[ExI] Von Neumann probes for what?

[Samantha Atkins]

On Jan 3, 2011, at 7:11 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote:

> 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.

Well, my point was that if the probes are that dumb (*cosmic yeast*) that they do nothing but create more of themselves and spread then a) there would be little or no point and b) any advanced species encountering them would likely consider us boorish noobs at best and perhaps as would-be cancerous plight requiring eradication. 

> 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...
> 

What for?  The variation and selection process can be very much part of the program so that the probes do not drift from what they were meant to achieve too much.   This is unnatural selection.  

- s