[ExI] Send in the dwarfs.

[Jeff Davis]

2010/3/29 John Clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net>:

> On Mar 29, 2010, Ben Zaiboc wrote:
>
> Maybe there is no Fermi Paradox, no Great Filter, and the place is swarming
> with people.  The sky wouldn't look any different
>
John Clark responded:

> No the sky would look very different,...if the universe is swarming with intelligence the universe should look engineered. It doesn't.

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The definitions here are not "tight" enough to justify drawing
conclusions.  The universe -- even the galaxy -- is big.  For the
"swarming" to show up, it would have to be correspondingly large.  If
the swarming were smaller it could easily be lost in the vast expanse
of all that space, the infrared emissions lost in the primordial
microwave background.

Then too, what are the ecological characteristics of biological
swarms, robotic swarms, or cyborg hybrid swarms?  Unbridled expansion
-- per Malthus -- may be the rule, or it may not, and has not proven
so with humanity here on Earth.  The same intelligence in a larger
galactic system may bring with it (similar?) self-limiting
characteristics.  It seems to me that the space of possibility here is
so large that any conclusion is necessarily premature.   More
discussion, more analysis, more data, and a greater understanding of
physics is required.

If the galaxy is chock-a-block with brown dwarfs -- one every 4.5
light years in all directions -- that's a lot of computronium to
starlift, construct, and colonize.

> Either the place is not swarming with people or for some unknown reason intelligence can't build things at large scales.

"Swarming", but not swarming at so large a scale.  I think Occam would approve.

Best, Jeff Davis

 "My guess is that people don't yet realize how
        "handy" an indefinite lifespan will be."
                          J Corbally