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Eternity in six hours: Intergalactic spreading of intelligent life (2013)

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Re: Eternity in six hours: Intergalactic spreading of intelligent life (2013)

#51

Post by gcanyon »

Sharlin wrote: post #34
gcanyon wrote: post #13

No humans go, no information returns. Sending an acorn-sized probe to another galaxy to make more acorn-sized probes: what even is the point of that? To make very slow grey goo a reality? If actual humans find a way to go to Andromeda (other than waiting for it to arrive, heh) and want to, good for them. Otherwise we should actively discourage anything like the project proposed

This is a study of the feasibility of launching an intergalactic colonization wave (and its implications re: the Fermi paradox), not a proposal that humans should do that (it would be just slightly ahead of its time for that!), or a discussion of the ethics or higher-level utility of doing so. It would be refreshing to see someone discuss the things paper actually discusses. To use early-2000s terminology, the paper'…

But the thing is that the Fermi paradox isn't illuminated by scenarios that are technically possible but extremely unlikely. I get that all it takes is some subset of people who want to do it to make it happen, or as you say, some alien species that decides it's a good idea, but I'd argue that the idea is patently bad, and there's good reason to think that no species would bother -- not 100%, obviously, and the steel man argument would say it only takes a fraction of a percent, but I'm personally unconvinced that anyone would bother.

Re: Eternity in six hours: Intergalactic spreading of intelligent life (2013)

#52

Post by restalis »

V__ wrote: post #8

Has someone answered why a civilization would send "von Neumann probes" or similar into space? It would take so long for any answers from those probes to arrive that there really doesn't seem much value in them.

The dilemma of spending significant amount of effort and resources for a colonizing project when the result won't benefit the enterprising society is not new. When looking for a reason, considering only the (individuals' or collective's) benefits on a rational basis does not make much sense indeed. Most likely there must be something more, akin to a religious goal, aiming for species' or civilization's greater good.

Re: Eternity in six hours: Intergalactic spreading of intelligent life (2013)

#53

Post by restalis »

gcanyon wrote: post #51
Sharlin wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a study of the feasibility of launching an intergalactic colonization wave (and its implications re: the Fermi paradox), not a proposal that humans should do that (it would be just slightly ahead of its time for that!), or a discussion of the ethics or higher-level utility of doing so. It would be refreshing to see someone discuss the things paper actually discusses. To use early-2000s terminology, the paper'…

But the thing is that the Fermi paradox isn't illuminated by scenarios that are technically possible but extremely unlikely. I get that all it takes is some subset of people who want to do it to make it happen, or as you say, some alien species that decides it's a good idea, but I'd argue that the idea is patently bad, and there's good reason to think that no species would bother -- not 100%, obviously, and the steel…

You two debated this as a philosophical or even moral issue, but it changes everything when you look at it from the natural hazard prospective. It doesn't even have to be a subjective matter. Picture this - you know the climate change is happening and you understand that some colony of animals will surely vanish because of that if you wont do a thing about it. Doing something could mean just taking a few pair of animals and relocate them to a safer area. Do you think that the survival of such descending colony of animals mean anything (to anyone)? Who can argue that it won't be our time (and obligation) to reduce the risk of having the only known capable civilization residing on only one planet or galaxy?

Re: Eternity in six hours: Intergalactic spreading of intelligent life (2013)

#54

Post by restalis »

api wrote: post #38

When you zoom this far out, anything can look possible… or impossible. This is the same fallacy, but taken toward rather than away from infinite possibility, that underlies things like the Club of Rome’s world models and their limits to growth thesis. Zoom way out and the details disappear. Look only at aggregate statistics and extrapolate. Do this and you tend to get graphs that go to infinity (this paper) or to zer…

While there are indeed "details" out there that have a great impact on the macro-dynamic, and even pose as blockers, history also provides us many counter-examples. The steel-making process has been invented and reinvented many times and in different places in an (arguably) independent manner. The same for sea-faring, writing systems, laws, and so on. They have all been different but did enabled progress more or less in similar way, and thus - are also details that it's fair to gloss over.

Re: Eternity in six hours: Intergalactic spreading of intelligent life (2013)

#55

Post by jerf »

fizx wrote: post #32
jerf wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To build more computronium than you can in your own system, assuming the demand for that will always rise.

Sure, but you then can't access the computronium, because communication is so bad. Also, I wonder if good old-fashioned computing is interesting at all to a civilization that's had access to advanced AI and quantum computing for a while. Like we haven't really figured out how to get an ML model to run on a quantum computer, or how to build a quantum-native computer (i.e. surface of a black hole, or some other way tha…

You don't access the computronium. You move into it.

"good old-fashioned computing is interesting at all"

"Computronium" is defined as "the best computing power available". I deliberately selected it as a neutral term that does not depend on any particular model of QM or black holes or anything else.

