[ExI] SETI for Post Singularity Civs

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Sat, Jan 24, 2015 at 7:07 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> 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).
>

### Your argument is a simple tautology, "if p then p", aka petitio
principii. It's not very useful.

Rigorously expounding a useful logical argument pertaining to the world may
be non-trivial, where you have to carefully demarcate the distinction
between probabilistic real world data and the tautological inferential
steps that bind them together. Let me try to make my reasoning somewhat
more rigorous, although not to a logic class standard:

The first statement is "Some creatures want to eat their suns", and it is
very strong, indeed it's a certitude, based on my knowledge of my own
motivations.

The second reasoning step is making predictions about physically possible
technologies, which indicate that some creatures possessing the right
technology can eat their suns.

The third reasoning step is noting that want + can = do.

The fourth reasoning step is assuming that a desire to eat suns does not
preclude having the technology to eat suns.

>From these premises I derive "Some creatures eat their suns"

The next step is a tautology assuming observational data: If some creatures
eat their suns, and no suns in the visible universe have been eaten, then
there are no creatures eating their suns in the visible universe.

The next step is hypothetical: A sampling procedure that evaluates
creatures gives information about the ratio of sun-eaters to non-eaters in
all possible equivalent worlds. The ratio can range from 0 to infinity. We
know the denominator of the ratio (non-eaters) is no smaller than 1, since
we are non-eaters and we know we exist. We handwave about here about an
priori plausible ratio, e.g. 1/100 or 1/10 and we refuse to consider much
higher ratios (e.g. 1/10e20). There is some trickery involved here, since
the spacefaring non-eaters and us not-really-spacefaring non-eaters are not
the same group, and a Great Filter could separate us from them and there is
potential for confusion, but still, from the 2nd to 4th steps, it is not
plausible that the eater to non-eater ratio (EN ratio) could be
astronomically small.

The final step is deriving probabilistic bounds on the predicted number of
non-eaters, knowing the number of eaters is currently estimated at close to
0, and we can't be quite sure about this number but we are sure it's not
very large. Let's say EN=1/10. We know that N is at least 1. What is the
99% probability upper bound on N, for example given E<1? Dunno. I am not
the statistician here.

But I am pretty sure that N, the number of ETs that exist and do not eat
their suns, if estimated this way, is pitifully small compared to the 10e24
planets in the visible universe.

So, to conclude, ETs either don't exist, or else they exist as an
infinitesimally rare occurrence in the universe, so incredibly rare as not
to matter at all - until they start eating stars.

--------------------

>
> 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.


### How is a solar system not a good place to run an energy-intensive
computation?

You are not addressing the key issue here - why do you think absolutely
every ET fails to propagate? Not "Why some ETs might fail to propagate" but
a categorical "No ET ever in the history of the universe has propagated".
What is the special knowledge you have about ET motivations that allows you
to make non-trivial post-dictive and predictive claims about every single
one of them?

Rafal
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