X-Message-Number: 14480
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 10:09:08 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: still more on other intelligences

Once more on the issue of other civilizations:

Apparently my comment on the combination of other intelligence
Apparently my comment on the combination of other intelligences PLUS
an infinite past has set off lots of thinking. Several comments
in the most recent Cryonet again try to escape the problem I discussed.

1. If we suppose that by some means we learn to think far faster 
   than we think now, will this affect our interest in interstellar
   travel? I would say NO. The simplest reason is that we won't really
   get a deep understanding of what's out there unless we go there
   ourselves. But there are others on top of that: perhaps we want
   lots more REAL space for our activities rather than just
   cyberspace (which basically comes from our imagination and history
   alone, while REAL space comes out of Reality... and if you
   think that we are able to work things out purely by thinking, then
   you're simply wrong). Could we already exist in the construction of
   some(one,thing, whatever)'s imagination? Until someone comes up 
   with evidence for that, such a belief is just like a belief in 
   fairies. 

   Not only that, but if such lengthy travel felt like it would take
   millions of years, at least two solutions exist. The first is called
   suspended animation, of which you must have heard as a reader of
   Cryonet. The second simple solution is to take along lots of friends,
   so the trip will then seem much like normal life.

2. Could those other intelligences be living between the stars? 
   This idea runs into the simplest of engineering issues: a 
   sufficiently advanced civilization, no matter of what materials
   its members consist and what temperatures and speeds they prefer,
   can easily take apart whole stars and turn them into areas of
   more favorable existence. A civilization which existed in space
   would have eaten up the whole Solar System millions of years before
   human beings even existed. The really essential point to keep in
   mind is that these other civilizations came into existence millions
   of years prior to us ... and if we assume that the past history of
   the universe is infinite, then the time would easily be far longer
   than that.

So both of these ideas don't really deal with the problem. It's still
worthwhile, though, to also consider their value if we suppose that the
previous history of the Universe is FINITE. I'd say that the interest
in going to and inhabiting other systems would still exist; after
all, there are at least two ways to deal with the (apparent) time
for travel, even if we speed ourselves up by a high factor.

I'd also add that a civilization, no matter how powerful, which 
simply vanished into its own imagination would ultimately find 
itself destroyed by one which did not. Yes, that other would probably
have to be at least as fast if not faster, but to assume that
fast thinking would let us escape the errors due to a total lack of
acquaintance with reality is an error, and if such a civilization
ended up staring at itself through its own mirror, then it migth
not even take one as advanced to deal with it. Reality is hard,
imagination is soft.

		Best wishes and long long life,

			Thomas Donaldson

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