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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Someone made a comment a few days ago to which I didn’t reply but that has been rattling around in my brain like a golf ball in a 55 gallon drum. I think it was under this subject line, and the meme went something like this: when or if we figure out how to upload and simulations replace actual exploration of nature and interaction with the material world, that event in a sense is analogous to collective meme-death, since we would then cease to take in new information externally, replaced by processing information already contained in the simulated universe. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Who wrote that? Intriguing notion. Do step up and claim that meme, for it didn’t get much well-deserved discussion at the time.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I can find an analogy of sorts. In our current world we know exactly where all the useful cosmological notions arise: the big universities which have cosmology departments and lots of physics PhDs, places like Haaahvard and CalTech and the research centers such as CERN. We don’t go into the Australian outback looking around for someone who has fresh and relevant ideas on cosmology. So the CERN people and CalTech people become a closed system. They don’t care what you and I have to say or what the Australian aborigines have to say about cosmology.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>In a weakly analogous way, we can imagine a post-uploading MBrain which stops seeking wisdom from outside, and stop broadcasting their memes abroad, assuming it a useless activity. If that transmitted wisdom disagrees with the notions of the receiving civilization it is heresy, if it agrees, redundant.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>A major puzzle in my own life has been why the cosmos are not buzzing with signals. Why is it so quiet out there? I estimate one in ten star systems has life forms, one in a thousand multicellular with perhaps one in a hundred thousand with tech-capable life forms. That makes for a buuunch of tech life forms in this galaxy alone. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>If technologically advanced life forms typically upload and turn inward, it offers a good explanation for why it is so quiet out there. They aren’t listening to us and don’t care to talk, for they are busy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> <o:p></o:p></span></p></div></body></html>