From: Matt Mahoney (matmahoney@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Nov 02 2007 - 13:10:19 MDT
For intelligence that thinks on our time scale or faster, the speed of light
is a barrier to intergalactic travel. There may be intelligences that think
on much slower time scales, but then communication would be a barrier. They
may see us, but we can't see them because they communicate at the rate of one
bit per millennium.
There could also be many great barriers. We don't know. Invoking the
anthropic principle, the universe is big enough so that you only need a 1 in
10^20 chance that a planet would evolve intelligent life to explain our
presence.
--- Gissur Þórhallsson <gzzzur@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi sl4.
>
> (Short self-deprecating 1st post intro: My name is Gissur and I'm writing
> from Iceland, I've been lurking for a while, but I thought I'd finally
> contribute (even if it's just a glorified link).)
>
> Well - seeing as how point number 5 is beyond the singularity - we're pretty
> free to speculate.
>
> Robin Hanson tackles this point from a slightly different perspective in his
> paper; The Great Filter - Are We Almost Past
> It?<http://hanson.gmu.edu/greatfilter.html>.
> He argues that the evolution of mankind consists of numerous discreet steps
> which he describes a "best-guess evolutionary path to an explosion which
> leads to visible colonization of most of the visible universe". He then goes
> on to discuss that each of these steps could constitute The Great Filter, an
> obstacle so great, that evolution has yet to tackle it, thus explaining the
> Great Silence.
>
> This of course raises the Very Important Question: Are we past the Great
> Filter? Because if we aren't we'd better look out.
>
> This also raises the question whether an AGI would be as interested in
> Extraterrestrials as we humans seem to be, because if I we CAN find reasons
> for it NOT to be, we might have found a plausible way to sidestep the whole
> Great Filter/Great Silence issue - namely, that once an AGI reaches a
> certain level of processing power (however this power comes to be) it
> doesn't really need to go anywhere.
>
> Assuming an AGI is primarily an infovore, I'd think that it would be
> reasonable to say that it would want to know everything it can know, before
> risking interstellar exploration, and given how we like to think the laws of
> physics work the same way everywhere in the universe, it could probably find
> a lot out just by staying. Maybe it'd need to build a dyson sphere, maybe
> not. Maybe it would find some source of energy unknown to us, anyway - what
> I'm basically saying is that the constant of colonization, which we ascribe
> to all life, need not apply to an AGI, since a lot of the principles which
> drive OUR exploration don't necessarily apply (namely competition and
> scarcity of resources).
>
> I'm sorry if this has all been covered before, and I also apologize if I'm
> raving.
>
> Gissur
>
>
>
> On 11/2/07, Matt Mahoney < matmahoney@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > 1. Self replicating RNA, about 3 billion years ago. Single strand RNA can
> >
> > fold itself into complex shapes. Sexual reproduction might have occurred
> > in
> > the form of combining pieces of molecules to make new ones.
> >
> > 2. DNA based life, separating data from function (protein). Major
> > innovations
> > include error correction (the double strand provides redundancy), mRNA
> > amplification of protein synthesis, and gene regulation leading to
> > multicellular organisms with adaptive subsystems such as the immune system
> > and
> > nervous system about a billion years ago.
> >
> > 3. Language, maybe 50,000 to 10,000 years ago, leading to memetic
> > evolution
> > (cultural rules favoring reproduction), collective intelligence and
> > accumulation of written knowledge and technology.
> >
> > 4. Self replicating intelligent machines, maybe later this century.
> >
> > 5. What? I have no idea, but history suggests it will happen very
> > quickly.
> >
> >
> > -- Matt Mahoney, matmahoney@yahoo.com
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Gissur
>
-- Matt Mahoney, matmahoney@yahoo.com
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