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Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

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Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#161

Post by arethuza »

lusr wrote: post #132
freshhawk wrote: post #82

I really did not expect this much resistance on HN to a fairly classical solution to the fermi paradox. Mostly it's spun in a more positive "retreat into virtual reality" type situation but it's the same thing. We have no idea how humans will react to the ability to sate every desire and wish artifically. It's not just hyper-porn and the xbox 720, this would apply to the desire for exploration, solving hard problems,…

I too am surprised. In my mind, it has long been inevitable that - at the very least - the wealthy population of the planet will retreat into a virtual world, ala "The Matrix". It's not just the benefits of instant, unlimited sensory gratification (which are IMMENSE - real-world physical attraction and location no longer becomes an issue for finding partners, you can enjoy any activity at any time which in the past c…

"At that point, why bother exploring the universe?"

Greg Egan's novel Diaspora has significant number of people choosing to live in fully uploaded virtual environments - the problem being that you do have to start paying attention to the outside universe when it tries to kill you by destroying the hardware running your environment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_%28novel%29

Iain M Bank's Feersum Enjin covers some of the same ground:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feersum_Endjinn

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#162

Post by RyanMcGreal »

> Given simple life forms, evolution shows progressive trends toward larger bodies, brains, and social complexity.

Evolution does not progress toward increased complexity. We have increased complexity mainly due to the Drunkard's Walk effect of random mutation in a space with a hard lower limit to complexity.

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#163

Post by chris_gogreen »

"...an intelligent, exponentially-reproducing species could colonize the galaxy in just a few million years. " They could not be stuck in a self created virtual reality, an exponentially-reproducing society of aliens would be forced to move out from their home planet, and forced to send radio signals or communications. They could not have forgotten. Most likely they are just too far from us.

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#164

Post by HilbertSpace »

gizmo wrote: post #153
HilbertSpace wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possible answer: First nearly every civilization that mastered, say, radio, did it millions of years ago. Second, nearly every such civilization long ago found much better means of communications than we know about. Third, they realize that trying to communicate via radio is silly and use much better means we don't know about. Net, they are out there and communicating, but we don't hear them and they don't hear us or…

> First nearly every civilization that mastered, say, radio, did it millions of years ago So then we'd expect to receive signals from civilizations that are a few million light years away. Yet we don't see those signals. We're too young a civilization to be spotted by other life forms (as you said, they'd have to be within a 100 light years or so). But when we look at space in any direction it looks dead. Just backgr…

A point in my guess is that an old civilization won't be trying to use radio to communicate with us and will be using something better than radio we don't know about. Next, for communications over 1000 light years with just radio, there can be some issues of signal to noise ratio!

Sure, we can see a star 1000 light years away, a galaxy 1 billion light years away, and a quasar 10 billion light years away, but a signal from a planet over 1000 light years away? Besides, 1000 light years may not be far enough to cover many planets transmitting. Our galaxy is, what, 100,000 light years across? So, just for our galaxy, might want to think about distances of 50,000 light years or so. The nearest ordinary galaxy is the one in Andromeda, and that's about 1.5 million light years away.

Those are long distances for a radio signal from a planet.

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#165

Post by ufo »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #162

> Given simple life forms, evolution shows progressive trends toward larger bodies, brains, and social complexity. Evolution does not progress toward increased complexity. We have increased complexity mainly due to the Drunkard's Walk effect of random mutation in a space with a hard lower limit to complexity.

Yes, its not hard to find cases where evolution let to less complex forms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunicate

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#166

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

exratione wrote: post #19

A terrible article. So let's say something more interesting. There are several important ideas intertwined together around the Fermi Paradox: 1) Fermi Paradox Why haven't we seen any evidence in the observable universe of megascale activities and exponential growth comparable to those that we know that our descendants will be capable of, and fairly soon? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox 2) The Outer Bounds…

Are you calling it a "terrible article" because the author talks about other things than you would have, or because it's not rigorous? The first is not much of a criticism, and the second is rife in your comment.

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#167

Post by arctangent »

arethuza wrote: post #161
lusr wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too am surprised. In my mind, it has long been inevitable that - at the very least - the wealthy population of the planet will retreat into a virtual world, ala "The Matrix". It's not just the benefits of instant, unlimited sensory gratification (which are IMMENSE - real-world physical attraction and location no longer becomes an issue for finding partners, you can enjoy any activity at any time which in the past c…

"At that point, why bother exploring the universe?" Greg Egan's novel Diaspora has significant number of people choosing to live in fully uploaded virtual environments - the problem being that you do have to start paying attention to the outside universe when it tries to kill you by destroying the hardware running your environment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_%28novel%29 Iain M Bank's Feersum Enjin covers s…

Iain M Banks also has the similar concept of "subliming" in several novels:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sublimed

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#168

Post by majmun »

azernik wrote: post #107

I'm kind of peeved at how (in talking about how the human economy has become so focused on entertainment as opposed to "real" economic activity) the author cites "IBM, Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Matsushita, Samsung, Micron Technology, Intel, Hitachi, Toshiba and Fujitsu" as companies that are pushing out "fake", "virtual" goods that do not contribute to human material success, and then lists Victoria's Secret as a compa…

and you forgot to mention most important, computer simulations witch are virtual but contributes to real. if you are going to send colonization probe to few ly distant planet you are have to have some badass simulation first.

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#169

Post by keenerd »

sigmaxipi wrote: post #67
exratione wrote: post #19

A terrible article. So let's say something more interesting. There are several important ideas intertwined together around the Fermi Paradox: 1) Fermi Paradox Why haven't we seen any evidence in the observable universe of megascale activities and exponential growth comparable to those that we know that our descendants will be capable of, and fairly soon? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox 2) The Outer Bounds…

Regarding #2, there is also the possibility that if a civilization converted its light cone into computronium, we would not notice. Maybe because they used exotic matter as a substrate and that matter did not strongly interact with the rest of the universe. Or maybe they figured out how to "escape" this universe by creating a computer that can perform and infinite amount of computation without affecting its surroundi…

> the main plot involves ... simulated beings ... bootstrapped on a normal computer.

You might want to re-read that short story. It involved real people and was bootstrapped by very rare real people.

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#170

Post by keenerd »

arctangent wrote: post #167
arethuza wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"At that point, why bother exploring the universe?" Greg Egan's novel Diaspora has significant number of people choosing to live in fully uploaded virtual environments - the problem being that you do have to start paying attention to the outside universe when it tries to kill you by destroying the hardware running your environment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_%28novel%29 Iain M Bank's Feersum Enjin covers s…

Iain M Banks also has the similar concept of "subliming" in several novels: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sublimed

And don't forget about his most recent book, Surface Detail, that is entirely about simulated realities for the dead.
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