[vinzer]

Falconeye, that's one great post. I gather you're really into those things, eh? There are a lot of stuff in your post that's all new to me (but apparently old for people in scientific circles).

I really don't know which one it is (civilizations dying out before another one begins or colonization wavefront), but it wouldn't surprise me whichever it is between the two is really happening. I'm just one man in a really big universe, and there are a lot of things that are possible in other areas and galaxies. There certainly is room enough for even both of those theories to have happened at some point in the universe's history.

[falconeye]

I'm just one man in a really big universe, and there are a lot of things that are possible in other areas and galaxies. There certainly is room enough for even both of those theories to have happened at some point in the universe's history.

You are right. But what is likely?

You argue intuitively. But our intuition fails miserably when it comes to big numbers. Seen with the eyes of evolution, the universe may appear bigger than it is.

A colonization wavefront may be underway and hasn't reached us yet. This would be very unlikely for our galaxy (too small, a colonization wavefront traverses our galaxy wthin only 0.1% of its age) but possible for a wavefront coming from another galaxy -- which would still mean that we are alone in ours.

BTW, it may be that multiple (early) colonization wavefronts have stopped each other's dissipation and left our region uncolonized. This has been studied scientifically and it's likelihood is marginal. In general, a colonization wavefront, once started, cannot be stopped anymore. Light travels too slow for this. There is a book about 50 ways to explain the Fermi paradox. May be worth a reading.

And a civilization may die out before it sends a few generation vessels. But I don't care if this happens at our state, or the Neanderthalensis, ape, mammal, or insect state of evolution. Failures don't count, the winner gets it all (the galaxy). If there ever will be a winner. We are close, at least, very close...

[slomojoe]

- A civilization, once it reaches a state about ours in 100 years, will start to hop to the next habitable planet (~30 lightyears away). Either by using generation space vessels. Or cybernetic organisms. This mechanism is called colonization wavefront. Otherwise speaking: Once a single planet in a galaxy reaches this critical state we are so close at, intelligent life will spread throughout the galaxy and will never disappear again. You would see it everywhere. That we don't is called Fermi's paradox. We don't see it everywhere. The galaxy appears to be sterile.

I am not so convinced by this.

First, even assuming that human space travel at those distances is biologically feasible - something we do not know now, and may not even know before we try, since we we have no idea of the physiological and psychological effects of long-term space travel on humans (including on the prerequisite fertility) - I feel it may not be the kind of mission that even very adventurous volunteers would feel attracted to, since there is really no pay-back of any kind (you'll leave here, leave a fairly lousy life aboard a spaceship, be quickly forgotten, die in flight, and hope your kids or grand-kids will make it to a safe place). The only plausible context for a widespread attempt at space colonization in the foreseeable future would seem to be some sort of Wall-e-like environmental/societal catastrophe on Earth that would make the prospect of such a trip personally worthwhile. And at the point in which that prospect becomes worthwhile, our capability of undertaking it may have deteriorated enough to make it impossible.

The other option is something like "directed panspermia" - just spreading earth's life, most likely as microorganisms for obvious reasons, across the galaxy and the universe, to preclude its extinction, for terra-forming, etc. This is more technically feasible (basically, it already could be done). But again, I think as a civilization we have already learned enough about the ecologically destructive power of invasive species to make us reluctant to undertake something like that. Imagine what disaster it would be for another planet with life forms of its own to be "colonized" by a mix of earthly bacteria. I think this too would only be something we'd wish to try only if/when we are quite sure our planet's on its way out. And of course, something like this would not imply the spreading of our civilization or even just intelligent life - at least in the short, billion-year term-, and would be much harder to detect by us (indeed, we could ourselves be the product of it and not even know it).

What I think we might start doing soon is to send out toward potentially interesting targets very large numbers of non-biological probes capable of emitting highly detectable signals encoding a "return address" to us. Then, even a moderately advanced civilization could answer back within a few centuries. Of course, other civilizations would probably already have done the same, but we see no sign of that.

Personally, I lean toward the hypothesis that we all live in a computer simulation, like Nick Bostrom proposed. In that case, and if the master programmer is reading this: ENTER THE CODE FOR THAT FRIGGIN' 60-250 ALREADY, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Thanks.

[falconeye]

I am not so convinced by this.
First, even assuming that human space travel at those distances is biologically feasible - something we do not know now, and may not even know before we try, since we we have no idea of the physiological and psychological effects of long-term space travel on humans (including on the prerequisite fertility) - I feel it may not be the kind of mission that even very adventurous volunteers would feel attracted to [...]
The other option is something like "directed panspermia" [...]
emitting highly detectable signals encoding a "return address" to us.[...]
we all live in a computer simulation

Interesting considerations. You may also want to take the following into account:

1. Biological feasibility. It is, by using generation vessels. And sperm banks. Feasibility studies have been carried out. Those vessels wouldn't be small. More Arche Noah type of ships

2. Volunteers. No problem, humans have always volunteered to buy no-return tickets. Come on, some hundred out of billions... And if not humans, than another civilization would do it. The argument is not bound to humans. But if this assures you: All civilizations refusing to spread is one of the 50 resolutions of the Fermi paradox

3. Panspermia. Doesn't solve the problem, as you say yourself. Technical civilizations are precious, not life as such. Life is probably out there already.

