X-Message-Number: 21640
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 13:39:10 -0500
Subject: Re: Discussion on Singularities
From: Brian A Stewart <>

<snip>

>It is widely agreed, that 65 million years ago we had a cosmic event 
>strike the earth,
>which wiped out all dominant life forms on land.  There is also some 
>evidence, that a
>similarly disastrous event occurred some 250 million years prior to 
>that.  On hand of
>these two data we may speculate, that out here at the outer periphery of

>our galaxy
>such a dominant life form/civilization ending event may occur once every

>50 to 300
>million years


I have often wondered if it isn't REQUIRED that such events occur to kill
off the non-intelligent, dominant life forms on a planet, allowing
intelligence the *chance* to evolve-- while at the same time, these
catastrophic events must be rare enough to allow intelligence the *time*
to evolve.  That is to say, there must be a window of opportunity opened
of the correct duration-- which would reduce the number of star systems
by an unknown amount.  Added to that, there must be the time between
events for a technological civilization to arise (IIRC, Earth is overdue
for such a catastrophic event to clear us off the top of the food chain.)

Just some quick comments.


Brian

Brian A. Stewart-- Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.A.
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we
are to stand by the President right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and
servile, but morally treasonable to the American public."
                            - Theodore Roosevelt

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