[extropy-chat] Dark matter and ET

[BillK]

On 7/15/05, Robin Hanson wrote:
> This is a clear example, where, as I warned, predictions depend on your
> assumptions about the goals/priorities of the alien civilization.  You
> assume the only point of colonization is to spawn a computational
> sub-process, where you already have the needed inputs.  This gives very
> different predictions from a civilization whose goal is to colonize as far
> and fast as possible, for example.
> 
> A robust way to forecast alien goals/priorities is to just predict a wide
> divergence of such goals.
> 

Well, all things are possible, but some are more likely than others.
A civilization whose goal is to colonize as far and fast as possible
seems the most unlikely. Like, where is it? You only need one, ever,
in the universe.

My view of any post singularity civilization is that it won't want to
colonize the universe. These are not Star Trek type civs, with a bunch
of cowboys jumping from star to star, having punchups wherever they
go. How immature is that?
We are not talking about Bush III's latest ten year plan here.

These are nearly immortal beings, who have redesigned themselves to
'something wonderful', resource rich, developing who knows what down
to the nanoscale level, meshed together in some kind of virtual web
that we can only begin to guess at. Look at how upset web geeks get if
they lose their broadband connection for a day. And you think it
likely that a piece of these beings will cut themselves off for
centuries to go to another star system?

It is even debatable whether they will remain long in this physical
universe or start creating universes of their own. ;)

BillK