[ExI] Silence in the sky-but why?

[Tomasz Rola]

On Tue, 27 Aug 2013, spike wrote:

> 
> Subject: [ExI] Silence in the sky-but why?
> 
> Anders tackles the Fermi paradox.
> 
> <http://phys.org/news/2013-08-silence-skybut.html>
> 
> >...'We still don't know what the answer is, but we know it's more radical
> than previously expected.'
> 
> ------------
> 
> 
> Of all the observed scientific anomalies that I know of, the misnamed 
> Fermi paradox is absolutely the most vexing.  The more we study that 
> question, the more clear it is that there is something fundamentally 
> wrong with our models of everything we think we know about intelligence, 
> evolution, space travel, everything.  If our current understanding of 
> these things is anywhere close to correct, there has been plenty of time 
> for intelligence to evolve and colonize everywhere in the visible 
> universe, and the signals between civilizations should be easily 
> detectible.

What we know is heavily biased. Or at least one should assume so, because 
we only have ourselves for comparison and our culture, sometimes (maybe 
more and more), looks like we are bending over to stick our heads 
guess-where, so we can finally go into self-feeding mode, fully 
independent from the outside facts.

> After pondering all the possibilities, I am forced to conclude that 
> apparently intelligence is inherently self-destructive or self-limiting, 
> and that our current level of intelligence on this planet is anomalously 
> high. It goes against everything I dream for and envision for the future 
> of humanity: that the collective intelligence on this planet a century 
> from now will me more like what it was a century ago, and a millennium 
> from now more like what it was a million years past, more like what it 
> was for the 99.99 percent of the time since life existed.  In that view, 
> intelligence is temporary always and everywhere.

Our intelligence is heavily biased. It is strongly directed first towards 
breeding and second, towards charming other members of the gang. From time 
to time it may also take quasi-suicidal path by voicing unpopular opinions 
which get quickly buried down. Neither direction contributes anything to 
space exploration, at least not directly. First is too busy with planet 
wide problems like missing Lady Somebody's underwear and second is too 
thinly dispersed to count. And besides, even if the second group wasn't 
dispersed, I would be wary about guys who wanted to befriend me after I 
loudly claimed that 99.99% of humanity were morons. Groucho Marx was an 
exception, because he was able to voice separate opinion, earn money from 
it and remain popular. And I promise to learn from this guy as much as I 
can. But I cannot promise success, heh - well, maybe when I stop caring 
it'll be easier to laugh about it.

So in a way, we are not intelligent. Not in a way that other writers to 
this thread are boasting about.

And we have no idea what Intelligents do. Do they really breed themselves 
so much that they darken the stars with mass of their newborns? You guys 
keep talking about automatic probes but what you really unconsciously 
think about is "breed, breed, breed for f*ks sake" - or maybe "f*k, f*k 
f*k for breeds sake", I'm not sure which way but certainly not "probe, 
probe, probe for intelligence sake" :-). So all this talk about probes is 
just freudianish for finding more space and being fertile.

And I don't buy into idea that they drown into some cyber-opium, Universe 
in a cellar retardancy. If they do, they are pityfull and The Real 
Universe (TR Universe, if you please :-) ) will show no mercy to them.

So, what Intelligents are doing, right now? I guess they are somewhere out 
there. What an IQ-60 guy could say about IQ-150 guy sitting in front of 
computer and daydreaming (nightdreaming) the code? And the only good idea 
an IQ-150 guy could have about IQ-1500 one is this: "Never ever play chess 
with him. And never ever do-not-play chess with him, either".

And besides, even if some of you travel to, say, Africa, I am rather sure 
you don't make contact with apes there. Throwing banana, yes. But not "hi, 
I am Spike, and I come from USA where I live with a computer". And 
definitely not "all creatures are equal", upon hearing which, an ape if he 
has any reason in the brain, should take a stone and break your head in 
two.

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **