[extropy-chat] The Drake Equation and Spatial Proximity

[Robert Bradbury]

On 10/21/06, A B <austriaaugust at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I suppose I meant dividing the "hospitable" volume of the galaxy by the
> calculated number of intelligent civilizations capable of communicating
> outside their own planet, in order to provide a "probable" distance from the
> nearest such civilization.
>

Why "communicating"?  All supercivilizations (even we as a non-SC) are
capable of communicating.  Any SC more than 100 l.y. away would have had to
predict the course of development on our planet and started transmitting
circa 1900 for us to be receiving their signals now.

And more importantly, as I pointed out at Extro3 -- we don't "talk" to
nematodes -- they don't "talk" to us.

I wrote:
> "Of course its kind of hard to display the post-singularity civilizations
> -- because we _can't_ see them!"
>
> Is that because you believe this is simulation?
>

 That is a possibility but I consider (hope?) it to be one of the lower
probabilities.  For it to be a simulation you would have to assume there are
no better things that SC have to devote their computronium to.  I tend to
find that implausible.

 Or do you think that the post-Sing civs obey the Prime Directive?  :-)
> Personally, I generally don't agree with the Prime Directive as it has
> been portrayed in ST. ;-)
>


It has little to do with the P.D.  It has much more to do with the fact that
it is a waste of time and energy to attempt "talking" to a pre KT-I
civilization when you can wait 10-50 years and talk to something much more
"interesting".

It takes a smaller fraction of matter and energy for them to simply watch us
(or watch us N-thousand years ago from their perspective) unless they
positioned a ship in our solar system as the Vulcans did -- but even that
makes no sense because it is doubtful that a SC would send something we
would consider to be a "ship".

You have to understand that SC (IMO) don't travel unless they take the
entire star system with them or colonize  (replicate) unless its with the
entire star system.  That requires very close encounters between solar
systems which is something that happens very infrequently in our galactic
neighborhood.

The reason that I say "we can't see them" is because MBrains (or anything
between a Dyson shell and a MBrain) doesn't emit visible light.  There is
*no* "star" to point your telescope, radio receiver, etc. at.  We have *NO*
good high sensitivity and resolution mid-to-far-IR surveys that would
indicate potential candidates for supercivilization status [1].
Robert

1. It is worth noting that a retired physicist from Fermi Labs is currently
going through the IRAS data for possible candidates but the IRAS data is
pretty poor for this purpose.
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