different from night but there isn't an exact point 
> where one turns into the other. There is nothing mysterious or miraculous 
> going on its just that human language puts concepts into groups called 
> "words" but the real world is messy so there are often intermediate 
> cases where its not clear what the correct word should be; an 80 pound man 
> is clearly thin and a 800 pound man is clearly fat but there are values 
> between those extremes where reasonable people can differ on what the correct 
> word should be.  
> 
>  John K Clark
> 
> 
> 
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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-16 Thread Lawrence Crowell

Systems do not often scale linearly. I can't answer how the complexity of 
astro-structures would scale. To answer that definitively would require a 
bit of research and calculation. Even life has scale limitations, which is 
one reason Godzilla is not realistic.

LC

On Friday, February 16, 2018 at 1:56:09 PM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>
> Lawrence Crowell >
>
>> *> I keep trying to implore the prospect that mega-tech programs most 
>> likely do not scale in the linear fashion you keep advocating.*
>
>
> You keep saying it does not scale but you don’t say why. Life has 
> certainly scaled
>  beautifully
> , it started with one small creature, all life has a common ancestor, but 
> look how big 
> and wonderful 
> it has become
> !
> Nanobots can reproduce themselves just like living things can and 
> they 
> are very very good at doing the same thing over and over again. If they 
> know how to make one 
> square
>  foot of a Dyson Sphere then they know how to make a complete Dyson 
> Sphere, and if they also know how to make a rocket a quarter as powerful as 
> the one Elon Musk recently launched (actually one percent might do, maybe 
> less) then they know how 
> to 
> put a Dyson Sphere around every star in the galaxy in just 50 million 
> years. The universe is 13.8 billion years old but we see no hint of them 
> and we should unless we’re the first or disaster is about to hit us just as 
> it has every other civilization when 
> they
>  reach our point.
>
> *> As they might evolve and migrate around the galaxy they would remain at 
>> least modest in scale*
>
>
> So ET has a opportunity to add to its brainpower and think deeper thoughts 
> and do grander things
>  
> but prefers not to. Maybe so, I did say that navel gazing, stagnation and 
> drug
>  
> addiction
>  
> might be the answer to the Fermi Paradox.
>
> *> For complex adaptive systems, such as evolving nanobots or vN probes, 
>> there most likely are scaling rules in both spatial dimensions as well as 
>> temperature and energy. *
>
>
> If such rules exist they are irrelevant because nanobots don’t become 
> larger or more energetic, they just become more numerous
>
> *> So either IGUS/ETI *
>
>
> This is becoming alphabet soup, you told me what IGUS stood for but I’ve 
> already forgotten. Can’t we just call it ET?
>
> *> is extremely rare or there are limits to the scale of their activities.*
>
>
> I agree
> .
> Non
> existence would limit the scale of their activities
> ,
> and destruction or electronic drug addiction would too.
>  
>
>  John K Clark
>
>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-16 Thread John Clark

Lawrence Crowell 

> *> I keep trying to implore the prospect that mega-tech programs most
> likely do not scale in the linear fashion you keep advocating.*


You keep saying it does not scale but you don’t say why. Life has certainly
scaled
 beautifully
, it started with one small creature, all life has a common ancestor, but
look how big
and wonderful 
it has become
!
Nanobots can reproduce themselves just like living things can and
they 
are very very good at doing the same thing over and over again. If they
know how to make one
square
 foot of a Dyson Sphere then they know how to make a complete Dyson Sphere,
and if they also know how to make a rocket a quarter as powerful as the one
Elon Musk recently launched (actually one percent might do, maybe less)
then they know how
to 
put a Dyson Sphere around every star in the galaxy in just 50 million
years. The universe is 13.8 billion years old but we see no hint of them
and we should unless we’re the first or disaster is about to hit us just as
it has every other civilization when
they
 reach our point.

*> As they might evolve and migrate around the galaxy they would remain at
> least modest in scale*


So ET has a opportunity to add to its brainpower and think deeper thoughts
and do grander things
 
but prefers not to. Maybe so, I did say that navel gazing, stagnation and
drug
 
addiction
 
might be the answer to the Fermi Paradox.

*> For complex adaptive systems, such as evolving nanobots or vN probes,
> there most likely are scaling rules in both spatial dimensions as well as
> temperature and energy. *


If such rules exist they are irrelevant because nanobots don’t become
larger or more energetic, they just become more numerous

*> So either IGUS/ETI *


This is becoming alphabet soup, you told me what IGUS stood for but I’ve
already forgotten. Can’t we just call it ET?

*> is extremely rare or there are limits to the scale of their activities.*


I agree
.
Non
existence would limit the scale of their activities
,
and destruction or electronic drug addiction would too.


 John K Clark

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-16 Thread John Clark

On Thu, Feb 15, 2018 at 8:38 PM, Lawrence Crowell <
goldenfieldquaterni...@gmail.com> wrote:


*> There are bacterial flagella and Eukaryotic flagella. Bacteria flagellum
> is a single polypeptide chain. It is connected to a protein that protons
> are pumped into. This induces the rotational motion.*


I know. That's why I said "macroscopic.

*> On a macroscopic level the wheel requires a road.*
>

Is it your contention that in a macroscopic world without roads 

here would never be a need for a part that can move in 360 degrees? The
very first wheel ever inverted was probably used for forming clay in
pottery making.

John K Clark

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-16 Thread agrayson2000



On Friday, February 16, 2018 at 9:32:10 AM UTC-7, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>
> I keep trying to implore the prospect that mega-tech programs most likely 
> do not scale in the linear fashion you keep advocating. There might be 
> nanobots or von Neumann probes in this galaxy if they remain small or 
> modest in dimensions. This would most likely be the prospect I should 
> think. As they might evolve and migrate around the galaxy they would remain 
> at least modest in scale, maybe remain tiny and only scale up as 
> communicating collectives that might occur intermittently. I do not know 
> the scaling rules that might apply. Geoffrey West has made a bit of a 
> career out of the physics of scaling rules for complex systems. For complex 
> adaptive systems, such as evolving nanobots or vN probes, there most likely 
> are scaling rules in both spatial dimensions as well as temperature and 
> energy. 
>
> I would say that if ETI/IGUS can exist and do so at a density of one per 
> galaxy per N-millions of years (N not very large), then some of them would 
> have launched vN probes and other systems into space that might migrate out 
> and adapt. Among the 1500 galaxies in the Virgo cluster only about 50 
> million light years away there are none that show evidence of large scale 
> engineering. Below is an astrophoto of the Virgo cluster. Within 100 
> million light years where the Hubble relation v = Hd, H = 70km/sec/Mpc (Mpc 
> = megaparsec) then we have v = 1750 km/sec on average which is a low z = 
> v/c ~ .0058 region of the universe. There are around 5x10^4 galaxies in 
> this region and we see no large scale artificial activity. So either 
> IGUS/ETI is extremely rare or there are limits to the scale of their 
> activities.
>
> LC
>

*OR, they exist but have no motivation to send out nanobots. What's to be 
gained? AG*

>
>  [image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/ESO-M87.jpg]
> On Friday, February 16, 2018 at 9:24:48 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 15, 2018 at 12:05 PM, Telmo Menezes  
>> wrote:
>>
>> > 
>>>
>>> *What if nanotech *is* the filter? Then, the civilizations that survive 
>>> could be the ones that avoid that trap somehow.*
>>
>>
>> 
>> If Drexler style Nanotechnology had been developed anywhere in the galaxy 
>> that fact would be obvious by now regardless of if the civilization that 
>> originally developed it survived or not.
>>
>>>
>>
>>> * > Another possibility is that nanotech is possible and civilizations 
>>> do eventually build dyson spheres around their stars, but have 
>>> absolutely no incentive to go beyond their star system -- this is 
>>> easily justifiable by the speed of light limit. We haven't seen one of 
>>> those either, but it is also not true that there isn't the slightest sign:*
>>>
>>> https://www.seti.org/whats-up-with-tabby-star
>>
>>  
>>  
>> That article is out of date, a lot of research has been done on Tabby's 
>> star since then and things change fast. Several astronomers (including 
>> Tabetha Boyajian after whom Tabby's Star is named) have concluded in a peer 
>> reviewed article in "Astrophysical Journal" that the puzzling dimming is 
>> not caused by a solid object but by microscopic dust particles:
>>
>> https://arxiv.org/pdf/1708.07556.pdf
>>
>> They closely examined the rate of dimming of the ultraviolet light and 
>> the infrared light coming from the star and they found the rate of dimming 
>> between the two was significantly different; and a Dyson Sphere, completed 
>> or not, wouldn't do that. The only thing that would scatter light like that 
>> is lots and lots of microscopic dust.  Yes it's odd that a mature star like 
>> Tabby would have such a thick cloud of dust in orbit around it and nobody 
>> is quite sure why it's there, but whatever caused the dust it sure doesn't 
>> look like ET is responsible for the dimming.
>>
>>>
>> > 
>>> Maybe they are not computationalists
>>
>>
>> Then some disaster must have prevented them from becoming 
>> super-intelligent. 
>>  
>>
>>> >
 >
 So what? Fragmented or not Intelligence
  
 would be a major force effecting the large scale structure of the 
 universe.
>>>
>>>
>>> >* *
>>> *A two-star-system civilization would already be fragmented, unless it 
>>> is somehow possible to transcend the speed of light constraint.*
>>
>>
>> I have no choice but to repeat myself: 
>> So what? Fragmented or not Intelligence
>>  
>> would be a major force effecting the large scale structure of the 
>> universe.
>>  
>>
>>> >>
 All it would take is one individual in one civilization to take an once 
 or so of matter and turn it into a Von Neumann  Probe
>>>
>>>
>>> *> Can you build an atomic bomb? *
>>
>>
>> If I had some U235 I could make an A-bomb.
>>  
>> Making
>>  
>> one just takes a lot of effort (aka money) if you only have 2 large 
>> hands, but if I had very small hands it would be easy to
>>  
>> separate
>>

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-16 Thread Lawrence Crowell

I keep trying to implore the prospect that mega-tech programs most likely 
do not scale in the linear fashion you keep advocating. There might be 
nanobots or von Neumann probes in this galaxy if they remain small or 
modest in dimensions. This would most likely be the prospect I should 
think. As they might evolve and migrate around the galaxy they would remain 
at least modest in scale, maybe remain tiny and only scale up as 
communicating collectives that might occur intermittently. I do not know 
the scaling rules that might apply. Geoffrey West has made a bit of a 
career out of the physics of scaling rules for complex systems. For complex 
adaptive systems, such as evolving nanobots or vN probes, there most likely 
are scaling rules in both spatial dimensions as well as temperature and 
energy. 

I would say that if ETI/IGUS can exist and do so at a density of one per 
galaxy per N-millions of years (N not very large), then some of them would 
have launched vN probes and other systems into space that might migrate out 
and adapt. Among the 1500 galaxies in the Virgo cluster only about 50 
million light years away there are none that show evidence of large scale 
engineering. Below is an astrophoto of the Virgo cluster. Within 100 
million light years where the Hubble relation v = Hd, H = 70km/sec/Mpc (Mpc 
= megaparsec) then we have v = 1750 km/sec on average which is a low z = 
v/c ~ .0058 region of the universe. There are around 5x10^4 galaxies in 
this region and we see no large scale artificial activity. So either 
IGUS/ETI is extremely rare or there are limits to the scale of their 
activities.

LC

[image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/ESO-M87.jpg]
On Friday, February 16, 2018 at 9:24:48 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Thu, Feb 15, 2018 at 12:05 PM, Telmo Menezes  > wrote:
>
> > 
>>
>> *What if nanotech *is* the filter? Then, the civilizations that survive 
>> could be the ones that avoid that trap somehow.*
>
>
> 
> If Drexler style Nanotechnology had been developed anywhere in the galaxy 
> that fact would be obvious by now regardless of if the civilization that 
> originally developed it survived or not.
>
>>
>
>> * > Another possibility is that nanotech is possible and civilizations 
>> do eventually build dyson spheres around their stars, but have 
>> absolutely no incentive to go beyond their star system -- this is 
>> easily justifiable by the speed of light limit. We haven't seen one of 
>> those either, but it is also not true that there isn't the slightest sign:*
>>
>> https://www.seti.org/whats-up-with-tabby-star
>
>  
>  
> That article is out of date, a lot of research has been done on Tabby's 
> star since then and things change fast. Several astronomers (including 
> Tabetha Boyajian after whom Tabby's Star is named) have concluded in a peer 
> reviewed article in "Astrophysical Journal" that the puzzling dimming is 
> not caused by a solid object but by microscopic dust particles:
>
> https://arxiv.org/pdf/1708.07556.pdf
>
> They closely examined the rate of dimming of the ultraviolet light and the 
> infrared light coming from the star and they found the rate of dimming 
> between the two was significantly different; and a Dyson Sphere, completed 
> or not, wouldn't do that. The only thing that would scatter light like that 
> is lots and lots of microscopic dust.  Yes it's odd that a mature star like 
> Tabby would have such a thick cloud of dust in orbit around it and nobody 
> is quite sure why it's there, but whatever caused the dust it sure doesn't 
> look like ET is responsible for the dimming.
>
>>
> > 
>> Maybe they are not computationalists
>
>
> Then some disaster must have prevented them from becoming 
> super-intelligent. 
>  
>
>> >
>>> >
>>> So what? Fragmented or not Intelligence
>>>  
>>> would be a major force effecting the large scale structure of the 
>>> universe.
>>
>>
>> >* *
>> *A two-star-system civilization would already be fragmented, unless it 
>> is somehow possible to transcend the speed of light constraint.*
>
>
> I have no choice but to repeat myself: 
> So what? Fragmented or not Intelligence
>  
> would be a major force effecting the large scale structure of the universe.
>  
>
>> >>
>>> All it would take is one individual in one civilization to take an once 
>>> or so of matter and turn it into a Von Neumann  Probe
>>
>>
>> *> Can you build an atomic bomb? *
>
>
> If I had some U235 I could make an A-bomb.
>  
> Making
>  
> one just takes a lot of effort (aka money) if you only have 2 large hands, 
> but if I had very small hands it would be easy to
>  
> separate
>  
> the one U235 atom that I want from the 140 U238 atoms that I don't want. 
> And if I had 6.02*10^23 of those small hands I could just keep doing the 
> same thing over and over and then very soon I'd have enough for a bomb. 
> Making an H-bomb would be more complicated but if I also had some Lithium-6 
> deuteri

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-16 Thread John Clark

On Thu, Feb 15, 2018 at 12:05 PM, Telmo Menezes 
wrote:

> 
>
> *What if nanotech *is* the filter? Then, the civilizations that survive
> could be the ones that avoid that trap somehow.*

If Drexler style Nanotechnology had been developed anywhere in the galaxy
that fact would be obvious by now regardless of if the civilization that
originally developed it survived or not.

>

> * > Another possibility is that nanotech is possible and civilizations
> do eventually build dyson spheres around their stars, but have
> absolutely no incentive to go beyond their star system -- this is
> easily justifiable by the speed of light limit. We haven't seen one of
> those either, but it is also not true that there isn't the slightest sign:*
>
> https://www.seti.org/whats-up-with-tabby-star

That article is out of date, a lot of research has been done on Tabby's
star since then and things change fast. Several astronomers (including
Tabetha Boyajian after whom Tabby's Star is named) have concluded in a peer
reviewed article in "Astrophysical Journal" that the puzzling dimming is
not caused by a solid object but by microscopic dust particles:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1708.07556.pdf

They closely examined the rate of dimming of the ultraviolet light and the
infrared light coming from the star and they found the rate of dimming
between the two was significantly different; and a Dyson Sphere, completed
or not, wouldn't do that. The only thing that would scatter light like that
is lots and lots of microscopic dust.  Yes it's odd that a mature star like
Tabby would have such a thick cloud of dust in orbit around it and nobody
is quite sure why it's there, but whatever caused the dust it sure doesn't
look like ET is responsible for the dimming.

>
> 
> Maybe they are not computationalists

Then some disaster must have prevented them from becoming
super-intelligent.

> >
>> >
>> So what? Fragmented or not Intelligence
>>  
>> would be a major force effecting the large scale structure of the
>> universe.
>
>
> >* *
> *A two-star-system civilization would already be fragmented, unless it
> is somehow possible to transcend the speed of light constraint.*

I have no choice but to repeat myself:
So what? Fragmented or not Intelligence

would be a major force effecting the large scale structure of the universe.

> >>
>> All it would take is one individual in one civilization to take an once
>> or so of matter and turn it into a Von Neumann  Probe
>
>
> *> Can you build an atomic bomb? *

If I had some U235 I could make an A-bomb.

Making

one just takes a lot of effort (aka money) if you only have 2 large hands,
but if I had very small hands it would be easy to

separate

the one U235 atom that I want from the 140 U238 atoms that I don't want.
And if I had 6.02*10^23 of those small hands I could just keep doing the
same thing over and over and then very soon I'd have enough for a bomb.
Making an H-bomb would be more complicated but if I also had some Lithium-6
deuteride I think I know enough to make a reasonable stab at it.

Unfortunately

there is no

great secret that you need to know to make a

nuclear weapon and there hasn't been for about 40 years. Every nation that
tried to make an H-bomb was successful on their first attempt, and the
second H-bomb ever tested on the planet was over 3 times more powerful than
expected and ended up killing some Japanese fishermen as a result even
though they were well outside the official danger area.

In the case of a Dyson Sphere if you know how to make one square foot of it
then you know how to make the entire thing because being a sphere one part
of it is identical with every other part of it.

>

> *> but aren't you a bit too quick to assume that a technology that has
> only been theorized is necessarily feasible?*

Nanotechnology doesn't involve any new laws of physics and we already have
an existence proof of a crude form of Nanotechnology developed by mindless
random mutation and natural selection, its called life. 
And intelligence can do a lot better than randomness. 

>
>
>> >
>> All a Von Neumann probe needs is energy and atoms, carbon being the most
>>  
>> important although other elements would come in handy. Stars provide lots
>> of
>>  
>> energy and there are plenty of nice juicy atoms in asteroids and planets.
>
>
> *>All that and the probe itself, which does not exist circa now*
>

I know, that is

the

Fermi paradox. All I have to do is glance

at

the night sky to know there is no

Von Neumann probe

in the entire galaxy. But why? Either we're the first or civilizations
always get destroyed when they get to our level.

 John K Clark

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-15 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Thursday, February 15, 2018 at 10:48:54 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 3:07 PM, > 
> wrote:
>
> *> Mother Nature did come up with a wheel; a rotating tail on some 
>> specie. I forget its name. AG*
>>
>
> The words
>  
> that have slipped your mind are
>  
> "flagellum
>  
> on
>  
> bacteria"
>  
> and its microscopic, that's why I said "macroscopic". It's easy to make a 
> part that moves in 360 degrees if its microscopic because nutriments can 
> just diffuse in and waste products diffuse out; but as parts get bigger the 
> volume increases by the cube of the radius but the surface area only 
> increases by the square, so when things get big diffusion just isn't good 
> enough. Evolution never figured out how to do better and make a wheel large 
> enough to see, but people did.
>
> John K Clark
>

There are bacterial flagella and Eukaryotic flagella. Bacteria flagellum is 
a single polypeptide chain. It is connected to a protein that protons are 
pumped into. This induces the rotational motion. This protein is related to 
components of ribosomes. Eukaryotes have a more complicated flagellum that 
is a braid of tubulin fibers. It is attached to a similar proton pump motor.

On a macroscopic level the wheel requires a road. On rocky, sandy or 
otherwise uncooperative terrain the wheel does not work.

LC 

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-15 Thread spudboy100 via Everything List

The article I read talked about the instructions to build malicious code into 
how to make medical nanobots, and then when the time is right the bots go into 
action and instead of saving, they kill everyone. A sneak attack. We download, 
unless we download into an isolated computer, it escapes and offers medical 
immortality. That's the hook.



-Original Message-
From: agrayson2000 
To: Everything List 
Sent: Thu, Feb 15, 2018 3:55 pm
Subject: Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter





On Thursday, February 15, 2018 at 12:16:52 PM UTC-7, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:


On Thursday, February 15, 2018 at 9:48:54 AM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 3:07 PM,   wrote:





> 
Mother Nature did come up with a wheel; a rotating tail on some specie. I 
forget its name. AG



The words
 
that have slipped your mind are
 
"flagellum
 
on
 
bacteria"
 
and its microscopic, that's why I said "macroscopic". It's easy to make a part 
that moves in 360 degrees if its microscopic because nutriments can just 
diffuse in and waste products diffuse out; but as parts get bigger the volume 
increases by the cube of the radius but the surface area only increases by the 
square, so when things get big diffusion just isn't good enough. Evolution 
never figured out how to do better and make a wheel large enough to see, 




If Nature has no intention, the idea of it figuring out anything is 
misconceived. AG



Can't owls almost rotate their heads almost 360 deg; maybe not a full rotation, 
but damn close? YOU can't rotate your head to that extent because you can 
survive short of that capacity. That's all the Nature "cares" about. AG 

 


but people did.

John K Clark

 






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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-15 Thread agrayson2000



On Thursday, February 15, 2018 at 12:16:52 PM UTC-7, agrays...@gmail.com 
wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thursday, February 15, 2018 at 9:48:54 AM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 3:07 PM,  wrote:
>>
>> *> Mother Nature did come up with a wheel; a rotating tail on some 
>>> specie. I forget its name. AG*
>>>
>>
>> The words
>>  
>> that have slipped your mind are
>>  
>> "flagellum
>>  
>> on
>>  
>> bacteria"
>>  
>> and its microscopic, that's why I said "macroscopic". It's easy to make 
>> a part that moves in 360 degrees if its microscopic because nutriments can 
>> just diffuse in and waste products diffuse out; but as parts get bigger the 
>> volume increases by the cube of the radius but the surface area only 
>> increases by the square, so when things get big diffusion just isn't good 
>> enough. Evolution never figured out how to do better and make a wheel large 
>> enough to see, 
>>
>
> *If Nature has no intention, the idea of it figuring out anything is 
> misconceived. AG*
>

*Can't owls almost rotate their heads almost 360 deg; maybe not a full 
rotation, but damn close? YOU can't rotate your head to that extent because 
you can survive short of that capacity. That's all the Nature "cares" 
about. AG* 

>  
>
>> but people did.
>>
>> John K Clark
>>
>>  
>>
>>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-15 Thread agrayson2000



On Thursday, February 15, 2018 at 9:48:54 AM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 3:07 PM, > 
> wrote:
>
> *> Mother Nature did come up with a wheel; a rotating tail on some 
>> specie. I forget its name. AG*
>>
>
> The words
>  
> that have slipped your mind are
>  
> "flagellum
>  
> on
>  
> bacteria"
>  
> and its microscopic, that's why I said "macroscopic". It's easy to make a 
> part that moves in 360 degrees if its microscopic because nutriments can 
> just diffuse in and waste products diffuse out; but as parts get bigger the 
> volume increases by the cube of the radius but the surface area only 
> increases by the square, so when things get big diffusion just isn't good 
> enough. Evolution never figured out how to do better and make a wheel large 
> enough to see, 
>

*If Nature has no intention, the idea of it figuring out anything is 
misconceived. AG*
 

> but people did.
>
> John K Clark
>
>  
>
>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-15 Thread Telmo Menezes

On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 11:24 PM, John Clark  wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 3:21 AM, Telmo Menezes 
> wrote:
>
>>
>> >
>> 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.
>
>
> I'm sorry but that argument just makes no sense. Unless the laws of physics
> are very different from what we think they are then nanotechnology is
> possible, if so then intelligence is going to have a major impact on the
> large scale structure of the universe; the fact that we can't observe the
> slightest sign of this happening has profound implications.

What if nanotech *is* the filter? Then, the civilizations that survive
could be the ones that avoid that trap somehow.

Another possibility is that nanotech is possible and civilizations do
eventually build dyson spheres around their stars, but have absolutely
no incentive to go beyond their star system -- this is easily
justifiable by the speed of light limit. We haven't seen one of those
either, but it is also not true that there isn't the slightest sign:

https://www.seti.org/whats-up-with-tabby-star

Another possibility is that another scientific discovery tends to come
before nanotech is at that stage, and that discovery X makes your
program of expansion pointless, but you only get it after you know X.

