2 ms·

Or maybe any number of things can go wrong within a million years that prevents the few species capable of interstellar travel from unbounded exponential expans

by krapp 2y ago

Or maybe any number of things can go wrong within a million years that prevents the few species capable of interstellar travel from unbounded exponential expansion, including but not limited to said species not wanting to engage in unbounded exponential expansion. Mathematicians always seem to assume that reality is as simple as a plot on graph paper, but if that were the case we would have had hotels on Mars by now.

card_zero 2y ago
Perhaps there is some obvious direction in which to engage in unbounded exponential expansion, more attractive than exploring the galaxy - not full of vacuum and vast distances and cold rocks. Everybody else is exploring that space instead, and we haven't found it yet. Or, quite reasonably, human-like intelligence is special and galactic-scale rare. Do we think every other kind of unlikely life exists elsewhere in the galaxy? If there are definitely other human-like intelligent life forms in the galaxy, then there are even more definitely flying pigs with nineteen legs and wheels on the ends. Does it feel so intuitively correct, considering that? The argument here is "but orangutans ... and crows and parrots ... and dolphins ... and octopuses ... and elephants ... they all abound with the potential to build rockets and electronics and self-replicating space probes. Any million years now, any one of those species could flip into producing lots of ideas and constructions and exploring everywhere." But, really? Sure, they do stuff with sticks and half-coconuts, but is "the parrot/octopus/elephant space program is just around the corner" really a parsimonious extrapolation from observed animal stick-handling? Besides, nerve cells only evolved once, maybe that was a freakish event. Maybe every other animal in the galaxy is a sponge.

2 ms·

Or maybe any number of things can go wrong within a million years that prevents the few species capable of interstellar travel from unbounded exponential expans

by krapp 2y ago

card_zero 2y ago
Perhaps there is some obvious direction in which to engage in unbounded exponential expansion, more attractive than exploring the galaxy - not full of vacuum and vast distances and cold rocks. Everybody else is exploring that space instead, and we haven't found it yet. Or, quite reasonably, human-like intelligence is special and galactic-scale rare. Do we think every other kind of unlikely life exists elsewhere in the galaxy? If there are definitely other human-like intelligent life forms in the galaxy, then there are even more definitely flying pigs with nineteen legs and wheels on the ends. Does it feel so intuitively correct, considering that? The argument here is "but orangutans ... and crows and parrots ... and dolphins ... and octopuses ... and elephants ... they all abound with the potential to build rockets and electronics and self-replicating space probes. Any million years now, any one of those species could flip into producing lots of ideas and constructions and exploring everywhere." But, really? Sure, they do stuff with sticks and half-coconuts, but is "the parrot/octopus/elephant space program is just around the corner" really a parsimonious extrapolation from observed animal stick-handling? Besides, nerve cells only evolved once, maybe that was a freakish event. Maybe every other animal in the galaxy is a sponge.