[ExI] Von Neumann probes for what?

[Stefano Vaj]

On 1 January 2011 19:03, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
> Not so or I don't see why it would be so and the probe have any real capacity to do any good for the originating civ.  A mere cosmic yeast mold is not terribly useful to anyone unless you like cosmic yeast.

Unless you *are* the cosmic yeast. The only problematic aspect is the
jump from a biological species to a Neumann probe structure. Then
Darwinian mechanisms kick in, the program being the way the
replicators get replicated, not the replicators the way to diffuse the
program...

-- 
Stefano Vaj