[ExI] Fermi question, was is a FTL drive a dream . . .

[Keith Henson]

On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 5:00 AM,  Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>

> 2011/12/18 Darren Greer <darren.greer3 at gmail.com>
>
snip
>
> The feedback mechanisms come through the process of evolution itself. When
>> the seeded planet(s) develop radio technology, then the progenitors get
>> interested, and know that phase one is complete.  Any planet that didn't
>> develop radio technology is considered a failure and written off. We tend
>> to think of projects of any sort on such small scales.
>>
> Wolfram posits that i) unless computational processes are "anthropomorphic"
> enough, we are bound not to recognise them as "intelligence" at all; ii)
> the better the compression of signals, the more indistinguishable the
> signal becomes from noise. The combination of this two facts would account
> for the Fermi paradox.

Perhaps.  But radio technology is not the only indicator of
intelligent processes.

There is a difference visible from space between wild country and
farms.  So far we have not seen anything out there that does not look
"wild," everywhere we look there is enormous waste of energy and
matter.

There are (I think) a limited number of ways to account for this.

1)  We are the first in our light cone.  This seems really unlikely
given the number of stars and probable planets, but someone has to be
first, it could be us.  The obvious way to get from star to star is to
use light sails and TW lasers.  Such a transport mechanism would be
seen as obviously artificial far across the universe.  We don't see
it.

2)  Something removes intelligences from large scale interaction with
the universe.  I have theorized this might be the attractiveness of
virtual worlds or perhaps the speed of information propagation.  A
million to one speed up would limit interactive communication to a
distance much smaller than the earth.

3)  Perhaps the most bizarre reason for the Fermi problem is the world
as we know it being a simulation.  There are probably ways to test for
being in a simulation, but testing ends the simulation (and the
universe as we know it) so it might not be something you want to try.

If you have other ideas, that are not minor variations on these,
please mention them.

Keith