Personally I doubt it's exactly one thing because optimizing for different types of computing is likely to result in a spectrum of computroniums rather than just the one, but the term flexes to encompass that easily enough.

The point is, you build something in that system over there for the same reason a normal human might buy a bit of property and put a house on it. The human in question isn't going "oh, I don't need to do that because the world already has hundreds of millions of residences". The human does that so that the residence belongs to them. The hundreds of millions of residences that do not belong to them do not factor into that question.

Re: Eternity in six hours: Intergalactic spreading of intelligent life (2013)

#56

Post by gcanyon »

restalis wrote: post #53
gcanyon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the thing is that the Fermi paradox isn't illuminated by scenarios that are technically possible but extremely unlikely. I get that all it takes is some subset of people who want to do it to make it happen, or as you say, some alien species that decides it's a good idea, but I'd argue that the idea is patently bad, and there's good reason to think that no species would bother -- not 100%, obviously, and the steel…

You two debated this as a philosophical or even moral issue, but it changes everything when you look at it from the natural hazard prospective. It doesn't even have to be a subjective matter. Picture this - you know the climate change is happening and you understand that some colony of animals will surely vanish because of that if you wont do a thing about it. Doing something could mean just taking a few pair of anim…

For sure, but that's my point; "taking a few pair of animals and relocate them to a safer area" is not what this paper is discussing. A better parallel would be "take digital photos of the endangered animal and circulate them around the internet." The proposed method doesn't spread us -- it spreads teeny tiny machines we made, for no reason at all other than to say we did it. And long after we're gone, when the Sun has died, far away galaxies will be polluted with little machines, each containing a copy of some data about us.

Re: Eternity in six hours: Intergalactic spreading of intelligent life (2013)

#57

Post by UltraSane »

ilitirit wrote: post #31

The concept of "Dyson spheres" was a joke by Freeman Dyson. It was never meant to be taken seriously. There's a clip about this floating around somewhere in which he finds it funny that the thing he's most well-known for was not even a serious paper. Dr. Angela Collier did a video about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLzEX1TPBFM

She is far too dismissive. Organic life probably will never build one but it is perfectly plausible effectively immortal machine intelligences will fully surround a star with solar collectors because energy is the fundamental limit of technology.

Re: Eternity in six hours: Intergalactic spreading of intelligent life (2013)

#58

Post by UltraSane »

hermitcrab wrote: post #50
soraki_soladead wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't know however "It would take so long" is an anthropomorphic assumption of time scale.

It would take ~5 million years (in the sender's frame of reference) for a probe to make the journey to Andromeda and then send another back with any information. What would the point of that be?

What if you are an immortal AI? Or a simulated human that can just sleep until the probe returns? Or you can slow down your subjective rate of time.

Re: Eternity in six hours: Intergalactic spreading of intelligent life (2013)

#59

Post by zubspace »

hermitcrab wrote: post #46

So a probe travelling between galaxies at 99%c can't hit anything bigger than 1.46×10−12 kg? It is ~2.5 million light-years between us and Andromeda. I don't know how much matter there is between the galaxies (does anyone?). But travelling that sort of distance without hitting anything above that tiny mass seems very unlikely. Also how is your tiny robot probe supposed to power any guidance or maintenance systems for…

The paper uses a minimal weight of 30g and surface area of 1cm² for a replicator. On page 13 it says that you need at least 40 of them to travel through intergalactic space, but also states that there is more mass floating around in interstellar space. The probes should create muliple staging areas.

I assume if such a replicating probe would really be possible, it should be straightforward to just send of a million of them and hope for the best.

In my opinion, a huge limiting factor is communication. How do you know if those probes reached their target?

There's also an ethical aspect to it. Should we really fill the universe with self replicating paperclips? Because once you start the process, when and how would you stop it?

Re: Eternity in six hours: Intergalactic spreading of intelligent life (2013)

#60

Post by ilitirit »

jmyeet wrote: post #42
ilitirit wrote: post #31

The concept of "Dyson spheres" was a joke by Freeman Dyson. It was never meant to be taken seriously. There's a clip about this floating around somewhere in which he finds it funny that the thing he's most well-known for was not even a serious paper. Dr. Angela Collier did a video about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLzEX1TPBFM

The only person who seems to claim that Dyson Spheres were a "joke" is Angela Collier and people quoting her. I've seen no other source for this claim. But even if it's true, which I don't think it is, it doesn't matter. Why? Because the idea is actually sound and a lot of thought has gone into it by people who have backgrounds in physics and engineering. It's worth adding that "Dyson Swarm" is the more common nomenc…

> The only person who seems to claim that Dyson Spheres were a "joke" is Angela Collier and people quoting her. I've seen no other source for this claim.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huAIfzUoyhU&t=121s

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