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

Samantha Atkins sjatkins at mac.com
Fri Jul 7 06:54:10 UTC 2006


On Jul 5, 2006, at 5:14 PM, Lee Corbin wrote:

> 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.

Even if it is already occupied?  If so then such a probe would be an  
act of aggression and might trigger an interstellar war.  Latest  
algorithms at c?   Hmm.

>
> 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.

So these probes are only light hours from home base?   Otherwise it  
is quite possible that later waves are more advanced than the new  
information presumably somehow beamed all the way from home.  Is home  
beaming individual coded updates in all directions it has probes?  I  
doubt very much it is sending updates to its collective knowledge in  
clear for others to perhaps intercept.

>
> 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.

So another species that was bright enough could fake updates to these  
probes to gradually have them do their own bidding or take them over?

- s



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