From: Osher Doctorow (osher@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Sat Jun 29 2002 - 12:33:44 MDT
From: Osher Doctorow osher@ix.netcom.com, Sat. June 29, 2002 11:34AM
My own paper in that symposium is as good as Smart's in my opinion, and I
especially like its clarity, although some people prefer less clarity.
Your idea about the universe being a simulation run from outside has come up
roughly similarly in science fiction, and it certainly is in the tradition
of non-mainstream and open-minded thinking. I supported the *undiscovered
technology* idea in my paper more or less. You might give it a second
read.
Osher Doctorow
----- Original Message -----
From: "Giu1i0 Pri5c0" <g2002@prisco.info>
To: <wta-talk@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 27, 2002 11:30 AM
Subject: Practical Cosmology: Fermi Paradox and Transcension
> If our best conceptual models of the Universe predicts that it is full
with intelligent life, where are they and why we have not seen them yet?
This is the Fermi paradox and the paper by John Smart in the Practical
Cosmology Symposium of the Journal of evolution and Technology)
(http://www.transhumanist.com/) proposes an interesting solution: short
after a civilization develops the technology to contact other civilizations
and/or expand outwards, it also develops the technology to Transcend:
leaving space-time and moving to a more attractive environment, and does so.
This scenario has been outlined for example by Greg Egan in Diaspora (the
Transmuters).
> We can think of a variant (or another formulation) of the same idea: it is
more and more frequent to hear suggestions that perhaps our physical
universe is a simulation run from "outside". Maybe at some point a
civilization develops te technology to escape from the simulation into a
more interesting environment.
> Despite the interest of this argument I still prefer two other
explanations of the Fermi paradox: that we are not able to tune on the
galactic communication network because it is based on physics not yet
understood, and that superaliens may already be here unseen, maybe encoded
in nanomachines. And, of course, there are other possible explanations: that
nobody is out there, or that we are the first to develop our current
technology level.
>
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