X-Message-Number: 30753
From: "John K Clark" <>
References: <>
Subject: The Singularity
Date: Thu, 22 May 2008 10:02:47 -0700

David Stodolsky <> 

> Given an at least 13.2 billion year old Galaxy 

That is the age of the universe not the galaxy, and during most of that
time life of any sort was imposable because the only elements available
were hydrogen and chemically inert helium. Chemistry did not exist back
then.

> this isn't plausible.

Well, either we are alone in the universe or we are not, either event is
mind boggling; but think about it. Life existed on Earth for 40 million
centuries but unless you visited the planet in the last 5 million
centuries you'd find nothing but bacteria, and unless you visited in the
very last century you'd find no creature who had a technology that had a
chance of creating a Singularity. This tells me that evolving complex
animals is hard;  evolving brains and its product, science,
is even harder.

However if you are correct then intelligence is doomed. It must always
meet some catastrophe because nothing else could explain all those
wonderfully juicy photons from stars radiating uselessly into empty
space.

> It is generally agreed that life evolves
> whenever the conditions are sufficient.

Life is not the issue, brains are.

> estimates place the evolution of life and
> then intelligent life at about 1/4 billion
> years for each.

And such  estimates (the correct word is guesses)are not worth a bucket
of warm spit.

> Conservative estimates are that there are 
> 4,000 intelligent civilizations in the Galaxy. 

If that were true we wouldn't be having this discussion because the
existence of ET would be obvious even to a blind man in a fog bank. Even
if you make the ridiculous assumption that it's imposable to make a
space probe that moves faster than the ones we have right now a Von
Newman probe could still be sent to every star in the galaxy in less
than half a million centuries, and if that had happened the galaxy would
never look the same again. But we don't see that in this galaxy or in
any of the other billions of galaxies we can observe. Why? 

If there are 4000 civilizations they must be very slow learners and be
as dull as dishwater.

  John K Clark

 
-- 
  John K Clark
  

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