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You seem to ignore Von nuaman (sp) probes, generation ships, non carbon based life. And that’s before we consider that our understanding of physics may not be c

You seem to ignore Von nuaman (sp) probes, generation ships, non carbon based life. And that’s before we consider that our understanding of physics may not be complete.

mjburgess 6y ago
I didn't ignore them. It may be clearer to write all probabilities above as being conditioned on "our best knowledge of the universe". P(All intelligent life is organic | Our best knowldge) =~ 1 Who knows the actual P(All intelligent life is organic). My point is that OP seems profoundly ignorant of "the facts of the matter" as our best theories describe them. Such facts make D-AnythingOtherThanAliens vastly more likely than D-Aliens. It is possible to "imagine" a world in which non-carbon-based life develops to an intelligent point (somehow with evolution...? adaption? ... organic growth...?)... And it is possible to Imagine they develop space ships, can travel near light speed and survive for billions of years without severe issues (again: how could an intelligent life develop which "thinks on small time scales" enough to build ships, but not be severely affected by having to live for billions of years?). And its possible to imagine such a species has been exploring the near infinite vastness of space for long enough to have found earth and contacted us in a bizarre series of ways that routinely have little in common. Etc. But this imagined scenario is based in exactly zero physics, chemistry, biochemistry or anything else. That such a novel can be written weighs nothing on whether we ought actual count it as a possibility.
- mrfusion 6y ago
  I like your thinking but this still bothers me: > P(All intelligent life is organic | Our best knowldge) =~ 1 Even looking at ourselves, we are somewhat close to AI and it’s a reasonable belief that we’ll have something smarter than us within a few decades. Why are non organic aliens so unlikely to you?
  - lm28469 6y ago
    > we are somewhat close to AI and it’s a reasonable belief that we’ll have something smarter than us within a few decades. We've been saying that for the past 50 years or so now... We're always two years from self driving cars too. I wouldn't be so certain about AI, don't forget the 80/20 law, we got very good at pattern matching but we're faaaaar from general AI
  - mjburgess 6y ago
    I equally think P(Inorganic AI) is also vanishing low. What the ad companies have been selling, and researchers peacocking, isn't "AI". It's a system of manipulating electrical abacus beads to follow patterns of interest to human observers. Has very little to do with building systems that have relevant intrinsic properties. A digital computer does not weight more in virtue of simulating weight. A simulation is just an ape moving a bead along a wire to aid in its thinking. Simulations are cognitive games that enable us to reason more clearly. Nothing obtains any properties in virute of being a computer. A computer is just a type of gaming we are playing with another physical system. Intelligence is an instrinic property of really-existing physical systems; largely having to do with the ability to physical adapt on small time scales (ie., the brain grows differently in response to bodily-environmental dynamics). And on large time-scales (ie., evolution provides for the "right material" over >billion years via adaption -- which is an organic process). Only organic material has demonstrated the relevant short-time and long-time properties for intelligence. Games with electrical switches are apt to fool an ape looking at an LCD screen into thinking "there really is a virtual world in there!". But there isnt: it's an illusion. The LCD screen only appears to show it because we have rigged the beads to disturb the liquid crystal of the screen so as to present this illusion.
    - piyh 6y ago
      There is a virtual world in there though. There's rules, objects, processes and people to talk to. There can both fooled apes and a nested world to explore. Occasionally we take something out the simulation and interface it into the real world, or physically replicate the best virtual iteration. It might be low probability based on today's knowledge, but given that it's an option, that compute and algorithmic progress will continue to increase for the foreseeable future, those odds will continue to rise. The technosphere is the next abstraction that evolution will take place in and we've only had 50 years to get to know it. Give it 1000 years of civilization surviving and I can guarantee non-organic "life" will surpass all expectations.
    - Loughla 6y ago
      >Intelligence is an instrinic property of really-existing physical systems Why are human brains real, which are just meat full of electricity, but computer brains cannot be real, which are just metal full of electricity? >Only organic material has demonstrated the relevant short-time and long-time properties for intelligence. I would argue: so far. We didn't start with Ultra-high-definition televisions. Grandpa had a tv that was barely discernible as a picture, and probably caused massive cancer. Now I have a high def screen in my pocket. >What the ad companies have been selling, and researchers peacocking, isn't "AI". I do agree with this, but I certainly do not know enough about it to speak intelligently. I guess what I'm saying is, your argument comes across as - we can't do it right now, so it must be impossible. That just smacks of being wrong.
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Generation ships may not be possible, at least for biological lifeforms. Kim Stanley Robinson wrote his novel Aurora in large part to argue this.
- mrfusion 6y ago
  I’d be curious what the argument is. They would certainly be able to resupply raw materials if needed. Just plan a stop at a promising star system. Why wouldn’t a long lived nuclear power system provide the energy for food and life support? Beyond that, even five or ten generations is enough to get somewhere at .1C.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    I recommend reading the novel. The key line in it is “Life is a planetary phenomenon.” Basically, the argument is that at less than planetary scale, you would be confronted with things like waste products building up too quickly to sustain human life. For example, the generation starship struggles with an excess of salt (which in turn affects food production). The limited confines of the ship also produce deleterious effect on successive human generations akin to those found among species in isolated island ecosystems.
    - garbagetime 6y ago
      Maybe he had to make his argument into a novel because it isn't good enough to stand up to direct inspection. Deleterious effect of species on small islands are (a) maybe not always present? E.g. kakapo (b) due to factors which needn't be unaddressed in generational ships
      - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
        He made his argument into a novel because he is a writer, novels are what he does. But he tends to write around the scientific ideas he has been reading and his work often serves as convenient summaries of those ideas for a broad audience – mentioning a KSR plot is standard fare on "news for nerds" sites like this one. Also, my post above intentionally says "akin to" and not "identical to".

