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The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It? (1998)

mason.gmu.edu

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Re: The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It? (1998)

#31

Post by Mahn »

jeremyjh wrote: post #21
Mahn wrote: post #12

Another argument against the great filter, and one I'm surprised it's not considered more often, is the relativity of the space and time. We assume, long story short, that the colonization explosion is rare because we can't see it, but what if all that we can observe in terms of space and time is a incredibly "microscopic" slice compared to all that there is/has been/will be out there? The way I see it it looks like…

We're only talking about what we can observe. Just a few dozen billions of stars. That is sufficient for the Fermi paradox.

> That is sufficient for the Fermi paradox.

Is it? How do we know it is?

Re: The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It? (1998)

#32

Post by tomjen3 »

jeremyjh wrote: post #27
tomjen3 wrote: post #5

I forgot who came up with the idea, but the great filter may not exist - it is just that an intergalactic civilisation wouldn't be using radio communication (due to the lag because of the slow speed of light). Or the put it a bit different: unless the Culture want us to see it, we won't.

Why aren't they building Dyson spheres?

That is a really good question. The thing is that if they are powerful enough to actually do that, perhaps they have come up with something better?

I mean there could easily be a couple 1000 years between us, which means that the difference is at least as great as us and the Romans. The Romans might very well question why we weren't breeding more horses then, since we have such a huge need of transport and horses are the best way to do that.

Re: The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It? (1998)

#33

Post by avn2109 »

privong wrote: post #18
api wrote: post #10

We are provably not beyond the great filter. At least one great filter lies tangibly in front of us: ecological sustainability. Barring several fairly large changes to our energy and resource systems, our civilization is mathematically and physically guaranteed to collapse within the next 200 years at most. That's not a hypothetical filter. It's a real one that we can see, and we are not past it.

> We are provably not beyond the great filter. At least one great filter lies tangibly in front of us: ecological sustainability. > Barring several fairly large changes to our energy and resource systems, our civilization is mathematically and physically guaranteed to collapse within the next 200 years at most. Would you mind elaborating on this or posting some links with more evidence for this? As stated, your claim…

>> "Would you mind elaborating on this or posting some links with more evidence for this?"

I'm not the GP, but I suspect api has in mind something like this [0]. The money quote from that article is this:

"At that 2.3% growth rate, we would be using energy at a rate corresponding to the total solar input striking Earth in a little over 400 years."

The obvious first-order thermodynamic consequences of that fact for the temperature of the surface of the earth are pretty undeniable.

[0] http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets-...

Re: The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It? (1998)

#34

Post by has2k1 »

je_bailey wrote: post #14

Among other comments here, there is the question of why? Why does a civilization need to expand? Why should it? We can already see in our world where the birthrates start to decline in societies that have a certain level of technology and quality of live. When we reach a point where our whims are catered for and energy is cheap. Reproduction doesn't seem very cost effective.

Expansion can be due to a lot more than mere birthrates. First and foremost expansion will happen only when there is means to do so. And, 'means' can be driven by a combination of curiosity and necessity. On earth people have gone somewhere far off (migrated), because there was the place to go and the means to get there. In many cases that (migration) was the option over having to fight (or find some form of accommodation) within the local social & political system.

If this is why an intelligence can spread out on a planet, couldn't other intelligences (if they exist) spread out for similar reasons in the galaxy.

Re: The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It? (1998)

#35

Post by sgt101 »

wyager wrote: post #7
Zigurd wrote: post #3

There remain some big tests, among them: Can we accumulate and release enough energy to take us to the stars without having a civilization-ending war with ultra-destructive directed energy weapons? Can we avoid mistakes in modifying life, and in nanotech, that would cover the planet in goo? Can we master germline modifications of humans without doing something that ends with no humans, and no post-humans? So plenty o…

>Can we accumulate and release enough energy to take us to the stars without having a civilization-ending war This is why, if I invented antimatter production, I would absolutely demand that it not be used on Earth until it had been used to send hundreds of human-bearing seed ships to other solar systems. The risk is too great.

But you would be ignored...

Re: The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It? (1998)

#36

Post by taygetea »

api wrote: post #26
privong wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are provably not beyond the great filter. At least one great filter lies tangibly in front of us: ecological sustainability. > Barring several fairly large changes to our energy and resource systems, our civilization is mathematically and physically guaranteed to collapse within the next 200 years at most. Would you mind elaborating on this or posting some links with more evidence for this? As stated, your claim…

"your claim seems reminiscent to previous claims that humanity would soon not be able to grow enough food for the projected population" This is a cautionary tale about something that stock market traders know well: never try to call the top of a bubble. You'll just look like a fool, and if you bet on it you will lose all your money. The "Population Bomb" crowd in the 70s and the peak oilers of today tried to do just…

The comment you were responding to wasn't referring to the 1970s, it was referring to the repeated cries of Malthusian catastrophes dating back to Malthus himself. The unexpected technology mentioned was a 50-fold increase in agricultural productivity per person working in agriculture. Several times in the last several hundred years, similar patterns were pointed out. All of them were solved with technology they had no way of knowing about.

Re: The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It? (1998)

#37

Post by has2k1 »

Mahn wrote: post #31
jeremyjh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're only talking about what we can observe. Just a few dozen billions of stars. That is sufficient for the Fermi paradox.

> That is sufficient for the Fermi paradox. Is it? How do we know it is?

The Fermi paradox is based on the vastness of we can observe. It says nothing about that which may exist beyond (not hidden) what we observe.

Re: The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It? (1998)

#38

Post by privong »

avn2109 wrote: post #33
privong wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are provably not beyond the great filter. At least one great filter lies tangibly in front of us: ecological sustainability. > Barring several fairly large changes to our energy and resource systems, our civilization is mathematically and physically guaranteed to collapse within the next 200 years at most. Would you mind elaborating on this or posting some links with more evidence for this? As stated, your claim…

>> "Would you mind elaborating on this or posting some links with more evidence for this?" I'm not the GP, but I suspect api has in mind something like this [0]. The money quote from that article is this: "At that 2.3% growth rate, we would be using energy at a rate corresponding to the total solar input striking Earth in a little over 400 years." The obvious first-order thermodynamic consequences of that fact for th…

Thanks. I had seen that calculation before, but had forgotten about it. It is good to remember that we will eventually come up against limits from basic physics.

Though, to be a bit picky, showing that we can't indefinitely sustain our current trajectory is a different argument than saying a collapse is inevitable.

Re: The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It? (1998)

#39

Post by sgt101 »

There is a review in the FT today of "The Future of Violence" a book in which the authors apparently (I haven't read it) assert that as technology improves the risk of a violent individual to society increases (because that person has more leverage).

This raises an interesting problem : to make it as a society may require a high level of dynamism and aggression. To cope as a society (as technology becomes more potent) passivity and sensitivity may be necessary. It may be that there is no balance, and that if you have enough vim to create a technical society you will reach a point where progress becomes impossible due to progress so far.

Re: The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It? (1998)

#40

Post by taygetea »

Mahn wrote: post #31
jeremyjh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're only talking about what we can observe. Just a few dozen billions of stars. That is sufficient for the Fermi paradox.

> That is sufficient for the Fermi paradox. Is it? How do we know it is?

The terms we know in the Drake equation make it very difficult to say it is unlikely for intelligence to arise more than once. ~100 billion stars * ~100 billion galaxies in the observable universe. Exoplanet surveys seem to be suggesting at least one planet per star on average. In addition, chemical self replication seems to happen fairly easily given the right chemical conditions, which don't appear to require much more than liquid water.
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