[ExI] ET Emergence (Was Re: Uploads as a group of AI agents)

[John Clark]

On Mon, Mar 30, 2026 at 9:21 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

*>> I see no reason to think that BOTH Dyson style megastructures AND **Drexler
>> style Nanotechnology **won't happen because I assume you can never have
>> too much computational ability. Yes, more efficiency means more
>> computation, but so does more energy. And in the last couple of years it
>> should be obvious why those who think ET will not want vast amounts of
>> energy because they will upload is not a tenable hypothesis; unless you
>> assume *
>>
>
> *> There are lots of assumptions that lead away from obvious
> megastructures. Chief among them being that we assume solar radiation is an
> optimum energy source (that it has the right power density, and temperature
> needed for running the sorts of computers that are optimal). It is quite
> likely this assumption is wrong,*
>

*If ET has found something better than Dyson Spheres/Swarms, an easy way to
make more energy than 400 billion stars can, then that's fine but according
to the Second Law Of Thermodynamics, regardless of how ET is making that
energy, he is going to be producing an amount of waste heat in the form of
infrared radiation that is literally astronomical, but we don't see the
slightest hint of that in this galaxy or an in the other.  *

*> Consider: reversible computing technology enables 1 kg of matter to
> perform more computations per second than 100 Dyson swarms.*
>

*That is ridiculous. It's true that with a reversible computer you could
theoretically complete any calculation using an arbitrarily small amount of
energy, however the smaller your energy usage is the slower your
calculation is, and as your energy usage approaches zero the time to
complete your calculation approaches infinity.  *

*>>> Consider: if the asteroid they wiped out dinosaurs never hit, would
>>> dinosaurs have had their own space program millions of years ago?*
>>>
>>
>> *>> Probably not. The era of dinosaurs lasted for 165 million years but
>> the T Rex only became extinct 66 million years ago, so we are closer in
>> time to the era of a T Rex than a T Rex was from the era of an early
>> dinosaur like the Stegosaur. However I don't think a T Rex was
>> significantly closer to building a spaceship than a Stegosaur was. *
>>
>
> *> I looked it up just now because I was curious. Apparently the T-Rex had
> quite a large brain (300-400 grams), which might have given it an
> intelligence closer to that of a baboon.*
>

*That was a 2023 claim by one scientist that the brain of a T-Rex contained
3.3 billion neurons, about the same as that of a baboon, however in 2026 it
has been almost universally disputed by the scientific community and the
general consensus is that it's more like 245 to 360 million neurons, about
the same is a modern crocodile.  And a T-Rex weighed about 30 times as much
as the largest modern crocodile, and 600 times as much as a baboon.  *

*For great intelligence to be useful an animal needs hands with opposable
thumbs or some other organ that can delicately manipulate matter, but
the arms of a T-Rex were so short they couldn't even touch each other
or reach its mouth. **If a zebra on the African Savanna had an IQ of 200
that wouldn't help get its genes into the next generation very much, and
that's why it never evolved to get that smart. **Perhaps a brilliant zebra
would have a few minor advantages but unless it had opposable thumbs or
something equivalent it would not be worth the price it would have to pay
for being smart. The human brain only amounts to  2% of the body weight of
a human but it consumes 20% of the body's energy.  *

*And there are other disadvantages in having a large brain, a baby must get
through a female's birth canal, and that means most of the growth of the
brain must occur after birth, and that means for many years after birth the
young are completely helpless, and that places a huge burden on the parents
that can last for over a decade.  *


> *> Intelligence arises across all areas of the animals kingdom, from crows
> and parrots, to cuttlefish and octopuses, rays and cleaner wrasses, to
> elephants and dolphins.*
>

*And yet none of those species have even come close to building a radio
telescope, in the last 3.8 billion years only one species has managed to do
so. *

*John K Clark*
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