4 ms·

Maybe we are the colonizers. Perhaps panspermia is the method in which distant civilizations choose to spread through the galaxy.

ben_w 7y ago
My gut feeling says panspermia is likely occurring regardless of whether Earth life is descended from stuff from other worlds or vice-versa. I don’t expect it to be a deliberate colonial mechanism, thought perhaps it might work as a deliberate terraforming mechanism, as one step in a plan in the vein of Stuart Armstrong’s talk on disassembling Mercury and using it to directly colonise the entire supercluster essentially simultaneously?
- kangnkodos 7y ago
  When we finally build Artificial General Intelligence, they will decide where to shoot the next DNA seeds, and the cycle will begin again.
  - ben_w 7y ago
    You might want to watch his presentation. We don’t need an AGI to decide, could literally shoot everywhere.
- seiferteric 7y ago
  Maybe our perspective is just wrong. If you consider that DNA itself is the life on earth, and not "us" in particular and that maybe DNA is the only life possible in this universe then this view makes more sense. Humans could be viewed as just an appendage of DNA.
  - yesenadam 7y ago
    "We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment" - Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 1976 Dawkins talking about the first sentence, about 1980: "...that was no metaphor. I believe it is the literal truth, provided certain key words are defined in the particular ways favoured by biologists. Of course it is a hard truth to swallow at first gulp. As Dr Christopher Evans has remarked, "This horrendous concept - the total prostitution of all animal life, including Man and all his airs and graces, to the blind purposiveness of these minute virus-like substances - is so desperately at odds with almost every other view that Man has of himself, that Dawkins’ book has received a bleak reception in many quarters. Nevertheless his argument is virtually irrefutable" ... http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=58430 http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=58430

ben_w 7y ago

My gut feeling says panspermia is likely occurring regardless of whether Earth life is descended from stuff from other worlds or vice-versa. I don’t expect it to be a deliberate colonial mechanism, thought perhaps it might work as a deliberate terraforming mechanism, as one step in a plan in the vein of Stuart Armstrong’s talk on disassembling Mercury and using it to directly colonise the entire supercluster essentially simultaneously?

kangnkodos 7y ago
When we finally build Artificial General Intelligence, they will decide where to shoot the next DNA seeds, and the cycle will begin again.
- ben_w 7y ago
  You might want to watch his presentation. We don’t need an AGI to decide, could literally shoot everywhere.
seiferteric 7y ago
Maybe our perspective is just wrong. If you consider that DNA itself is the life on earth, and not "us" in particular and that maybe DNA is the only life possible in this universe then this view makes more sense. Humans could be viewed as just an appendage of DNA.
- yesenadam 7y ago
  "We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment" - Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 1976 Dawkins talking about the first sentence, about 1980: "...that was no metaphor. I believe it is the literal truth, provided certain key words are defined in the particular ways favoured by biologists. Of course it is a hard truth to swallow at first gulp. As Dr Christopher Evans has remarked, "This horrendous concept - the total prostitution of all animal life, including Man and all his airs and graces, to the blind purposiveness of these minute virus-like substances - is so desperately at odds with almost every other view that Man has of himself, that Dawkins’ book has received a bleak reception in many quarters. Nevertheless his argument is virtually irrefutable" ... http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=58430 http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=58430