>
>>
>> >
>> Even if a
>> civilization figured out a way to tolerate interstellar voyages taking
>> thousands or millions of years,
>
>
> Civilizations don't have to figure out ways to tolerate interstellar
> voyages, only Von Neumann probes do, and that would be easy for them.

Maybe they are not computationalists, and find it pointless to
terraform star systems that they cannot reach themsleves.

>>
>> >
>> Without fast communication channels, they would fragment-- perhaps like
>> the Roman Empire.
>
>
> Yes. So what? Fragmented or not Intelligence
> would be a major force effecting the large scale structure of the universe.

A two-star-system civilization would already be fragmented, unless it
is somehow possible to transcend the speed of light constraint. If
not, it seems reasonable that things would not scale to "large scale
structure" effects.

>> >
>> 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.
>
>
> Not plausible. All it would take is one individual in one civilization to
> take an once or so of matter and turn it into a Von Neumann  Probe

Can you build an atomic bomb? Do you know anyone that can?

> and then build a rocked far less powerful than Elon Musk's recently launched
> Falcon Heavy and we're off to the races. But this has clearly not happened,
> the ET equivalent of
> Elon Musk
> does not exist in the observable universe
> and I can
> only
> thin
> k
> of two explanations for this that doesn't sound ridiculously contrived.

Your lack of imagination is not a very good argument...

>>
>> >
>> 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?
>
>
> It's not as if we're talking about some huge expensive commitment, once you
> have Drexler style nanotechnology its not only possible its easy to turn the
> galaxy into a power station, and doing so would be literally as cheap as
> dirt too.

Yes, but aren't you a bit too quick to assume that a technology that
has only been theorized is necessarily feasible?

>
>>
>> >
>> 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?
>
>
> I don't need to answer those questions if I'm trying to figure out why
> intelligence has
> not shaped the universe, they're irrelevant.
>
>>
>> >
>> At what time scales will they operate
>> then?
>
>
> 50 million years would be enough time to reshape our 13 bullion year old
> galaxy, and that is
> making the absurdly conservative assumption that ET can't send probes any
> faster than we could in the 1970's.

If the technology is feasible. And if it is (or is about to become),
consider the immense power that it grants. A civilization interested
in self-preservation would have to figure out a way to not be
destroyed by it. That process could interfere with the plan of
terraforming the entire galaxy, correct?

>
>>
>> >
>> And needing which type of resource?
>
>
> All a Von Neumann probe needs is energy and atoms, carbon being the most
> important although other elements would come in handy. Stars provide lots of
> energy and there are plenty of nice juicy atoms in asteroids and planets.

All that and the probe itself, which does not exist circa now

>>
>> >
>> And how do they obtain them?
>
>
> By g

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-15 Thread John Clark

On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 at 3:07 PM,  wrote:

*> Mother Nature did come up with a wheel; a rotating tail on some
> specie. I forget its name. AG*
>

The words

that have slipped your mind are

"flagellum

on

bacteria"

and its microscopic, that's why I said "macroscopic". It's easy to make a
part that moves in 360 degrees if its microscopic because nutriments can
just diffuse in and waste products diffuse out; but as parts get bigger the
volume increases by the cube of the radius but the surface area only
increases by the square, so when things get big diffusion just isn't good
enough. Evolution never figured out how to do better and make a wheel large
enough to see, but people did.

John K Clark

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-14 Thread Brent Meeker

Having evolved in the hot climate of Africa humans are a mutation that 
lost hair and evolved sweat.  This allowed them to have great physical 
endurance in the heat and to run down prey.


What I'd like to know is why some members of Homo sapiens refuse to 
learn what 400yrs of science has found out and instead make a virtue of 
ignorance and faith.


Brent

On 2/14/2018 4:39 AM, Samiya Illias wrote:
Then how come the Homo sapiens are the rare creatures without any 
natural clothing, unlike almost all other creatures?
Something to be apprehensive about: 
http://signsandscience.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-cursed-tree.html


On 13-Feb-2018, at 10:06 PM, Brent Meeker > wrote:


Except it has the same kind of non-functional stuff as chimpanzees, 
wolves, mice, etc.  have.  So maybe Adam's story is fake news.


Brent

On 2/13/2018 8:33 PM, Samiya Illias wrote:
Or may the entire human genome was functional once, but has been 
corrupted... Adam's story is an example: Adam's Attempt to Improve 
upon Allah's Creation 
 




On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 9:05 PM, Brent Meeker > wrote:




On 2/13/2018 9:13 AM, John Clark wrote:


/
/


That is just not true. 
In the entire human genome there are only 3 billion base pairs.
There are 4 bases so each base can represent 2 bits, there are
8 bits per byte so that comes out to 750 meg.


And it is estimated that there are only 22,000 functional genes,
constituted of 34 million base pairs (only 1% of the human genome).


Just 750 meg, that's about the same amount of information as a
old CD disk could hold

when they first came out
 
35 years ago! And the 750 meg isn't even efficiently coded,
there is a ridiculous amount of redundancy in the human genome.


There's some redundancy, but also lot of just free-rider junk
plus stuff that may have be useful in an evolutionary sense but
does nothing for the individual




And yet that
tiny
 amount of information was enough to reshape the surface of a
planet. And there is more to come, I think that information
could grow and reshape the entire galaxy, if it doesn't
stagnate or destroy itself first.


Then you have to ask yourself, "What's its motivation?"  You may
have intended it to build Dyson spheres, but mutation happens.
And what mutation will be favored?  The ones that make lots of
copies of themselves.

Brent
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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-14 Thread agrayson2000



On Wednesday, February 14, 2018 at 11:26:30 AM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 , Lawrence Crowell  > wrote:
>
>> *> we like to make comparisons between biological and molecular 
>> biological systems with nanotechnology, but there are departures. *
>
> Yes there certainly are departures between biology and engineering 
> because intelligent designs are, well, intelligent, but the stuff evolution 
> comes out with is idiotic. Mother Nature (Evolution) is a slow and stupid 
> tinkerer, it had over 3 billion years to work on the problem but it 
> couldn't even come up with a macroscopic part that could rotate in 360 
> degrees! 
>

*Mother Nature did come up with a wheel; a rotating tail on some specie. I 
forget its name. AG*
 

> Rational designers had little difficulty coming up with the wheel. The 
> only advantage Evolution had is that until it managed to invent brains it 
> was the only way complex objects could get built.
>
> I can think of 5 reasons for nature’s very poor design skills, the last 
> one is the most important:
>
> 1) Time Lags: Evolution is so slow the animal is adapted to conditions 
> that may no longer exist, that's why moths have an instinct to fly into 
> candle flames. I have no doubt that if you just give them a million years 
> or so, evolution will give hedgehogs a better defense than rolling up into 
> a ball when confronted by the major predator they face today, the 
> automobile. The only problem is that by then there won't be any automobiles.
>
> 2) Historical Constraints: The eye of all vertebrate animals is backwards, 
> the connective tissue of the retina is on the wrong side so light must pass 
> through it before it hits the light sensitive cells, and the optic nerve 
> must pass through the retina creating a blind spot. There's no doubt this 
> degrades vision and we would be better off if the retina was reversed as it 
> is in squids whose eye evolved independently, however It's too 
> late for that to happen now because all the intermediate forms would not be 
> viable. Once a standard is set, with all its interlocking mechanisms, it's 
> very difficult to abandon it completely, even when much better methods are 
> found. That's why we still have inches and yards even though the metric 
> system is clearly superior. That's why we still have Microsoft Windows. 
> Nature is enormously conservative, it may add new things but it doesn't 
> abandon the old because the intermediate stages must also work. That's also 
> why humans have all the old brain structures that lizards have as well as 
> new ones. 
>
> 3) Lack of Genetic Variation: Mutations are random and you might not get 
> the mutation you need when you need it. Feathers work better forflight than 
> the skin flaps bats use, but bats never produced the right 
> mutations for feathers at the right time and skin flaps are good enough. 
> And an animal doesn’t need to be perfect or even close to it, all it needs 
> is to be a little better than the competition.
>
> 4) An Advantage on one Level is a Disadvantage on Another: One gene can 
> give you resistance to malaria, a second identical gene will give you 
> sickle cell anemia.
>
> 5) Evolution has no foresight: This is the most important reason of all. A 
> jet engine works better than a prop engine in an airplane. I give you a 
> prop engine and tell you to turn it into a jet, but you must do it while 
> the engine is running, you must do it in one million small steps, and you 
> must do it so every one of those small steps immediately improves the 
> operation of the engine. Eventually you would get an improved engine of 
> some sort, but it wouldn't look anything like a jet. If the tire on your 
> car is getting worn you can take it off and put a new one on, 
> but evolution could never do something like that because when you take the 
> old tire off you have temporarily made things worse, now you have no tire 
> at all. With evolution EVERY step (generation), no matter how many, MUST be 
> an immediate improvement over the previous one. it can't think more than 
> one step ahead, it doesn't understand one step backward two steps forward.
>
> And that's why there are no 100 ton supersonic birds or nuclear powered 
> horses, and that’s why we can’t 
> even 
> move our head by 360 degrees. 
>
> *> If von Neumann probes do migrate into space and throughout a galaxy 
>> they probably do so in a pretty conservative fashion. In fact over time 
>> they would evolve instead of performing in a designed manner.*
>
> A von Neumann probe wouldn’t evolve unless the probe makers designed them 
> to, and they’d be pretty stupid to do that. Evolution needs mutation, 
> errors that change the information in DNA when a copy of it is made. The 
> typical error rate for DNA reproduction is about one error per 100 million 
> nucleotides.
>
> Each nucleotides contains 2 bits of information so that’s one error per 50 
> million bits. 
>
>
> https://www.nature

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-14 Thread John Clark

On Wed, Feb 14, 2018 , Lawrence Crowell  wrote:

> *> we like to make comparisons between biological and molecular biological
> systems with nanotechnology, but there are departures. *

Yes there certainly are departures between biology and engineering
because intelligent designs are, well, intelligent, but the stuff evolution
comes out with is idiotic. Mother Nature (Evolution) is a slow and stupid
tinkerer, it had over 3 billion years to work on the problem but it
couldn't even come up with a macroscopic part that could rotate in 360
degrees! Rational designers had little difficulty coming up with the wheel.
The only advantage Evolution had is that until it managed to invent brains
it was the only way complex objects could get built.

I can think of 5 reasons for nature’s very poor design skills, the last one
is the most important:

1) Time Lags: Evolution is so slow the animal is adapted to conditions that
may no longer exist, that's why moths have an instinct to fly into candle
flames. I have no doubt that if you just give them a million years or
so, evolution will give hedgehogs a better defense than rolling up into a
ball when confronted by the major predator they face today, the automobile.
The only problem is that by then there won't be any automobiles.

2) Historical Constraints: The eye of all vertebrate animals is backwards,
the connective tissue of the retina is on the wrong side so light must pass
through it before it hits the light sensitive cells, and the optic nerve
must pass through the retina creating a blind spot. There's no doubt this
degrades vision and we would be better off if the retina was reversed as it
is in squids whose eye evolved independently, however It's too
late for that to happen now because all the intermediate forms would not be
viable. Once a standard is set, with all its interlocking mechanisms, it's
very difficult to abandon it completely, even when much better methods are
found. That's why we still have inches and yards even though the metric
system is clearly superior. That's why we still have Microsoft Windows.
Nature is enormously conservative, it may add new things but it doesn't
abandon the old because the intermediate stages must also work. That's also
why humans have all the old brain structures that lizards have as well as
new ones.

3) Lack of Genetic Variation: Mutations are random and you might not get
the mutation you need when you need it. Feathers work better forflight than
the skin flaps bats use, but bats never produced the right
mutations for feathers at the right time and skin flaps are good enough.
And an animal doesn’t need to be perfect or even close to it, all it needs
is to be a little better than the competition.

4) An Advantage on one Level is a Disadvantage on Another: One gene can
give you resistance to malaria, a second identical gene will give you
sickle cell anemia.

5) Evolution has no foresight: This is the most important reason of all. A
jet engine works better than a prop engine in an airplane. I give you a
prop engine and tell you to turn it into a jet, but you must do it while
the engine is running, you must do it in one million small steps, and you
must do it so every one of those small steps immediately improves the
operation of the engine. Eventually you would get an improved engine of
some sort, but it wouldn't look anything like a jet. If the tire on your
car is getting worn you can take it off and put a new one on,
but evolution could never do something like that because when you take the
old tire off you have temporarily made things worse, now you have no tire
at all. With evolution EVERY step (generation), no matter how many, MUST be
an immediate improvement over the previous one. it can't think more than
one step ahead, it doesn't understand one step backward two steps forward.

And that's why there are no 100 ton supersonic birds or nuclear powered
horses, and that’s why we can’t
even 
move our head by 360 degrees.

*> If von Neumann probes do migrate into space and throughout a galaxy they
> probably do so in a pretty conservative fashion. In fact over time they
> would evolve instead of performing in a designed manner.*

A von Neumann probe wouldn’t evolve unless the probe makers designed them
to, and they’d be pretty stupid to do that. Evolution needs mutation,
errors that change the information in DNA when a copy of it is made. The
typical error rate for DNA reproduction is about one error per 100 million
nucleotides.

Each nucleotides contains 2 bits of information so that’s one error per 50
million bits.

https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/dna-replication-and-causes-of-mutation-409

One error in 50 million bits is bad, its lousy! Your computer wouldn’t work
it it had a error rate that huge, the internet would not work, our entire
information economy would collapse. But it hasn’t collapsed because Claude
Shannon showed us 70 years ago how to encode information so it can be
transferred and duplicated with a

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-14 Thread Lawrence Crowell

With biology the genes that express polypeptides do in a sense control 
things. Biology is not so much about control as it is about commensurate 
networks. We are in a time when aspects of the natural world are often 
compared to technology. For instance with Seth Lloyd we have the idea the 
universe is a computer. The universe has computational aspects to it, but 
it is not really a computer. If the universe is a computer then what is it 
computing? I think the same hold for biology, where we like to make 
comparisons between biological and molecular biological systems with 
nanotechnology, but there are departures. 

Biological systems evolve to survive within some set of resources and 
environmental challenges. Biological organisms that fail to succeed simply 
die, though there are always some lineages that manage to continue and the 
game of evolution goes on. This is not the same as say biological systems 
are "designed" as such. There is a bit of a popular controversy over this. 
IGUS or ETI pushing into space by building ever more complex 
hyper-structures are more in the say of controlling systems. If von Neumann 
probes do migrate into space and throughout a galaxy they probably do so in 
a pretty conservative fashion. In fact over time they would evolve instead 
of performing in a designed manner.

LC

On Tuesday, February 13, 2018 at 11:13:40 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 7:53 PM, Lawrence Crowell <
> goldenfield...@gmail.com > wrote:
>
> *> Even if you have a mole of nanobots doing things, who is keeping 
>> track of them to make sure they are doing what you want? *
>
>
> 
> You were
>  
> constructed
>  
> by a huge number of nanobots (also called proteins) in just 9 months. And 
> those nanobots were themselves constructed by other nanobots using 
> information in DNA. There was no understanding involved in any of this, 
> nobody was keeping
>  
> track
>  
> of it all and yet it worked. You are far more complex than a Dyson Sphere 
> so if something like DNA and proteins, which are dumb as dirt, can make 
> something as complex as you I don't see why a super intelligence would be 
> unable to make a simple Dyson Sphere.
>
> * > In fact this becomes Turing's thesis on the impossibility of a 
>> Universal Turing Machine on steroids.*
>
>
> Turing prove there are some functions that a computer can't evaluate and 
> some real numbers (most of them actually) that can't even be approximated. 
> But computers aren't the only thing that has this limitation, humans can't 
> do any of those things either and in fact 
> no physical process has ever been found that can figure out what a Turing 
> Machine can't; and yet enormously complex things still exist in the 
> universe.
>
> And Turing also proved that in general if you want to know what a computer 
> will do next all you can do is watch it and see; and long before Turing it 
> was known that in general you can't know for sure what you are going to do 
> next until you actually do it. 
>  
>
>
> *> **even if you have that massive computing system who is keeping 
>> track of the algorithms to make sure it is doing what you want and so 
>> forth.*
>
>
> 
> Computers will always make mistakes 
> and
>  humans make mistakes too but that doesn't prevent them from getting 
> things done.
>  
> By the way, you indicated you were a fan of t
> he
>  
> Copernican principle
>  but now you seem to be saying humans are special after all because they 
> are as smart as things can get, if something is too complex for humans to 
> use it will forever be too complex for anything to use. And I still don't 
> understand what's so complex about a Dyson Sphere. 
> After all, spheres are symmetrical so if you know how to make one small 
> part of it you know how to make the entire thing, now you just need to put 
> in the effort and actually do it. And if you have 6.02*10^23 hands you can 
> complete it in a reasonable amount of time.
>  
>
>> *> Already we are getting some problematic news with self-driving 
>> cars. Remember a test driver. or in a way un-driver, was killed not long 
>> ago because the algorithm failed to react properly to certain conditions.*
>>
>
> That was 2 years ago and since then 2.6 million people were killed by 
> human drivers worldwide. And the incident you refer to didn't happen in a 
> driverless car, the Tesla just had a autopilot, a sort of super duper 
> cruise control, and it was never intended to be used without human 
> oversight, although the "driver" apparently treated it as if it was and was 
> not paying attention and died as a result. True driverless cars have a 
> superb driving record and have never killed anyone, Google's driverless 
> cars have driven 1.8 million real world miles and only had 13 accidents, 
> all of them fender benders and all of them caused by other cars with human 
> drivers.
>  
>
>> >* *
>> *Complexity explodes enormously and the designers become

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-14 Thread Samiya Illias

Then how come the Homo sapiens are the rare creatures without any natural 
clothing, unlike almost all other creatures? 
Something to be apprehensive about: 
http://signsandscience.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-cursed-tree.html 

> On 13-Feb-2018, at 10:06 PM, Brent Meeker  wrote:
> 
> Except it has the same kind of non-functional stuff as chimpanzees, wolves, 
> mice, etc.  have.  So maybe Adam's story is fake news.
> 
> Brent
> 
>> On 2/13/2018 8:33 PM, Samiya Illias wrote:
>> Or may the entire human genome was functional once, but has been 
>> corrupted... Adam's story is an example: Adam's Attempt to Improve upon 
>> Allah's Creation 
>> 
>>  
>> 
>>> On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 9:05 PM, Brent Meeker  wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
 On 2/13/2018 9:13 AM, John Clark wrote:
  
 
> 
 
 That is just not true.  In the entire human genome there are only 3 
 billion base pairs. There are 4 bases so each base can represent 2 bits, 
 there are 8 bits per byte so that comes out to 750 meg.
>>> 
>>> And it is estimated that there are only 22,000 functional genes, 
>>> constituted of 34 million base pairs (only 1% of the human genome).
>>> 
 Just 750 meg, that's about the same amount of information as a old CD disk 
 could hold   when they first came out   35 years ago! And the 750 meg 
 isn't even efficiently coded, there is a ridiculous amount of redundancy 
 in the human genome.
>>> 
>>> There's some redundancy, but also lot of just free-rider junk plus stuff 
>>> that may have be useful in an evolutionary sense but does nothing for the 
>>> individual
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
 And yet that  tiny  amount of information was enough to reshape the 
 surface of a planet. And there is more to come, I think that information 
 could grow and reshape the entire galaxy, if it doesn't stagnate or 
 destroy itself first.
>>> 
>>> Then you have to ask yourself, "What's its motivation?"  You may have 
>>> intended it to build Dyson spheres, but mutation happens.  And what 
>>> mutation will be favored?  The ones that make lots of copies of themselves.
>>> 
>>> Brent
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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-13 Thread Lawrence Crowell



On Tuesday, February 13, 2018 at 11:33:57 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> Hi Lawrence, hi John, 
>
>
> Sorry for the delay. I comment some answers in the same post. 
>
> Lawrence, you say 
>
> << 
> Hard emergence is either something really miraculous and thus not really 
> in the domain of physics, or it is something we might call a miracle 
> because we really do not understand it. 
> >> 
>
> So we agree. Ah, I see you did find an example. See below. 
>
> John, you say 
>
> << 
> > Bruno: You might try to give at least one example of hard emergence 
>
> One molecule of water can't be wet but 6.02*10^ 23 molecules can be. And 
> H2O at 31 degrees F has none of the properties of a liquid but at 33 
> degrees F those same molecules have all the properties of a liquid; 
> although usually emergent properties don't appear as suddenly as that, it 
> is more smooth and continuous. Day is very different from night but there 
> isn't an exact point where one turns into the other. There is nothing 
> mysterious or miraculous going on its just that human language puts 
> concepts into groups called "words" but the real world is messy so 
> there are often intermediate cases where its not clear what the correct 
> word should be; an 80 pound man is clearly thin and a 800 pound man is 
> clearly fat but there are values between those extremes where reasonable 
> people can differ on what the correct word should be. 
> >> 
>
> I don’t see the exemple of hard emergence. 
>
> I think that “hard emergence” is a spurious concept like the one used to 
> hide the mind-body problem. In that case it reflects at least the 
> understanding that mind does not come out of the brain like wetness comes 
> out from the many water molecules. In the second case we stay in the third 
> person discourse, but in the first, we must explain a relationship between 
> two types of points of view (and with mechanism, it cannot be a one-one 
> relation, but a modality related to self-reference). 
>
> Lawrence: 
>
> << 
> It occurred to me a case of hard emergence. The outcome of a quantum 
> measurement is such. I have iterated how I think this is connected to 
> self-reference, ] 
>
> Nice! Is it related to the self-duplication? With the MW formulation of 
> QM,, and simplifying a little bit to avoid being too much technical, when 
> you look at schroedinger cat, you duplicate yourself, as the duplication of 
> the cat is linearly inherited by you when observing the cat, and is, in 
> relevance with computationalism, an example of self-duplication. A 
> classical self-duplication, via artificial brain or bi-teleportation gives 
> the same “miracle”, or 1p-account of “miracle”. Of course there is no 
> miracle at all, and then “hard emergence” is again relegate to the “hard 
> problem” of relating first person experience and third person description 
> (see my paper to get the point that with Mechanism, this cannot be 
> one-one). 
>
>
> … [so I will not repeat that here. However, the outcome is completely 
> random and has no causal basis. ]... 
>
>
> I agree that the outcome is completely random, but the randomness itself 
> as a causal base: the numerical identity of the “copies” in front of 
> different inputs. That exists a lot in arithmetic which emulates all 
> computations with a non trivial redundancy. That happens in the biological 
> reality too, in many variate ways. 
>
>
> … It emerges for no particular reason, such as initial conditions, and is 
> as I see it a complete hard emergence. 
>
> >> 
>
> It is hard in the 3p sense that it is absolutely indeterminate. Exactly 
> like in the case of the amoeba, or the digital duplication of oneself made 
> possible in the Digital Mechanist frame and/or in Arithmetic. 
>
> That is not "hard emergence", it is rather simple to explain by our first 
> person indeterminacy, that is the fact that a universal machine cannot know 
> which computations support them. 
>
> “Hard emergence” would be like adding the conscious attribute of a person 
> “living” that randomness, but then “hard” just refers to the hardness of 
> the mind-body problem. 
>
> Best, 
>
> Bruno 
>

You have pretty well captured what I was trying to illuminate here. I think 
there may well be hard emergence. Quantum collapse as a phenomenology is a 
case where in order to understand it, or to encode it, we would need to be 
able to data compress a vast number of sequences of such measurements. You 
can be sure this will not compress much, and the Chaitan halting 
probability would be low. This means in effect Kolmogoroff entropy or 
complexity has no complete computable measure. Fundamentally randomness is 
not defined by a computing system.

