SETI public: Alien humanity, highly doubtful 2

[Larry Klaes <lklaes@bbn.com>]

Resent-From: Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
Resent-Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 23:43:06 -0700 (PDT)
Resent-To: <transhumantech@excelsior.org>, <transhumantech@onelist.com>
To: Larry Klaes <lklaes@bbn.com>
Cc: david.stodolsky@socialinformatics.org, RonHave@aol.com, swayzej@home.com,
        Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de, AllenTough@aol.com
From: <eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
Mailing-List: list transhumantech@egroups.com; contact
transhumantech-owner@egroups.com
Delivered-To: mailing list transhumantech@egroups.com
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 15:36:08 -0700 (PDT)
Reply-To: transhumantech@egroups.com
Subject: Re: [>Htech] Re: Alien humanity, highly doubtful


From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@aeiveos.com>

Hi,

Larry forwarded to me a post regarding this topic.  I think it
was to the transhumantech list.  (Eugene, it is fine if you
want to repost this to the list.  The last time I tried that
I got messages about having to be a member and I'm not going
to jump through those hoops just to send an email... Email list
servers need "validated" senders who don't choose to receive!)

I just thought I would toss my two cents worth in (Eugene and James
are probably well aware of my opinions from the Extropy list).

Currently, many, perhaps even most of the people on the Earth
today are effectively immortal if we follow the right path.
(No comments on the probability we will manage that!)  We are
probably 5 years, maybe 10 away from the time when large numbers
of people really begin to comprehend that (if they aren't of the nature
where they absolutely reject such radical changes in "the way it is").

All civilizations I think can make this transition.  Some may choose
not to -- choosing instead to value reproduction over immortality.
There is an interesting slant on this in Tom Kirkwood's recent book
"Time of our Lives" in the last chapter.

I think the discussion of GRB may be highly overemphasized.  My
current thinking with regard to Matrioshka Brains (Dyson shell
supercomputers), is that many of them are probably produced
by disassembling brown dwarfs.  This is easier than disassembling
stars but still takes a long time.  If you do that, you have to
store the excess H & He someplace.  Presumably this is done by
orbiting the stuff in frozen or compressed gas diamondoid "tankers"
on the edges of the Matrioshka Brain.  This is likely to provide a
large amount of shielding from the effects of a GRB.  Furthermore
because nanotech based artificial or evolved life-forms at the MBrain
level will have extensive observational capabilities they will *know* when
any nearby GRB are likely to occur and concentrate large masses of useless
matter between them and the GRB.  Finally because they are distributed
*replicated* intelligences, they simply tweek the ECC codes so that
even in the event of an unexpected GRB, no information is lost.

So GRB only generate significant impacts on the evolution of life
forms, at our level or below.  Only a little above our level and
the do not matter.  The current popular discussion on GRB is an
attempt to explain the lack of "contact" by attributing it to a
lack of "life".  If people really understood the difference between
our capacities and those of an MBrain (a trillion trillion, maybe even
a trillion trillion trillion times), the reasons behind the lack of
contact would be completely obvious.

Regarding the ethics of superentities and inter-stellar communication,
I think people *really* do not understand the costs involved.  I've
seen a recent claim by scientists (Univ. Michigan prof. Philip Bucksbaum)
that it may be possible to store the Library of Congress in a single
electron through quantum phase memory devices.  My understanding of
this is that they imprint a unique coding in the orbital level(s) of
the electrons in an atom.  I'm slightly suspicious of this, but given
the large number of orbital levels electrons may occupy, it should not
be cast aside with the sweep of a hand.  If this turns out to be true,
then MBrains are going to be able to store a *huge* amount of information
in their aggregate matter.  You will not be able to communicate that
information at any reasonable cost across interstellar distances.
So even if the first SETI message tells you how to suspend oneself
(MBrains can do this anyway, as you design a power-down suspend
state with minimal repair functionality into all of the nodes),
it isn't going to matter.  You could wait in suspend mode for
trillions of years and still probably not have scratched the
surface of the information an MBrain can send you.

We are clearly sub-ants in the heirarchy of galactic civilizations.
We don't get stepped on because we don't occupy anything of value
and/or it is so simple to avoid stepping on us.  We don't usually
"think" about maintaining our balance when we walk.  MBrains don't
"think" about not consuming a star where intelligent civilizations
might develop.  Buddists (or MBrains that value a diversity of life)
don't "think" about not damaging life, it is simply the way they
are built.  This is due to the simple observation that once your
survival needs are met, what *is* of value is a diversity of things
to capture your attention and say, "Oh, isn't that interesting,
I've never seen anything like *that*".  This is especially true
if you plan on living trillions of years.

Invoking the "benevolent god" interference principle often
sought in SETI contact remains a dubious perspective.
We have numerous examples from ant and termite colonies to
communism of what happens when you create large masses of
"equals".  You may survive, but you do not develop into
something more sophisticated.  It takes killing the "defects"
at genetic, species, meme and civilization levels to produce
the best result.  If *we* figure out how to navigate the path,
*we* may be interesting.  If someone hands us the answers, we
have cheated on the test and aren't really worthy of consideration.
If we don't pass the test,  we are just more atoms to be
recycled through the process of evolution in the universe.
And what can be wrong with that?  That *is* the way its
supposed to be.

Given the frequency of stars that seem to have putative planets
(note how I said that!) that are unlikely to develop life, there
is either plenty of useless material for intelligent civilizations to
harvest in the "current" universe, or there is no point to harvesting it.
It is worth noting that most of the GRB observed, seem to be distant,
implying they are occuring in a younger (deader) universe.  We could
already have our evidence for ETI, because, if in fact the Milky Way
is overdue for a burst, that may be evidence pointing to ETC interfering
in natural processes because the cost of avoiding the mess was much
easier than cleaning up after it.

Robert J. Bradbury

http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/


-----BEGIN TRANSHUMANTECH SIGNATURE-----
Post message: transhumantech@egroups.com
List owner:   transhumantech-owner@egroups.com
List home:    http://www.egroups.com/community/transhumantech/
Alt archive:  http://excelsior.planetx.com/transhumantech/
Old archive:  http://excelsior.planetx.com/transhumantech/threads.html
-----END TRANSHUMANTECH SIGNATURE-----