From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Mon Jul 17 2000 - 09:31:54 MDT
On Mon, 17 Jul 2000, CYMM wrote:
> CYMM SAYS: Anything to explain Fermi's paradox.
I'm pretty sure it gets explained by the costs exceeding the benefits.
You have to sacrifice a huge amount (imagine the rate of change
post-singularity) to go off and colonize another star system.
It probably effectively exiles you from the original stellar
economy (whatever that looks like). Sure, you can be a hermit,
go off and live quietly in the forrest, but you don't run around
building megacities in the forrest because you know that has
already been done and the people who have done it are way
ahead of you on the curve. Robin might disagree with this however.
One way to look at it would be -- would the colonists have left
England if they *knew* all they would ever be able to achieve
would be a pale reflection of whatever England would come to be?
>
> But Robert, Big Ideas (...and that's ...big!) need big science.... even
> though it's almost all we have to work with; are you sure 20th Century
> science paints a good enough picture of the world to extrapolate this kind
> of stuff??
The observations from the gravitational microlensing observations
estimate 200 billion thingys with an average mass of ~0.3 M_sun.
Those would not, as the article I pointed out by Katherine Freese,
fit any current theory.
The scientists are clearly at a loss. All I've proposed is that
many technological civilization can evolve to the limits of physics.
Because those limits are reached in relatively uniform environments
(such as interstellar space), the forms those civilizations take are
relatively similar (due to convergent evolution). Unless the laws
of physics are radically different from those we currently know,
I think current science is sufficient to make the preductions I've
made. Mind you, I don't say I've found the ultimate end-point
of evolution, but simply a plateau that cannot be exceeded unless
the engineering of subatomic matter is feasible.
(Its also worth noting that these ideas are by and large due to
Anders, Perry, Keith, and other people who have been on the list
at various times. All I've done is put some flesh on the bones.)
> Especially when your life is hanging by a thread (...a VERY finite maximal
> lifespan)??
Ah, but to "want" the life, it should probably be fun, and the most
fun I get now-a-days is poking scientists in the side and saying
"Hey, *waaaake up*, why don't you look at this idea...", and then
watching them run screaming into the night.
This is actually part of a longer term agenda of mine. I want
to go to school off and on over many many years, learn many
things but never "earn" a degree. Hopefully someplace along
the way I come up with something clever enough in the long
run that somebody simply hands me an honorary degree.
Robert
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