[extropy-chat] [wta-talk] When did intelligence first emerge in the universe?

[Robert Bradbury]

On 6/23/06, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
>
>
> Gas giants are useless, you need adequate metallicity for major planet
> population (outliers are there, but they're very rare so don't
> figure in). I don't have any data when this became possible.


Its very early on -- probably in the first  few hundred million years,
certainly the first billion years of galactic evolution.  A much more
critical factor is the proximity to a supernova (or in Earth's case probably
several) which seed the gas cloud which leads up to the solar system with
just the right density and mixture of heavy (and radioactive) elements.

So one has "galactic" habitable zones in addition to solar system habitable
zones.  Too close to the galactic center (with high SN explosion rates,
stellar collision or near collision rates, etc.) and your environment is
very hazardous (you would have to evolve very quickly to make it to our
level).  On the outer edges of the galaxy the SN density is too low to
produce habitable solar systems at useful frequencies.

It takes a great deal longer than 2 MYr to recover from a major
> extinction event. After a sterilizing event (impactor which
> created Luna is huge on this scale, few 100 km would do),
> you'd have to start from scratch. (Allright, if there are several
> life spots in the planetar vicinity you can reseed).


Actually recovery time would depend a lot on the planet's history.  The more
genomes have evolved and have alternative or backup programs the faster the
recovery time.  Species which live underground or under the oceans,
particularly those living off of non-solar energy sources don't have a
significant problem with impactors.

We already know that there were no smart critters on Earth 220 MYrs ago.


We don't "know" this at all.  We know *we* haven't found traces of "smart"
critters present 220 MYrs ago (or even 4 billion yrs ago for that matter).
We have an anthropocentric perspective that anyone who comes here is going
to stay (that we weren't merely a short stop on the galactic grand tour) and
that there aren't lots of very smart critters already among us.

[switch scene to underground cavern at the S. pole...]
Alien1: Several human governments are now monitoring a significant fraction
of their    circulating information.
Alien2: Jeesh, we've been doing that for what about 100 years now?  Their
installing all of that fiber underground made it so much easier for us to
tap into it.
Alien1: I know.  Did you see the pricing this morning for robust MNT
availability futures?
Alien2: Yes, the diversion of U.S. resources into the Iraq boondoggle has
set development back by at least 3 years.  That is really killing prices on
the 5 and 10 year development scenarios [1].
Alien1: But we still can't gather sufficiently detailed information to
simulate things completely and remain completely undetectable.  For example
what if the Pacific NW fault had ruptured and caused a magnitude 9 quake
that took out Bradbury before he left Seattle.
Alien2: Good point.  That would have slowed things down even further.
Alien1: But not as much as Freitas having a severe accident.
Alien2: True.
Alien1: The simulations are still mixed with respect to the Sandberg
relocation to Oxford.  Some of them show this as accelerating cognitive
enhancement sufficiently so as to make our remaining undetected a problem.
Others show paths where he turns into nothing more than an armchair
philosopher.
Alien2: It certainly is complex.  But this is still a great job.  We have
access to the information hours before the folks on the Pluto station do.
Even though we've got much less computing capacity my latest tweeks to the
simulator should give us enough of an edge to take a well hedged position.
...

Probability density decreases as you go backwards due to chemical
> composition.


The probability density varies much more with galactic position than it does
with time.

If you use Hubble to look back your 4 GYears into the past you see
> no aliens either. In fact, relativistic-expansion aliens are damn
> difficult to observe, period, especially if they're
> observer-estinguishing/
> prevent emergence of obserservers. Anthropic principle, again.
> There are many reasons why Fermi's paradoxon is deceptively
> simple.


There is no basis for saying "see no aliens".  There are all kinds of
implicit assumptions built into astronomy resting on the fundamental
foundation "All observed phenomena must be natural!"  Almost all astronomy
starts on the foundation that the Universe is dead and nothing that can be
observed would be the result of intelligent activities.  You have to
entirely flip the principle around and reframe all of the observations from
the perspective of "What would the Universe look like at various points of
development?"  I'm unsure whether we can resolve individual stars at 4
billion light years but I highly doubt it.  I suspect we are limited at
counting stars in galaxies beyond much more than the nearby galaxies.  That
at most gives you a few million year window of what a questionably 'natural'
universe looks like near our temporal state.

It all falls apart once you extend things to the limits.  MBrains can take
galaxies dark (*if* they want to) on time scales measured in millions
years.  Some may.  Some may decide that running futures markets based on
species development rates may be a much more interesting way to pass the
time.  Some may decide that you are only allowed to take galaxies dark at a
rate just below that which is detectable by developing technological
civilizations so they continue to develop with the perception that they are
"alone" in the Universe.  One thing is certain -- knowing that you are *not*
alone certainly biases future development probabilities in ways that
diminish developmental diversity.  Advanced civilizations may choose not to
reveal themselves to prevent all advanced civilizations from looking like
identical Bonsai trees.

Robert

1. Readers unfamiliar with Robin Hanson's work on Idea Futures are unlikely
to understand these comments fully.
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