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Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

paultyma.blogspot.com

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Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#71

Post by danielweber »

asdfadfs wrote: post #18
codex wrote: post #3

This article seems to gloss over the hypothesis that aliens evolved under evolutionary pressure, and are thus likely to want to reproduce and expand. So no matter how advanced they may become technologically, they might still want our resources and our planet, simply because they're reproducing themselves at an exponential rate--especially if they've solved the immortality problem, which is likely. Even with advanced…

>>This article seems to gloss over the hypothesis that aliens evolved under evolutionary pressure, and are thus likely to want to reproduce and expand. Remember though that we've already seen that people in rich nations are not driven to reproduce and expand like bunnies. Is there some evolutionary pressure on you that drives you fuck woman and have children with them? Is the impulse so strong that you cannot help yo…

> people in rich nations are not driven to reproduce

It may be true for many, even most. But you would need to expand it to all. Otherwise those who do want to reproduce and spread will continue to do it.

Also, we may be in a lull. There may be some gene that either makes people not want to reproduce, or makes people really want to reproduce. That gene is about to experience a whole boatload of selective pressure.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#72

Post by danielweber »

iamthepieman wrote: post #48

Most of the comments here make an assumption that aliens would have similar motivations as ourselves. Is there a chance that another intelligent lifeform would share ANY mental or emotional similarities with us? This assumes that they even have mental or emotional capabilities in the first place. An alien intelligence could express itself collectively like an advanced ant colony or they could communicate in ways so d…

I have no problem believing that, if there is alien life, that many of them are quite different.

I do have a problem believing that there is lots of alien life and all of them will come to this guy's "it makes sense to me so it must make sense to advanced aliens" conclusions to say home.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#73

Post by apalmer »

ebbv wrote: post #38
asdfadfs wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>There are people who are interested in the contents of those ponds, and they already have been studied. But has every single pond been studied no matter its size. Do people rush to study a new discovered pond 5 meters in diameter? Is it that novel that people will rush to it? No, because there are millions of ponds just like it. That is who we are, a little pond maybe 1 meter in diameter (probably should call it a…

I addressed every point you bring up. You insist we're nothing special, there's no reason to believe that. If that were the case and there's human like intelligent life all over the place in the galaxy then we should start picking up their signals pretty soon. Even more so, we should have picked some up already (because certainly some of them should have been ahead of us.) But we haven't found anything. We are quite…

ehhh you arent really backing up your points. We have to take this argument for what its worth, i mean we are basically talking a thought experiment along science fiction lines right here... and thats ok, makes for an interesting change. BUT in lines with that you have to from a thought experiment standpoint justify your arguements...

The original author went to great length to justify his arguments, I think a lot of his are flawed, but they are at least fully thought out/hashed. You cant play this thought experiment game without playing by the same rules...

You believe intelligent life is rare in the galaxy, also you believe inter galactic distances are so vast that even with mature FTL travel those regions will remain inaccessible. I dont really see a strong justification for the second postulate, the first i am on the fence about

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#74

Post by ansible »

Well, most of the people in this comment thread haven't been reading good-enough science fiction, including Paul.

First, go read Accelerando by Charles Stross:

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelera...

And for the bits you don't understand, you can also check out the woefully incomplete but still helpful technical companion:

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Accelerando_Technical_Companio...

Then you'll want to read up in general on molecular nanotechnology. K. Eric Drexler has updated Engines of Creation, and its also free online:

http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=503

So if we get visited by "aliens" there's an even chance it will be some runaway Von Neumann replicator seeds shot out from a nearby solar system, bent on converting our entire solar system to computronium. Or if we're lucky, some relatively benevolent replicator seeds merely intent on cataloging all the myriad of life that has arisen around the galaxy without actually intending to destroy said life.

There is just about zero chance than any recognizably biological (I prefer the term "squishy") life coming to visit us, just because sending any sizable chunk of matter across interstellar distances at any reasonable speed so so damn expensive, even for Kardashev type 2 civilizations.

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

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#75

Post by apalmer »

zeteo wrote: post #47

This article is full of misconceptions. Let's address a few of the most egregious ones. >there are billions of stars and planets in our galaxy and billions of galaxies. Humans are rather bad at fully understanding such large numbers. There's no obstacle to working with large numbers once you understand powers and logarithms (i.e. pre-calc). Very smart people have looked at the Drake equation and it yields a very wide…

1 - fair enough, but I dont think the author is arguing what you claim he is, and doesnt seem to be a central point

2 - disease aside, the intent is important, the argument is that when technologically advanced meets less technological society the outcome is as much exploitation as possible

3 - artifical gravity is pretty tangential

4 - poodles being 0 or 1 is not your call to make, you as a 2 have no idea how a society at 100 would slice and dice it, its totally tangential but honestly maybe single cell lifeforms are 0, some kinda social structure ability to learn is 1, and 2 is less than a world wide society

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#76

Post by iamthepieman »

danielweber wrote: post #72
iamthepieman wrote: post #48

Most of the comments here make an assumption that aliens would have similar motivations as ourselves. Is there a chance that another intelligent lifeform would share ANY mental or emotional similarities with us? This assumes that they even have mental or emotional capabilities in the first place. An alien intelligence could express itself collectively like an advanced ant colony or they could communicate in ways so d…

I have no problem believing that, if there is alien life, that many of them are quite different. I do have a problem believing that there is lots of alien life and all of them will come to this guy's "it makes sense to me so it must make sense to advanced aliens" conclusions to say home.

Agreed. The problem with reasoning about potentially unreasonable (at least to us) lifeforms is self-evident.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#77

Post by apalmer »

danielweber wrote: post #69
electic wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not obvious. If aliens are smart enough to get here, they are also smart to observe that contacting us will cause great chaos. We are simply to primitive. We have famine, racism, wars, and overall a lot of issues that do not warrant contact at this time.

Unless there is one galactic hegemon, there's going to be someone who says "fuck it" and decides to come visit. Unless there's no one.

I think the argument is that the 'fuck it' level is not necessarily contact in terms of communication with the entire world but may be filled by simply picking up a couple specimens/pets and rolling onwards...

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#78

Post by alan-crowe »

They might not be trying to explore physical space, they might be trying to explore chemical space. Chemical space? http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2013/04/18/a_short_pept...

Consider the question of whether there is any alternative biochemical basis for life. It is quite likely that even an alien super-intelligence finds the question impossible. Sure, it can invent synthetic biologys that are variations on its own biochemistry, but is there anything genuinely different out there? Given the size of chemical space it is probably easier to travel ten thousand light years to the nearest planet with life on it and look to see if its basis is the same or different.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#79

Post by pekk »

zeteo wrote: post #47

This article is full of misconceptions. Let's address a few of the most egregious ones. >there are billions of stars and planets in our galaxy and billions of galaxies. Humans are rather bad at fully understanding such large numbers. There's no obstacle to working with large numbers once you understand powers and logarithms (i.e. pre-calc). Very smart people have looked at the Drake equation and it yields a very wide…

If poodles are at a zero, we are at a zero too. We can "theoretically" dump massive quantities of cash into building a giant craft but we are nowhere close to making a craft or society that will sustain itself for ~100,000 years until it gets to another star. We cannot even guarantee that we can sustain ourselves with all the earth's resources without wiping out our own society for 100 years.
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