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How long would they have to last though? We don't just have to both be advanced but also overlap in time. When you consider there are hundred million+ years bet
by cloverich 4y ago
How long would they have to last though? We don't just have to both be advanced but also overlap in time. When you consider there are hundred million+ years between advanced life forms and intelligent life, and even millions of years between humans and intelligent humans, any signals of any kind may have to last for millions of years or more to be detected.
Then there's so much space, so it probably takes more than one. Perhaps a million+ more than one.
Then the final but to me most important thing, is we often assume advanced life looks like us. I personally believe it generally does -- for a bit. But if we're just a stepping stone to AI and then (perhaps) we disappear, advanced life forms like us only exist for a blip anyways. We probably don't even know what to look for. The possibilities are fascinating and humbling.
- eloff 4y agoI suspect that could be part of it, that we're the biological bootloader for AI and we last just a blink in that stage on the time scale of the universe. But then what does that AI do afterwards and why don't we see them. That doesn't really solve the dilemma.
- cloverich 4y agoThat is true although I suspect it might be like an ant and us -- the ant certainly interacts with us but does it, can it, know anything about us? Maybe the output of AI is all around us and we are simply (now and forever) incapable of "seeing" it. My other hunch is that communication at that level isn't actually required in the traditional sense, and anything that would need to be communicable is done so via truth seeking.
- whimsicalism 4y agoIt wouldn't have to be a signal, it could be physical artifacts.