4. Signal probes. Doesn't make sense if they are unable to replicate themselves. Because we cannot look very far into our galaxy to identify targets. And our neighborhood has been scanned already. And we may have died out before receiving a response from far away. And we don't see "their" probes. Of course, because sending probes simply doesn't make sense.

5. Computer simulation. This possibility has been studied. The more we probe large distances and high particle energies, the more costly such a simulation becomes. CERN in Geneva may be costly to us. But oh boy, is it costly to "them" To simulate the solar system with the accuracy necessary to fool particle physics you already would need more energy than present in our entire galaxy. Of course, we would know nothing about "their" computer technology. But it shows that the very idea creates more problems than it solves. It is not that the very idea is ignored. But if you look closer at it, it looses its elegance And if this assures you: A computer simulation which simply leaves out the aliens is one of the 50 resolutions of the Fermi paradox

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Last edited by falconeye; 01-30-2009 at 01:45 PM.

[jsherman999]

...

- A galaxy may have 3 * 10^11 stars, the universe may have 10^24 planets within our light cone, but is is relatively easy to "eat up" a dozen of factors of ten by requiring unlikely, still necessary events, like:

+ planet crash creating a moon so big that it stabilizes the axis of rotation, but not too big that it stops rotation over billion of years.
+ the right frequency of big meteor incidences to fuel evolution
+ a planet staying in the habitable ring despite the fact that this ring moves outward when the star gets hotter. Which means too that the star must be of the right size.
+ the human race emerged after 4700 million years and only about 100 million years before the earth will have become too hot. This shows that the entire process was unlikely in the first place. One can compute, how unlikely. If conditions are stable as they are.
+ no near-by supernova or gamma ray burst event (the sun is a relatively empty region of the galaxy, and was most of the time. Of course, most stars are in the crowded region).
+ a star created in a region with the right mix of heavier elements (only relatively few stars are -- the sun is an exception in that for its age, it is far away from the crowded center for its mix of elements).
+ a planet not been thrown out of the solar system and keeping a near-circle orbit (the sun seems to have had more planets in the past).
+ a planet keeping its vulcanism over billion of years.
+ ... I could go on forever

These are cascading events that have led to us being here in our present form, but I think it's a mistake (but a temptation) to "know" carbon-based intelligent species have only this path to follow. I'm sure that there are other event chains that could result in emergent behaviour that ultimately results in intelligence. But those chains would be equally unlikely.

Did you know that the human race was once near extinct with only a couple of thousand individuums left?

I think this is a bit of a misconception - what we know happened was that there were a few thousand sapiens sapiens existing at one time, and that all the people alive today came from this stock - there could have been several hundred thousand individual sapiens alive right at that moment, but the genetic material for only that 1000 or so made it up to here. Various reasons why that could have happened, but we don't know for sure that the entire human population was down to 1000 individuals - we may just be the result of the most successful tribe or group of tribes at the time "making it" in a genetic sense, although they weren't alone at the time.

...

... Failures don't count, the winner gets it all (the galaxy). If there ever will be a winner. We are close, at least, very close...

I also think we are closer than we realize - not close in relative time, but close in chance and likelihood. And that's relative. In a few hundred thousand more years, we may actually be getting our act together as a species.

...

5. Computer simulation. This possibility has been studied. The more we probe large distances and high particle energies, the more costly such a simulation becomes. CERN in Geneva may be costly to us. But oh boy, is it costly to "them" To simulate the solar system with the accuracy necessary to fool particle physics you already would need more energy than present in our entire galaxy. Of course, we would know nothing about "their" computer technology. But it shows that the very idea creates more problems than it solves. It is not that the very idea is ignored. But if you look closer at it, it looses its elegance And if this assures you: A computer simulation which simply leaves out the aliens is one of the 50 resolutions of the Fermi paradox

I wish I remember where I read some funny quote from someone who said that it would take a computer the size and complexity of the universe to simulate the universe - so maybe we are the computer!


.

[slomojoe]

I wish I remember where I read some funny quote from someone who said that it would take a computer the size and complexity of the universe to simulate the universe - so maybe we are the computer!


.

You seem to be assuming that the computer would have to simulate all the universe all the time, but of course it would need to only simulate the small part under observation at any given time. Even I, as a simulation, would not have to be on all the time, and certainly you guys may utterly disappear as soon as I log off. Which I am about to do. So, reboot ya later.

[rparmar]

I wish I remember where I read some funny quote from someone who said that it would take a computer the size and complexity of the universe to simulate the universe - so maybe we are the computer!

This idea was used by the very wonderful Douglas Adams.

[Canada_Rockies]

This idea was used by the very wonderful Douglas Adams.

Another fan. The answer is 42 - what is the question? Or is the computer Marvin (poor soul)

[falconeye]

Great post!

