[extropy-chat] In the Long Run, How Much Does Intelligence Dominate Space?

[Lee Corbin]

Russell writes

> My guess would be that a newly colonized and initially mostly 
> empty star system may be receptive to further immigrants, but 
> as it fills up it will start putting up "migrants please move 
> on to the next empty star system" signs. (Historical analogies 
> would be the recolonization of Krakatoa by plants and animals 
> after the eruption, and European immigration to the colonies 
> in America and Australia - in each case as niches are filled 
> the barriers to further immigration become higher.)

My guess goes quite contrary: moments after a Von Neumann type
probe lands on a planet---a probe incidentally which was designed
and sent by a vast superhuman intelligence---it rather quickly
takes over the entire surface of the planet. It also rather
quickly bootstraps itself up to being able to receive the
latest algorithms from home, including, especially importantly,
the very "soul" of its originator.

In that way, the initiating intelligence gets a copy of itself
going in almost no time. No further pellets are either welcome
or necessary. Within hours, they themselves (any incoming pellets)
are hopelessly far behind the technology ruling the planet's
surface.

Soon, as the planet begins to think for itself (assuming my 
postulated radius "r of entity integrity" is that large),
one of the main question on its mind is what to do about 
incoming *signals* from the home world. Those distant worlds
survive in a certain evolutionary sense if they are receptive
only to incoming algorithmic EM that does not threaten their
already established identity.

Lee