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You 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

You 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 ago
I 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 ago
  Thinking 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 ago
More 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.

Chathamization 11y ago

I 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 ago
Thinking 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 ago

More 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.