From: Rob Harris Cen-IT (Rob.Harris@bournemouth.gov.uk)
Date: Mon Jul 12 1999 - 06:11:22 MDT
> The weakest part of this theory is the assumption that although the
> universe is full of SIs they are not here in the solar system. It seems
> very implausible that they would have left our solar system untouched for
> all time.
>
Intelligent barnacles sat on a rock on some remote coastline might say the
same ("why haven't SI's (humans) altered our rock?)
Why the hell would we ? Even if there was some reason why we might want to
change the configuration of pieces of rock, we surely wouldn't get to EVERY
piece of rock, and considering the vast number of solar systems in this
universe alone, this makes the rock on earth analogy a massive probability
in comparison. Also, what makes you think that any changes would be
detectable by humans - we might even detect some "artificial" properties,
but as you point out, they can't be distinguished from untouched systems
reliably as we don't have enough data. So we just create theories that
either involve SI's or not, that best fit the data we have. Ultimately,
these human theories will ALL turn out to be slightly or totally
innaccurate, we'll find out in the future, when we have sufficient
understanding to say for definite. Wouldn't you agree?
Rob.
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