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I find most Fermi-paradox arguments drift towards being too biology-centric even if they acknowledge the possibility or probability of a transition to machine-b
by roca 7y ago
I find most Fermi-paradox arguments drift towards being too biology-centric even if they acknowledge the possibility or probability of a transition to machine-based life.
For example this paper assumes that you need classic "habitable worlds" to colonize a solar system, but it's unclear why machines would need more than relatively small rocks or comets.
The paper also assumes that each colony needs to operate as a continuous entity and can therefore collapse or experience massive cultural shift. But if it's all machines, then you can put some powered-off seed ships in long orbits for cheap self-recolonization (seems strictly easier than crossing interstellar space in the first place).
I'd like to see more studies on the feasibility of those ultra-long-lifetime interstellar ships (assuming plausible tech like general AI). Maybe there are thermodynamic or other reasons why that can't be done.
(Personally I'm in the camp of "abiogenesis is actually really hard so we're the first civilization in our light-cone; the doomsday argument holds, and will be a theistic eschaton".)
- isoprophlex 7y agoSome fun ideas, because there's absolutely no reason why life should be so biological, as you say: - Some ancient civ managed to run computing hardware on the surface of cooler stars (there are stars that allow non trivial surface chemistry) - the same but with gas giant planets near their metallic or rocky cores - Gamma ray bursts are galactic compute nodes syncing data
- ajnin 7y agoMachines need to be maintained. Machines of useful complexity include such parts as microprocessors. To create new or replacement parts, nothing less than the full Earth industrial complex is required. It's not clear how to package all that in a ship, including enough reserves to bootstrap an industry up to the point it is possible to build microprocessors. I doubt that "machine life" could subsist on a small barren rock with more success than biological life.
- roca 7y agoIt's very interesting to consider what would be required for a minimal industrial complex that supports microprocessors. My intuition is that it would be much smaller than "the full Earth industrial complex". Seems like a question that is actually answerable with research, and potentially important too as a hedge against our current industrial complex collapsing.
- robbiep 7y agoHere’s an article on that: http://caseyexaustralia.blogspot.com/2018/09/how-to-industrialize-mars.html?m=1 http://caseyexaustralia.blogspot.com/2018/09/how-to-industri...
- roca 7y agoExcellent link, thanks! That's exactly the sort of analysis required, though a lot more is needed. I didn't follow why mining has to be (or should be) so human-labor-intensive.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Aperocky 7y agoExactly, any such ship would be packaged around a processing unit factory