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Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

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Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#61

Post by breatheoften »

r00fus wrote: post #37
mustacheemperor wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read this, and about ideas like the Von Neumann probe[0] all the time, and it really fills my head with concrete to try and reconcile those ideas with the fact that we haven't found any signs of extraterrestrial life yet. If it's so feasible in a "short" time relative to the age of the universe, where are all the probes? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft#Vo...

A great book that explores this topic (and is pretty funny) is "We are Legion, We are Bob" [1]. Well that and Spin [2], which probably addresses your point - maybe they're out there and they're already messing with us? Ultimately, whenever I think about Fermi's Paradox, I am reminded of xkcd [3]. Maybe we just can't tell they're right in front of us. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Are-Legion-Bob-Bobiverse-Book-ebook/d...…

The Three Body Problem trilogy (Cixin Liu) also proposes a fascinating (dark) explanation

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#62

Post by avar »

rayalez wrote: post #48
metaprinter wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...so that means firing off a kilogram (or so) of self-replicating molecular nanotechnology which can build the infrastructure you'd want to live in (compute on) at the destination." i just got a chill thinking we are living that exact thing in this simulation O_O

My best argument against living in simulation is similar to the argument against the intlelligent design or solipsism - if you could simulate anytning, why would you simulate this ? So many things in universe make sense if they have happened by accident, but make no sense to include in an intentionally created simulation. If I would have the power and intelligence to create/simulate a universe, there's no way in hell…

An argument from personal incredulity is still a logical fallacy. It's easy to see why this line of reasoning doesn't make sense.

If we're living in a simulation the thing most likely to running the simulation is ourselves, in the future.

It's easy to see why that would be valuable, e.g. this could be a simulation to see what happens if a war broke out in 1914, and all the downstream effects on that happening.

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#63

Post by tomelders »

Well this article kills my pet theory, but I'll inflict it on the world anyway because this sort of stuff is fun to think about.

Before I go on, a couple of key points.

Also, spoilers ahead.

1. We don't see the space craft arrive. 2. Their choice of locations on Earth goes unexplained. 3. We don't actually see them leave. They just disappear.

I posit that the "aliens" aren't actually from "outer space". They're higher dimensional beings that exist in our 3D space (or 4D if you count time), but we simply cant perceive them in the same way a two dimensional being would not be able to perceive anything in the third dimension.

The "ships" aren't ships. They're something the "aliens" have created to project themselves into a 3D dimensional space so that we can perceive them. They're basically windows. When Amy Adams' character goes behind the "window", she can do this because her brain has acquired the capacity to perceive the higher dimension, and she no longer needs the window.

Their locations on Earth may mean nothing to us, but they are convenient places for them as they perceive the universe. A 2D being would not be able to fathom the reason 3D being makes marks on a 2d plane unless they could perceive the 2D plane form a 3D perspective.

Anyway, that was my theory. This article blows pretty much destroys it, but I like it anyway.

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#64

Post by TeMPOraL »

jeff_petersen wrote: post #47
ansible wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, at some point the local system will run out of unclaimed matter and energy (Dyson swarm consuming all output of the local sun, built using all available matter in the system). So if you want to expand, you will have to leave. There would also be some astronomical phenomenon that aren't easily reproducible locally, so it might be useful to travel to them instead.

That is a fair point. Exploration for resources (including non-consumables like hard-to-reproduce phenomena) certainly would still make sense

I wonder if such software civilization couldn't automate the exploration process away, so that the beings themselves don't care about it day to day. From the outside perspective, the whole thing will look like a weird blob of something, expanding in the direction of usable resources at speeds close to c. And beings inside may not even be aware they're consuming some "real world" around them.

I guess I've just sketched a sci-fi story. I wonder if someone wrote it already.

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#65

Post by TeMPOraL »

ansible wrote: post #46
avar wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no need to do faster than light, or even all that fast. The diameter of the Milky Way is at most 200k light years, with technology we could develop today we could populate the entirety of it with generation ships in the span of less than 100 million years, which isn't all that big in the scale of the universe.

Software entities may experience reality a million times faster than we do now. Do you want to wait a quadrillion years to finish colonizing the galaxy? That is a really long time. Also, if you okay more StarCraft, you won't be so relaxed about claiming unoccupied resources.

> Also, if you okay more StarCraft, you won't be so relaxed about claiming unoccupied resources.

