[ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs

[BillK]

On 15 January 2015 at 06:49, Stuart LaForge  wrote:
> If we take the assumption that the most extant civilizations in the galaxy are going to post-singularity
> types, then it seems to me that we might be searching for them in completely the wrong way.
>
> The lack of visible mega-engineering structures could be due to the faulty assumption that
> post-biologicals would want to go big. But big structures are inherently inefficient resource-wise.
> This inefficiency is evident in earth's biosphere where large organisms are vastly outnumbered
> by small ones.
<snip>
>
> Then considering radio-based SETI, again we might be listening for the wrong things.
> Take the miniaturized high speed post singularity ET hypothesis and current SETI efforts are
> like listening for FM radio stations using an AM radio. You would probably occasionally hear
> something but it would appear to be noise instead of signal.
>
> SETI's current strategy seems to focusing on sampling a large number of narrow bands
> around the hydrogen spectrum. But superfast minds would talk fast too. So they would,
> because the bitrate of a communication channel is limited by the Shannon-Hartley Law,
> choose very wide bands to communicate on and their long-winded introductions would
> sound like broad spectrum pulses or chirps to us slow pokes.
>
> So to summarize, the methods we are using to find ET are weak and heavily biased toward
> meat-civilizations.
>
>

This sounds right to me. (We are looking for our lost keys under the
street light because that's where we can see, even though the keys
were dropped in the darkness).

SETI is looking for civs at about the same level as humans. But they
have to get funding and that is acceptable to donors. If SETI go into
the 'weird' search area then funding would dry up. It is difficult
enough for them as it is! But something is better than nothing.

There is a new post showing the reasons why we know that dark matter
exists, even though we can't detect it. i.e. it isn't something wrong
with our gravity theory.
<https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/dark-matter-in-galaxies-proven-ebcbea1a5402>

The thought occurs, Could dark matter be post-sing civs?
The combination of going small for efficiency and not interacting with
physical matter for safety sounds ideal.
But whether 'life' could exist as dark matter will have to wait until
we find out exactly what all that stuff is.

(total mass-energy of the universe is 4.9% ordinary matter, 26.8% dark
matter and 68.3% dark energy).

Let's hope the improved Large Hadron Collider gives some clues as to
what it might be.


BillK