From: Robin Hanson (rhanson@gmu.edu)
Date: Mon Oct 30 2000 - 09:08:53 MST
Jeff Davis wrote:
> >I continue to be disappointed that those who advocate this galactic
> >civilization view do not even address the biggest puzzles it presents:
>
>Perhaps there are many civilizations, but few individuals, so, they simply
>don't need to use it all. Perhaps, like humans, as they get more advanced
>materially, they reproduce less. Or perhaps, as they become more
>advanced, they cease to be biological and simply disable/dispose of
>the biological compulsion to reproduce.
>perhaps they in fact do intercept the energy, and what we see is what
>remains,
>unused for reasons other than inability, ... Perhaps transcendent
>intelligence ... go 'elsewhere', ... possible, if not likely, that
>intelligence may be able to modify relentless Darwinism, perhaps by creating
>a Darwinism of memes. ... galactic conservationist ethic. ...
>jupiter/matrioshka brain intelligence can be achieved with much
>less resource conversion than we imagine, ... I get amused when people
>get convinced and insistent and demand sturdy regimens of falsification.
I won't say your answers are impossible, though they don't seem satisfactory
to me. My main point was that as a matter of principle one should acknowledge
the main problems with any theory one advocates.
Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
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