LC 

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-13 Thread agrayson2000



On Monday, February 12, 2018 at 11:51:17 AM UTC-7, agrays...@gmail.com 
wrote:
>
>
>
> On Monday, February 12, 2018 at 11:36:36 AM UTC-7, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>
>> On Monday, February 12, 2018 at 11:18:37 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 6:58 AM, Lawrence Crowell <
>>> goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> > 
 *If IGUS or ETI exist elsewhere, I would argue that probably there are 
 scaling limits to the powers such beings are able to control. The universe 
 has matter in it, but it has an average density of 10^{-29}g/cm^3,*

>>>
>>> 
>>> Yes, if you picked an average cubic meter of space in the universe it 
>>> would only have about one hydrogen atom in it, but that's irrelevant 
>>> because the space near stars is very very far from average.
>>>  
>>> Jupiter alone has enough matter to make a Dyson Sphere, especially if 
>>> the sphere's radius was considerably less than the Earth's orbital radius, 
>>> and ET would probably pick that design. The efficiency of solar cells 
>>> increases in more intense sunlight,  some existing solar photovoltaic 
>>> installations use a mirror or a Fresnel lens
>>>  
>>> to concentrate sunlight to up to 900 times normal earth intensity and 
>>> aim it at a solar cell. One Dyson Sphere would produce 33 trillion times 
>>> more energy than the entire human race uses now, and it would keep 
>>> producing it for billions of years. And there is no reason ET couldn't make 
>>> billions of Dyson Spheres in a very short amount of time, astronomically 
>>> speaking. And yet we see nothing.
>>>  
>>>
 *> and the overwhelming percentage of matter in dense configurations 
 is in stars that are hot and hard to access.*

>>>
>>> ET wouldn't even want to access the matter in stars because that's the 
>>> source of the very power  they're trying to get at. 
>>>  
>>>  
>>>
 > 
 *Even tearing up planets for materials is hard and energy intensive.*

>>>
>>> 
>>> Energy is not a problem, there is plenty of energy available near stars 
>>> but you're right it's hard, at least its hard to do right now because we 
>>> don't have Drexler style Nanotechnology, but we don't have it because some 
>>> law of physics forbids it, we don't have it simply because of lack of 
>>> engineering skill. But new skills can be acquired.  Brain surgery isn't 
>>> hard if you know how and once we have Nanotechnology
>>>  
>>> building a Dyson Sphere will no longer be hard.
>>>  
>>>
 > 
 *I would argue there are simply scaling limits to the control or 
 abilities of intelligent beings.*

>>>
>>> You haven't argued it you've simply stated it.
>>>
>>> John K Clark
>>>  
>>>
>>
>> I am simply proposing it. I have no particular proof. At some point 
>> though any ETI/IGUS that attempts to do these things might be akin to a 
>> flea climbing an elephant's butt with rape on its mind.  
>>
>> We are faced with a number of prospects. The first is there is some limit 
>> to complexity that any intelligent being can manage. In this scenario there 
>> would be intelligent life elsewhere, but they are unable to push into these 
>> extreme hyper-tech areas. The second is that intelligent life is extremely 
>> rare or maybe we are the only ones. This seems to go against some general 
>> Copernican principle. The third is the biology itself is some sort of 
>> spectacular fluke, maybe as a hard emergent process, that Earth is the only 
>> biologically active planet in the entire universe.
>>
>> LC
>>
>
> *Another possibility is that ET's exist, but for whatever reasons have no 
> motivation to build Dyson Spheres. In this scenario they could be plentiful 
> or rare, but without interest in such a project or others which are 
> comparable in scope. AG*
>

*I may lack in imagination, but what would be the motivation for a galactic 
empire? AG *

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-13 Thread John Clark

On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 12:33 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> 
> mind does not come out of the brain


Then why does changing the brain change the mind and changing the mind
change the brain?

John K Clark



>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-13 Thread Bruno Marchal

Hi Lawrence, hi John,


Sorry for the delay. I comment some answers in the same post.

Lawrence, you say

<<
Hard emergence is either something really miraculous and thus not really in the 
domain of physics, or it is something we might call a miracle because we really 
do not understand it.
>>

So we agree. Ah, I see you did find an example. See below.

John, you say

<<
> Bruno: You might try to give at least one example of hard emergence

One molecule of water can't be wet but 6.02*10^ 23 molecules can be. And H2O 
at 31 degrees F has none of the properties of a liquid but at 33 degrees F 
those same molecules have all the properties of a liquid; although usually 
emergent properties don't appear as suddenly as that, it is more smooth and 
continuous. Day is very different from night but there isn't an exact point 
where one turns into the other. There is nothing mysterious or miraculous 
going on its just that human language puts concepts into groups called "words" 
but the real world is messy so there are often intermediate cases where 
its not clear what the correct word should be; an 80 pound man is clearly 
thin and a 800 pound man is clearly fat but there are values between those 
extremes where reasonable people can differ on what the correct word should be. 
>>

I don’t see the exemple of hard emergence.

I think that “hard emergence” is a spurious concept like the one used to hide 
the mind-body problem. In that case it reflects at least the understanding that 
mind does not come out of the brain like wetness comes out from the many water 
molecules. In the second case we stay in the third person discourse, but in the 
first, we must explain a relationship between two types of points of view (and 
with mechanism, it cannot be a one-one relation, but a modality related to 
self-reference).

Lawrence: 

<<
It occurred to me a case of hard emergence. The outcome of a quantum 
measurement is such. I have iterated how I think this is connected to 
self-reference, ]

Nice! Is it related to the self-duplication? With the MW formulation of QM,, 
and simplifying a little bit to avoid being too much technical, when you look 
at schroedinger cat, you duplicate yourself, as the duplication of the cat is 
linearly inherited by you when observing the cat, and is, in relevance with 
computationalism, an example of self-duplication. A classical self-duplication, 
via artificial brain or bi-teleportation gives the same “miracle”, or 
1p-account of “miracle”. Of course there is no miracle at all, and then “hard 
emergence” is again relegate to the “hard problem” of relating first person 
experience and third person description (see my paper to get the point that 
with Mechanism, this cannot be one-one).


… [so I will not repeat that here. However, the outcome is completely random 
and has no causal basis. ]...


I agree that the outcome is completely random, but the randomness itself as a 
causal base: the numerical identity of the “copies” in front of different 
inputs. That exists a lot in arithmetic which emulates all computations with a 
non trivial redundancy. That happens in the biological reality too, in many 
variate ways.


… It emerges for no particular reason, such as initial conditions, and is as I 
see it a complete hard emergence.

>>

It is hard in the 3p sense that it is absolutely indeterminate. Exactly like in 
the case of the amoeba, or the digital duplication of oneself made possible in 
the Digital Mechanist frame and/or in Arithmetic.

That is not "hard emergence", it is rather simple to explain by our first 
person indeterminacy, that is the fact that a universal machine cannot know 
which computations support them.

“Hard emergence” would be like adding the conscious attribute of a person 
“living” that randomness, but then “hard” just refers to the hardness of the 
mind-body problem.

Best,

Bruno









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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-13 Thread John Clark

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 7:53 PM, Lawrence Crowell <
goldenfieldquaterni...@gmail.com> wrote:

*> Even if you have a mole of nanobots doing things, who is keeping track
> of them to make sure they are doing what you want? *

You were

constructed

by a huge number of nanobots (also called proteins) in just 9 months. And
those nanobots were themselves constructed by other nanobots using
information in DNA. There was no understanding involved in any of this,
nobody was keeping

track

of it all and yet it worked. You are far more complex than a Dyson Sphere
so if something like DNA and proteins, which are dumb as dirt, can make
something as complex as you I don't see why a super intelligence would be
unable to make a simple Dyson Sphere.

* > In fact this becomes Turing's thesis on the impossibility of a
> Universal Turing Machine on steroids.*

Turing prove there are some functions that a computer can't evaluate and
some real numbers (most of them actually) that can't even be approximated.
But computers aren't the only thing that has this limitation, humans can't
do any of those things either and in fact
no physical process has ever been found that can figure out what a Turing
Machine can't; and yet enormously complex things still exist in the
universe.

And Turing also proved that in general if you want to know what a computer
will do next all you can do is watch it and see; and long before Turing it
was known that in general you can't know for sure what you are going to do
next until you actually do it. 

*> **even if you have that massive computing system who is keeping track
> of the algorithms to make sure it is doing what you want and so forth.*

Computers will always make mistakes
and
 humans make mistakes too but that doesn't prevent them from getting things
done.

By the way, you indicated you were a fan of t
he

Copernican principle
 but now you seem to be saying humans are special after all because they
are as smart as things can get, if something is too complex for humans to
use it will forever be too complex for anything to use. And I still don't
understand what's so complex about a Dyson Sphere.
After all, spheres are symmetrical so if you know how to make one small
part of it you know how to make the entire thing, now you just need to put
in the effort and actually do it. And if you have 6.02*10^23 hands you can
complete it in a reasonable amount of time.

> *> Already we are getting some problematic news with self-driving cars.
> Remember a test driver. or in a way un-driver, was killed not long ago
> because the algorithm failed to react properly to certain conditions.*
>

That was 2 years ago and since then 2.6 million people were killed by
human drivers worldwide. And the incident you refer to didn't happen in a
driverless car, the Tesla just had a autopilot, a sort of super duper
cruise control, and it was never intended to be used without human
oversight, although the "driver" apparently treated it as if it was and was
not paying attention and died as a result. True driverless cars have a
superb driving record and have never killed anyone, Google's driverless
cars have driven 1.8 million real world miles and only had 13 accidents,
all of them fender benders and all of them caused by other cars with human
drivers.

> >* *
> *Complexity explodes enormously and the designers become unable to
> understand or control their systems.*
>

Humans understand the complex things they make one hell of a lot better
than DNA and proteins

understand the complex things
they 
make.

> >* *
> *there are a lot of humans who are completely insane, and frankly we have
> put one in the White House.*
>

You'll get no argument from me about that! T
rump is not only insane he's stupid. Maybe that's why we can't find ET,
sooner or later every civilization gets the equivalent of Mr. Donald (my
nuclear button is bigger than yours) Trump.

* > This may then be one reason there are no massive astrophysical
> engineered objects out there; the amount of information necessary to build
> and control such things is far beyond any tractable computing system.*
>

That is just not true. 
In the entire human genome there are only 3 billion base pairs. There are 4
bases so each base can represent 2 bits, there are 8 bits per byte so that
comes out to 750 meg. Just 750 meg, that's about the same amount of
information as a old CD disk could hold

when they first came out

35 years ago! And the 750 meg isn't even efficiently coded, there is a
ridiculous amount of redundancy in the human genome.
 And yet that
tiny
 amount of information was enough to reshape the surface of a planet. And
there is more to come, I think that information could grow and reshape the
entire galaxy, if it doesn't stagnate or destroy itself first.

  John K Clark

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-12 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Monday, February 12, 2018 at 5:08:46 PM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 1:36 PM, Lawrence Crowell <
> goldenfield...@gmail.com > wrote:
>
> *> We are faced with a number of prospects. The first is there is some 
>> limit to complexity that any intelligent being can manage.*
>>
>
> The smarter something is the more complexity it can handle
> 
> ,
>  
> so If 
> a
>  Jupiter Brain was approaching
>  
> such a limit
>  
> that would give it motivation to add to its brain hardware.
>  
> And besides,
>  
> a Dyson Sphere would be big but not particularly complex, it would be less 
> complex than a modern computer chip because unlike the chip a sphere is 
> symmetrical so one part of it is just like another
> 
> . Once you figure out how to makes one square meter of
>  
> a Dyson Sphere
>  
> you just keep doing the same thing over and over till its done.
> 
>
> But if its so simple why haven't we already built one? Because 
> we don't have 6.02*10^23 arms so we can keep doing the same thing 
> over and over 
> and be done before the sun burns out
> ;
> but with self reproducing nano
> -
> machines we can have as many arms as we want. 
>

The basic rule of computers which I think holds for technology in general 
is that it may do what you have designed it to do, but that may not be what 
you want it to do. Even if you have a mole of nanobots doing things, who is 
keeping track of them to make sure they are doing what you want? And even 
if you have that massive computing system who is keeping track of the 
algorithms to make sure it is doing what you want and so forth. In fact 
this becomes Turing's thesis on the impossibility of a Universal Turing 
Machine on steroids.

Already we are getting some problematic news with self-driving cars. 
Remember a test driver. or in a way un-driver, was killed not long ago 
because the algorithm failed to react properly to certain conditions. It 
did what it was programmed to do, not what the designers wanted it to do. 
Complexity explodes enormously and the designers become unable to 
understand or control their systems. We have strategic nuclear missiles 
interfaced with ever more complex systems, and in that case a screw up can 
be total. The smart phone, the smart TV, the smart home, the smart car, the 
smart bot in your body that reads our your biometrics, the smart bots that 
gather this data for various purposes the ... . Yeah this shit is starting 
to become disturbing already. Now we may soon be getting planetary climate 
and weather control along with bots that input information into and read 
information out from brains. This is a long way down from hypertech 
involved with controlling a star or a Jovian sized computer. And oh yeah, 
there are a lot of humans who are completely insane, and frankly we have 
put one in the White House.

It may come down to the incomputability of the Kolmogoroff entropy for all 
possible systems. It is similar to trying to define randomness, when 
something that is purely random, say a symbol string, is not data 
compressible within any sort of general algorithm This is a form of the 
Turing thesis or Godel's theorem. In the end this might be the thing that 
kicks us in ass. Since this has some universality to it I might advance the 
plausible conjecture that any possible IGUS/ETI etc in the universe is 
similarly limited. This may then be one reason there are no massive 
astrophysical engineered objects out there; the amount of information 
necessary to build and control such things is far beyond any tractable 
computing system.

LC

>   
>
>> *> The second is that intelligent life is extremely rare or maybe we 
>> are the only ones. *
>>
>
> The evidence is we are the only one, or at least that nobody has ever 
> gotten much further than we have right now.
>  
>
>> *> This seems to go against some general Copernican principle.*
>>
>
> The 
> Copernican principle
>  is not a law of physics and in fact its clearly not true. We don't live 
> at a typical time, life has existed for almost 4 billion years but 
> intelligent life for less than a million and technology only a thousand or 
> so and life first left the earth only a few decades ago. We don't live in a 
> typical place either, a typical place only has one hydrogen atom per cubic 
> meter. We are lucky enough to live at an extraordinary time in a 
> extraordinary 
> place.
>
> *> The third is the biology itself is some sort of spectacular fluke, 
>> maybe as a hard emergent process, that Earth is the only biologically 
>> active planet in the entire universe.*
>>
>
> That could be. The fourth possibility is civilizations always destroy 
> themselves or stagnate and individuals have no interest in doing anything 
> except spending eternity in a electronic crack house.   
>  
>
> John K Clark
>
>
>  
>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-12 Thread John Clark

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 1:36 PM, Lawrence Crowell <
goldenfieldquaterni...@gmail.com> wrote:

*> We are faced with a number of prospects. The first is there is some
> limit to complexity that any intelligent being can manage.*
>

The smarter something is the more complexity it can handle

,

so If
a
 Jupiter Brain was approaching

such a limit

that would give it motivation to add to its brain hardware.

And besides,

a Dyson Sphere would be big but not particularly complex, it would be less
complex than a modern computer chip because unlike the chip a sphere is
symmetrical so one part of it is just like another

. Once you figure out how to makes one square meter of

a Dyson Sphere

you just keep doing the same thing over and over till its done.

But if its so simple why haven't we already built one? Because
we don't have 6.02*10^23 arms so we can keep doing the same thing
over and over 
and be done before the sun burns out
;
but with self reproducing nano
-
machines we can have as many arms as we want.

> *> The second is that intelligent life is extremely rare or maybe we are
> the only ones. *
>

The evidence is we are the only one, or at least that nobody has ever
gotten much further than we have right now.

> *> This seems to go against some general Copernican principle.*
>

The 
Copernican principle
 is not a law of physics and in fact its clearly not true. We don't live
at a typical time, life has existed for almost 4 billion years but
intelligent life for less than a million and technology only a thousand or
so and life first left the earth only a few decades ago. We don't live in a
typical place either, a typical place only has one hydrogen atom per cubic
meter. We are lucky enough to live at an extraordinary time in a
extraordinary
place.

*> The third is the biology itself is some sort of spectacular fluke,
> maybe as a hard emergent process, that Earth is the only biologically
> active planet in the entire universe.*
>

That could be. The fourth possibility is civilizations always destroy
themselves or stagnate and individuals have no interest in doing anything
except spending eternity in a electronic crack house.   

John K Clark

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-12 Thread agrayson2000



On Monday, February 12, 2018 at 11:36:36 AM UTC-7, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>
> On Monday, February 12, 2018 at 11:18:37 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 6:58 AM, Lawrence Crowell <
>> goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > 
>>> *If IGUS or ETI exist elsewhere, I would argue that probably there are 
>>> scaling limits to the powers such beings are able to control. The universe 
>>> has matter in it, but it has an average density of 10^{-29}g/cm^3,*
>>>
>>
>> 
>> Yes, if you picked an average cubic meter of space in the universe it 
>> would only have about one hydrogen atom in it, but that's irrelevant 
>> because the space near stars is very very far from average.
>>  
>> Jupiter alone has enough matter to make a Dyson Sphere, especially if the 
>> sphere's radius was considerably less than the Earth's orbital radius, and 
>> ET would probably pick that design. The efficiency of solar cells increases 
>> in more intense sunlight,  some existing solar photovoltaic installations 
>> use a mirror or a Fresnel lens
>>  
>> to concentrate sunlight to up to 900 times normal earth intensity and aim 
>> it at a solar cell. One Dyson Sphere would produce 33 trillion times more 
>> energy than the entire human race uses now, and it would keep producing it 
>> for billions of years. And there is no reason ET couldn't make billions of 
>> Dyson Spheres in a very short amount of time, astronomically speaking. And 
>> yet we see nothing.
>>  
>>
>>> *> and the overwhelming percentage of matter in dense configurations 
>>> is in stars that are hot and hard to access.*
>>>
>>
>> ET wouldn't even want to access the matter in stars because that's the 
>> source of the very power  they're trying to get at. 
>>  
>>  
>>
>>> > 
>>> *Even tearing up planets for materials is hard and energy intensive.*
>>>
>>
>> 
>> Energy is not a problem, there is plenty of energy available near stars 
>> but you're right it's hard, at least its hard to do right now because we 
>> don't have Drexler style Nanotechnology, but we don't have it because some 
>> law of physics forbids it, we don't have it simply because of lack of 
>> engineering skill. But new skills can be acquired.  Brain surgery isn't 
>> hard if you know how and once we have Nanotechnology
>>  
>> building a Dyson Sphere will no longer be hard.
>>  
>>
>>> > 
>>> *I would argue there are simply scaling limits to the control or 
>>> abilities of intelligent beings.*
>>>
>>
>> You haven't argued it you've simply stated it.
>>
>> John K Clark
>>  
>>
>
> I am simply proposing it. I have no particular proof. At some point though 
> any ETI/IGUS that attempts to do these things might be akin to a flea 
> climbing an elephant's butt with rape on its mind.  
>
> We are faced with a number of prospects. The first is there is some limit 
> to complexity that any intelligent being can manage. In this scenario there 
> would be intelligent life elsewhere, but they are unable to push into these 
> extreme hyper-tech areas. The second is that intelligent life is extremely 
> rare or maybe we are the only ones. This seems to go against some general 
> Copernican principle. The third is the biology itself is some sort of 
> spectacular fluke, maybe as a hard emergent process, that Earth is the only 
> biologically active planet in the entire universe.
>
> LC
>

*Another possibility is that ET's exist, but for whatever reasons have no 
motivation to build Dyson Spheres. In this scenario they could be plentiful 
or rare, but without interest in such a project or others which are 
comparable in scope. AG*

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-12 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Monday, February 12, 2018 at 11:18:37 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 6:58 AM, Lawrence Crowell <
> goldenfield...@gmail.com > wrote:
>
> > 
>> *If IGUS or ETI exist elsewhere, I would argue that probably there are 
>> scaling limits to the powers such beings are able to control. The universe 
>> has matter in it, but it has an average density of 10^{-29}g/cm^3,*
>>
>
> 
> Yes, if you picked an average cubic meter of space in the universe it 
> would only have about one hydrogen atom in it, but that's irrelevant 
> because the space near stars is very very far from average.
>  
> Jupiter alone has enough matter to make a Dyson Sphere, especially if the 
> sphere's radius was considerably less than the Earth's orbital radius, and 
> ET would probably pick that design. The efficiency of solar cells increases 
> in more intense sunlight,  some existing solar photovoltaic installations 
> use a mirror or a Fresnel lens
>  
> to concentrate sunlight to up to 900 times normal earth intensity and aim 
> it at a solar cell. One Dyson Sphere would produce 33 trillion times more 
> energy than the entire human race uses now, and it would keep producing it 
> for billions of years. And there is no reason ET couldn't make billions of 
> Dyson Spheres in a very short amount of time, astronomically speaking. And 
> yet we see nothing.
>  
>
>> *> and the overwhelming percentage of matter in dense configurations is 
>> in stars that are hot and hard to access.*
>>
>
> ET wouldn't even want to access the matter in stars because that's the 
> source of the very power  they're trying to get at. 
>  
>  
>
>> > 
>> *Even tearing up planets for materials is hard and energy intensive.*
>>
>
> 
> Energy is not a problem, there is plenty of energy available near stars 
> but you're right it's hard, at least its hard to do right now because we 
> don't have Drexler style Nanotechnology, but we don't have it because some 
> law of physics forbids it, we don't have it simply because of lack of 
> engineering skill. But new skills can be acquired.  Brain surgery isn't 
> hard if you know how and once we have Nanotechnology
>  
> building a Dyson Sphere will no longer be hard.
>  
>
>> > 
>> *I would argue there are simply scaling limits to the control or 
>> abilities of intelligent beings.*
>>
>
> You haven't argued it you've simply stated it.
>
> John K Clark
>  
>

I am simply proposing it. I have no particular proof. At some point though 
any ETI/IGUS that attempts to do these things might be akin to a flea 
climbing an elephant's butt with rape on its mind.  

We are faced with a number of prospects. The first is there is some limit 
to complexity that any intelligent being can manage. In this scenario there 
would be intelligent life elsewhere, but they are unable to push into these 
extreme hyper-tech areas. The second is that intelligent life is extremely 
rare or maybe we are the only ones. This seems to go against some general 
Copernican principle. The third is the biology itself is some sort of 
spectacular fluke, maybe as a hard emergent process, that Earth is the only 
biologically active planet in the entire universe.

LC

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-12 Thread John Clark

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 6:58 AM, Lawrence Crowell <
goldenfieldquaterni...@gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> *If IGUS or ETI exist elsewhere, I would argue that probably there are
> scaling limits to the powers such beings are able to control. The universe
> has matter in it, but it has an average density of 10^{-29}g/cm^3,*
>

Yes, if you picked an average cubic meter of space in the universe it would
only have about one hydrogen atom in it, but that's irrelevant because the
space near stars is very very far from average.

Jupiter alone has enough matter to make a Dyson Sphere, especially if the
sphere's radius was considerably less than the Earth's orbital radius, and
ET would probably pick that design. The efficiency of solar cells increases
in more intense sunlight,  some existing solar photovoltaic installations
use a mirror or a Fresnel lens

to concentrate sunlight to up to 900 times normal earth intensity and aim
it at a solar cell. One Dyson Sphere would produce 33 trillion times more
energy than the entire human race uses now, and it would keep producing it
for billions of years. And there is no reason ET couldn't make billions of
Dyson Spheres in a very short amount of time, astronomically speaking. And
yet we see nothing.

> *> and the overwhelming percentage of matter in dense configurations is
> in stars that are hot and hard to access.*
>

ET wouldn't even want to access the matter in stars because that's the
source of the very power  they're trying to get at.

> >
> *Even tearing up planets for materials is hard and energy intensive.*
>

Energy is not a problem, there is plenty of energy available near stars but
you're right it's hard, at least its hard to do right now because we don't
have Drexler style Nanotechnology, but we don't have it because some law of
physics forbids it, we don't have it simply because of lack of engineering
skill. But new skills can be acquired.  Brain surgery isn't hard if you
know how and once we have Nanotechnology

building a Dyson Sphere will no longer be hard.