As long as you build your army fast enough to cover them, there's no problem, and you want to be the first to claim those resources.

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#66

Post by ceejay »

avar wrote: post #62
rayalez wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My best argument against living in simulation is similar to the argument against the intlelligent design or solipsism - if you could simulate anytning, why would you simulate this ? So many things in universe make sense if they have happened by accident, but make no sense to include in an intentionally created simulation. If I would have the power and intelligence to create/simulate a universe, there's no way in hell…

An argument from personal incredulity is still a logical fallacy. It's easy to see why this line of reasoning doesn't make sense. If we're living in a simulation the thing most likely to running the simulation is ourselves, in the future. It's easy to see why that would be valuable, e.g. this could be a simulation to see what happens if a war broke out in 1914, and all the downstream effects on that happening.

I think simulations will be used to help people live more productive / happy lives in the future. Imagine having many "lives" worth of experience, perhaps from many different periods throughout history, and you're still only 16 years old.

Not just the "matrix" flavor where the goal is to learn specific skills. I'm talking about being born, growing old, and dying in a simulation many times in a matter of hours? / days? / weeks? and being able to recall those experiences / decisions and their rewards and/or consequences once you're back to living your "real" life.

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#67

Post by TeMPOraL »

drhayes9 wrote: post #20
ansible wrote: post #15

The problem with interstellar travel in general is that it is so expensive, in terms of energy usage. I speculate that even for Kardashev type 3 civilizations, shipping matter around will be impractical. The future is software. For entities that live purely as software, and aren't so picky as us meatbags are about continuity of consciousness, "traveling" from place to place by sending data is the most practical metho…

I just recently learned the term "Bracewell probe" for this kind of device: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracewell_probe Instead of sending radio signals or etching words or pictures in matter, you send a software agent that is reasonably intelligent in a hardware device into space seeking ETIs. The intelligence aboard the probe can have a conversation with the ETIs and communicate back to home the results.

Or you can just send a freezed brain of a volunteer, hoping that alien civilization will be advanced enough to give it means of communication.

(Yes, there was a book with exactly such a plot point.)

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#68

Post by trailynx »

ceejay wrote: post #66
avar wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An argument from personal incredulity is still a logical fallacy. It's easy to see why this line of reasoning doesn't make sense. If we're living in a simulation the thing most likely to running the simulation is ourselves, in the future. It's easy to see why that would be valuable, e.g. this could be a simulation to see what happens if a war broke out in 1914, and all the downstream effects on that happening.

I think simulations will be used to help people live more productive / happy lives in the future. Imagine having many "lives" worth of experience, perhaps from many different periods throughout history, and you're still only 16 years old. Not just the "matrix" flavor where the goal is to learn specific skills. I'm talking about being born, growing old, and dying in a simulation many times in a matter of hours? / days…

do you know the series "Rick and Morty"? reminds me exactly of this part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szzVlQ653as

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#69

Post by ansible »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #65
ansible wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software entities may experience reality a million times faster than we do now. Do you want to wait a quadrillion years to finish colonizing the galaxy? That is a really long time. Also, if you okay more StarCraft, you won't be so relaxed about claiming unoccupied resources.

> Also, if you okay more StarCraft, you won't be so relaxed about claiming unoccupied resources. As long as you build your army fast enough to cover them, there's no problem, and you want to be the first to claim those resources.

Yes. That sentence you quoted makes more sense when you replace 'okay' with 'play'.

I do wonder why we exist at all. In that, why hasn't our solar system been consumed by someone else's resource collection process yet.

Maybe we are very lucky. Maybe intelligent life doesn't arise that often. Or maybe it typically self destructs by the time it gets to this point.

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#70

Post by krallja »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #64
jeff_petersen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a fair point. Exploration for resources (including non-consumables like hard-to-reproduce phenomena) certainly would still make sense

I wonder if such software civilization couldn't automate the exploration process away, so that the beings themselves don't care about it day to day. From the outside perspective, the whole thing will look like a weird blob of something, expanding in the direction of usable resources at speeds close to c. And beings inside may not even be aware they're consuming some "real world" around them. I guess I've just sketche…

_Accelerando_ by Charles Stross: one of the stories is about a civilization that grew so much in complexity that it couldn't afford the physical cost to leave its system, but its star was being consumed so it couldn't afford to stay either.
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