[extropy-chat] evolution and bee tracheas

[Eugen Leitl]

On Thu, Jun 08, 2006 at 09:59:41PM -0700, The Avantguardian wrote:

> > > As it is, I doubt that any apocalypse -
> > technological,
> > > asteroidal, or otherwise would put so much as a
> > dent
> > 
> > Do you know any insects who can survive in molten
> > lava?
> > Or simply in water at 140 C, for that matter?
> 
> Unlikely hypotheticals aside, my argument operates off

Do you think the Mars-sized impactor which created
Luna was unlikely? I agree. It has happend, though.

Do you think that solar constant going up as Sun starts 
going up the main sequence (due in about half a gigayear)
is unlikely, too? There are certainly no
insects on Venus. A few more % of the solar constant, and
this planet won't look too hot (pun intended).

> of the 500 million or so years of natural history as

No fair cherry-picking data. What has gone before
and what will come after (unless we interfere) will
be equally natural, and quite deadly.

> portrayed in the fossil record. Please see the
> excellently informative insect evolution time-line at
> http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/ent201/content/diversity.pdf
> for elucidation. Keep in mind that the width of the
> shaded areas of the histogram represent the diversity
> of species within given orders of insects. 

Again, what is insect diversity at 450 K Earth surface
temperature? What is insect diversity at 6 mbar N2?
 
> The horizontal lines most likely represent asteroid
> impacts that presumably were era-ending boundary
> events. Notice that each causes a bottle neck of
> diversity within the various orders but MOST of the
> orders survive and immediately afterwards blossom into
> even greater diversity than before. 

Do you think biology survived the Mars-sized impactor
which melted the crust and wreaked havoc to volatiles?
 
> The lower line represents the Permian-Triassic
> extinction event, the greatest in the fossil record,
> wiping out over 90% of species. It is believed to have
> been caused by TWO impactors of aproximately 30 miles
> in diameter that gave rise to the Wilkes Land crater
> in Antartica and Bedout crater off the coast of
> Australia. These impacts were thought to cause of a
> chain reaction of hyper-volcanism, global warming, and
> frozen methane release that wreaked havoc on the
> biosphere but merely served to turn the world into an
> insect paradise. Amusingly , the Cretacious-Tertiary
> boundary event (a mere 6 mile wide asteroid) that
> killed off the dinosaurs did not even slow the growth
> of most of the insect orders notably the beetles, the
> flies, and the bees/wasps/ants.
> 
> Then again none of these impacts boiled all the oceans

Right. Molten Earth crust doesn't preserve fossil records.

> (let alone vaporized it to reach your figure of 140 C)
> or turned all the land into molten lava. Something
> that catastropic would probably require an asteroid
> the size of Ceres at 500 miles wide. While such an
> impact may wipe out the insects, it is probably sure
> to wipe out any computers upon which AIs are running

A solid-state civilization would 1) not live on
just planetary surfaces 2) be capable of predicting
and deflecting Ceres-sized impactor 3) would probably 
have eaten that Ceres-sized impactor for breakfast, and 
everything else but the gas giants
(arguably, even gas giants).

Unfortunately, they would also mean teotwawki to biology. 

> and atomize all nanotech anyways. After all molten
> slag is how they killed the Terminator in the second
> movie. :)      

Ah, Hollywood science again. 
  
> It is hard to be hyperintelligent AND completely
> uncaring. It would require a mental disorder bordering

I disagree. I'm completely uncaring about virus particles
in the pond 325.25 km from here which is right now being
turned into parking lot. No harsh feelings, it isn't
personal.

> on psychopathy. I am not a superintelligence yet I
> pity the worms on the sidewalk after a rain.

But why are you tolerating the sidewalk, if worms
are so precious? Maybe being able to drive to work
is more important than a few drowned worms? Speaking
about extinctions, we're busily causing one which
could become the greatest ever -- ultimatively resulting
in our own extinction.
 
> > So if you strip-mine the planet for carbon, and nuke
> > off the volatiles your cockroaches will scamper on
> > bare rock, in a vacuum?
> 
> Unless these as of yet uncreated AI are designed as
> nihilistic smart-WMD, they would have little motive to

No, that's just plain evolution. It's just postbiology
has a different niche than biology, and unless postbiology
collectively cares about preserving biology we will leave
even less traces than prebiotic chemistry formerly 
covering the surface of this planet.

> do something like that. If smart humans are any kind
> of model for superintelligence, they would not even be

What makes you think postbiology will be superintelligent?
The bulk of the biomass isn't exactly intelligent.

> fast replicators. After all, why would
> hyperintelligent beings create more competition for

Why do you think the bulk of postbiomass will
be hyperintelligent?

> themselves by runaway procreation?

Following your logic, life would never have happened.
Why expand beyond the first pond?

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820            http://www.ativel.com
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