[ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs

[BillK]

On 24 January 2015 at 15:38, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> ### One of about ten thousand, give or take a couple orders of magnitude.
> This is my rough guess at the number of humans who thought about it and came
> to similar conclusions. And ETs do not exist, or else they would have eaten
> their suns.
>

That does not compute, Captain.

Assumption 1 - ETs eat their suns.
Evidence - No suns have been eaten.
Corollary - ETs do not exist.
This answer depends on the first weak assumption.

Much simpler is
Evidence - No suns have been eaten.
Corollary - ETs don't eat their suns (or don't exist).

>
> ### Let's not anthropomorphize - what humans of various ages want is the
> contingent outcome of a more general process, namely evolution, and
> observation of multiple outcomes of evolution seems to indicate that usually
> survivors have an interest in survival, hard-coded in whatever informational
> medium it is that undergoes evolutionary selection. The medium may change
> (RNA, DNA, computer memory, human social sphere) but the message stays the
> same:
>
> It wants to live. Forever.
>

While evolution continues, desires and goals will change.
The huge leap to post-sing AIs will mean a huge change in desires and
goals from our primitive primate instincts.

I agree that post-sing AIs will probably want to live for ever,
evolving and changing. If they are fast thinkers, then more happens,
more quickly. Who knows what millions of (virtual) years will bring?

They will require an energy source, which will probably be very
different from our present rudimentary systems. They will require a
quiet safe place to run their virtual reality civilisations. To me,
that means away from solar systems. So, not only will they not
interact with the physical universe, they will hide away in deep
space.

I doubt that fast-thinker civs will even contact other fast-thinker
civs, unless by chance they happen to be very close together. The
speed-of-light communications will be far too slow.


BillK