[ExI] Things I have (sort of) changed my mind on (2): Life and consciousness

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Giulio Prisco

Subject: Re: [ExI] Things I have (sort of) changed my mind on (2): Life and consciousness



>...Well, cells are complex and common on Earth, why shouldn't complex life be common in the universe? Perhaps the causal gaps that I mention (quantum collapse, fractal chaos etc.) conspire to make life both complex and common. That's what I like to think... Giulio


Giulio, check this:

https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.05203


Life Versus Dark Energy: How An Advanced Civilization Could Resist the Accelerating Expansion of the Universe

Dan Hooper

(Submitted on 13 Jun 2018)

The presence of dark energy in our universe is causing space to expand at an accelerating rate. As a result, over the next approximately 100 billion years, all stars residing beyond the Local Group will fall beyond the cosmic horizon and become not only unobservable, but entirely inaccessible, thus limiting how much energy could one day be extracted from them. Here, we consider the likely response of a highly advanced civilization to this situation. In particular, we argue that in order to maximize its access to useable energy, a sufficiently advanced civilization would chose to expand rapidly outward, build Dyson Spheres or similar structures around encountered stars, and use the energy that is harnessed to accelerate those stars away from the approaching horizon and toward the center of the civilization. We find that such efforts will be most effective for stars with masses in the range of M∼(0.2−1)M⊙, and could lead to the harvesting of stars within a region extending out to several tens of Mpc in radius, potentially increasing the total amount of energy that is available to a future civilization by a factor of several thousand. We also discuss the observable signatures of a civilization elsewhere in the universe that is currently in this state of stellar harvesting.



Here's the pdf:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.05203.pdf




I posted Dan Hooper a note.  Let's see if he responds.

spike











On Tue, Jun 26, 2018 at 5:15 PM,  <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf 
> Of Giulio Prisco
> Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2018 8:03 AM
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: [ExI] Things I have (sort of) changed my mind on (2): Life 
> and consciousness
>
> Things I have (sort of) changed my mind on (2): Life and consciousness
>
> ... Perhaps life is special and perhaps we are still far from 
> understanding life, let alone building it. The physics of biology 
> could be much more complex than particle physics or cosmology, and a 
> flower much more complex than a black hole.
>
> https://turingchurch.net/things-i-have-sort-of-changed-my-mind-on-2-li
> fe-and
> -consciousness-b0b0419821a2
> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
>
>
> There is a good free course in Khan Academy on cell biology.  Studying 
> just that top-level course gives one a feeling that even a single cell 
> is more complicated than a black hole.  Perhaps life really is 
> extremely rare, to the extent we really are the only ones on our 
> scale.  Reasoning: there really is plenty of room at the bottom.  
> Going inward really is a lot easier than going outward.
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
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