But those chains would be equally unlikely.
[...]
we may just be the result of the most successful tribe or group of tribes at the time "making it" in a genetic sense, although they weren't alone at the time.
[...]
it would take a computer the size and complexity of the universe to simulate the universe

1. Alternative chains. You are right. But even 1000 chains only add 3 powers of ten here... And there shouldn't be chains which are a lot more probable because otherwise, we would likely be the result of one of those.

2. About the near extinction of us. I don't have the exact sources on my desk, so from the back of my mind... We talk about two different things here:
- we all inherit from some 10000 individuals having lived some 1000 generations before our time in Africa. At that time, there must have been at least 100000 of us. This is not the event I meant. But this is the more commonly known fact.
- more recently discovered is the fact that at some earlier moment in time, the total population of Cro-Magnon was down to about 2000 specimen, located at two separated locations. I refer to some edition of Scientific American here. I wished I would remember the exact reference. Anyway, this is what I call near extinction. We really had luck!

3. A computer the size of the universe can only simulate a single galaxy with an accuracy as required by modern physics. Absurd as it may sound, there are people out there crazy enough to compute stuff like this

On the other hand ... maybe the simulating computer has indeed reached the limits of its capacity and Ben's ufos are nothing but the results of a partially erraneous simulation -- with an exception handler which prevents sharp photographs to ever come into existance. If so, then the frequency of ufos should increase when the LHC at CERN goes online

[falconeye]

of course it would need to only simulate the small part under observation at any given time

Such a simulation actually would be a virtual reality created for us. For us? For one of us, i.e., me. You even cannot log off because you don't exist.

It would be more like a pre-programmed game, not a simulation with an unknown evolution. This is too lame to be interesting.

[jsherman999]

On the other hand ... maybe the simulating computer has indeed reached the limits of its capacity and Ben's ufos are nothing but the results of a partially erraneous simulation -- with an exception handler which prevents sharp photographs to ever come into existance. If so, then the frequency of ufos should increase when the LHC at CERN goes online

Ala "The Matrix", where we learned that when people see ghosts, UFOs, feel deja-vu, or see the DA* 60-250 in stock at Adorama.com, that they're actually experiencing a glitch in the system - a hiccup in the program that causes the presentation of reality to be momentarily flawed.

Of course, such a glitch would be in our perception (presentation layer? ), and wouldn't necessarily be recordable, thus no photos, so an exception handler wouldn't be necessary.

[Sailor]

Great post!
As to my beliefs, I can only say that I believe in intelligent life on Earth, and am doing my best to help it come about one day.

Be patient - you've got an up hill battle, Robin.

Jer

[vinzer]

On the other hand ... maybe the simulating computer has indeed reached the limits of its capacity and Ben's ufos are nothing but the results of a partially erraneous simulation -- with an exception handler which prevents sharp photographs to ever come into existance. If so, then the frequency of ufos should increase when the LHC at CERN goes online

Will we be around to even know that if it does start colliding particles? I thought we're supposed to be heading towards the end of the world when that happens, via a black hole?

[slomojoe]

Such a simulation actually would be a virtual reality created for us. For us? For one of us, i.e., me. You even cannot log off because you don't exist.

It would be more like a pre-programmed game, not a simulation with an unknown evolution. This is too lame to be interesting.

You reveal a physicist's bias. A simulation of a fully conscious intelligence interacting with a rich, coherent but changing environment seems to we would be quite interesting indeed, no matter how "small" (by our universe's standards) that simulated environment may be at any given time.

And Bostrom's argument is simple and merely statistical. It goes more or less like this, if I remember correctly. If you believe that it is highly likely that the following things will occur in the future, (or occur in a different civilization on a different planet/universe etc):
- that computing power will be sufficient to simulate a universe like yours from the perspective of at least a single conscious being (like you);
and
- that such simulations will be interesting/useful/entertaining enough to their creators that they will run many of them over time (let's say at least as large as the number of conscious individuals on Earth);
then
- it follows that it is likely that you are already living in such a simulation.

Mind-blowing, uh?

[falconeye]

You reveal a physicist's bias. [...] it follows that it is likely that you are already living in such a simulation.

Of course, I reveal a physicist's bias Fortunately. After philosophers failed for thousands of years...

And fortunately, because those guys are hardest to create a simulated reality for

As for your argument. You are right. It goes along the same line of argument which prooves that the human race must die out soon because otherwise, you would most likely live at a later epoch featuring more individuals.

The problem with statistical arguments like this is that you deal with conditional probabilities. For instance, if you assume that your simulated ego (you!) and your simulator populate the same universe (you, some software bits and your simulator, some quantum state bits) then it is much more probably that you are the simulator (more bits). This argument would only change if the entire simulation contains more information than all quantum states of the simulator's population combined. A overwhelmingly huge effort for them. Why should they do this (limit their number in favour of simulating retarded brains...).?

Therefore, I think that Bostrom's argument is not thoroughly thought through. Like a philosopher's argument, not a physicist's argument (sorry, couldn't resist).