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

[Eugen Leitl]

On Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 01:58:12AM -0500, Will Steinberg wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 8:13 PM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>wrote:
> 
> >  The problem is that effectively unlimited
> > virtual worlds can be constructed and inhabited for a *tiny* fraction

Of course they're limited. Computation isn't free. It takes atoms
and Joules. Computation substrate is additive. Information patterns
can be instantiated much faster than the substrate doubled to accomodate
them, so there's always population pressure. Need for more lebensraum.

People (though Keith is not people) readily keep underestimating what even
a modest (2.3% annually) growth means long-term: 
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/

The author takes these numbers to mean that this will never happen.
We here will interprete these numbers differently.

(Of course, there are relativistic limits to growth (the galaxy
is 0.1 Mlyr in diameter), so exponentials do run into limitations
eventually. 

> > of the time and energy needed for the hop to another star system.

When you run out of unreal estate, you have to develop some nearby
plots.

> 
> Perhaps once societies reach the overmind phase, they realize that it is
> extremely pleasurable to their goals to seek out other intelligent life.
>  Then they would travel the stars as invisible gods, socializing in the
> void and betting on which planets would 'make it'. ;)