[ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension

Kelly Anderson kellycoinguy at gmail.com
Thu Sep 13 19:54:42 UTC 2012


On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 2:04 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Seems logical to me. Life tends to expand into ALL available niches.
>> Why would that stop now?
>
> For the same reason that we will soon be controlling evolution.  Intelligence.

I don't find that very convincing. Even intelligent life wants to
reproduce itself.

>> Your assumption that we are fairly late arrivals in the universe is
>> not founded on any fact, just supposition. It MAY well be that life is
>> extremely rare, and possibly even unique. I don't think so, but it is
>> possible. The Fermi paradox remains a paradox to me.
>
> The age of the universe is not speculation. Stars have been born and
> died for aeons before we existed.

Granted.

> If life is common in the universe
> then we are latecomers.

If that is true, then yes, we are likely latecomers, but there is no
evidence so far that life is common.

> But we could be the only or first, if life is extremely rare.  I also
> think this is unlikely as we seem to see life in every environment
> where it is possible.

That is not a very convincing argument, as we don't (so far) see life
on Mars, or elsewhere in our own solar system. Even if we found it on
Mars, it would have to be different enough from Earth life to
demonstrate that it isn't cross seeding between the two planets. In
other words, we DON'T see life in every environment where it is
possible, except on Earth.

> You seem quite happy with our descendents spreading through the
> universe but have difficulty imagining a Matrioshka Brain!  Can you
> conceive how really really really BIG the universe is?   :)
> The nearest star is quite a bit further than even Alaska.

LOL. I have absolutely no difficulty imagining a Matrioshka Brain. Not
sure where you got the idea that I thought that was impossible... And
yes, I do have a vague notion of how big the universe is. What I don't
have an idea of is just how hard it is for life to get started, since
we don't know the mechanism for that. We may not ever know... It might
not have happened on Earth... We just have no clue how to jump between
Amino Acids and self replicating DNA. Once you get to self replicating
DNA, the rest is easy to explain.

> I think you need to emulate the White Queen.
>
> "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before
> breakfast."——
> The White Queen, from Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll.

I imagine more than that number of impossible things before breakfast
very frequently, thank you very much.

>> Somewhere in this thread, I missed the definition of STEM. Sorry for
>> my ignorance... but could someone expand the acronym for me?
>>
>
> It is in the article I referenced at the start of the thread.

Ok, thanks... in case the reference goes away someday... "evolutionary
development guides intelligent life increasingly into inner space and
what is referred to as STEM, small scales of space, time, energy and
matter that eventually lead to black hole like domains."

Ok, I had the time today to read the whole article. It is very
interesting, but I can't imagine that ALL life would head down into
nano-space... There is the niche down, and ALL THE ZILLIONS of niches
upwards.

-Kelly




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