191–200 of 299 posts
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We study ants too... Go to the ant, thou sluggard; Consider her ways, and be wise
99.99% of ant colonies are not been studied. And for 0.01% we do study, we don't care of them seeing us. > Consider her ways, and be wise There is no philosophy to extract from ant society. Pretty dystopian, totalitarian, and despotic.
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It's a very interesting point that I hadn't noticed before. Of course, this relies on assuming (believing?) the universe is a giant simulation run on a computer with limited resources. I did not get your last sentence though. Could you elaborate?
Rules of the universe appear to us relatively simple. But the question of numerical stability is not solved specially for later times. In physics it is natural to start from an initial state and integrate through time, starting from initial time and evolving by time-stepping. Physics helps but this doesn't prevent the emergence of numerical instabilities like a big-computer being built. So if you were running a unive…
That's a good point, and I've also always wondered how fine-tuned those constants are. One problem though, is that changing the initial parameters would most likely have chaotic effects as the system (the whole universe) seems unstable and fragile. For example, it would be extremely difficult to fine-tune the parameters such that billions of years later at this moment, I don't write this comment.
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We might as well be among the first ones. I find the idea quite fascinating, it kind of puts the Earth back into the center and makes us special in a way.
If we are the first, then its likely the 'great filter' is behind us. And it means we will never find life that isn't related to us.
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Because discoveries are useful. If the collective reason for your species' existence is writing birdsong, you're going to want agriculture to ensure people can eat, medicine to prevent them from dying, and electricity to make rad synthetic birdsong dubstep remixes. Tech solves problems, and everyone has problems. Doesn't mean you need to leave the solar system though.
How is this hypothetical species going to discover any medicine if they spend all their time writing birdsongs? Any individual with a slightly lower proclivity to write birdsongs will be evicted from the gene pool with great prejudice, so there is no chance that anyone will ever be born with the desire to spend a whole hour thinking about something else. Again, if this seems unrealistic, just imagine humanity with th…
Individuals with a desire to improve their survivability being evicted from the gene pool is the opposite of how natural selection works. Humans would still invent things even if painting gave everyone erotic pleasure.
There are also aspects that should be considered in my opinion 1°/ individual intelligence and technological innovation is not necessary an ultimate achivement that enables competitive advantage : human beings may be individually smart (compared to some other species) yet the collective intelligence of humanity is rather poor (which translates to the unability to solve collective problems such as sustainable manageme…
> even if some other intelligent species would exist, maybe they would not have the same need to communicate, the same need or will to travel, the same need or will to innovate, etc. This is true. But even if just a small fraction of civilizations engaged in interstellar expansion, they'd quickly subsume the galaxy on geological timescales. Darwin applies just as much across the stars as it does in a tide pool. As lo…
Why benevolently? Why not maliciously?
> Fermi’s paradox is pretentious in that it assumes we humans have some sort of cosmic significance. Our significance as a species is actually irrelevant to the question of why we might or might not be visited. Even if we turn out to be somehow extraordinary, the aliens would have to visit first before they could know that.
Let x = Extraterrestrials
Let y = want to visit us
x might y = x might y or x might not y
True = True or False
Boolean logic suggests this statement is indeed True.
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How is this hypothetical species going to discover any medicine if they spend all their time writing birdsongs? Any individual with a slightly lower proclivity to write birdsongs will be evicted from the gene pool with great prejudice, so there is no chance that anyone will ever be born with the desire to spend a whole hour thinking about something else. Again, if this seems unrealistic, just imagine humanity with th…
Because at some point you run out of food, and if you write birdsong in spite of that you just die out. It may be possible but its not much an effective long term strategy. Too stupid to survive doesn't earn a lot of marks towards being an intelligent species. Individuals with a desire to improve their survivability being evicted from the gene pool is the opposite of how natural selection works. Humans would still in…