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What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

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71–80 of 168 posts

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#71
post #55

By this time in the future I hope we have worked out wormholes.

Highly unlikely. Unless wormholes are setup with strange restrictive configurations they allow sending messages back in time, without needing any new physics. Once you have a wormhole, if you use gravity to accelerate one of the ends away then bring it back near the other end, they will have a time difference, due to general relativity. If you bring them close enough, that time difference will be greater than it take…

Doesn’t that just put bounds on which wormholes are possible, rather than proving no wormhole is possible?

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#72
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like entropy will halt in that time. Worrying about efficiency of each individual calculation is a little ridiculous when you are wasting billions of years for the ambient temperature to drop.

Even in a trillion years, a star won't burn up so much of its energy that less than 10^-30 of it remains. So the wait is worth it.

I'd argue the opposite: it only takes one non-hibernating species out to dominate and it will hunt down every sleeping civilizations data center and annihilate them - so that they remain the most dominant species. Such a "hibernation data center" must thus be the most well guarded / hidden place in the galaxy...

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#73

This goes together nicely with the Aestivation Hypothesis ( https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.03394 ). If a civilisation puts itself on hold for a trillion years, just waiting around doing nothing, then when it wakes up the universe is much colder and it can do computations 10^30 times more efficiently. If the civilization consists of minds running on computers then they've increased their own lifespans by the same factor.

You might enjoy "The Last Question" by Issac Asimov:

http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#74
I started reading this and then thought "what a waste of time". This pertains in no way to my life or the life of anyone for the foreseeable future. I read it just after the one about taking pictures preventing people from experiencing things and remembering them. Putting these together reminded me that reading some of these things on HN is preventing me from living. And with that, I'm gonna close this laptop and go do something rather than worry what people a trillion years hence will be doing.

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in a trillion years, a star won't burn up so much of its energy that less than 10^-30 of it remains. So the wait is worth it.

I'd argue the opposite: it only takes one non-hibernating species out to dominate and it will hunt down every sleeping civilizations data center and annihilate them - so that they remain the most dominant species. Such a "hibernation data center" must thus be the most well guarded / hidden place in the galaxy...

This is certainly a possibility. It's also possible that one civilisation will attain dominance and then aestivate. It's also possible that there are no other civilisations within range of us (if there are other aggressive civilisations nearby why haven't they have wiped us out already?).

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#76
post #7

Isaac Arthur made a compendium called Civilizations at the End of Time [1] that goes into this territory. This guy, in my opinion, goes above and beyond even your typical hard scifi. Can't recommend highly enough. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p58yFf7aZsM&list=PLIIOUpOge0...

I just gave this a go. It's amazing, thank you for putting it on my radar.

At first his speech impediment makes it harder to follow, but 5 minutes in you're used to it and you're just riveted by the content and the clear communication style.

This is quality stuff.

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in a trillion years, a star won't burn up so much of its energy that less than 10^-30 of it remains. So the wait is worth it.

I'd argue the opposite: it only takes one non-hibernating species out to dominate and it will hunt down every sleeping civilizations data center and annihilate them - so that they remain the most dominant species. Such a "hibernation data center" must thus be the most well guarded / hidden place in the galaxy...

It's possible that there's a physical principle by which you can aestivate without being accessibly annihilable.

Some principle like "the only way to annihilate something in aestivating space is to annihilate the entire universe it's aestivating in."

Guess we won't know for a while.

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#78

I started reading this and then thought "what a waste of time". This pertains in no way to my life or the life of anyone for the foreseeable future. I read it just after the one about taking pictures preventing people from experiencing things and remembering them. Putting these together reminded me that reading some of these things on HN is preventing me from living. And with that, I'm gonna close this laptop and go…

The people who actually take humanity to the stars (if it happens) will likely be motivated, in part at least, by this and other grand, cosmic ideas. I personally find it motivating and invigorating in a certain sense.

But, of course, if it is bumming you out, then definitely go do something else :)

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#79
post #7

Isaac Arthur made a compendium called Civilizations at the End of Time [1] that goes into this territory. This guy, in my opinion, goes above and beyond even your typical hard scifi. Can't recommend highly enough. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p58yFf7aZsM&list=PLIIOUpOge0...

I just gave this a go. It's amazing, thank you for putting it on my radar. At first his speech impediment makes it harder to follow, but 5 minutes in you're used to it and you're just riveted by the content and the clear communication style. This is quality stuff.

I guess it’s more fun to dream about the world millions of years in the future, but wouldn’t we gain so much more if we spent all of our energy trying to optimize acquiring knowing more rapidly in the next few decades?

For example, supply 9 billion humans with clean, renewable energy by 2050. Accelerate cures for cancers, heart disease, malaria, etc. Large colony on Mars within 20 years, ...

Re: What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now

#80
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just gave this a go. It's amazing, thank you for putting it on my radar. At first his speech impediment makes it harder to follow, but 5 minutes in you're used to it and you're just riveted by the content and the clear communication style. This is quality stuff.

I guess it’s more fun to dream about the world millions of years in the future, but wouldn’t we gain so much more if we spent all of our energy trying to optimize acquiring knowing more rapidly in the next few decades? For example, supply 9 billion humans with clean, renewable energy by 2050. Accelerate cures for cancers, heart disease, malaria, etc. Large colony on Mars within 20 years, ...

You are under the assumption that we aren't already trying to doing all these things?
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