> >
> *I would argue there are simply scaling limits to the control or abilities
> of intelligent beings.*
>

You haven't argued it you've simply stated it.

John K Clark

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-12 Thread agrayson2000



On Monday, February 12, 2018 at 4:58:41 AM UTC-7, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>
> If IGUS or ETI exist elsewhere, I would argue that probably there are 
> scaling limits to the powers such beings are able to control. The universe 
> has matter in it, but it has an average density of 10^{-29}g/cm^3, and the 
> overwhelming percentage of matter in dense configurations is in stars that 
> are hot and hard to access. Even tearing up planets for materials is hard 
> and energy intensive. Interstellar gas by contrast if extremely diffuse. I 
> would argue there are simply scaling limits to the control or abilities of 
> intelligent beings.
>
> LC
>

*Although your reasoning in these matters seems plausible, even persuasive, 
you mustn't forget that you're arguing with an expert in ETI, inclusive of 
their motives. AG *

>
>
> On Sunday, February 11, 2018 at 8:55:32 PM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 8:58 PM, Lawrence Crowell <
>> goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>  
>>
>>> * Most likely they evolved like us with neuro-networks adapted from some 
>>> natural condition and eventually as they progress they find they can no 
>>> longer manage things.*
>>>
>>
>> When things get complicated we can't add new brain hardware, but a 
>> Jupiter brain can. And besides, the entire galaxy isn't going to be managed 
>> from one central point. 
>>  
>>  
>>
>>> * > Their situation implodes. I suspect our situation will implode 
>>> this century.* 
>>>
>>
>> Perhaps civilizations always do destroy themselves, but if so I don't 
>> think it will be for the reason you suggest.. 
>>  
>>  
>>
>>> > **
>>> *As for von Neumann probes, these will over time evolve to form 
>>> potentially a sort of "galactic bacteria." They may simply not evolve in 
>>> most cases to engage in massive programs.*
>>>
>>
>> Von Neumann probes
>>  didn't evolve they were designed and if they're designed to make copies 
>> of themselves so they can make large things, like Dyson spheres, then I 
>> can find no reason why they wouldn't.
>>
>>  
>>
>>> * > It may be more to their advantage to stay small and take advantage 
>>> of the sparse resources available by being conservative.*
>>>
>>  
>> What sparse resources
>> 
>> ? There are plenty of atoms around stars and plenty of energy too, and 
>> that's all a Von Neumann probe
>>  
>> needs
>> .
>>
>>  John K Clark
>>
>> .
>>
>>  
>>
>>  
>>
>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-12 Thread Lawrence Crowell

If IGUS or ETI exist elsewhere, I would argue that probably there are 
scaling limits to the powers such beings are able to control. The universe 
has matter in it, but it has an average density of 10^{-29}g/cm^3, and the 
overwhelming percentage of matter in dense configurations is in stars that 
are hot and hard to access. Even tearing up planets for materials is hard 
and energy intensive. Interstellar gas by contrast if extremely diffuse. I 
would argue there are simply scaling limits to the control or abilities of 
intelligent beings.

LC

On Sunday, February 11, 2018 at 8:55:32 PM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 8:58 PM, Lawrence Crowell <
> goldenfield...@gmail.com > wrote:
>  
>
>> * Most likely they evolved like us with neuro-networks adapted from some 
>> natural condition and eventually as they progress they find they can no 
>> longer manage things.*
>>
>
> When things get complicated we can't add new brain hardware, but a 
> Jupiter brain can. And besides, the entire galaxy isn't going to be managed 
> from one central point. 
>  
>  
>
>> * > Their situation implodes. I suspect our situation will implode this 
>> century.* 
>>
>
> Perhaps civilizations always do destroy themselves, but if so I don't 
> think it will be for the reason you suggest.. 
>  
>  
>
>> > **
>> *As for von Neumann probes, these will over time evolve to form 
>> potentially a sort of "galactic bacteria." They may simply not evolve in 
>> most cases to engage in massive programs.*
>>
>
> Von Neumann probes
>  didn't evolve they were designed and if they're designed to make copies 
> of themselves so they can make large things, like Dyson spheres, then I 
> can find no reason why they wouldn't.
>
>  
>
>> * > It may be more to their advantage to stay small and take advantage 
>> of the sparse resources available by being conservative.*
>>
>  
> What sparse resources
> 
> ? There are plenty of atoms around stars and plenty of energy too, and 
> that's all a Von Neumann probe
>  
> needs
> .
>
>  John K Clark
>
> .
>
>  
>
>  
>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-11 Thread John Clark

On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 8:58 PM, Lawrence Crowell <
goldenfieldquaterni...@gmail.com> wrote:

> * Most likely they evolved like us with neuro-networks adapted from some
> natural condition and eventually as they progress they find they can no
> longer manage things.*
>

When things get complicated we can't add new brain hardware, but a Jupiter
brain can. And besides, the entire galaxy isn't going to be managed from
one central point. 

> * > Their situation implodes. I suspect our situation will implode this
> century.*
>

Perhaps civilizations always do destroy themselves, but if so I don't
think it will be for the reason you suggest.. 

> > **
> *As for von Neumann probes, these will over time evolve to form
> potentially a sort of "galactic bacteria." They may simply not evolve in
> most cases to engage in massive programs.*
>

Von Neumann probes
 didn't evolve they were designed and if they're designed to make copies
of themselves so they can make large things, like Dyson spheres, then I
can find no reason why they wouldn't.

> * > It may be more to their advantage to stay small and take advantage
> of the sparse resources available by being conservative.*
>

What sparse resources

? There are plenty of atoms around stars and plenty of energy too, and
that's all a Von Neumann probe

needs
.

 John K Clark

.

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-11 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Sunday, February 11, 2018 at 3:15:43 PM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 8:20 AM, Lawrence Crowell <
> goldenfield...@gmail.com > wrote:
>
> >
>>   Human expansion into virtual space is far greater than outer space. In 
>> fact with the end of the shuttle program we may have passed what might be 
>> called peak astronaut. The number of astronauts going up is declining. 
>> There has been a great expansion of course with space science done with 
>> probes, astronomical instruments and robots in space, but no such with 
>> humans in space. Further, it is pretty clear that humans are preferring the 
>> computer generated virtual realities to the far more difficult business of 
>> actually going into space.
>>
>  
>
> ET might prefer virtual reality but that still can't explain why not one 
> ET in any civilization has even a slight interest in large scale 
> engineering. Unless the civilization has
>  
> completely
>  
> stagnated and every single individual in it is content to relive the same 
> plesent
>  experience over and over
>  
> and over
>  
> again in a electronic opium den they're going to want their virtual world 
> to be as rich and interesting as they can
>  
> make it
> 
> , and to do that you need energy. Even today humans use 1.4% of the global 
> electricity
>  
> power grid on data processing, and its growing at a much faster rate 
> (4.4%) than the overall increase in the consumption
> of electrical energy.
>
> John K Clark
>

It may have to do with complexity. The Kolmogoroff complexity or entropy of 
a system roughly scales with the area bounding that system, and any IGUS 
that begins to control that sort of hypertechnology must manage that sort 
of complexity. Most likely they evolved like us with neuro-networks adapted 
from some natural condition and eventually as they progress they find they 
can no longer manage things. Their situation implodes. I suspect our 
situation will implode this century. 

As for von Neumann probes, these will over time evolve to form potentially 
a sort of "galactic bacteria." They may simply not evolve in most cases to 
engage in massive programs. It may be more to their advantage to stay small 
and take advantage of the sparse resources available by being conservative.

LC

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-11 Thread John Clark

On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 3:21 AM, Telmo Menezes 
wrote:

> > 
> 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.

I'm sorry but that argument just makes no sense. Unless the laws of
physics are very different from what we think they are then nanotechnology
is possible, if so then intelligence is going to have a major impact on the
large scale structure of the universe; the fact that we can't observe the
slightest sign of this happening has profound implications.

> > 
> Even if a
>  
> civilization figured out a way to tolerate interstellar voyages taking
>  
> thousands or millions of years,

Civilizations don't have to figure out ways to tolerate interstellar
voyages, only Von Neumann probes do, and that would be easy for them.

> > 
> Without fast communication channels, they would fragment-- perhaps like
> the Roman Empire.
>

Yes. So what? Fragmented or not Intelligence 
would be a major force effecting the large scale structure of the
universe.

> 
> 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.

Not plausible. All it would take is one individual in one civilization to
take an once or so of matter and turn it into a Von Neumann  Probe

and then build a rocked far less powerful than Elon Musk's recently
launched Falcon Heavy and we're off to the races. But this has clearly not
happened, the ET equivalent of
Elon Musk
 does not exist in the observable universe 
and I can
only 
thin
k
of two explanations for this that doesn't sound ridiculously contrived.

> > 
> 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?
>

It's not as if we're talking about some huge expensive commitment, once
you have Drexler style nanotechnology its not only possible its easy to
turn the galaxy into a power station, and doing so would be literally as
cheap as dirt too.

> > 
> 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?

I don't need to answer those questions if I'm trying to figure out why
intelligence has
not shaped the universe, they're irrelevant. 

> > 
> At what time scales will they operate
>  
> then?

50 million years would be enough time to reshape our 13 bullion year old
galaxy, and that is
making the absurdly conservative assumption that ET can't send probes any
faster than we could in the 1970's.

> > 
> And needing which type of resource?

All a Von Neumann probe needs is energy and atoms, carbon being the most
important although other elements would come in handy. Stars provide lots
of energy and there are plenty of nice juicy atoms in asteroids and
planets.

> > 
> And how do they obtain them?
>

By going to stars and asteroids and planets in a small rocket.

> > 
> Aren't you expecting that something absurdly advanced in relation to
>  
> us is readily recognizable by us?
>

Certainly. We're absurdly advanced compared to Neanderthal culture so if
you dropped Mr. Neanderthal down in the middle of Manhattan he wouldn't
understand a lot about what was going on but he'd understand that this was
a special place, this was something fundamentally different from mountains
and valleys and lakes and rivers, which was all he had ever seen before.

> >
>> >
>> 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.
>

That explanation strikes me as contrived as hell, and you still haven't
told me where there waste heat went. 

> > 
> If they can maintain a civilization at the galactic scale -- with
> communication and all -- then they clearly know some physics that we
> don't.
>

No new physics is required to reshape the galaxy, it just needs improved
engineering skill.

John K Clark 

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-11 Thread John Clark

On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 8:20 AM, Lawrence Crowell <
goldenfieldquaterni...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>   Human expansion into virtual space is far greater than outer space. In
> fact with the end of the shuttle program we may have passed what might be
> called peak astronaut. The number of astronauts going up is declining.
> There has been a great expansion of course with space science done with
> probes, astronomical instruments and robots in space, but no such with
> humans in space. Further, it is pretty clear that humans are preferring the
> computer generated virtual realities to the far more difficult business of
> actually going into space.
>


ET might prefer virtual reality but that still can't explain why not one ET
in any civilization has even a slight interest in large scale engineering.
Unless the civilization has

completely

stagnated and every single individual in it is content to relive the same
plesent
 experience over and over

and over

again in a electronic opium den they're going to want their virtual world
to be as rich and interesting as they can

make it

, and to do that you need energy. Even today humans use 1.4% of the global
electricity
 
power grid on data processing, and its growing at a much faster rate (4.4%)
than the overall increase in the consumption
of electrical energy.

John K Clark







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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-11 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Sunday, February 11, 2018 at 2:35:51 AM UTC-6, telmo_menezes wrote:
>
> On Fri, Feb 9, 2018 at 6:42 PM, Lawrence Crowell 
> > wrote: 
> > Hard emergence is either something really miraculous and thus not really 
> in 
> > the domain of physics, or it is something we might call a miracle 
> because we 
> > really do not understand it. 
>
> For me, emergence refers to the arisal of new properties or behaviors 
> when many small entities are somehow connected. Informally, I like the 
> statement: "more is different". Emergence is never mysterious, 
> although it might be complex. For example: the global financial market 
> emerges from the individual transactions of billions of human beings 
> and organizations, the ant farm emerges from the individual activities 
> of ants, etc. There is no magic step, although the precise connection 
> between scales of observation might be obscured by complexity. 
>
> This is the entire point. Emergence is epistemic: it's about us, human 
> beings, with our limited cognitive abilities, being able to make sense 
> of highly complex things. Other entities living in other spacial and 
> temporal scales would observe different emergent structures. 
>
> What you call "hard emergence" I would just call mystery. 
>
> Telmo. 
>

It is either mystery or ignorance. The reduction of quantum states in 
decoherence or measurement is almost a form of what might be called hard 
emergence. It is not a subject we know well. I suspect in the case of 
quantum mechanics this has to do with quantum states that encode quantum 
bits or states about quantum states, where quantum states are really 
quantum bits. This is an area not well studied, and in fact in the physics 
community there is considerable resistance to this idea. The emergence of 
life might be similar. 

LC 

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-11 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Sunday, February 11, 2018 at 2:21:15 AM UTC-6, telmo_menezes wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 6:25 PM, John Clark  > wrote: 
>
> > 
> > 
> > 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? 
>

We are mostly already there. Human expansion into virtual space is far 
greater than outer space. In fact with the end of the shuttle program we 
may have passed what might be called peak astronaut. The number of 
astronauts going up is declining. There has been a great expansion of 
course with space science done with probes, astronomical instruments and 
robots in space, but no such with humans in space. Further, it is pretty 
clear that humans are preferring the computer generated virtual realities 
to the far more difficult business of actually going into space.

>
> >> 
> >> > 
> >> (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? 
>

As I have said I think humans in space are mostly about technology, 
industry and commerce. If that can be made to work and humans start to make 
a long term or permanent presence in space humans out there will merge with 
their machines. For that matter I suspect humans down here on Earth will 
merge as well. We are half way there, in case you might have noticed people 
walking around with their eyes cast down on their phones. I suspect in 25 
years that will start to interlink directly with the brain. Humans moving 
into space might come to resemble the BORG on Star Trek NG. 

LC

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-11 Thread Telmo Menezes

On Fri, Feb 9, 2018 at 6:42 PM, Lawrence Crowell
 wrote:
> Hard emergence is either something really miraculous and thus not really in
> the domain of physics, or it is something we might call a miracle because we
> really do not understand it.

For me, emergence refers to the arisal of new properties or behaviors
when many small entities are somehow connected. Informally, I like the
statement: "more is different". Emergence is never mysterious,
although it might be complex. For example: the global financial market
emerges from the individual transactions of billions of human beings
and organizations, the ant farm emerges from the individual activities
of ants, etc. There is no magic step, although the precise connection
between scales of observation might be obscured by complexity.

This is the entire point. Emergence is epistemic: it's about us, human
beings, with our limited cognitive abilities, being able to make sense
of highly complex things. Other entities living in other spacial and
temporal scales would observe different emergent structures.

What you call "hard emergence" I would just call mystery.

Telmo.

> LC
>
> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 5:28:49 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 7 Feb 2018, at 15:40, Lawrence Crowell 
>> wrote:
>>
>> On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 6:52:27 AM UTC-6, telmo_menezes wrote:
>>>
>>> On Sat, Feb 3, 2018 at 11:43 PM, Lawrence Crowell
>>>  wrote:
>>> > It is interesting in some ways. However, it involves speculations on
>>> > things
>>> > we have no knowledge of.
>>> >
>>> > The idea involves these filters. The one "behind us" involves the
>>> > barrier to
>>> > intelligent life similar to us. There are few examples of brainy
>>> > animals
>>> > similar to us. Cetaceans have large brains and clearly their songs
>>> > contain
>>> > complex information important to them. It is not clear that this is
>>> > equivalent to complex thought such as mathematics. The other filter
>>> > involves
>>> > post-ET development where such life is limited by either
>>> > self-extermination
>>> > or the limits of light speed and the unapproachable scale of putative
>>> > interstellar flight.
>>> >
>>> > I suspect planets with complex life above that of prokaryotic-like life
>>> > are
>>> > few in number per galaxy. It is hard to know how even prokaryotic-like
>>> > life
>>> > starts. The ribosome is a complex of RNA with polypeptides, and this
>>> > thing
>>> > is fairly universal. As yet we are not sure how this came about. So it
>>> > could
>>> > be that the life bearing planets are already extremely rare. This would
>>> > make
>>> > planets with complex life most likely very rare, and then up the ladder
>>> > the
>>> > occurrence of intelligent life exceedingly rare.
>>> >
>>> > The occurrence of life might be a case of what is called hard
>>> > emergence.
>>> > Soft emergence is something like the emergence of chemistry from the
>>> > quantum
>>> > mechanics of atoms. Strong emergence is the occurrence of entirely
>>> > different
>>> > principles, where this is not an established scientific concept. This
>>> > is of
>>> > course a completely unknown territory. How life emerged is one of the
>>> > great
>>> > scientific questions.
>>>
>>> Are you sure this hard/soft distinction is meaningful? Life is what
>>> happens when imperfect self-replicators enter the stage. It is true
>>> that this appears to be a very unlikely event, and that how it
>>> happened is an open scientific question, but what do you mean by
>>> "different principles"?
>>>
>>> Telmo.
>>
>>
>> Hard emergence is where a set of principles spontaneously occur without
>> any formal or causal connection with other principles.
>>
>>
>> I think that this is called a “miracle”.
>>
>> Even if that exists,we cannot use this in science, and will say: we just
>> don’t understand yet.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> We are familiar with the absorption of Goldstone bosons by gauge bosons
>> that give them a longitudinal mode and hence a mass. This would be a case of
>> soft emergence. Of course the boundary between hard and soft emergence is
>> hard to know. The ribosome is a pretty invariant structure in biology, and
>> it is horribly complex. This in some embarrassing way sounds similar to the
>> irreducible complexity argument of the creationist camp. As a result there
>> may be a sort of intellectual impasse here, and potentially some clearer
>> understanding of what is meant by hard emergence might play a role.
>>
>>
>> “Hard emergence” is the strong-atheists rendering of “miracle”. I don’t
>> think this notion makes any sense. You might try to give at least one
>> example of hard emergence, because, to be honest, I can’t give any sense to
>> such an expression.
>>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> LC
>>
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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-11 Thread Telmo Menezes

On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 6:25 PM, John Clark  wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 7:38 AM, Telmo Menezes 
> 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 Cla

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-10 Thread agrayson2000

On Saturday, February 10, 2018 at 6:29:14 AM UTC-7, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>
> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 8:05:09 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 5:58:04 PM UTC-7, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>>
>>> It occurred to me a case of hard emergence. The outcome of a quantum 
>>> measurement is such. I have iterated how I think this is connected to 
>>> self-reference, so I will not repeat that here. 
>>>
>>
>> It would be useful IMO, if you did just that. How can random measurement 
>> results be connected with "self referential", whatever that means? A good 
>> idea, sometimes even a bad one, is worth repeating for evaluation. AG
>>
>
> I have outlined on this forum how a quantum measurement is really where 
> quantum states measure quantum states. This is then self-referential and 
> the odd properties of quantum measurement may then be due to the emergence 
> or occurrence of principles outside of causal principles of quantum 
> mechanics.
>
> LC
>

A superposition, when measured, yields an eigenstate. I suppose one can 
call this "self referential". ... Suppose the universe yields specific 
quantum states in a deterministic manner discoverable by mankind. 
Forgetting about Bell experiments which show this is impossible, how would 
you feel about an absolutely deterministic universe, where every evolving 
state is absolutely determined from, say, the BB? Isn't there something 
perverse about an absolutely deterministic universe, also possibly know as 
a Block Universe? ISTM, we have the kind of universe we prefer, 
non-deterministic, yet enigmatic to human intelligence. AG 

>  
>
>>  
>>
>>> However, the outcome is completely random and has no causal basis. It 
>>> emerges for no particular reason, such as initial conditions, and is as I 
>>> see it a complete hard emergence.
>>>
>>> LC
>>>
>>> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 1:16:58 PM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:

 On Fri, Feb 9, 2018 at 6:28 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

 > 
> You might try to give at least one example of hard emergence

 One molecule of water can't be wet but 6.02*10^ 23 molecules can be. 
 And H2O at 31 degrees F has none of the properties of a liquid but at 33 
 degrees F those same molecules have all the properties of a liquid; 
 although usually emergent properties don't appear as

 suddenly as that, it is more smooth and continuous. Day is very 
 different from night but there isn't an exact point where one turns into 
 the other. There is nothing mysterious 
 or
  miraculous going on its just that human language puts concepts into 
 groups called "words" but the real world is messy

 so

 there are often intermediate

 cases where its not clear what the correct word should be; an

 80 pound man is clearly thin

 and a 800 pound man is clearly fat but there are values between those 
 extremes where reasonable people can differ on what the correct word 
 should 
 be.  

 John K Clark 

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-10 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 8:05:09 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 5:58:04 PM UTC-7, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>
>> It occurred to me a case of hard emergence. The outcome of a quantum 
>> measurement is such. I have iterated how I think this is connected to 
>> self-reference, so I will not repeat that here. 
>>
>
> It would be useful IMO, if you did just that. How can random measurement 
> results be connected with "self referential", whatever that means? A good 
> idea, sometimes even a bad one, is worth repeating for evaluation. AG
>

I have outlined on this forum how a quantum measurement is really where 
quantum states measure quantum states. This is then self-referential and 
the odd properties of quantum measurement may then be due to the emergence 
or occurrence of principles outside of causal principles of quantum 
mechanics.

LC
 

>  
>
>> However, the outcome is completely random and has no causal basis. It 
>> emerges for no particular reason, such as initial conditions, and is as I 
>> see it a complete hard emergence.
>>
>> LC
>>
>> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 1:16:58 PM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 9, 2018 at 6:28 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>>>
>>> > 
 You might try to give at least one example of hard emergence
>>>
>>>
>>> 
>>> One molecule of water can't be wet but 6.02*10^ 23 molecules can be. And 
>>> H2O at 31 degrees F has none of the properties of a liquid but at 33 
>>> degrees F those same molecules have all the properties of a liquid; 
>>> although usually emergent properties don't appear as
>>>  
>>> suddenly as that, it is more smooth and continuous. Day is very 
>>> different from night but there isn't an exact point where one turns into 
>>> the other. There is nothing mysterious 
>>> or
>>>  miraculous going on its just that human language puts concepts into 
>>> groups called "words" but the real world is messy
>>>  
>>> so
>>>  
>>> there are often intermediate
>>>  
>>> cases where its not clear what the correct word should be; an
>>>  
>>> 80 pound man is clearly thin
>>> 
>>> and a 800 pound man is clearly fat but there are values between those 
>>> extremes where reasonable people can differ on what the correct word should 
>>> be.  
>>>
>>>  
>>> John K Clark 
>>>
>>>
>>>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-09 Thread agrayson2000



On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 5:58:04 PM UTC-7, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>
> It occurred to me a case of hard emergence. The outcome of a quantum 
> measurement is such. I have iterated how I think this is connected to 
> self-reference, so I will not repeat that here. 
>

It would be useful IMO, if you did just that. How can random measurement 
results be connected with "self referential", whatever that means? A good 
idea, sometimes even a bad one, is worth repeating for evaluation. AG
 

> However, the outcome is completely random and has no causal basis. It 
> emerges for no particular reason, such as initial conditions, and is as I 
> see it a complete hard emergence.
>
> LC
>
> On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 1:16:58 PM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 9, 2018 at 6:28 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>>
>> > 
>>> You might try to give at least one example of hard emergence
>>
>>
>> 
>> One molecule of water can't be wet but 6.02*10^ 23 molecules can be. And 
>> H2O at 31 degrees F has none of the properties of a liquid but at 33 
>> degrees F those same molecules have all the properties of a liquid; 
>> although usually emergent properties don't appear as
>>  
>> suddenly as that, it is more smooth and continuous. Day is very different 
>> from night but there isn't an exact point where one turns into the other. 
>> There is nothing mysterious 
>> or
>>  miraculous going on its just that human language puts concepts into 
>> groups called "words" but the real world is messy
>>  
>> so
>>  
>> there are often intermediate
>>  
>> cases where its not clear what the correct word should be; an
>>  
>> 80 pound man is clearly thin
>> 
>> and a 800 pound man is clearly fat but there are values between those 
>> extremes where reasonable people can differ on what the correct word should 
>> be.  
>>
>>  
>> John K Clark 
>>
>>
>>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-09 Thread Lawrence Crowell

It occurred to me a case of hard emergence. The outcome of a quantum 
measurement is such. I have iterated how I think this is connected to 
self-reference, so I will not repeat that here. However, the outcome is 
completely random and has no causal basis. It emerges for no particular 
reason, such as initial conditions, and is as I see it a complete hard 
emergence.

