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Not sure why you wouldn't just manufacture a bunch of probes in one system and then send them out en masse. You wouldn't need to worry about creating self-repli
by Chathamization 11y ago
Not sure why you wouldn't just manufacture a bunch of probes in one system and then send them out en masse. You wouldn't need to worry about creating self-replication units, you'd get to each system more quickly (you wouldn't have to deal with multiple accelerations/decelerations or manufacturing time), you'd have more control (wouldn't have to worry about drone swarms and could inspect each probe before it's sent to its destination), you'd probably have quicker manufacturing (since it'd be done by specialist machines rather than hybrid manufacturer/probes), could probably give the probes a boost form the home system when you send them out, etc. Self replication doesn't seem to add much, but certainly takes away a lot.
This is also assuming that aliens will want to scout out the universe, and that probes are the best way for an advanced civilization to do so. We might be like someone from the past who comes to the present and determines that we don't have any long distance communication because they don't see any smoke signals.
- pklausler 11y agoYou missed the point. I'm not arguing that civilizations would be likely to launch self-replicating probes. What I am asserting is that the probes will be out there UNLESS every single actor capable of launching a self-replicating probe chooses to not do so, and that over billions of years and hundreds of billions of stellar systems in the Local Group, that probability is vanishingly small. All it takes is one launch; if it's possible, it'll happen. And it hasn't. So either there's never been a civilization that launched a self-replicating probe, or it's not possible, or we're the first or only civilization to approach that level.
- Chathamization 11y agoI don't know about that. Even if we're talking about a large sample size, can we really say "that probability is vanishingly small"? It's kind of like saying, "Sure, I don't see any reason why someone would build an underwater city, but with a couple hundred countries in the world, and 7 billion people, the probability that no one is going to do that is tiny." But are we even dealing with a large sample size? Maybe there's "only" been several dozen large interstellar civilizations out there, and a few hundred small ones that never really got far beyond a handful of planets. Or maybe there were a couple of attempts, but they failed horribly. The problem with the "paradox" is that there seems to be a huge number of possible answers. It ends up being "how come this one scenario I'm thinking about hasn't happened."
- pklausler 11y agoThinking about this paradox in terms of probabilities: P(probes) = 1 - (1 - P(a civ can launch a probe)) ^ N(civ) If we don't see probes, and if we don't think P(can launch) is exactly zero, then N(civ) just has to be small. EDIT: HN deleted my Fortran-style exponentiation.
- magnanimous 11y agoMore advanced civilizations could be watching out for and preventing more primitive civilizations from polluting the universe with self-replicating probes. We are probably being watched right now and if we attempted to launch an armada of replicating probes they would most likely subtly sabotage them to prevent them from replicating. It would take years before we knew something was wrong and hopefully by then we would be smart enough to not do something like that again. In fact I hope we are smart enough RIGHT NOW to realize that it is highly irresponsible to send out self replicating probes considering how easy it would be for gamma and cosmic rays to corrupt the programming into a virus.