11–20 of 97 posts
This is fascinating. It's like a more complex game of life than John connoway's. It's crazy that little creatures seem to form at such small scales easily with these parameters. It's almost like the parameters of our real universe intentionally made it difficult to form life, rather than easy as some people seem to think.
This is fascinating. It's like a more complex game of life than John connoway's. It's crazy that little creatures seem to form at such small scales easily with these parameters. It's almost like the parameters of our real universe intentionally made it difficult to form life, rather than easy as some people seem to think.
There's no reason to believe life is particularly rare in the universe either, though.
This is fascinating. It's like a more complex game of life than John connoway's. It's crazy that little creatures seem to form at such small scales easily with these parameters. It's almost like the parameters of our real universe intentionally made it difficult to form life, rather than easy as some people seem to think.
They are less creatures than molecules. Now, mind you, as some complex sets of rules approach steady state I can pretend they are far-flung stellar empires with colors ascribed to each type of system of government (and have). What is fooling you is the motion. This is sustained because the system has no conservation principles built in. You can make A-B pairs where B is attracted to A, A is repelled by B, and off the…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no reason to believe life is particularly rare in the universe either, though.
There are, in fact, reasons to believe that. Nothing definitive of course. But the fact that we haven't been absorbed by a von neumann swarm or something like it places strict limits on the prevalence of life and/or what stages that life can achieve. One would either have to belive that intelligent life is vastly less likely than non-intelligent life, or that life itself is quite rare, or that life simply hasn't been…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no reason to believe life is particularly rare in the universe either, though.
There are, in fact, reasons to believe that. Nothing definitive of course. But the fact that we haven't been absorbed by a von neumann swarm or something like it places strict limits on the prevalence of life and/or what stages that life can achieve. One would either have to belive that intelligent life is vastly less likely than non-intelligent life, or that life itself is quite rare, or that life simply hasn't been…
That seems like a valid belief. Getting to a technological stage such that a species would be detectable over the vast distances of space could indeed be quite rare. You have to also consider the temporal aspect: intelligent, technologically advanced species may have evolved several times but gone extinct before we could notice them. Do other technically advanced species exist in the universe? Probably, but it could be that at any given time there might only be about 1 in any given galaxy and the distances between galaxies are great enough that we'd never likely be able to make contact. (and ~1 per galaxy would still mean that there would be a whole lot of intelligent species out there - it's just that it would be extremely difficult to make contact with any of them)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no reason to believe life is particularly rare in the universe either, though.
There are, in fact, reasons to believe that. Nothing definitive of course. But the fact that we haven't been absorbed by a von neumann swarm or something like it places strict limits on the prevalence of life and/or what stages that life can achieve. One would either have to belive that intelligent life is vastly less likely than non-intelligent life, or that life itself is quite rare, or that life simply hasn't been…
I like to imagine there are countless planets with perfect ecosystems of living organisms where no single species dominates whole planet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are, in fact, reasons to believe that. Nothing definitive of course. But the fact that we haven't been absorbed by a von neumann swarm or something like it places strict limits on the prevalence of life and/or what stages that life can achieve. One would either have to belive that intelligent life is vastly less likely than non-intelligent life, or that life itself is quite rare, or that life simply hasn't been…
> One would either have to belive that intelligent life is vastly less likely than non-intelligent life That seems like a valid belief. Getting to a technological stage such that a species would be detectable over the vast distances of space could indeed be quite rare. You have to also consider the temporal aspect: intelligent, technologically advanced species may have evolved several times but gone extinct before we…
Its not at all clear in general. It might be true. But it also might not. It seems quite reasonable to believe that life inevitably evolves into intelligent life if given enough time. Why some life would and some life wouldn't isn't at all clear.
> advanced species may have evolved several times but gone extinct before we could notice them.
All the potential answers to the Fermi Paradox, for sure. But it would almost definitely have to be species that never got to the "expand rapidly into other solar systems" phase.
> at any given time there's only about 1
This doesn't preclude us knowing about that 1. If it got to earth at any time in the last billion years, we might have a pretty high chance of discovering it if it existed on earth for any significant legnth of time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are, in fact, reasons to believe that. Nothing definitive of course. But the fact that we haven't been absorbed by a von neumann swarm or something like it places strict limits on the prevalence of life and/or what stages that life can achieve. One would either have to belive that intelligent life is vastly less likely than non-intelligent life, or that life itself is quite rare, or that life simply hasn't been…
I honestly believe that high intelligence while short term is extremely advantageous, long term it is self-destructive. I like to imagine there are countless planets with perfect ecosystems of living organisms where no single species dominates whole planet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are, in fact, reasons to believe that. Nothing definitive of course. But the fact that we haven't been absorbed by a von neumann swarm or something like it places strict limits on the prevalence of life and/or what stages that life can achieve. One would either have to belive that intelligent life is vastly less likely than non-intelligent life, or that life itself is quite rare, or that life simply hasn't been…
I don't see not being eaten by a swarm of machines as evidence of anything - but it is interesting to me that you'd qualify all this with "or what stages that life can achieve". So simple life could be extraordinarily commonplace, and considering the context of this post...