LC

On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 1:16:58 PM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Fri, Feb 9, 2018 at 6:28 AM, Bruno Marchal  > wrote:
>
> > 
>> You might try to give at least one example of hard emergence
>
>
> 
> One molecule of water can't be wet but 6.02*10^ 23 molecules can be. And 
> H2O at 31 degrees F has none of the properties of a liquid but at 33 
> degrees F those same molecules have all the properties of a liquid; 
> although usually emergent properties don't appear as
>  
> suddenly as that, it is more smooth and continuous. Day is very different 
> from night but there isn't an exact point where one turns into the other. 
> There is nothing mysterious 
> or
>  miraculous going on its just that human language puts concepts into 
> groups called "words" but the real world is messy
>  
> so
>  
> there are often intermediate
>  
> cases where its not clear what the correct word should be; an
>  
> 80 pound man is clearly thin
> 
> and a 800 pound man is clearly fat but there are values between those 
> extremes where reasonable people can differ on what the correct word should 
> be.  
>
>  
> John K Clark 
>
>
>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-09 Thread John Clark

On Fri, Feb 9, 2018 at 6:28 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> 
> You might try to give at least one example of hard emergence

One molecule of water can't be wet but 6.02*10^ 23 molecules can be. And
H2O at 31 degrees F has none of the properties of a liquid but at 33
degrees F those same molecules have all the properties of a liquid;
although usually emergent properties don't appear as

suddenly as that, it is more smooth and continuous. Day is very different
from night but there isn't an exact point where one turns into the other.
There is nothing mysterious
or
 miraculous going on its just that human language puts concepts into groups
called "words" but the real world is messy

so

there are often intermediate

cases where its not clear what the correct word should be; an

80 pound man is clearly thin

and a 800 pound man is clearly fat but there are values between those
extremes where reasonable people can differ on what the correct word should
be.

John K Clark

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-09 Thread Lawrence Crowell

Hard emergence is either something really miraculous and thus not really in 
the domain of physics, or it is something we might call a miracle because 
we really do not understand it.

LC

On Friday, February 9, 2018 at 5:28:49 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 7 Feb 2018, at 15:40, Lawrence Crowell  > wrote:
>
> On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 6:52:27 AM UTC-6, telmo_menezes wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 3, 2018 at 11:43 PM, Lawrence Crowell 
>>  wrote: 
>> > It is interesting in some ways. However, it involves speculations on 
>> things 
>> > we have no knowledge of. 
>> > 
>> > The idea involves these filters. The one "behind us" involves the 
>> barrier to 
>> > intelligent life similar to us. There are few examples of brainy 
>> animals 
>> > similar to us. Cetaceans have large brains and clearly their songs 
>> contain 
>> > complex information important to them. It is not clear that this is 
>> > equivalent to complex thought such as mathematics. The other filter 
>> involves 
>> > post-ET development where such life is limited by either 
>> self-extermination 
>> > or the limits of light speed and the unapproachable scale of putative 
>> > interstellar flight. 
>> > 
>> > I suspect planets with complex life above that of prokaryotic-like life 
>> are 
>> > few in number per galaxy. It is hard to know how even prokaryotic-like 
>> life 
>> > starts. The ribosome is a complex of RNA with polypeptides, and this 
>> thing 
>> > is fairly universal. As yet we are not sure how this came about. So it 
>> could 
>> > be that the life bearing planets are already extremely rare. This would 
>> make 
>> > planets with complex life most likely very rare, and then up the ladder 
>> the 
>> > occurrence of intelligent life exceedingly rare. 
>> > 
>> > The occurrence of life might be a case of what is called hard 
>> emergence. 
>> > Soft emergence is something like the emergence of chemistry from the 
>> quantum 
>> > mechanics of atoms. Strong emergence is the occurrence of entirely 
>> different 
>> > principles, where this is not an established scientific concept. This 
>> is of 
>> > course a completely unknown territory. How life emerged is one of the 
>> great 
>> > scientific questions. 
>>
>> Are you sure this hard/soft distinction is meaningful? Life is what 
>> happens when imperfect self-replicators enter the stage. It is true 
>> that this appears to be a very unlikely event, and that how it 
>> happened is an open scientific question, but what do you mean by 
>> "different principles"? 
>>
>> Telmo. 
>>
>
> Hard emergence is where a set of principles spontaneously occur without 
> any formal or causal connection with other principles. 
>
>
> I think that this is called a “miracle”. 
>
> Even if that exists,we cannot use this in science, and will say: we just 
> don’t understand yet.
>
>
>
>
> We are familiar with the absorption of Goldstone bosons by gauge bosons 
> that give them a longitudinal mode and hence a mass. This would be a case 
> of soft emergence. Of course the boundary between hard and soft emergence 
> is hard to know. The ribosome is a pretty invariant structure in biology, 
> and it is horribly complex. This in some embarrassing way sounds similar to 
> the irreducible complexity argument of the creationist camp. As a result 
> there may be a sort of intellectual impasse here, and potentially some 
> clearer understanding of what is meant by hard emergence might play a role.
>
>
> “Hard emergence” is the strong-atheists rendering of “miracle”. I don’t 
> think this notion makes any sense. You might try to give at least one 
> example of hard emergence, because, to be honest, I can’t give any sense to 
> such an expression. 
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>
> LC 
>
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>
>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-09 Thread Bruno Marchal


> On 7 Feb 2018, at 15:40, Lawrence Crowell  
> wrote:
> 
> On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 6:52:27 AM UTC-6, telmo_menezes wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 3, 2018 at 11:43 PM, Lawrence Crowell 
> > wrote: 
> > It is interesting in some ways. However, it involves speculations on things 
> > we have no knowledge of. 
> > 
> > The idea involves these filters. The one "behind us" involves the barrier 
> > to 
> > intelligent life similar to us. There are few examples of brainy animals 
> > similar to us. Cetaceans have large brains and clearly their songs contain 
> > complex information important to them. It is not clear that this is 
> > equivalent to complex thought such as mathematics. The other filter 
> > involves 
> > post-ET development where such life is limited by either self-extermination 
> > or the limits of light speed and the unapproachable scale of putative 
> > interstellar flight. 
> > 
> > I suspect planets with complex life above that of prokaryotic-like life are 
> > few in number per galaxy. It is hard to know how even prokaryotic-like life 
> > starts. The ribosome is a complex of RNA with polypeptides, and this thing 
> > is fairly universal. As yet we are not sure how this came about. So it 
> > could 
> > be that the life bearing planets are already extremely rare. This would 
> > make 
> > planets with complex life most likely very rare, and then up the ladder the 
> > occurrence of intelligent life exceedingly rare. 
> > 
> > The occurrence of life might be a case of what is called hard emergence. 
> > Soft emergence is something like the emergence of chemistry from the 
> > quantum 
> > mechanics of atoms. Strong emergence is the occurrence of entirely 
> > different 
> > principles, where this is not an established scientific concept. This is of 
> > course a completely unknown territory. How life emerged is one of the great 
> > scientific questions. 
> 
> Are you sure this hard/soft distinction is meaningful? Life is what 
> happens when imperfect self-replicators enter the stage. It is true 
> that this appears to be a very unlikely event, and that how it 
> happened is an open scientific question, but what do you mean by 
> "different principles"? 
> 
> Telmo. 
> 
> Hard emergence is where a set of principles spontaneously occur without any 
> formal or causal connection with other principles.

I think that this is called a “miracle”. 

Even if that exists,we cannot use this in science, and will say: we just don’t 
understand yet.




> We are familiar with the absorption of Goldstone bosons by gauge bosons that 
> give them a longitudinal mode and hence a mass. This would be a case of soft 
> emergence. Of course the boundary between hard and soft emergence is hard to 
> know. The ribosome is a pretty invariant structure in biology, and it is 
> horribly complex. This in some embarrassing way sounds similar to the 
> irreducible complexity argument of the creationist camp. As a result there 
> may be a sort of intellectual impasse here, and potentially some clearer 
> understanding of what is meant by hard emergence might play a role.

“Hard emergence” is the strong-atheists rendering of “miracle”. I don’t think 
this notion makes any sense. You might try to give at least one example of hard 
emergence, because, to be honest, I can’t give any sense to such an expression. 

Bruno




> 
> LC 
> 
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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-08 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 6:27:39 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2/7/2018 4:38 AM, Telmo Menezes 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, and this filter is likely to be 
> > ahead of us. 
> > 
> > It's an interesting argument but I think it is based on some rather 
> > strong assumptions: 
> > 
> > (a) That becoming a galactic civilization is possible; 
> > (b) That becoming a galactic civilization is desirable; 
> > (c) That galactic civilizations are observable by us. 
> > 
> > Firstly we don't know if there's an upper limit for technological 
> > progress, or where that limit could be. Maybe interstellar travel or 
> > the colonization of other planets will never be feasible. 
>
> That would be my bet.  Galaxies are big and light is slow, and we're a 
> lot slower. 
>
> Brent 
>

We are also not as smart as we think we are. The average human being is not 
much more than a sort of upright walking and talking chimpanzee. Also as it 
was put in the movie *Men in Black*, A person can be rational, but people 
are a panicky herd of dangerous animals.

LC

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread agrayson2000



On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 6:48:56 PM UTC-7, agrays...@gmail.com 
wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 5:27:39 PM UTC-7, Brent wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/7/2018 4:38 AM, Telmo Menezes 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, and this filter is likely to be 
>> > ahead of us. 
>> > 
>> > It's an interesting argument but I think it is based on some rather 
>> > strong assumptions: 
>> > 
>> > (a) That becoming a galactic civilization is possible; 
>> > (b) That becoming a galactic civilization is desirable; 
>> > (c) That galactic civilizations are observable by us. 
>> > 
>> > Firstly we don't know if there's an upper limit for technological 
>> > progress, or where that limit could be. Maybe interstellar travel or 
>> > the colonization of other planets will never be feasible. 
>>
>> That would be my bet.  Galaxies are big and light is slow, and we're a 
>> lot slower. 
>>
>> Brent 
>>
>
> *I agree. In empires of our historical experience, Persia, Greece, Rome, 
> and into the modern era, the motivation was virtually always economic; 
> securing scare resources and establishing trade routes. If the SoL is a 
> limiting speed, I see no motivation for advanced beings to establish a 
> galactic empire. AG *
>

*Moreover, if they seek Earth-like planets in the habitable zone, there 
must be plenty in existence where human life, perhaps any life other than 
the most primitive, hasn't evolved. So, I don't see them trying to exploit 
Earth inhabiting humanity. AG *

>
>> > Secondly, we 
>> > are assuming a lot about a civilization that would be dramatically 
>> > ahead of us both culturally and technologically. Maybe galactic 
>> > civilization is a silly goal, and we don't even have the mental 
>> > constructs to comprehend why or what the good goal would be. Finally, 
>> > maybe a galactic civilization does exist but does not wish to be 
>> > detected by the likes of us. 
>> > 
>> > I would say that there are too many unknowns for which we don't know 
>> > how to assign probabilities. 
>> > 
>> > Telmo. 
>> > 
>> > On Sat, Feb 3, 2018 at 6:20 PM, John Clark  wrote: 
>> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjtOGPJ0URM 
>> >> 
>> >> 
>> >>   John K Clark 
>>
>>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread agrayson2000



On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 6:01:06 PM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 1:53 PM, Lawrence Crowell  > wrote:
>
> > 
>> *It is not hard to see that at this rate we will trash out all forests by 
>> the end of this century.*
>>
>
> 
> Things are changing so fast I think its pointless to 
> try to solve 
> problems that won't occur for 80 years, it would be like demanding  the
>  
> Wright Brothers
>  
> solve the problem of congested airports before they built their first 
> airplane.
>

*Sounds like a braindead republican meme, aka whistling past the graveyard. 
Obviously, there are some actions we can take NOW which would abate, and 
possibly avert the worst consequences, some of which might be UNsolvable 80 
years hence. Did that ever occur to you?But what can I expect from someone 
who firmly believes the Joe the Plumber scenario discussed previously? AG* 

>  
>
>> > 
>> *The idea of matryoshka machines as planet sized or Dyson sphere powered 
>> hypercomputers and other things I tend to regard as pure science fiction.*
>>
>
> Well sure but you almost make that sound like a bad thing; it involves 
> science and Dyson spheres are fiction because they don't exist, at least 
> not yet.  
>  
>  
>
>> *> through my lifetime there have been these problems mounting in the 
>> world, and from my estimation we really have not solved a damned thing.*
>>
>
> I think we've done rather well at solving problems, read Steven Pinker's "
> The Better Angels of Our Nature
> ".P
> eople love to complain about how bad things are but the facts are that 
> right now humans are killing each other at a far lower rate than any other 
> time in history, and they live longer and are better educated.too.
>  
>  
>
>> *> Global warming is probably just the beginning of a host of more 
>> global environmental problems that face us with the prospect of rendering 
>> this planet incapable of supporting us 7.5 billion ground apes rampaging 
>> out of control.*
>>
>
> Life likes warmth. I
> n the last billion years it has never been warmer than during the 
> Carboniferous Era 360 million years ago, 
> and there has never been more living stuff per square foot on the planet 
> then 
>  
>
>> >* *
>> *by certain measure the sun is actually more complex [than the Earth]. 
>> How one partitions things into macrostates is actually a rather subjective 
>> choice of ordering.*
>>
>
> Entropy isn't always the enemy. Maximum information
> 
> , or at least maximum 
> information that intelligence finds 
> interesting
> ,
>  seem to be about
>  
> midway between maximum and minimum
>  
> entropy. Put some cream in a glass coffee cup and then very carefully put 
> some coffee on top of it. For a short time the 2 fluids will remain 
> segregated and the
>  
> entropy will be low and the information needed to describe it would be low 
> too, but then tendrils of cream will start to move into the coffee and 
> all sorts of spirals and other complex 
> and pretty 
> patterns will form, the entropy is higher now and the information needed 
> to describe it is higher
>  too
> , but after that the fluid in the cup will reach a dull uniform color that 
> is darker than coffee but lighter than cream, the entropy has reached a 
> maximum but it would take less 
> interesting 
> information to describe it. 
>
> Another example is smoke from a cigarette in a room with no air currents, 
> it starts out as a simple smooth laminar flow but then turbulence kicks in 
> and very complex patterns form, and after that it diffuses into uniform 
> featureless 
> and very dull 
> fog.  
>
> I like the fact that entropy increases, if we ever get to the point where 
> that doesn't happen anymore that would mean the universe has reached heat 
> death. 
>
>
>  John K Clark
>  
>
>
>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread agrayson2000



On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 5:27:39 PM UTC-7, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 2/7/2018 4:38 AM, Telmo Menezes 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, and this filter is likely to be 
> > ahead of us. 
> > 
> > It's an interesting argument but I think it is based on some rather 
> > strong assumptions: 
> > 
> > (a) That becoming a galactic civilization is possible; 
> > (b) That becoming a galactic civilization is desirable; 
> > (c) That galactic civilizations are observable by us. 
> > 
> > Firstly we don't know if there's an upper limit for technological 
> > progress, or where that limit could be. Maybe interstellar travel or 
> > the colonization of other planets will never be feasible. 
>
> That would be my bet.  Galaxies are big and light is slow, and we're a 
> lot slower. 
>
> Brent 
>

*I agree. In empires of our historical experience, Persia, Greece, Rome, 
and into the modern era, the motivation was virtually always economic; 
securing scare resources and establishing trade routes. If the SoL is a 
limiting speed, I see no motivation for advanced beings to establish a 
galactic empire. AG *

>
> > Secondly, we 
> > are assuming a lot about a civilization that would be dramatically 
> > ahead of us both culturally and technologically. Maybe galactic 
> > civilization is a silly goal, and we don't even have the mental 
> > constructs to comprehend why or what the good goal would be. Finally, 
> > maybe a galactic civilization does exist but does not wish to be 
> > detected by the likes of us. 
> > 
> > I would say that there are too many unknowns for which we don't know 
> > how to assign probabilities. 
> > 
> > Telmo. 
> > 
> > On Sat, Feb 3, 2018 at 6:20 PM, John Clark  > wrote: 
> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjtOGPJ0URM 
> >> 
> >> 
> >>   John K Clark 
>
>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread John Clark

On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 1:53 PM, Lawrence Crowell <
goldenfieldquaterni...@gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> *It is not hard to see that at this rate we will trash out all forests by
> the end of this century.*
>

Things are changing so fast I think its pointless to
try to solve
problems that won't occur for 80 years, it would be like demanding  the

Wright Brothers

solve the problem of congested airports before they built their first
airplane.

> > 
> *The idea of matryoshka machines as planet sized or Dyson sphere powered
> hypercomputers and other things I tend to regard as pure science fiction.*
>

Well sure but you almost make that sound like a bad thing; it involves
science and Dyson spheres are fiction because they don't exist, at least
not yet.  

> *> through my lifetime there have been these problems mounting in the
> world, and from my estimation we really have not solved a damned thing.*
>

I think we've done rather well at solving problems, read Steven Pinker's "
The Better Angels of Our Nature
".P
eople love to complain about how bad things are but the facts are that
right now humans are killing each other at a far lower rate than any other
time in history, and they live longer and are better educated.too.

> *> Global warming is probably just the beginning of a host of more
> global environmental problems that face us with the prospect of rendering
> this planet incapable of supporting us 7.5 billion ground apes rampaging
> out of control.*
>

Life likes warmth. I
n the last billion years it has never been warmer than during the
Carboniferous Era 360 million years ago,
and there has never been more living stuff per square foot on the planet
then 

> >* *
> *by certain measure the sun is actually more complex [than the Earth].
> How one partitions things into macrostates is actually a rather subjective
> choice of ordering.*
>

Entropy isn't always the enemy. Maximum information

, or at least maximum
information that intelligence finds 
interesting
,
 seem to be about

midway between maximum and minimum

entropy. Put some cream in a glass coffee cup and then very carefully put
some coffee on top of it. For a short time the 2 fluids will remain
segregated and the

entropy will be low and the information needed to describe it would be low
too, but then tendrils of cream will start to move into the coffee and all
sorts of spirals and other complex
and pretty 
patterns will form, the entropy is higher now and the information needed to
describe it is higher
 too
, but after that the fluid in the cup will reach a dull uniform color that
is darker than coffee but lighter than cream, the entropy has reached a
maximum but it would take less
interesting 
information to describe it.

Another example is smoke from a cigarette in a room with no air currents,
it starts out as a simple smooth laminar flow but then turbulence kicks in
and very complex patterns form, and after that it diffuses into uniform
featureless
and very dull 
fog.

I like the fact that entropy increases, if we ever get to the point where
that doesn't happen anymore that would mean the universe has reached heat
death. 

 John K Clark

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread Brent Meeker




On 2/7/2018 4:38 AM, Telmo Menezes 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, and this filter is likely to be
ahead of us.

It's an interesting argument but I think it is based on some rather
strong assumptions:

(a) That becoming a galactic civilization is possible;
(b) That becoming a galactic civilization is desirable;
(c) That galactic civilizations are observable by us.

Firstly we don't know if there's an upper limit for technological
progress, or where that limit could be. Maybe interstellar travel or
the colonization of other planets will never be feasible.


That would be my bet.  Galaxies are big and light is slow, and we're a 
lot slower.


Brent


Secondly, we
are assuming a lot about a civilization that would be dramatically
ahead of us both culturally and technologically. Maybe galactic
civilization is a silly goal, and we don't even have the mental
constructs to comprehend why or what the good goal would be. Finally,
maybe a galactic civilization does exist but does not wish to be
detected by the likes of us.

I would say that there are too many unknowns for which we don't know
how to assign probabilities.

Telmo.

On Sat, Feb 3, 2018 at 6:20 PM, John Clark  wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjtOGPJ0URM


  John K Clark


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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 1:39:43 PM UTC-6, Samiya wrote:
>
> A reset event seems a necessity at the rate we are trashing the Earth! 
> Scripture has something to say about it as well. This might be of 
> interest: Smoke from the Sky 
>  
>

It is interesting how these things play out. The Christian Bible has ideas 
of Jesus coming to rescue the believers while the unbelievers face doom. We 
now see with this sort of techno-salvation schemes as well. To be honest I 
seriously doubt there is some cosmic Santa Claus, whether that goes by the 
name of YHWH, Jesus, Allah or whatever, that is going to come down to save 
His chosen few. The techno-salvation schemes at least have some idea of 
actually doing something, but they are too little too late.

God is really a supernatural form of George Orwell's Big Brother in his 
treatise on the social-psychology of authoritarian power written in 
fictional form; *1984*.  Big Brother is watching you, and by extension God 
(Allah, Jesus etc as well) by virtue of omniscient power knows everything 
you do and even what you think. This is as Orwell coined, *Thoughtcrime*. 
Sin is basically a supernatural form of thoughtcrimem and the idea of 
continual repentance is Orwell "Crimesop." With a supernatural Big Brother 
you have to get people to psychologically internalize this idea, and this 
was done long ago when people were in the early iron age, illiterate and 
highly credulous. Now these schemes continue and the elites who rise to the 
top of the ecclesiastical system have great power. 

There are four big systems for controlling complex societies that I call 
statecraft, warcraft, priestcraft and tradecraft. These of course are 
governance by geopolitical entity of the state, control by military, police 
and other security, religious power, and economic control  Generally these 
have all been the governing system, with of course variations in ideology 
and beliefs. In addition they are all giant scams foisted on stupid people 
by various hustlers and sociopaths eager to get their words in your brain 
and by extension their hands on your money, time and life. As a result 90% 
of everything that has occurred in history has been various forms of fraud, 
thuggery and generally in a sense organized criminality.

Religion has been fantastic at this. In particular Christianity and Islam 
are the biggest flim-flams and cons ever foisted in all of history. They 
also lasted a very long time! They are though disintegrating, where 
Christianity is 2 to 3 centuries into its decay and Islam since the 20th 
century has been similarly afflicted. The current Islamic upheaval is in 
many ways a response to this. By comparison nation states generally last at 
most 500 years, 1000 years in a few cases such as England, economic systems 
change every century or so and corporations generally last at most 50-100 
years, and military rule is usually even shorter lived. But now a thing, 
and as I almost misspelled it a THINK, called science emerged and people 
have come to realize that as Gershwin put it, "It ain't necessarily so." 

The rise of interest in superheros, UFOs, ancient alien astronauts and 
other things like Pokeman and Yugio seem to point to the next sort of 
mythic narratives of the future. If you have been to Japan you can see 
everywhere in Toyko how Manga, Pokeman-esque stuff is everywhere, and it 
has made inroads elsewhere. Comic books have become huge where superheros 
are starting to become a bit like Greek or Norse gods. Monotheism appears 
to be entering its decline and fall.

