From: Avatar Polymorph (avatarpolymorph@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Sep 15 2002 - 22:07:26 MDT
Eugen Leitle: wrote in response to my statement "Because life started on
Earth as soon as it could..."
This statement is basically invalid due to anthropic effect. You're the
(currently) end result of that process. If you exist clearly your
predecessors did exist. It's all backwards entangled in the bias.
Avatar Polymorph: True. But my points relates not to life starting here and
us being here to comment on it but the timing of life starting. If life
started later - after general conditions became appropriate - then the
chemical probabilities of DNA formation etc. would be lower, as argued by
many, and we COULD be the only occurence in the universe - at least by some
people's calculations. But if it starts as soon as the general conditions
start, then the probability of it existing elsewhere where general
conditions have been present for billions of years before they were on
Earth increases. A stronger counter argument would have to revolve around
the effects of the Earth-Moon collision/re-formation right at the start
including its effects on the core and the magnetosphere and therefore
radiation and atmosphere (and also the tides). However, this argument
doesn't convince me in regards to unicellular life.
In regards to my statement "There is post-Singularity life several billion
years old throughout this universe." Eugene wrote:
Whoa there. If life is frequent, it doesn't mean higher life is
frequent, and it doesn't mean that sentient life is frequent. Pretty soon
we'll be able to map out Earth-like planets in our backyard, and
relatively soon after obtain their spectra (using very large spaceborne
instruments). If any of them shows up we've got planetary chemistry out of
equilibrium only then we can start building probabilistic models.
Avatar Polymorph: Sorry. As many have said, once life is established a
Singularity is inevitable. Unless you have a supernova right next door early
on. You have to disbelieve Darwin to think otherwise. As far as probabilites
are concerned, many think you can assess them. For example:
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2001ESP/finalprogram/abstract_7981.htm
I am not suggesting all "Earth-like" planets have life. I estimate two
thirds of those with life are are post-Singularity. Bodylocked multicellular
life only exists for a few hundred million years. Pre-Singularity nanotech
civilizations sending out signals only exist for a decade or less and this
is what you are relying on when looking for e-m radio signatures. Check out
the literature on strength of signals to understand how hard it is to detect
television broadcast etc. from a distance.
[(1) Detection of broadband signals from Earth such as AM radio, FM
radio, and television picture and sound would be extremely
difficult even at a fraction of a light-year distant from the
Sun. For example, a TV picture having 5 MHz of bandwidth and 5
MWatts of power could not be detected beyond the solar system
even with a radio telescope with 100 times the sensitivity of the
305 meter diameter Arecibo telescope.
(2) Detection of narrowband signals is more resonable out to
thousands of light-years distance from the Sun depending on the
transmitter's transmitting power and the receiving antenna size.
(3) Instruments such as the Arecibo radio telescope could detect
narrowband signals originating thousands of light-years from the
Sun.
(4) A well-designed 12 ft diameter amateur radio telescope could
detect narrowband signals from 1 to 100 light-years distance
assuming the transmitting power of the transmitter is in the
terawatt range.
--- It should be apparent then from these results that the detection of AM radio, FM radio, or TV pictures much beyond the orbit of Pluto will be extremely difficult even for an Arecibo-like 305 meter diameter radio telescope! Even a 3000 meter diameter radio telescope could not detect the "I Love Lucy" TV show (re-runs) at a distance of 0.01 Light-Years! It is only the narrowband high intensity emissions from Earth (narrowband radar generally) that will be detectable at significant ranges (greater than 1 LY). Perhaps they'll show up very much like the narrowband, short duration, and non-repeating, signals observed by our SETI telescopes. Perhaps we should document all these "non-repeating" detections very carefully to see if any long term spatial detection patterns show up. from- http://www.faqs.org/faqs/astronomy/faq/part6/section-12.html] Avatar Polymorph wrote: The only reason it does not intervene now, since it is more ethical than us Eugene wrote: The only reason God doesn't intervene now is because his ways are inscrutable for us mere mortals. Sounds familiar? Avatar Polymorph replies: no, not inscrutable, only hard to understand from our narrow perspective of the last 2-3 million years. And from the pre-Tiplerian (or neo-Tiplerian in my case) perspective. From the post-Sing. perspective it is understandable. Childbirth is a difficult process. Avatar Polymorph writes on quantum splitting/repair a la Tipler and Eugene replies: You mean not only is there a God, but there are souls, too. Halleluja! You Might Have Been Saved Already! Avatar Polymorph: Well, neither Tipler nor myself believe in souls. Only neurological structures and the material world. Nor do either of us believe in God (at least I don't think Tipler does, as far as I can tell from his works). And being saved already is precisely my opinion. Tipler posits our world as being the only one in the universe and therefore salvation in his view awaits his Omega Point. Eugene writes on a multiverse and ABSENCE IS A CLUE TOO: My god, you're right! Because infinitely more things are absent than present it means we're buried under a tsunami of CLUE. Somebody got a surfboard? Avatar Polymorph: Hey, I said it was hard to believe! But I didn't say it was every non-event, just the nanoprobes and Dyson stuff etc. It's the hardest thing of all to comprehend. Guess we'll all find out soon enough anyhows. After all this is over (at least locally) it's worth bearing in mind that at least two things have very large numbers of possibilities, protein structures and social structures! Or even at the risk of sounding satirical, if you have one lover a decade it's going to take a while to get through the population of a current continent's worth (even without the possibility of resetting yourself and your memory). And yes, I know, as a Power you'll be above all that, with vastly higher abilities (which can certainly be true, within rules of consent and choice). === Avatar Polymorph _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
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