You seem to ignore Von nuaman (sp) probes, generation ships, non carbon based life. And that’s before we consider that our understanding of physics may not be complete.

mjburgess 6y ago

I didn't ignore them. It may be clearer to write all probabilities above as being conditioned on "our best knowledge of the universe". P(All intelligent life is organic | Our best knowldge) =~ 1 Who knows the actual P(All intelligent life is organic). My point is that OP seems profoundly ignorant of "the facts of the matter" as our best theories describe them. Such facts make D-AnythingOtherThanAliens vastly more likely than D-Aliens. It is possible to "imagine" a world in which non-carbon-based life develops to an intelligent point (somehow with evolution...? adaption? ... organic growth...?)... And it is possible to Imagine they develop space ships, can travel near light speed and survive for billions of years without severe issues (again: how could an intelligent life develop which "thinks on small time scales" enough to build ships, but not be severely affected by having to live for billions of years?). And its possible to imagine such a species has been exploring the near infinite vastness of space for long enough to have found earth and contacted us in a bizarre series of ways that routinely have little in common. Etc. But this imagined scenario is based in exactly zero physics, chemistry, biochemistry or anything else. That such a novel can be written weighs nothing on whether we ought actual count it as a possibility.

mrfusion 6y ago
I like your thinking but this still bothers me: > P(All intelligent life is organic | Our best knowldge) =~ 1 Even looking at ourselves, we are somewhat close to AI and it’s a reasonable belief that we’ll have something smarter than us within a few decades. Why are non organic aliens so unlikely to you?
- lm28469 6y ago
  > we are somewhat close to AI and it’s a reasonable belief that we’ll have something smarter than us within a few decades. We've been saying that for the past 50 years or so now... We're always two years from self driving cars too. I wouldn't be so certain about AI, don't forget the 80/20 law, we got very good at pattern matching but we're faaaaar from general AI
- mjburgess 6y ago
  I equally think P(Inorganic AI) is also vanishing low. What the ad companies have been selling, and researchers peacocking, isn't "AI". It's a system of manipulating electrical abacus beads to follow patterns of interest to human observers. Has very little to do with building systems that have relevant intrinsic properties. A digital computer does not weight more in virtue of simulating weight. A simulation is just an ape moving a bead along a wire to aid in its thinking. Simulations are cognitive games that enable us to reason more clearly. Nothing obtains any properties in virute of being a computer. A computer is just a type of gaming we are playing with another physical system. Intelligence is an instrinic property of really-existing physical systems; largely having to do with the ability to physical adapt on small time scales (ie., the brain grows differently in response to bodily-environmental dynamics). And on large time-scales (ie., evolution provides for the "right material" over >billion years via adaption -- which is an organic process). Only organic material has demonstrated the relevant short-time and long-time properties for intelligence. Games with electrical switches are apt to fool an ape looking at an LCD screen into thinking "there really is a virtual world in there!". But there isnt: it's an illusion. The LCD screen only appears to show it because we have rigged the beads to disturb the liquid crystal of the screen so as to present this illusion.
  - piyh 6y ago
    There is a virtual world in there though. There's rules, objects, processes and people to talk to. There can both fooled apes and a nested world to explore. Occasionally we take something out the simulation and interface it into the real world, or physically replicate the best virtual iteration. It might be low probability based on today's knowledge, but given that it's an option, that compute and algorithmic progress will continue to increase for the foreseeable future, those odds will continue to rise. The technosphere is the next abstraction that evolution will take place in and we've only had 50 years to get to know it. Give it 1000 years of civilization surviving and I can guarantee non-organic "life" will surpass all expectations.
  - Loughla 6y ago
    >Intelligence is an instrinic property of really-existing physical systems Why are human brains real, which are just meat full of electricity, but computer brains cannot be real, which are just metal full of electricity? >Only organic material has demonstrated the relevant short-time and long-time properties for intelligence. I would argue: so far. We didn't start with Ultra-high-definition televisions. Grandpa had a tv that was barely discernible as a picture, and probably caused massive cancer. Now I have a high def screen in my pocket. >What the ad companies have been selling, and researchers peacocking, isn't "AI". I do agree with this, but I certainly do not know enough about it to speak intelligently. I guess what I'm saying is, your argument comes across as - we can't do it right now, so it must be impossible. That just smacks of being wrong.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

Generation ships may not be possible, at least for biological lifeforms. Kim Stanley Robinson wrote his novel Aurora in large part to argue this.

mrfusion 6y ago
I’d be curious what the argument is. They would certainly be able to resupply raw materials if needed. Just plan a stop at a promising star system. Why wouldn’t a long lived nuclear power system provide the energy for food and life support? Beyond that, even five or ten generations is enough to get somewhere at .1C.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  I recommend reading the novel. The key line in it is “Life is a planetary phenomenon.” Basically, the argument is that at less than planetary scale, you would be confronted with things like waste products building up too quickly to sustain human life. For example, the generation starship struggles with an excess of salt (which in turn affects food production). The limited confines of the ship also produce deleterious effect on successive human generations akin to those found among species in isolated island ecosystems.
  - garbagetime 6y ago
    Maybe he had to make his argument into a novel because it isn't good enough to stand up to direct inspection. Deleterious effect of species on small islands are (a) maybe not always present? E.g. kakapo (b) due to factors which needn't be unaddressed in generational ships
    - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
      He made his argument into a novel because he is a writer, novels are what he does. But he tends to write around the scientific ideas he has been reading and his work often serves as convenient summaries of those ideas for a broad audience – mentioning a KSR plot is standard fare on "news for nerds" sites like this one. Also, my post above intentionally says "akin to" and not "identical to".