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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><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><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Tomaz Kristan<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] Silence in the sky-but why?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='color:#1F497D'>>…</span>The most common line of thinking goes something like this:"You know, the Universe is soooo big, even the Galaxy is sooo big, that there MUST be intelligent life out there!"<span style='color:#1F497D'>…</span>Well, as has been said here before, it's not THAT big<span style='color:#1F497D'>...</span>Looks like it isn't!<span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>We must recognize that as mind boggling as the thought may be, it is a possible explanation for the silent sky: we really are the first ones here. If true, this generates a line of thought even more astonishing. If we are the first tech enabled species in the galaxy, then this whole thing is ours, all of it, but there is a catch. We need to hurry. Reasoning: we model intelligence as an ever upward climb towards more and better, but it is not necessarily so. Humanity is accumulating knowledge at a high rate, but our collective intelligence may or may not increase in the long run. I can easily imagine mechanisms which would cause average intelligence to decrease.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>We may be at, or nearing, or possibly even past, the peak average intelligence of our species, depending on how it is measured, and that last phrase is very important. I know we have these IQ tests and performance is going up. But we may be fooling ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>We tend to wait around for nano-santa to show up, but he may not. Robust nanotech might happen and not kill us, but it is speculative. We have a number of technologies we conceive, as a class could be called PS^2B^2, for Pie in the Sky in the Sweet By and By. But if we really ponder, we have a technology I call P^2DN^2 for Potatoes on the Plate in the Dirty Now and Now. An example of the latter would be the primitive MBrain nodes I sketched in a post a few days ago.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>If we look carefully, we could conceive of an MBrain that could be conceivably constructed using all technology that is either current or is on the immediately foreseeable horizon, using technologies understood and mastered already. This is important in the possible outcome of a gradually declining ability of humanity, which is one possible future (not the one I consider most likely, but a possibility.) We could conceive of an MBrain which would start tugging the sun towards another star, which is a necessary prerequisite to some earth-based life form colonizing the galaxy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div></div></body></html>