[extropy-chat] damien's psi book

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
> > Here's one place where the chain breaks down.  See
> > Drake's equation, and the debates surrounding it,
> > for reasons why we very well could be the first
> > technologically advanced civilization in the
> universe.
> 
> On the contrary, the Drake equation has been getting
> a drumming the
> past few years

Nit: "the idea that the Drake equation shows how
unlikely life can be has been getting".  Nothing that
you mentioned even touches on the validity of the
Drake equation itself; they just make arguments about
some of the variables.

> as the number of extrasolar planets
> rises, as martian
> fossil meteorites are found (and solid evidence of
> water is found on
> Mars) along with subsurface oceans on not only
> Europa but Ganymede as
> well, it is clear that a) life is common wherever
> planets allow it, b)
> planets are common, and given how young our solar
> system is the
> supposition we are the first techno civilization in
> this galaxy is
> strained, the idea we are first in the whole
> universe is impossible.

>From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation :

> N = R* x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L
> 
> where:
> 
> N is the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in
> our galaxy with which we might expect to be able to
> communicate
> 
> and
> 
> R* is the rate of star formation in our galaxy
> fp is the fraction of those stars which have planets
> ne is average number of planets which can
> potentially support life per star that has planets
> fl is the fraction of the above which actually go on
> to develop life
> fi is the fraction of the above which actually go on
> to develop intelligent life
> fc is the fraction of the above which are willing
> and able to communicate
> L is the expected lifetime of such a civilization

Your points argue for high (near 1) fp and fl.  For
this case, we're assuming an essentially indefinite L
(L=~1, not infinity, since L is a fraction of the
lifetime of the civilization's own universe), and fc
refers to civilizations that expand through the
universe and upload other sentient races rather than
civilizations that communicate.  R*, we have pretty
good data on too.

This leaves out ne (even if life flourishes everywhere
it can flourish, that doesn't mean it can flourish on
all planets), fi, and fc (which spike asserted to be
1, but gave no evidence for that assertion).

> > This assumes you know the physics of the world
> > running the sim.  Maybe they can have perfectly
> > randomness, and the mechanical non-randomness is
> an
> > artifact of the sim?
> 
> You are forgetting the turtles. More than one turtle
> per universe means
> a veritable plethora of turtlesque universes.

Sorry to call a spade a spade, but that's a
non-sequiter.  Speaking in metaphor doesn't prove or
disprove anything.  (Now, maybe if you clarified
exactly what you meant by "turtles" - not just the old
story about "it's turtles all the way down", but what
you meant it to mean in this case...)