LC

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread agrayson2000



On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 1:11:44 PM UTC-7, agrays...@gmail.com 
wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 9:13:42 AM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 6, 2018 at 4:04 PM, Lawrence Crowell <
>> goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>  
>>
>>> *> *
>>> *He [Freeman Dyson] did brilliant work on QED and other physics. The 
>>> Dyson sphere is not one of his brilliant ideas. He has also been on the 
>>> climate denial side, and continues to be as far as I know.*
>>>
>>
>> 
>> Dyson doesn't say the climate is not changing nor does he say humans have 
>> nothing to do with it, and he doesn't even deny that change could be 
>> a 
>> bad thing, what he does say is that on a list of important world problems 
>> climate change is nowhere near the top. 
>>
>
> *In 100 years at the same rate of ocean rise, FL will be underwater, as 
> well as all coastal cities and many island nations. It's nowhere near the 
> top of importance if you think nuclear war is imminent, and/or if other 
> irreversible, specie extinction changes aren't in the offing (considering 
> we have very incomplete knowledge of the ultimate consequences of AGW), and 
> if you accept Dyson's implied belief that humans can't think and chew gum 
> at the same time. AG*
>

*CORRECTION: I was assuming one inch rise per year, not per decade. But I 
question the conservative number. I've read the ocean level could increase 
by many feet if the Greenland ice sheet melts, which seems to be occurring. 
Adding so much fresh water could also alter ocean currents, such as the 
thermohaline current in the North Atlantic, with disastrous effects. 
Dyson's view is harmful. AG*
 
And I think he s right about that. After all its not as if this is anything 
new,
 
the climate has
 
always
 
been changing. Other than a few very brief ice ages during the last few 
million years the temperature has always been warmer than now and 
occasionally
 
much
 
warmer; at least that's the way things have been during the last 600 
million years. And by the way, right now the sea is rising at the rate of 
about one inch every 10 years, that would make for a rather dull Hollywood 
style disaster movie
.

>
>> > **
>>> *Any IGUS that might engage in this sort of thing would be doing it for 
>>> the long haul, as in millions of years. Such a giant project would be meant 
>>> to be around for a long time.*
>>>
>>
>> I don't know what IGUS means.
>>  
>>  
>>
>>> > 
>>> *If so the decoupling of the sphere from the star is problematic, for 
>>> even small gravitational perturbations from other stars will cause the star 
>>> to deviate from the center.* 
>>>
>>
>> Then slightly perturb the sphere in the opposite direction to get it 
>> back to the proper position.
>>  
>>
>> *> This would be a large management problem.*
>>>
>>
>> A trivial problem for a Jupiter Brain.
>>  
>>  
>>
>>> > 
>>> *Any hyper-advanced IGUS will most likely not generate energy this way,*
>>>
>>
>> From the context I assume IGUS means ET, if so then I don't see why ET 
>> wouldn't make a Dyson sphere if he wanted to have a huge source of power 
>> that would last for billions of years.
>>  
>>
>> > 
>>> *It would be far smaller and compact to generate energy by converting 
>>> matter directly to energy via quantum gravitation or black hole 
>>> physics.Such being could use their stellar system material to convert 
>>> around a million tons per second into energy to generate as much energy as 
>>> a star like the sun. So large Dyson sphere needed.*
>>>
>>  
>> Maybe, but that would require new physics and I was being conservative. 
>> A Dyson Sphere requires no new science it just needs better engineering. 
>> And even if what you suggest is possible and ET prefers to generate energy 
>> in some very exotic way we don't now understand we should still be able to 
>> detect the waste heat in the form of infrared or microwaves because even a 
>> Jupiter Brain can't get around the second law of thermodynamics. But we see 
>> no sign of such waste heat, and so I conclude that there is no ET, or at 
>> least there is no ET that isn't as dull as dishwater. 
>>  
>>  
>>
>>> > **
>>> *there is no real implication or possible role we have in the universe, *
>>>
>>
>> Assuming we are the first and something isn't about to destroy us then 
>> you've got
>>  
>> that backwards. The universe won't be assigning us a role we'll be 
>> assigning a role to the universe. A cloud of hydrogen gas a billion light 
>> years away can't give meaning to you but you can give meaning to it. You 
>> are in the meaning conferring business not hydrogen gas. 
>>
>> > 
>>> *with global warming I suspect that rather than actually doing something 
>>> to adjust ourselves we will instead engage in planetary climate/weather 
>>> control.*
>>>
>>
>> I certainly hope we start talking about
>>  
>> planetary climate/weather control
>>  
>> because the the cures environmentalists p

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread agrayson2000



On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 9:13:42 AM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Tue, Feb 6, 2018 at 4:04 PM, Lawrence Crowell  > wrote:
>  
>
>> *> *
>> *He [Freeman Dyson] did brilliant work on QED and other physics. The 
>> Dyson sphere is not one of his brilliant ideas. He has also been on the 
>> climate denial side, and continues to be as far as I know.*
>>
>
> 
> Dyson doesn't say the climate is not changing nor does he say humans have 
> nothing to do with it, and he doesn't even deny that change could be 
> a 
> bad thing, what he does say is that on a list of important world problems 
> climate change is nowhere near the top. 
>

*In 100 years at the same rate of ocean rise, FL will be underwater, as 
well as all coastal cities and many island nations. It's nowhere near the 
top of importance if you think nuclear war is imminent, and/or if other 
irreversible, specie extinction changes aren't in the offing (considering 
we have very incomplete knowledge of the ultimate consequences of AGW), and 
if you accept Dyson's implied belief that humans can't think and chew gum 
at the same time. AG*
 

> And I think he's right about that. After all its not as if this is 
> anything new,
>  
> the climate has
>  
> always
>  
> been changing. Other than a few very brief ice ages during the last few 
> million years the temperature has always been warmer than now and 
> occasionally
>  
> much
>  
> warmer; at least that's the way things have been during the last 600 
> million years. And by the way, right now the sea is rising at the rate of 
> about one inch every 10 years, that would make for a rather dull Hollywood 
> style disaster movie
> .
>
>
> > **
>> *Any IGUS that might engage in this sort of thing would be doing it for 
>> the long haul, as in millions of years. Such a giant project would be meant 
>> to be around for a long time.*
>>
>
> I don't know what IGUS means.
>  
>  
>
>> > 
>> *If so the decoupling of the sphere from the star is problematic, for 
>> even small gravitational perturbations from other stars will cause the star 
>> to deviate from the center.* 
>>
>
> Then slightly perturb the sphere in the opposite direction to get it back 
> to the proper position.
>  
>
> *> This would be a large management problem.*
>>
>
> A trivial problem for a Jupiter Brain.
>  
>  
>
>> > 
>> *Any hyper-advanced IGUS will most likely not generate energy this way,*
>>
>
> From the context I assume IGUS means ET, if so then I don't see why ET 
> wouldn't make a Dyson sphere if he wanted to have a huge source of power 
> that would last for billions of years.
>  
>
> > 
>> *It would be far smaller and compact to generate energy by converting 
>> matter directly to energy via quantum gravitation or black hole 
>> physics.Such being could use their stellar system material to convert 
>> around a million tons per second into energy to generate as much energy as 
>> a star like the sun. So large Dyson sphere needed.*
>>
>  
> Maybe, but that would require new physics and I was being conservative. A 
> Dyson Sphere requires no new science it just needs better engineering. And 
> even if what you suggest is possible and ET prefers to generate energy in 
> some very exotic way we don't now understand we should still be able to 
> detect the waste heat in the form of infrared or microwaves because even a 
> Jupiter Brain can't get around the second law of thermodynamics. But we see 
> no sign of such waste heat, and so I conclude that there is no ET, or at 
> least there is no ET that isn't as dull as dishwater. 
>  
>  
>
>> > **
>> *there is no real implication or possible role we have in the universe, *
>>
>
> Assuming we are the first and something isn't about to destroy us then 
> you've got
>  
> that backwards. The universe won't be assigning us a role we'll be 
> assigning a role to the universe. A cloud of hydrogen gas a billion light 
> years away can't give meaning to you but you can give meaning to it. You 
> are in the meaning conferring business not hydrogen gas. 
>
> > 
>> *with global warming I suspect that rather than actually doing something 
>> to adjust ourselves we will instead engage in planetary climate/weather 
>> control.*
>>
>
> I certainly hope we start talking about
>  
> planetary climate/weather control
>  
> because the the cures environmentalists propose are far worse than the 
> disease, they forget that
>  
> humans are large
>  
> mammals
>  
> and
>  
> 7.5 billion
>  
> of them
>  
> need to be fed,
>  
> and you can't do that on moonbeams and wishful thinking.  Nathan Myhrvold, 
> the former chief technical officer at Microsoft
> ,
> has an idea
>  
> that
>  
> might
>  
> actually work
>  
> he wants to build an artificial volcano.
>
> Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 became the best studied large volcanic eruption in 
> history, it put more sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere than any volcano 
> since Krak

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread Samiya Illias

A reset event seems a necessity at the rate we are trashing the Earth!
Scripture has something to say about it as well. This might be of
interest: Smoke
from the Sky


On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 11:53 AM, Lawrence Crowell <
goldenfieldquaterni...@gmail.com> wrote:

> IGUS = Information Gathering and Utilizing System.
>
> The future course of humanity is probably guided by maximum entropy
> principle. This is that systems will proceed to maximum entropy in minimal
> time. This is not that controversial for closed systems. Open systems tend
> to avoid this by being open to energy sources and by having a reservoir to
> dump waste heat or entropy. Life is of this nature, where every species
> exists in a network with other species that provide negative feed backs
> which prevent them from consuming everything, taking all possible energy
> and resource stocks and eventually leaving a wreck behind. However, we
> humans have large brains that permit us to eliminate negative feed backs
> and to increase positive feedbacks. This probably started with Homo erectus
> that learned to use fire and to chip stones into tools. They took
> themselves off the menu and put more living things on their menu. In doing
> this we are consuming the biological energy and biomass stocks at a faster
> rate than they can be replenished. The system is starting to approximate a
> closed thermodynamics system.
>
> With regards to the environment it is most likely the case we will not
> stop what we are doing. We will most likely try to control and engineer our
> way out of these troubles while continuing to play the same game. We are on
> a maximum entropy trajectory. This most likely means that within a
> comparatively short time we will consume everything and convert it all into
> trash or should we say entropy. This is in effect what is reflected in our
> economy. The rate that we double the rate of deforestation is about 75
> years. It is also estimated that there are 3 trillion trees, but that
> before humans there were 6 trillion. It is not hard to see that at this
> rate we will trash out all forests by the end of this century. I would
> image at and beyond this time the planet will be completely trashed; as the
> Grateful Dead put it, "We will leave this place an empty stone." We will
> try to engineer our way through things until we reach some fundamental
> limits on the level of complexity we can manage. Once we reach our failure
> point there is a heart warming movie *Soylent Green* that outlines a
> possible scenario. We might also throw thousands of nuclear bombs into the
> picture as well.
>
> I have great suspicions about these futurist ideas about colonizing space
> or that we will become conscious entities in computers and so forth. I
> think it is possible that cyber-brain interlinks will become common, but I
> frankly see this as more of what advanced technology is doing now; these
> are methods of escaping problems and reality than they are about solving
> things. The idea of matryoshka machines as planet sized or Dyson sphere
> powered hypercomputers and other things I tend to regard as pure science
> fiction. The same holds for Kardashev ideas about extremely advanced IGUS
> or civilizations. I would also say that a part of this suspicion is that
> through my lifetime there have been these problems mounting in the world,
> and from my estimation we really have not solved a damned thing. From the
> problems of environment to drug addiction the most we do is to mitigate
> things, but in general these problems persist. In addition as time goes on
> additional big problems emerge that again we will at best ameliorate and
> manage, but not really solve. Global warming is probably just the beginning
> of a host of more global environmental problems that face us with the
> prospect of rendering this planet incapable of supporting us 7.5 billion
> ground apes rampaging out of control.
>
> Complexity is related to entropy. Kolmogoroff entropy is the summation S =
> -sum p_i log(p_i) and this complexity. A simple example is N states with
> p_i = 1/N. It is not hard to calculate that the entropy is S = log(N). The
> Earth is 6x10^{24}kg and the sun 2x10^{30}kg. So by certain measure the sun
> is actually more complex. How one partitions things into macrostates is
> actually a rather subjective choice of ordering.
>
> LC
>
>
> On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 10:13:42 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Feb 6, 2018 at 4:04 PM, Lawrence Crowell <
>> goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> *> *
>>> *He [Freeman Dyson] did brilliant work on QED and other physics. The
>>> Dyson sphere is not one of his brilliant ideas. He has also been on the
>>> climate denial side, and continues to be as far as I know.*
>>>
>>
>> 
>> Dyson doesn't say the climate is not changing nor does he say humans have
>> nothing to do with it, and he doesn't even deny that change could

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread Lawrence Crowell

IGUS = Information Gathering and Utilizing System.

The future course of humanity is probably guided by maximum entropy 
principle. This is that systems will proceed to maximum entropy in minimal 
time. This is not that controversial for closed systems. Open systems tend 
to avoid this by being open to energy sources and by having a reservoir to 
dump waste heat or entropy. Life is of this nature, where every species 
exists in a network with other species that provide negative feed backs 
which prevent them from consuming everything, taking all possible energy 
and resource stocks and eventually leaving a wreck behind. However, we 
humans have large brains that permit us to eliminate negative feed backs 
and to increase positive feedbacks. This probably started with Homo erectus 
that learned to use fire and to chip stones into tools. They took 
themselves off the menu and put more living things on their menu. In doing 
this we are consuming the biological energy and biomass stocks at a faster 
rate than they can be replenished. The system is starting to approximate a 
closed thermodynamics system.

With regards to the environment it is most likely the case we will not stop 
what we are doing. We will most likely try to control and engineer our way 
out of these troubles while continuing to play the same game. We are on a 
maximum entropy trajectory. This most likely means that within a 
comparatively short time we will consume everything and convert it all into 
trash or should we say entropy. This is in effect what is reflected in our 
economy. The rate that we double the rate of deforestation is about 75 
years. It is also estimated that there are 3 trillion trees, but that 
before humans there were 6 trillion. It is not hard to see that at this 
rate we will trash out all forests by the end of this century. I would 
image at and beyond this time the planet will be completely trashed; as the 
Grateful Dead put it, "We will leave this place an empty stone." We will 
try to engineer our way through things until we reach some fundamental 
limits on the level of complexity we can manage. Once we reach our failure 
point there is a heart warming movie *Soylent Green* that outlines a 
possible scenario. We might also throw thousands of nuclear bombs into the 
picture as well.

I have great suspicions about these futurist ideas about colonizing space 
or that we will become conscious entities in computers and so forth. I 
think it is possible that cyber-brain interlinks will become common, but I 
frankly see this as more of what advanced technology is doing now; these 
are methods of escaping problems and reality than they are about solving 
things. The idea of matryoshka machines as planet sized or Dyson sphere 
powered hypercomputers and other things I tend to regard as pure science 
fiction. The same holds for Kardashev ideas about extremely advanced IGUS 
or civilizations. I would also say that a part of this suspicion is that 
through my lifetime there have been these problems mounting in the world, 
and from my estimation we really have not solved a damned thing. From the 
problems of environment to drug addiction the most we do is to mitigate 
things, but in general these problems persist. In addition as time goes on 
additional big problems emerge that again we will at best ameliorate and 
manage, but not really solve. Global warming is probably just the beginning 
of a host of more global environmental problems that face us with the 
prospect of rendering this planet incapable of supporting us 7.5 billion 
ground apes rampaging out of control.

Complexity is related to entropy. Kolmogoroff entropy is the summation S = 
-sum p_i log(p_i) and this complexity. A simple example is N states with 
p_i = 1/N. It is not hard to calculate that the entropy is S = log(N). The 
Earth is 6x10^{24}kg and the sun 2x10^{30}kg. So by certain measure the sun 
is actually more complex. How one partitions things into macrostates is 
actually a rather subjective choice of ordering.

LC

On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 10:13:42 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Tue, Feb 6, 2018 at 4:04 PM, Lawrence Crowell  > wrote:
>  
>
>> *> *
>> *He [Freeman Dyson] did brilliant work on QED and other physics. The 
>> Dyson sphere is not one of his brilliant ideas. He has also been on the 
>> climate denial side, and continues to be as far as I know.*
>>
>
> 
> Dyson doesn't say the climate is not changing nor does he say humans have 
> nothing to do with it, and he doesn't even deny that change could be 
> a 
> bad thing, what he does say is that on a list of important world problems 
> climate change is nowhere near the top. And I think he's right about that. 
> After all its not as if this is anything new,
>  
> the climate has
>  
> always
>  
> been changing. Other than a few very brief ice ages during the last few 
> million years the temperature has always been warmer than now and 
> occasionally
>  
> much
>

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread John Clark

On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 7:38 AM, Telmo Menezes 
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.

> > 
> 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. 

> >
> 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. 

> > 
> (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. 

>
> 
> 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.

> 
> 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
.

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. 

> > 
> 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??

John K Clark

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 10:03:55 AM UTC-6, telmo_menezes wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 3:40 PM, Lawrence Crowell 
> > wrote: 
> > On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 6:52:27 AM UTC-6, telmo_menezes wrote: 
> >> 
> >> On Sat, Feb 3, 2018 at 11:43 PM, Lawrence Crowell 
> >>  wrote: 
> >> > It is interesting in some ways. However, it involves speculations on 
> >> > things 
> >> > we have no knowledge of. 
> >> > 
> >> > The idea involves these filters. The one "behind us" involves the 
> >> > barrier to 
> >> > intelligent life similar to us. There are few examples of brainy 
> animals 
> >> > similar to us. Cetaceans have large brains and clearly their songs 
> >> > contain 
> >> > complex information important to them. It is not clear that this is 
> >> > equivalent to complex thought such as mathematics. The other filter 
> >> > involves 
> >> > post-ET development where such life is limited by either 
> >> > self-extermination 
> >> > or the limits of light speed and the unapproachable scale of putative 
> >> > interstellar flight. 
> >> > 
> >> > I suspect planets with complex life above that of prokaryotic-like 
> life 
> >> > are 
> >> > few in number per galaxy. It is hard to know how even 
> prokaryotic-like 
> >> > life 
> >> > starts. The ribosome is a complex of RNA with polypeptides, and this 
> >> > thing 
> >> > is fairly universal. As yet we are not sure how this came about. So 
> it 
> >> > could 
> >> > be that the life bearing planets are already extremely rare. This 
> would 
> >> > make 
> >> > planets with complex life most likely very rare, and then up the 
> ladder 
> >> > the 
> >> > occurrence of intelligent life exceedingly rare. 
> >> > 
> >> > The occurrence of life might be a case of what is called hard 
> emergence. 
> >> > Soft emergence is something like the emergence of chemistry from the 
> >> > quantum 
> >> > mechanics of atoms. Strong emergence is the occurrence of entirely 
> >> > different 
> >> > principles, where this is not an established scientific concept. This 
> is 
> >> > of 
> >> > course a completely unknown territory. How life emerged is one of the 
> >> > great 
> >> > scientific questions. 
> >> 
> >> Are you sure this hard/soft distinction is meaningful? Life is what 
> >> happens when imperfect self-replicators enter the stage. It is true 
> >> that this appears to be a very unlikely event, and that how it 
> >> happened is an open scientific question, but what do you mean by 
> >> "different principles"? 
> >> 
> >> Telmo. 
> > 
> > 
> > Hard emergence is where a set of principles spontaneously occur without 
> any 
> > formal or causal connection with other principles. 
>
> For me "formal", "causal" and "emergence" are human mental constructs, 
> that help us create cognitively tractable models. They are epistemic 
> tools. 
> I would argue that the rules of nature in our universe always allowed 
> for carbon-based life. It might be mysterious how certain states of 
> apparent irreducible complexity were reached (search as the first 
> self-replicators), but I don't see how new principles where generated. 
>

Even if these are human constructs they are what we have to go by. Hard 
emergence just means the spontaneous creation of some process from nothing. 
This might in some ways be how the universe or on a grander scale the 
multiverse emerged. Hard emergence could occur within the observable 
universe. Maybe life itself is a case of that. Soft emergence is a 
situation where a process and set of systems occur built up "top down," as 
it is said, from more basic principles. Your case here of life being 
something built into the universe from the foundations is a case of soft 
emergence.

LC
 

>
> > We are familiar with the 
> > absorption of Goldstone bosons by gauge bosons that give them a 
> longitudinal 
> > mode and hence a mass. This would be a case of soft emergence. Of course 
> the 
> > boundary between hard and soft emergence is hard to know. The ribosome 
> is a 
> > pretty invariant structure in biology, and it is horribly complex. This 
> in 
> > some embarrassing way sounds similar to the irreducible complexity 
> argument 
> > of the creationist camp. As a result there may be a sort of intellectual 
> > impasse here, and potentially some clearer understanding of what is 
> meant by 
> > hard emergence might play a role. 
>
> For me, that is not so mysterious. Once self-replication starts, 
> certain successful things are replicated forever, even if then 
> embedded in increasingly complex structures. It appears that many 
> choices are arbitrary, the important thing is that they remain 
> inter-operable (e.g. the fact that most life on earth is based on 
> left-handed amino acids). 
>
> Telmo. 
>
> > LC 
> > 
> > -- 
> > 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 ever

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread John Clark

On Tue, Feb 6, 2018 at 4:04 PM, Lawrence Crowell <
goldenfieldquaterni...@gmail.com> wrote:

> *> *
> *He [Freeman Dyson] did brilliant work on QED and other physics. The
> Dyson sphere is not one of his brilliant ideas. He has also been on the
> climate denial side, and continues to be as far as I know.*
>

Dyson doesn't say the climate is not changing nor does he say humans have
nothing to do with it, and he doesn't even deny that change could be
a 
bad thing, what he does say is that on a list of important world problems
climate change is nowhere near the top. And I think he's right about that.
After all its not as if this is anything new,

the climate has

always

been changing. Other than a few very brief ice ages during the last few
million years the temperature has always been warmer than now and
occasionally

much

warmer; at least that's the way things have been during the last 600
million years. And by the way, right now the sea is rising at the rate of
about one inch every 10 years, that would make for a rather dull Hollywood
style disaster movie
.

> **
> *Any IGUS that might engage in this sort of thing would be doing it for
> the long haul, as in millions of years. Such a giant project would be meant
> to be around for a long time.*
>

I don't know what IGUS means.

> > 
> *If so the decoupling of the sphere from the star is problematic, for even
> small gravitational perturbations from other stars will cause the star to
> deviate from the center.*
>

Then slightly perturb the sphere in the opposite direction to get it back
to the proper position.

*> This would be a large management problem.*
>

A trivial problem for a Jupiter Brain.

> > 
> *Any hyper-advanced IGUS will most likely not generate energy this way,*
>

From the context I assume IGUS means ET, if so then I don't see why ET
wouldn't make a Dyson sphere if he wanted to have a huge source of power
that would last for billions of years.

>
> *It would be far smaller and compact to generate energy by converting
> matter directly to energy via quantum gravitation or black hole
> physics.Such being could use their stellar system material to convert
> around a million tons per second into energy to generate as much energy as
> a star like the sun. So large Dyson sphere needed.*
>

Maybe, but that would require new physics and I was being conservative. A
Dyson Sphere requires no new science it just needs better engineering. And
even if what you suggest is possible and ET prefers to generate energy in
some very exotic way we don't now understand we should still be able to
detect the waste heat in the form of infrared or microwaves because even a
Jupiter Brain can't get around the second law of thermodynamics. But we see
no sign of such waste heat, and so I conclude that there is no ET, or at
least there is no ET that isn't as dull as dishwater. 

> > **
> *there is no real implication or possible role we have in the universe, *
>

Assuming we are the first and something isn't about to destroy us then
you've got

that backwards. The universe won't be assigning us a role we'll be
assigning a role to the universe. A cloud of hydrogen gas a billion light
years away can't give meaning to you but you can give meaning to it. You
are in the meaning conferring business not hydrogen gas.

> 
> *with global warming I suspect that rather than actually doing something
> to adjust ourselves we will instead engage in planetary climate/weather
> control.*
>

I certainly hope we start talking about

planetary climate/weather control

because the the cures environmentalists propose are far worse than the
disease, they forget that

humans are large

mammals

and

7.5 billion

of them

need to be fed,

and you can't do that on moonbeams and wishful thinking.  Nathan Myhrvold,
the former chief technical officer at Microsoft
,
has an idea

that

might

actually work

he wants to build an artificial volcano.

Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 became the best studied large volcanic eruption in
history, it put more sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere than any volcano
since Krakatoa in 1883. There is no longer any dispute that stratospheric
sulfur dioxide leads to more diffuse sunlight, a decrease in the ozone
layer, and a general cooling of the planet. What was astonishing was how
little stratospheric sulfur dioxide was needed. If you injected it in the
arctic where it would be about 4 times more effective, about 100,000 tons a
year would reverse global warming in the northern hemisphere. That works
out to 34 gallons per minute, a bit more than what a standard garden hose
could deliver but much less than a fire hose. We already spew out over
200,000,000 tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere each year, but all
of that is in the lower troposphere where it has little or no cooling
effect, the additional 100,000 tons is a drop in the bucket if you're
looking at the tonn

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread Telmo Menezes

On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 3:40 PM, Lawrence Crowell
 wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 6:52:27 AM UTC-6, telmo_menezes wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 3, 2018 at 11:43 PM, Lawrence Crowell
>>  wrote:
>> > It is interesting in some ways. However, it involves speculations on
>> > things
>> > we have no knowledge of.
>> >
>> > The idea involves these filters. The one "behind us" involves the
>> > barrier to
>> > intelligent life similar to us. There are few examples of brainy animals
>> > similar to us. Cetaceans have large brains and clearly their songs
>> > contain
>> > complex information important to them. It is not clear that this is
>> > equivalent to complex thought such as mathematics. The other filter
>> > involves
>> > post-ET development where such life is limited by either
>> > self-extermination
>> > or the limits of light speed and the unapproachable scale of putative
>> > interstellar flight.
>> >
>> > I suspect planets with complex life above that of prokaryotic-like life
>> > are
>> > few in number per galaxy. It is hard to know how even prokaryotic-like
>> > life
>> > starts. The ribosome is a complex of RNA with polypeptides, and this
>> > thing
>> > is fairly universal. As yet we are not sure how this came about. So it
>> > could
>> > be that the life bearing planets are already extremely rare. This would
>> > make
>> > planets with complex life most likely very rare, and then up the ladder
>> > the
>> > occurrence of intelligent life exceedingly rare.
>> >
>> > The occurrence of life might be a case of what is called hard emergence.
>> > Soft emergence is something like the emergence of chemistry from the
>> > quantum
>> > mechanics of atoms. Strong emergence is the occurrence of entirely
>> > different
>> > principles, where this is not an established scientific concept. This is
>> > of
>> > course a completely unknown territory. How life emerged is one of the
>> > great
>> > scientific questions.
>>
>> Are you sure this hard/soft distinction is meaningful? Life is what
>> happens when imperfect self-replicators enter the stage. It is true
>> that this appears to be a very unlikely event, and that how it
>> happened is an open scientific question, but what do you mean by
>> "different principles"?
>>
>> Telmo.
>
>
> Hard emergence is where a set of principles spontaneously occur without any
> formal or causal connection with other principles.

For me "formal", "causal" and "emergence" are human mental constructs,
that help us create cognitively tractable models. They are epistemic
tools.
I would argue that the rules of nature in our universe always allowed
for carbon-based life. It might be mysterious how certain states of
apparent irreducible complexity were reached (search as the first
self-replicators), but I don't see how new principles where generated.

> We are familiar with the
> absorption of Goldstone bosons by gauge bosons that give them a longitudinal
> mode and hence a mass. This would be a case of soft emergence. Of course the
> boundary between hard and soft emergence is hard to know. The ribosome is a
> pretty invariant structure in biology, and it is horribly complex. This in
> some embarrassing way sounds similar to the irreducible complexity argument
> of the creationist camp. As a result there may be a sort of intellectual
> impasse here, and potentially some clearer understanding of what is meant by
> hard emergence might play a role.

For me, that is not so mysterious. Once self-replication starts,
certain successful things are replicated forever, even if then
embedded in increasingly complex structures. It appears that many
choices are arbitrary, the important thing is that they remain
inter-operable (e.g. the fact that most life on earth is based on
left-handed amino acids).

Telmo.

> LC
>
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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 6:52:27 AM UTC-6, telmo_menezes wrote:
>
> On Sat, Feb 3, 2018 at 11:43 PM, Lawrence Crowell 
> > wrote: 
> > It is interesting in some ways. However, it involves speculations on 
> things 
> > we have no knowledge of. 
> > 
> > The idea involves these filters. The one "behind us" involves the 
> barrier to 
> > intelligent life similar to us. There are few examples of brainy animals 
> > similar to us. Cetaceans have large brains and clearly their songs 
> contain 
> > complex information important to them. It is not clear that this is 
> > equivalent to complex thought such as mathematics. The other filter 
> involves 
> > post-ET development where such life is limited by either 
> self-extermination 
> > or the limits of light speed and the unapproachable scale of putative 
> > interstellar flight. 
> > 
> > I suspect planets with complex life above that of prokaryotic-like life 
> are 
> > few in number per galaxy. It is hard to know how even prokaryotic-like 
> life 
> > starts. The ribosome is a complex of RNA with polypeptides, and this 
> thing 
> > is fairly universal. As yet we are not sure how this came about. So it 
> could 
> > be that the life bearing planets are already extremely rare. This would 
> make 
> > planets with complex life most likely very rare, and then up the ladder 
> the 
> > occurrence of intelligent life exceedingly rare. 
> > 
> > The occurrence of life might be a case of what is called hard emergence. 
> > Soft emergence is something like the emergence of chemistry from the 
> quantum 
> > mechanics of atoms. Strong emergence is the occurrence of entirely 
> different 
> > principles, where this is not an established scientific concept. This is 
> of 
> > course a completely unknown territory. How life emerged is one of the 
> great 
> > scientific questions. 
>
> Are you sure this hard/soft distinction is meaningful? Life is what 
> happens when imperfect self-replicators enter the stage. It is true 
> that this appears to be a very unlikely event, and that how it 
> happened is an open scientific question, but what do you mean by 
> "different principles"? 
>
> Telmo. 
>

Hard emergence is where a set of principles spontaneously occur without any 
formal or causal connection with other principles. We are familiar with the 
absorption of Goldstone bosons by gauge bosons that give them a 
longitudinal mode and hence a mass. This would be a case of soft emergence. 
Of course the boundary between hard and soft emergence is hard to know. The 
ribosome is a pretty invariant structure in biology, and it is horribly 
complex. This in some embarrassing way sounds similar to the irreducible 
complexity argument of the creationist camp. As a result there may be a 
sort of intellectual impasse here, and potentially some clearer 
understanding of what is meant by hard emergence might play a role.

LC 

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread Telmo Menezes

On Sat, Feb 3, 2018 at 11:43 PM, Lawrence Crowell
 wrote:
> It is interesting in some ways. However, it involves speculations on things
> we have no knowledge of.
>
> The idea involves these filters. The one "behind us" involves the barrier to
> intelligent life similar to us. There are few examples of brainy animals
> similar to us. Cetaceans have large brains and clearly their songs contain
> complex information important to them. It is not clear that this is
> equivalent to complex thought such as mathematics. The other filter involves
> post-ET development where such life is limited by either self-extermination
> or the limits of light speed and the unapproachable scale of putative
> interstellar flight.
>
> I suspect planets with complex life above that of prokaryotic-like life are
> few in number per galaxy. It is hard to know how even prokaryotic-like life
> starts. The ribosome is a complex of RNA with polypeptides, and this thing
> is fairly universal. As yet we are not sure how this came about. So it could
> be that the life bearing planets are already extremely rare. This would make
> planets with complex life most likely very rare, and then up the ladder the
> occurrence of intelligent life exceedingly rare.
>
> The occurrence of life might be a case of what is called hard emergence.
> Soft emergence is something like the emergence of chemistry from the quantum
> mechanics of atoms. Strong emergence is the occurrence of entirely different
> principles, where this is not an established scientific concept. This is of
> course a completely unknown territory. How life emerged is one of the great
> scientific questions.

Are you sure this hard/soft distinction is meaningful? Life is what
happens when imperfect self-replicators enter the stage. It is true
that this appears to be a very unlikely event, and that how it
happened is an open scientific question, but what do you mean by
"different principles"?

Telmo.

> LC
>
>
> On Saturday, February 3, 2018 at 11:21:00 AM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjtOGPJ0URM
>>
>>
>>  John K Clark
>
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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread Telmo Menezes

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, and this filter is likely to be
ahead of us.

It's an interesting argument but I think it is based on some rather
strong assumptions:

(a) That becoming a galactic civilization is possible;
(b) That becoming a galactic civilization is desirable;
(c) That galactic civilizations are observable by us.

Firstly we don't know if there's an upper limit for technological
progress, or where that limit could be. Maybe interstellar travel or
the colonization of other planets will never be feasible. Secondly, we
are assuming a lot about a civilization that would be dramatically
ahead of us both culturally and technologically. Maybe galactic
civilization is a silly goal, and we don't even have the mental
constructs to comprehend why or what the good goal would be. Finally,
maybe a galactic civilization does exist but does not wish to be
detected by the likes of us.

I would say that there are too many unknowns for which we don't know
how to assign probabilities.

Telmo.

On Sat, Feb 3, 2018 at 6:20 PM, John Clark  wrote:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjtOGPJ0URM
>
>
>  John K Clark
>
> --
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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread Lawrence Crowell

A robot could do the actual measurement and the output might not have to be 
read by a conscious entity. Whether there is some conscious reckoning of 
these outcomes is not clear. It seems to me the most reasonable role of a 
conscious entity is in raising the question that requires these tests. 
There is some curious relationship I think between Bayesian update and 
ergodic nature of sampling. If all of this is real it seems implausible the 
observed universe is reified this way with only one IGUS in the universe 
with data that is likely to have errors.

To be honest I have no idea whether this is or is not the case. It does 
though gives some food for various thoughts.

LC

On Tuesday, February 6, 2018 at 7:08:36 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote:
>
> So you're back to Wigner's theory that consciousness collapses the 
> wave-function?  Which of course raises the question of whether it needs to 
> be a consciousness with a PhD or will an undergraduate  or a jellyfish do?
>
> Brent
>
> On 2/6/2018 1:04 PM, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>
> The only conceivable cosmological implication for intelligent life is that 
> it performs a cosmological version of the Wheeler Delayed Choice 
> Experiment. Maybe a  huge ensemble, maybe infinite if the universe is 
> infinite, number of measurements of cosmological parameters, say in 
> particular the inflationary cosmological parameter, serves as a 
> superselection of this value in a WDCE. This would involve some physics 
> with respect to the relationship between Bayesian updates and the ergodic 
> principle that are not understood now. We humans might just be one IGUS who 
> makes this measurement and the mean of these measurements in a post update 
> WDCE sense defines the parameters of the observable universe.
>
>
>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-07 Thread agrayson2000



On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 6:09:17 PM UTC-7, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 5:17:17 PM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 6:06 PM,  wrote:
>>
>> > 
>>> what do you know about their agendas? 
>>
>>
>> *FOR G*
>> *OD'S SAKE!!*  Haven't
>>  you even 
>> tried
>>  to read any of the posts on this thread?
>>
>
> *I read them all. I challenge you to point to one, a single one, which 
> affirms with argument your claim that the mere existence of ET implies doom 
> for humanity. AG* 
>
 
*I see. A lot of bluster but you were unable to meet the challenge. 
Perhaps, just perhaps, it was YOU who didn't read this thread carefully. 
AG *

>
>  
>> > 
>> they might be enthusiastic of diversity
>
>
> Who cares? It's irrelevant if ET is a good guy or a total bastard and 
> his agenda has absolutely positively NOTHING to do with it.
>

*How do you figure that? Makes no sense. AG *

The only important thing is if ET exists or not. So if your goofy Roswell 
aliens and their unreliable poorly constructed spaceships are real then 
humanity is almost certainly doomed; I can speculate but I don't know  what 
the catastrophe that will bring about our end will be but it will be bad. 

>
> John K Clark
>
>
>
 

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-06 Thread Brent Meeker

So you're back to Wigner's theory that consciousness collapses the 
wave-function?  Which of course raises the question of whether it needs 
to be a consciousness with a PhD or will an undergraduate  or a 
jellyfish do?


Brent

On 2/6/2018 1:04 PM, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
The only conceivable cosmological implication for intelligent life is 
that it performs a cosmological version of the Wheeler Delayed Choice 
Experiment. Maybe a  huge ensemble, maybe infinite if the universe is 
infinite, number of measurements of cosmological parameters, say in 
particular the inflationary cosmological parameter, serves as a 
superselection of this value in a WDCE. This would involve some 
physics with respect to the relationship between Bayesian updates and 
the ergodic principle that are not understood now. We humans might 
just be one IGUS who makes this measurement and the mean of these 
measurements in a post update WDCE sense defines the parameters of the 
observable universe.


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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-06 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Tuesday, February 6, 2018 at 12:26:02 PM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 7:50 PM, Lawrence Crowell  > wrote:
>
> > 
>> *The Dyson sphere is in my opinion one of the dumbest ideas around.*
>>
>  
> Freeman Dyson
>  is not generally regarded as a stupid man.
>

He did brilliant work on QED and other physics. The Dyson sphere is not one 
of his brilliant ideas. He has also been on the climate denial side, and 
continues to be as far as I know.

>  
>
>> >* *
>> *Maybe I will qualify that, a solid shell enclosing a star is stupid.*
>
>
> Dyson calculated that there was enough matter in the solar system to 
> make a non-rotating sphere around the sun with a of 93 million mile radius 
> about 3 meters thick. Perhaps you think he said biological humans were 
> suposed to live on that sphere but he did not, if he had that would indeed 
> have been stupid for a number of reasons including the fact that by the 
> time it is built there will no longer be biological humans. A Dyson sphere 
> is just
>  a energy collecting device. 
>

Any IGUS that might engage in this sort of thing would be doing it for the 
long haul, as in millions of years. Such a giant project would be meant to 
be around for a long time. If so the decoupling of the sphere from the star 
is problematic, for even small gravitational perturbations from other stars 
will cause the star to deviate from the center. This would be a large 
management problem.

Any hyper-advanced IGUS will most likely not generate energy this way, It 
would be far smaller and compact to generate energy by converting matter 
directly to energy via quantum gravitation or black hole physics. Such 
being could use their stellar system material to convert around a million 
tons per second into energy to generate as much energy as a star like the 
sun. So large Dyson sphere needed.

>
>
> *> Gauss told us why. Integrate the gravitational field across a 
>> Gaussian surface inside your Dyson sphere. What you get is the mass of the 
>> star. The Dyson sphere does not contribute; it is completely 
>> gravitationally decoupled from the star.*
>
>
>
> 
> 
> I fail to see why a device would need to be gravitationally coupled to a 
> star to collect solar energy from that star, in the case of the sun the 
> energy collected would be
>  
> 385
>  
> yottawatts, a
>  
> yottawatt
>  
> is 10^24 watts.
>  
> Some
>  
> have
>  
> said
>  
> that instead of a non-rotating Dyson sphere ET might prefer
>  
> to build
>  
> trillions of
>  
> separately
>  
> orbiting 
> solar 
> energy collectors and make a Dyson swarm, but at a distance the two
>  
> things
>  
> would look very
>  
> similar
> . 
>
> >* *
>> *I suspect if there is intelligent life in other corners of the universe 
>> they probably do not assume control of that much matter and energy. I 
>> question whether space colonization is really practical. It certainly can't 
>> be practical if there is no economic justification for it.*
>
>
> 
> Economics will be quite different in the future,
>  
> once Nanotechnology has been perfected its difficult to imagine something 
> that 
> would be
>  possible to do but very expensive to do.
>

My point is that the only reason I can see putting humans in space is for 
industrial or technological applications. It is of course entirely possible 
that any industrial process in outer space will end up being robotic with 
no humans needed as well. 

>
>  
>  
>
>> * > We can do loads of science in space with out a single astronaut. *
>>
>
> Absolutely, and do it better! But in a century few humans will be 
> biological.   .
>
>  
>> > **
>> *Here I am just talking about the moon and maybe rotating cylindrical 
>> habitats fashioned from nearby asteroids.*
>>
>
> That has nothing to do with Dyson spheres or anything I'm talking about. 
>  
>

Even assuming Dyson spheres exist by some IGUS they started out a lot 
smaller.

>
> > 
>> *Traversing interstellar distances and building mega structures is may 
>> orders of magnitude beyond anything we might fashion in the coming 50 or 
>> 100 years. *
>>
>
> 
> The universe is 13.8 billion years old and the last star won't burn out 
> for another 10 trillion years and you think the fact that we can't do 
> something for 50 years has cosmological implications?
>

The only conceivable cosmological implication for intelligent life is that 
it performs a cosmological version of the Wheeler Delayed Choice 
Experiment. Maybe a  huge ensemble, maybe infinite if the universe is 
infinite, number of measurements of cosmological parameters, say in 
particular the inflationary cosmological parameter, serves as a 
superselection of this value in a WDCE. This would involve some physics 
with respect to the relationship between Bayesian updates and the ergodic 
principle that are not understood now. We humans might just be one IGUS who 
makes this measurement and the mean

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-06 Thread John Clark

On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 7:50 PM, Lawrence Crowell <
goldenfieldquaterni...@gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> *The Dyson sphere is in my opinion one of the dumbest ideas around.*
>

Freeman Dyson
 is not generally regarded as a stupid man.

> >* *
> *Maybe I will qualify that, a solid shell enclosing a star is stupid.*

Dyson calculated that there was enough matter in the solar system to make
a non-rotating sphere around the sun with a of 93 million mile radius about
3 meters thick. Perhaps you think he said biological humans were suposed to
live on that sphere but he did not, if he had that would indeed have been
stupid for a number of reasons including the fact that by the time it is
built there will no longer be biological humans. A Dyson sphere is just
 a energy collecting device.

*> Gauss told us why. Integrate the gravitational field across a Gaussian
> surface inside your Dyson sphere. What you get is the mass of the star. The
> Dyson sphere does not contribute; it is completely gravitationally
> decoupled from the star.*

I fail to see why a device would need to be gravitationally coupled to a
star to collect solar energy from that star, in the case of the sun the
energy collected would be

385

yottawatts, a

yottawatt

is 10^24 watts.

Some

have

said

that instead of a non-rotating Dyson sphere ET might prefer

to build

trillions of

separately

orbiting
solar 
energy collectors and make a Dyson swarm, but at a distance the two

things

would look very

similar
. 

>* *
> *I suspect if there is intelligent life in other corners of the universe
> they probably do not assume control of that much matter and energy. I
> question whether space colonization is really practical. It certainly can't
> be practical if there is no economic justification for it.*

Economics will be quite different in the future,

once Nanotechnology has been perfected its difficult to imagine something
that
would be
 possible to do but very expensive to do.

> * > We can do loads of science in space with out a single astronaut. *
>

Absolutely, and do it better! But in a century few humans will be
biological.   .

> > **
> *Here I am just talking about the moon and maybe rotating cylindrical
> habitats fashioned from nearby asteroids.*
>

That has nothing to do with Dyson spheres or anything I'm talking about. 

> 
> *Traversing interstellar distances and building mega structures is may
> orders of magnitude beyond anything we might fashion in the coming 50 or
> 100 years. *
>

The universe is 13.8 billion years old and the last star won't burn out for
another 10 trillion years and you think the fact that we can't do something
for 50 years has cosmological implications?

>
> *I suspect any possible ET on the other side of the Virgo cluster might
> not be that more energetically powerful than we are. Even if they are very
> advanced I suspect limits to growth*
>

That could be true only if there is some new law of physics that we know
nothing about that prevents it because unlike time machines or faster than
light travel no new science is needed to make Drexler style Nanotechnology
a reality, it just needs greatly improved technology.
All it would take is the

engineering

ability to move things with atomic precision,

and we know

something like
 i
t can be done

in principle

because we have a existence example, life. Admittedly it's

very

crude version of Drexler style

Nanotechnology but it's about as good as you could hope for considering it
was invented by random mutation and natural selection. And life was good
enough to manufacture me, every atom that's in me today came from last
years potatoes, and life was good enough to manufacture last years potatoes
from nothing but water, carbon dioxide and nitrogen from the air and a few
trace elements from the soil.  Not bad but I have a hunch intelligence can
do
better, one hell of a lot better, and just a few weeks ago there was a
report that makes me think my hunch is correct; somebody made a
25-nanometer-long robotic arm with precise nanoscale movement that is at
least five orders of magnitude faster than anything made before:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/remote-controlled-dna-nanorobots-could-lead-to-the-first-nanorobotic-production-factory

> > 
> *We humans are still drunk with our sense of power in the fossil fuel age.
> If very advanced IGUS do evolve they might not become these galactic
> engineers, but may more in a way like an assembly of philosophers who are
> at peace with the biota on their home planet.*

If ET wants to make new philosophic discoveries that needs brainpower, and
a Dyson sphere produces a lot of power; information is physical and it
takes energy to manipulate it, but yes, what you say above is
 a very real danger, if ET exists he
 must be
a lotus eater with no intellectual curiosity

about

the universe he lives in.

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-06 Thread agrayson2000



On Tuesday, February 6, 2018 at 4:48:40 AM UTC-7, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>
> On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 7:31:09 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> *IMO, FWIW, using religious fanatics to explain away possible alien 
>> sightings is nothing but a strawman argument. If you viewed the vaseideo 
>> and honestly evaluated their observations as specious based on reasonable 
>> arguments, that would be a different matter. But what you're really doing 
>> is pre-judging based on bias. AG *
>>
>
> I see the space alien, in particular alien astronauts and UFOs, as a 
> modern form of previous visions of angels, spirits, totems and gods. Karl 
> Jung made similar comparisons back in the 50s. Jung thought there was a 
> sort of psychological semiotics of common symbols and that UFOs were a 
> modern form of that. I think it is far more reasonable to think these 
> things are a matter of mental inner space than any extraordinary prospect 
> of alien life reaching here in an interstellar expedition.
>
> LC
>

*I am aware of Jung's position in this matter. The witnesses who convinced 
me, when previously I had believed the encounter was with Project Mogul 
balloons, don't seem to evince any religious fever or even interest. 
They're just reporting what they claim to have witnessed. But to evaluate 
that, you'd have to view the video, which, as you previously indicated, 
isn't worth your time. AG *

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-06 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 7:31:09 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> *IMO, FWIW, using religious fanatics to explain away possible alien 
> sightings is nothing but a strawman argument. If you viewed the vaseideo 
> and honestly evaluated their observations as specious based on reasonable 
> arguments, that would be a different matter. But what you're really doing 
> is pre-judging based on bias. AG *
>

I see the space alien, in particular alien astronauts and UFOs, as a modern 
form of previous visions of angels, spirits, totems and gods. Karl Jung 
made similar comparisons back in the 50s. Jung thought there was a sort of 
psychological semiotics of common symbols and that UFOs were a modern form 
of that. I think it is far more reasonable to think these things are a 
matter of mental inner space than any extraordinary prospect of alien life 
reaching here in an interstellar expedition.

LC

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-05 Thread agrayson2000



On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 6:20:16 PM UTC-7, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 6:05:39 PM UTC-7, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>
>> On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 12:23:47 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 9:49:55 AM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:

 On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 10:07 AM,  wrote:

 > 
> I plead stupidity. I still don't get it.
>

 Your plea is duly noted and entered into the court record.
  

> > 
> Why would the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence imply doom 
> for humanity?
>

 Ask the flying saucer people that are running around Roswell. 

  John K Clark
  

>>>
>>> You're a prick. AG 
>>>
>>
>> Alan --- in case you have not gotten a sense of things, talking about 
>> UFOs and grey aliens is just stoner talk. Curiously I see these things as 
>> forming the narratives for what might be emerging as the new religions. I 
>> think comic book superheros are serving this as well. These things are 
>> filling in the role of gods or superbeing, where traditional monotheism is 
>> disintegrating. We seem to be seeing the emergence of  pseudoscientific 
>> polytheistic semi-belief systems. L Ron Hubbard had sort of the right idea 
>> along these lines. However, none of that stuff has any scientific merit.
>>
>
> *The flaw in your reasoning is that the aliens alleged to have been 
> observed at Roswell, and in other contexts btw, do NOT in any way resemble 
> the gods of religious enthusiasts. Neither am I asserting anything like 
> that. All I am claiming is that the 6 witnesses in the video I posted seem 
> credible. If so, aliens have been contacted. AG *
>

*IMO, FWIW, using religious fanatics to explain away possible alien 
sightings is nothing but a strawman argument. If you viewed the vaseideo 
and honestly evaluated their observations as specious based on reasonable 
arguments, that would be a different matter. But what you're really doing 
is pre-judging based on bias. AG *

>
>> There are a number of ways finding aliens might mean our doom. Assume in 
>> this galaxy we find a number of ET species out there at approximately our 
>> level of development. This would then mean no alien species has reached the 
>> level of super-advanced, say type II or III civilization, and most or all 
>> die out before reaching that. That would presumably include us as well. 
>> Also if we found a type III civilization was somewhere out there taking 
>> over this galaxy they would swat us away in a moment if we stood in their 
>> way. If they wanted to convert the planets of this solar system in to some 
>> energy grid to tap into the sun they could do it. After all, we don't give 
>> a lot of concern for life that get wiped out in our developments of 
>> resources. Remember the opening of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. If we 
>> meet Vogons, we're dead.
>>
>
> *I can imagine a more mature human race where diversity of species is 
> valued and achieved. It's already happening to some extent. I can also 
> imagine advanced ET's with similar values. So, contrary to your dim view, 
> it's really NOT a foregone conclusion that advanced ET will wipe out 
> humanity. AG*
>
>>
>> LC
>>
>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-05 Thread agrayson2000



On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 6:05:39 PM UTC-7, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>
> On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 12:23:47 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 9:49:55 AM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:
>>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 10:07 AM,  wrote:
>>>
>>> > 
 I plead stupidity. I still don't get it.

>>>
>>> Your plea is duly noted and entered into the court record.
>>>  
>>>
 > 
 Why would the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence imply doom for 
 humanity?

>>>
>>> Ask the flying saucer people that are running around Roswell. 
>>>
>>>  John K Clark
>>>  
>>>
>>
>> You're a prick. AG 
>>
>
> Alan --- in case you have not gotten a sense of things, talking about UFOs 
> and grey aliens is just stoner talk. Curiously I see these things as 
> forming the narratives for what might be emerging as the new religions. I 
> think comic book superheros are serving this as well. These things are 
> filling in the role of gods or superbeing, where traditional monotheism is 
> disintegrating. We seem to be seeing the emergence of  pseudoscientific 
> polytheistic semi-belief systems. L Ron Hubbard had sort of the right idea 
> along these lines. However, none of that stuff has any scientific merit.
>

*The flaw in your reasoning is that the aliens alleged to have been 
observed at Roswell, and in other contexts btw, do NOT in any way resembles 
the gods of religious enthusiasts. Neither am I asserting anything like 
that. All I am claiming is that the 6 witnesses in the video I posted seem 
credible. If so, aliens have been contacted. AG *

>
> There are a number of ways finding aliens might mean our doom. Assume in 
> this galaxy we find a number of ET species out there at approximately our 
> level of development. This would then mean no alien species has reached the 
> level of super-advanced, say type II or III civilization, and most or all 
> die out before reaching that. That would presumably include us as well. 
> Also if we found a type III civilization was somewhere out there taking 
> over this galaxy they would swat us away in a moment if we stood in their 
> way. If they wanted to convert the planets of this solar system in to some 
> energy grid to tap into the sun they could do it. After all, we don't give 
> a lot of concern for life that get wiped out in our developments of 
> resources. Remember the opening of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. If we 
> meet Vogons, we're dead.
>

*I can imagine a more mature human race where diversity of species is 
valued and achieved. It's already happening to some extent. I can also 
imagine advanced ET's with similar values. So, contrary to your dim view, 
it's really NOT a foregone conclusion that advanced ET will wipe out 
humanity. AG*

>
> LC
>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-05 Thread agrayson2000



On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 5:17:17 PM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 6:06 PM, > wrote:
>
> > 
>> what do you know about their agendas? 
>
>
> *FOR G*
> *OD'S SAKE!!*  Haven't
>  you even 
> tried
>  to read any of the posts on this thread?
>

*I read them all. I challenge you to point to one, a single one, which 
affirms with argument your claim that the mere existence of ET implies doom 
for humanity. AG* 

>
>  
>> > 
>> they might be enthusiastic of diversity
>
>
> Who cares? It's irrelevant if ET is a good guy or a total bastard and 
> his agenda has absolutely positively NOTHING to do with it. The only 
> important thing is if ET exists or not. So if your goofy Roswell aliens and 
> their unreliable poorly constructed spaceships are real then humanity is 
> almost certainly doomed; I can speculate but I don't know  what the 
> catastrophe that will bring about our end will be but it will be bad. 
>
> John K Clark
>
>
>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-05 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 12:23:47 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 9:49:55 AM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 10:07 AM,  wrote:
>>
>> > 
>>> I plead stupidity. I still don't get it.
>>>
>>
>> Your plea is duly noted and entered into the court record.
>>  
>>
>>> > 
>>> Why would the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence imply doom for 
>>> humanity?
>>>
>>
>> Ask the flying saucer people that are running around Roswell. 
>>
>>  John K Clark
>>  
>>
>
> You're a prick. AG 
>

Alan --- in case you have not gotten a sense of things, talking about UFOs 
and grey aliens is just stoner talk. Curiously I see these things as 
forming the narratives for what might be emerging as the new religions. I 
think comic book superheros are serving this as well. These things are 
filling in the role of gods or superbeing, where traditional monotheism is 
disintegrating. We seem to be seeing the emergence of  pseudoscientific 
polytheistic semi-belief systems. L Ron Hubbard had sort of the right idea 
along these lines. However, none of that stuff has any scientific merit.

There are a number of ways finding aliens might mean our doom. Assume in 
this galaxy we find a number of ET species out there at approximately our 
level of development. This would then mean no alien species has reached the 
level of super-advanced, say type II or III civilization, and most or all 
die out before reaching that. That would presumably include us as well. 
Also if we found a type III civilization was somewhere out there taking 
over this galaxy they would swat us away in a moment if we stood in their 
way. If they wanted to convert the planets of this solar system in to some 
energy grid to tap into the sun they could do it. After all, we don't give 
a lot of concern for life that get wiped out in our developments of 
resources. Remember the opening of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. If we 
meet Vogons, we're dead.

LC

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-05 Thread agrayson2000

On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 5:17:17 PM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 6:06 PM, > wrote:
>
> > 
>> what do you know about their agendas? 
>
>
> *FOR G*
> *OD'S SAKE!!*  Haven't
>  you even 
> tried
>  to read any of the posts on this thread?
>
>  
>> > 
>> they might be enthusiastic of diversity
>
>
> Who cares? It's irrelevant if ET is a good guy or a total bastard and 
> his agenda has absolutely positively NOTHING to do with it. The only 
> important thing is if ET exists or not. 
>

*Sure, I read the comments. I still fail to see how the only factor of 
relevance is whether ET exists. LC posts were mostly or exclusively about 
the problems of EM contact. AG*

> So if your goofy Roswell aliens and their unreliable poorly constructed 
> spaceships are real then humanity is almost certainly doomed; I can 
> speculate but I don't know  what the catastrophe that will bring about our 
> end will be but it will be bad. 
>

*You only "know" their "goofy" because that evaluation comports with your 
preferred beliefs; Not based on anything you KNOW, which is SQUAT. The 
crash at Roswell, if it occurred, was an anomaly. There is no necessity to 
assume alien technology is flawless. Incidentally, I doubt you ever viewed 
the video I posted, so sure of you of your conclusions. AG *

>
> John K Clark
>
>
>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-05 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Sunday, February 4, 2018 at 7:44:14 PM UTC-6, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Sun, Feb 4, 2018  Lawrence Crowell  > wrote:
>
> *> a fairly weak signal in the megawatt range that we generate in most 
>> transmissions they will only reach 10 or a few 10s of light years out.*
>
>
> 
> The Arecibo transmitter itself may have been in the megawatt range but 
> when used in conjunction with the 300 meter dish it produces a radio beam 
> equivalent to a omni
> 
> directional signal of 2*10^13 watts; and this energy is concentrated in a 
> frequency range far far narrower than any natural radio 
> source
> 
> ; in that
>  beam and in that
> very narrow frequency band it would be the brightest thing in the galaxy. 
> You might argue that the reason we haven't seen such a thing is that ET 
> just doesn't have the resources to do 
> it
> , and that could indeed be the explanation
> , ET is just too primitive
> . And that is exactly what worries me.
>
> 2*10^13 watts
>  
> is not a impressive amount of power, even we can do it (in a narrow beam) 
> and we've only been at it for about a century. After all just one star, our
>  
> sun for example, produces 4*10^26 watts, so for a civilization hundreds of 
> years ahead of us, not to mention millions or billions of years ahead, 
> 2*10^13 would should be a ridiculously tiny amount of power. 
>
> And don't forget lasers, I was just reading in the January 26 2018 issue 
> of Science about a Laser in China called "SULF" that has produced brief 
> pulses of light that contain 5.3*10^15 watts of power, they hope to ramp it 
> up to 10^16 watts in a few months and 10^17 watts by 2023. 
>   
>  
>
>> > 
>> *The magnetic field of a pulsar has as much energy per cubic meter as the 
>> sun produces in light within a few minutes.*
>
>
> Interesting fact: according to the Science article mentioned above the 
> 2023 Chinese Laser should be able to produce a light intensity of 10^24 
> watts per square centimeter; of course it can only do that for a 
> trillionth of a second or so and only over a spot 3*10-6 meters across, but 
> that intensity over a square about 5 inches on a side would equal the 
> entire power output of the sun. 
>  
>
> > 
>> A gigawatt signal then reaches about 3 to 4 times the distance. The Debye 
>>  attentuation is exponential, so increasing power by 10 will roughly only 
>> double the distance.
>
>
>  
> I was under the impression 
> Debye attenuation 
> concerns X rays not radio waves.
>
> > 
>> A terrawatt signal could then reach 100s of light years, and so forth.
>
>
> I think a terrawatt signal could do a lot better than that. We can still 
> communicate with
>  
> the Pioneer spacecraft, it is about one light day away and it only has a 
> 8 watt transmitter connected to a tiny low gain dish only 9 feet across. 
> That's 8 watts, not megawatts or even kilowatts, just watts. And being 
> that close to a star the signal had to punch through more gas and dust than 
> in a typical volume of interstellar space, and yet we can still hear it. 
>
> >
>>  if ETI is say 100 light years away and they are casually emitting 
>> megawatt radio frequency radiation
>
>
> If megawatts is the best they can do then ET is slightly less advanced 
> than we are, and in a 13.8 billion year old universe having 2 such 
> civilizations only
>  
> 100 light years away and being that close technologically would be a 
> astronomically unlikely coincidence unless intelligence is 
> very 
> common in the universe but it always destroys itself when it advances to 
> our level.
>
> > 
>> It could also mean the nearest ETI is on the other side of the Virgo 
>> cluster some 25 million light years away. I am not an exponent of ideas 
>> about faster than light travel and at those distances radio transmitters 
>> are simply too weak.
>
>
> Forget radio, if a civilization a million years ahead of us was only 25 
> million light years away if would be easily detectable with a telescope you 
> could buy at the toy section at Wall-mart, but even our largest telescopes 
> can't find a hint of large scale engineering. I must conclude that no such 
> super advanced civilization exists and I can only come up with 2 credible 
> theories to explain why. I hope the explanation is simply that we're the 
> first. I fear the explanation is civilizations always destroy themselves 
> when they get to our level..  
>  
>  
>
>> > 
>> So at a distance of that sort and on our past light cone we will never 
>> hear them. We can't get there and they can't get here.
>>
>
> Now you're talking about tens of billions of light years, when I say we're 
> the first I mean the first in the observable universe.
>  
>
>> > 
>> The broadcast and detection of radio signals between collectives of 
>> intelligent life on different planets I think will have to be due to 
>> deliberate actions.
>
>
> I agree, eavesdropping on communication is not likely to be important. And 
> a

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-05 Thread John Clark

On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 6:06 PM,  wrote:

> 
> what do you know about their agendas?

*FOR G*
*OD'S SAKE!!*  Haven't
 you even
tried
 to read any of the posts on this thread?

> > 
> they might be enthusiastic of diversity

Who cares? It's irrelevant if ET is a good guy or a total bastard and his
agenda has absolutely positively NOTHING to do with it. The only important
thing is if ET exists or not. So if your goofy Roswell aliens and their
unreliable poorly constructed spaceships are real then humanity is almost
certainly doomed; I can speculate but I don't know  what the catastrophe
that will bring about our end will be but it will be bad.

John K Clark

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-05 Thread agrayson2000

On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 9:49:55 AM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 10:07 AM, > 
> wrote:
>
> > 
>> I plead stupidity. I still don't get it.
>>
>
> Your plea is duly noted and entered into the court record.
>  
>
>> > 
>> Why would the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence imply doom for 
>> humanity?
>>
>
> Ask the flying saucer people that are running around Roswell. 
>
>  John K Clark
>  
>

There are few things more annoying than would-be scientists and 
intellectuals who think they know more than they do, of which you're a 
prime example. Whether advanced extraterrestrial intelligences are a threat 
to humanity depends, if they exist, on their AGENDAS. Apriori, they might 
be enthusiastic of diversity. So, what do you know about their agendas? 
Answer: SQUAT. Further, what makes you worse than the average fool pushing 
an ignorant-based conclusion, is that you don't know what you don't know. 
AG 

>
>
>  
>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-05 Thread agrayson2000



On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 9:49:55 AM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 10:07 AM, > 
> wrote:
>
> > 
>> I plead stupidity. I still don't get it.
>>
>
> Your plea is duly noted and entered into the court record.
>  
>
>> > 
>> Why would the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence imply doom for 
>> humanity?
>>
>
> Ask the flying saucer people that are running around Roswell. 
>
>  John K Clark
>  
>

You're a prick. AG 

>
>
>  
>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-05 Thread John Clark

On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 10:07 AM,  wrote:

> 
> I plead stupidity. I still don't get it.
>

Your plea is duly noted and entered into the court record.


> > 
> Why would the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence imply doom for
> humanity?
>

Ask the flying saucer people that are running around Roswell.

 John K Clark

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-05 Thread agrayson2000



On Saturday, February 3, 2018 at 10:21:00 AM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjtOGPJ0URM
>
>
>  John K Clark
>

I plead stupidity. I still don't get it. Why would the existence of 
extraterrestrial intelligence imply doom for humanity? TIA, AG

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-04 Thread John Clark

On Sun, Feb 4, 2018  Lawrence Crowell 
wrote:

*> a fairly weak signal in the megawatt range that we generate in most
> transmissions they will only reach 10 or a few 10s of light years out.*

The Arecibo transmitter itself may have been in the megawatt range but when
used in conjunction with the 300 meter dish it produces a radio beam
equivalent to a omni

directional signal of 2*10^13 watts; and this energy is concentrated in a
frequency range far far narrower than any natural radio
source

; in that
 beam and in that
very narrow frequency band it would be the brightest thing in the galaxy.
You might argue that the reason we haven't seen such a thing is that ET
just doesn't have the resources to do
it
, and that could indeed be the explanation
, ET is just too primitive
. And that is exactly what worries me.

2*10^13 watts

is not a impressive amount of power, even we can do it (in a narrow beam)
and we've only been at it for about a century. After all just one star, our

sun for example, produces 4*10^26 watts, so for a civilization hundreds of
years ahead of us, not to mention millions or billions of years ahead,
2*10^13 would should be a ridiculously tiny amount of power.

And don't forget lasers, I was just reading in the January 26 2018 issue of
Science about a Laser in China called "SULF" that has produced brief pulses
of light that contain 5.3*10^15 watts of power, they hope to ramp it up to
10^16 watts in a few months and 10^17 watts by 2023.

> > 
> *The magnetic field of a pulsar has as much energy per cubic meter as the
> sun produces in light within a few minutes.*

Interesting fact: according to the Science article mentioned above the
2023 Chinese Laser should be able to produce a light intensity of 10^24
watts per square centimeter; of course it can only do that for a
trillionth of a second or so and only over a spot 3*10-6 meters across, but
that intensity over a square about 5 inches on a side would equal the
entire power output of the sun.

> 
> A gigawatt signal then reaches about 3 to 4 times the distance. The Debye
>  attentuation is exponential, so increasing power by 10 will roughly only
> double the distance.

I was under the impression 
Debye attenuation
concerns X rays not radio waves.

> 
> A terrawatt signal could then reach 100s of light years, and so forth.

I think a terrawatt signal could do a lot better than that. We can still
communicate with

the Pioneer spacecraft, it is about one light day away and it only has a 8
watt transmitter connected to a tiny low gain dish only 9 feet across.
That's 8 watts, not megawatts or even kilowatts, just watts. And being
that close to a star the signal had to punch through more gas and dust than
in a typical volume of interstellar space, and yet we can still hear it.

>
>  if ETI is say 100 light years away and they are casually emitting
> megawatt radio frequency radiation

If megawatts is the best they can do then ET is slightly less advanced than
we are, and in a 13.8 billion year old universe having 2 such civilizations
only

100 light years away and being that close technologically would be a
astronomically unlikely coincidence unless intelligence is
very 
common in the universe but it always destroys itself when it advances to
our level.

> 
> It could also mean the nearest ETI is on the other side of the Virgo
> cluster some 25 million light years away. I am not an exponent of ideas
> about faster than light travel and at those distances radio transmitters
> are simply too weak.

Forget radio, if a civilization a million years ahead of us was only 25
million light years away if would be easily detectable with a telescope you
could buy at the toy section at Wall-mart, but even our largest telescopes
can't find a hint of large scale engineering. I must conclude that no such
super advanced civilization exists and I can only come up with 2 credible
theories to explain why. I hope the explanation is simply that we're the
first. I fear the explanation is civilizations always destroy themselves
when they get to our level..  

> > 
> So at a distance of that sort and on our past light cone we will never
> hear them. We can't get there and they can't get here.
>

Now you're talking about tens of billions of light years, when I say we're
the first I mean the first in the observable universe.

> > 
> The broadcast and detection of radio signals between collectives of
> intelligent life on different planets I think will have to be due to
> deliberate actions.

I agree, eavesdropping on communication is not likely to be important. And
actually it became harder for

ET

 to detect a civilization on Earth

after

June 12 2009. On that date all TV

transmitters in the USA switched over from analog to digital. This will
make things more difficult for a hypothetical ET for two reasons:

1) Digital transmitters use far less power than the analog variety.

2) A analog TV sign

Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-04 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Sunday, February 4, 2018 at 8:40:48 AM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, February 4, 2018 at 12:15:16 AM UTC-7, agrays...@gmail.com 
> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Saturday, February 3, 2018 at 7:45:16 PM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> *I'll let LC reply. He was pretty sure of his conclusion, and as I recall 
>> there were no dissenters on another MB having some physicists as 
>> contributors including Brent.  LC might have been referring to a particular 
>> wave length used by SETI (the "water hole"?). AG*
>>
>
> *As I recall, LC was referring to radio waves emanating from radio 
> broadcasts. In any event, there some obvious possibilities why we have not 
> made EM contact with extraterrestrials. Maybe the Milky Way is too young 
> for a galactic civilization to come into existence, and/or, advanced 
> civilizations might decide NOT to broadcast due to the possible existence 
> of predator species.  As for your definitive negative evaluation of Roswell 
> having been an alien contact, I fail to see any basis for your conclusion 
> other than bias. AG *
>

There have been transmissions by Arecibo. The famous one that Sagan talked 
about was a transmission to a globular cluster. Of course a globular 
cluster is a terrible place to expect life, as the stars are all PopII with 
few heavy elements. The Arecibo can collimate radiation and that reduces 
the 1/r^2 attenuation. I am not sure if it will transmit anywhere in the 
galaxy. If I recall one reason for aiming at a globular cluster is these 
are most often off the plane of the Milky Way and your signal gets out of 
the ionized "muck" quickly. 

Our ordinary radio transmissions are not going to be decipherable beyond 
about 10 light years. An observer on alpha Centuri or Tau Ceti might be 
able to pick up some stuff. The broadcast and detection of radio signals 
between collectives of intelligent life on different planets I think will 
have to be due to deliberate actions. If we receive something it will be 
intentional, and if we want to hail putative ETIs out there we have to be 
constantly sending collimated high powered radio signals. 

LC

>
>> The old 300 meter Arecibo telescope could communicate with a similar 
>>> telescope anywhere in the galaxy, and the Chinese just made a 500 meter 
>>> one. We've only been at this for a century and it's been 13.8 billion years 
>>> since the Big Bang but we have not heard  a peep from anyone. Zero zilch 
>>> nada goose egg. There must be a filter that prevents a Star Trek galaxy 
>>> from occurring, the only question is if that filter is in our past of in 
>>> our future.
>>>
>>

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Re: Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter

2018-02-04 Thread Lawrence Crowell

On Saturday, February 3, 2018 at 8:03:47 PM UTC-6, agrays...@gmail.com 
wrote:
>
>
>
> On Saturday, February 3, 2018 at 6:03:33 PM UTC-7, John Clark wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 3, 2018 at 5:43 PM, Lawrence Crowell <
>> goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>  
>>
>>> >
>>> I suspect planets with complex life above that of prokaryotic-like life 
>>> are few in number per galaxy. It is hard to know how even prokaryotic-like 
>>> life starts.
>>>
>>
>>
>> The fact that it took 2 billion years for Prokaryotes to evolve 
>> into Eukaryotas gives some support that your suspicion may be correct. And 
>> even after complex animals have evolved on a planet that doesn't mean it 
>> has a civilization. Richard Dawkins notes that flight evolved 
>> independently 4 times and the eye at least 40 times and perhaps as many as 
>> 60, but intelligence, defined as the ability to make something as complex 
>> as a radio telescope, evolved only once, and in the nearly 4 billion year 
>> history of life that ability has only existed on this planet for about a 
>> century. And yet when we use our telescopes to listen for sounds of 
>> intelligence in the cosmos we hear only an eerie silence. Why? 
>>
>
> *Because any distinguishable intelligible signal is attenuated to noise 
> when it traverses a few light years in distance. IIRC, LC once posted a 
> limit of 10 light years is sufficient for dissipation.  If so, SETI is a 
> waste of time and energy. AG*
>

An enormously powerful signal can get through this. Interstellar space has 
ionized hydrogen and this sets up a Debye length. So a fairly weak signal 
in the megawatt range that we generate in most transmissions they will only 
reach 10 or a few 10s of light years out. A gigawatt signal then reaches 
about 3 to 4 times the distance. The Debye  attentuation is exponential, so 
increasing power by 10 will roughly only double the distance. A terrawatt 
signal could then reach 100s of light years, and so forth. This is why we 
are able to receive radio signals from distant galaxies or pulsars that 
generate 10^{20} watts or more. These radio signals from another galaxy can 
travel rather unimpeded through intergalactic space and then due to their 
power make it through the interstellar ionized H^+ in the Milky Way. 
Similarly strong sources can make it through the galaxy. However, a pulsar 
emits radio waves with trillions of time more power than the entire energy 
economy of us humans. The magnetic field of a pulsar has as much energy per 
cubic meter as the sun produces in light within a few minutes.

So if ETI is say 100 light years away and they are casually emitting 
megawatt radio frequency radiation we may not be able to detect it. An ET 
that intentionally sends a collimated radio signal in the terrawatt range 
to us might be detectable within the 100s of light year range. If ETI is 
trying to listen in on us at say some 10s of light years out they might 
detect an excess of radio waves, and maybe a bit of modulation due to the 
Earth's rotation. They would not I think be able to pick out a 
transmissions of *Dallas*, or a radio broadcast of *Led Zeppelin*. 

LC

>  
>
>> As Enrico Fermi famously asked, where is everybody?   
>>
>> 
>> Maybe we're the first, after all somebody has to be, or maybe some 
>> catastrophe always happens to a civilization whenever it gets much beyond 
>> the point we're at now. 
>>
>>   John K Clark
>>  
>> 
>>
>>

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