[ExI] Virtual Reality is where the aliens are (BillK)

[Keith Henson]

On Sat, Aug 22, 2015 at 5:00 AM,   BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> Once a civ moves to nanoscale VR then they have a scaling problem when
> relating to the outside universe. If they are really tiny, then moving
> at high speed becomes difficult. Every physical force is magnified.
> Grains of interstellar dust appear huge. Distances are magnified. If
> they have much faster processing, then time itself is magnified.

Indeed.  If they are a social species, then the range in which they
can interact with others of the civilization shrinks dramatically.  I
made a case in an article you have seen that a civ will have to shrink
to 300 meters or less depending on how much the culture speeds up.
Fast processing generates a lot of waste heat, so it makes sense to
sink the "civilization" in the deep cold ocean.

> If they want to visit strange worlds and meet aliens, then they can
> create them in their own VR universe.

I would probably find this unsatisfying.  But I know how far out I am
from the norm.

John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> ?But it takes calculations to produce virtual reality ?and it takes energy
> to perform calculations, the faster the calculation the more energy needed;
> and yet we observe astronomical amounts of energy radiating uselessly into
> infinite space not just from our galaxy but from every one of the billions
> of galaxies ever observed.

That's true.

> Of course there are trillions of galaxies more
> distant than 13.8 billion light years that we have never observed and will
> never observe so maybe ET is in one of them, or maybe not. I'd bet 2 to 1
> that we're alone.

If they were sunk in the deep oceans of Earth like planets, we would
never see them.  I think we understand the physics of computation much
better than the sociology of arbitrary evolved aliens.  Moving into
virtual reality and speeding up by a million times is like the
universe suddenly moved away from you.  The already ridiculous
distance to other stars becomes insanely large.

Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

>> I've tossed you a question, though I'll admit it's a rehash of what I keep
>> asking when the topic comes up here.  (But then, you've never really
>> answered it here.)
>
> So...when are you going to answer the questions the posters have posted?
> I'm not seeing any further activity in that forum thread.

I got the scaled down list questions from the organizer yesterday and
intend to send the responses back today.  But I didn't see one from
you.  Please point me to the right place or send it directly.

Keith