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Why not? Yes, we did send out probes...and where are we with them? "If Von Neumann self-replicating probes are possible" That's a big if. Where is proof of the

Why not? Yes, we did send out probes...and where are we with them? "If Von Neumann self-replicating probes are possible" That's a big if. Where is proof of these probes that you speak of?

nadermx 2y ago
Thats also assuming Von Neumann probes don't replicate wrong like DNA as it clones, etc. Too many variables for it too be feasible
- alganet 2y ago
  Why do you assume DNA replication is "wrong"? Maybe it's just part of the exploring. It needs to adapt to new environments to explore them after all.
- ericb 2y ago
  If I could attach a software program to every replicating chunk of DNA, I'm pretty sure I could write a checksum and diagnostic and instructions to shut down if they failed. That's not a variable that does anything to feasibility.
  - krapp 2y ago
    What would this "software program" be made of? Millions of years of evolution have already granted DNA the capacity for diagnostics, error correction and self-repair. Despite that, genetic replication is still error prone, and everything still fails, sometimes catastrophically. DNA is made of molecular bonds, and that "software" is necessarily also made of molecular bonds, there is no distinction between "software" and "hardware" at that level of physical granularity. You're not going to get perfect replication of anything over millions of generations. That violates the laws of thermodynamics. The system has to change, randomly and unexpectedly, and it has to fail over time. Entropy must accumulate. And that's not even taking into account the radioactive hellscape of interstellar space. This is the difference between mathematics and physics. Mathematicians can handwave away or ignore inconvenient or uninteresting complexities, and thus something like the infinite exponential progress of self-replicating probes across the galaxy seems obvious because the math is obvious, but reality doesn't allow that.
    - ericb 2y ago
      > The system has to change, randomly and unexpectedly. Entropy must accumulate. Yes to the first two, but "has to fail over time" is something you are making up--not a law of physics. Local decreases of entropy happen continually. Resilient, error-checking, self-healing systems are possible.
      - krapp 2y ago
        Self-replicating probes aren't closed systems. They exist within the universe, consume matter (which is how they replicate) and emit waste heat (as all physical systems must,) and are bound to the laws of physics which, yes, include the second law of thermodynamics. There may be short term local reductions in entropy, but eventually, inevitably, entropy must increase. >Resilient, error-checking, self-healing systems are possible. You cannot have such systems be perfectly efficient. That isn't physics, it's magic.
        ericb 2y ago
        No one suggested perfect efficiency. I'm debating with you, a product of a similar reproductive process (evolution) where a system of throwing away the bad offspring has worked just fine. Magical indeed!
        ben_w 2y ago
        In fairness, that's a bad argument because this same process also gives us cancer. I'd instead point out that while "perfect" isn't possible, we can relatively simply design the system to have an error rate such that there's less than a 1e-12 chance of an error occurring anywhere in the universe even if you did turn the entire mass of the universe into probes. I'd counter that with the point that people are very bad at accounting for all the possible ways that systems can fail, and that while it's easy to create an error correction code that good, the actual failure rate of the system as a whole is likely to be much, much worse.
        2y ago
NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
> That's a big if. That's a tiny "if". Were you to ask me to write a science fiction story where the premise was that they were indeed impossible, I'd struggle to come up with ideas why that might be the case. In principle it must remain true, even if the "self-replicating probe" were gigantic human colony ships, and humans were some kind of component of the scheme. And if humans are sufficient components to make that work, why not something simpler than a big drooling man-monkey? It's not that they're impossible. I don't think we'd need even another 200 years to do it. I just don't think we have the time. We're on a fast course to extinction, and by the time most people realize that this is so, the last chance to avert it will be 30 or 40 years in the rear-view.
ericb 2y ago
> That's a big if. Is it? Since humans can send probes, and reproduce ourselves, technology and civilization, it proves that a slower self-replicating bio-mechanical system has this capability and now we're left debating if a faster more compact system is possible, which doesn't seem like a leap?
- krapp 2y ago
  It is a leap. Human beings are dependent on a specific, very delicate ecosystem and technological civilization to be able to replicate with the stability and scale that we do. We also can't replicate ourselves using arbitrary matter, we require the presence of a diverse breeding population. You can't just take human beings, push them out into space and expect them - somehow - to multiply exponentially and without error using any arbitrary matter they encounter over millions of generations, but that's the baseline expectation of Von Neumann probes. Add to that all of the assumptions required to use Von Neumann probes as an explanation for modern UFO folklore. One might assume that a simplistic organism could survive and thrive more easily in interstellar space (something like a virus or tardigrade, for example.) Complex organisms tend to be more delicate and more prone to replication errors over time, as well as more sensitive to things like the radiation of interstellar space. But that isn't what people are reporting - they're reporting large, complex, technological, apparently even piloted vehicles. And that's not even getting into the interdimensional stuff, links between UFOs and the supernatural, or abductions. Obviously Von Neumann probes haven't consumed the galaxy. Therefore, either no technological civilization has ever existed in the universe other than ourselves, in which case UFOs/UAPs cannot be Von Neumann probes because they obviously haven't consumed the galaxy, and don't behave in the ways that such probes would be expected to, or else technological civilizations can and likely do exist, and Von Neumann probes aren't as simple or inevitable as people seem to think. And it still doesn't explain UFOs/UAPs as reported.
  - ericb 2y ago
    > haven't consumed the galaxy That's absurd. If you can make a self-replicating probe, you can code a heuristic that prevents a grey goo scenario. Cells reproduce, but they haven't consumed the galaxy. > doesn't explain UFOs/UAPs as reported. So, the existence of spurious reports magically invalidates actual probes?

Why not? Yes, we did send out probes...and where are we with them? "If Von Neumann self-replicating probes are possible" That's a big if. Where is proof of these probes that you speak of?

nadermx 2y ago

Thats also assuming Von Neumann probes don't replicate wrong like DNA as it clones, etc. Too many variables for it too be feasible

alganet 2y ago
Why do you assume DNA replication is "wrong"? Maybe it's just part of the exploring. It needs to adapt to new environments to explore them after all.
ericb 2y ago
If I could attach a software program to every replicating chunk of DNA, I'm pretty sure I could write a checksum and diagnostic and instructions to shut down if they failed. That's not a variable that does anything to feasibility.
- krapp 2y ago
  What would this "software program" be made of? Millions of years of evolution have already granted DNA the capacity for diagnostics, error correction and self-repair. Despite that, genetic replication is still error prone, and everything still fails, sometimes catastrophically. DNA is made of molecular bonds, and that "software" is necessarily also made of molecular bonds, there is no distinction between "software" and "hardware" at that level of physical granularity. You're not going to get perfect replication of anything over millions of generations. That violates the laws of thermodynamics. The system has to change, randomly and unexpectedly, and it has to fail over time. Entropy must accumulate. And that's not even taking into account the radioactive hellscape of interstellar space. This is the difference between mathematics and physics. Mathematicians can handwave away or ignore inconvenient or uninteresting complexities, and thus something like the infinite exponential progress of self-replicating probes across the galaxy seems obvious because the math is obvious, but reality doesn't allow that.
  - ericb 2y ago
    > The system has to change, randomly and unexpectedly. Entropy must accumulate. Yes to the first two, but "has to fail over time" is something you are making up--not a law of physics. Local decreases of entropy happen continually. Resilient, error-checking, self-healing systems are possible.
    - krapp 2y ago
      Self-replicating probes aren't closed systems. They exist within the universe, consume matter (which is how they replicate) and emit waste heat (as all physical systems must,) and are bound to the laws of physics which, yes, include the second law of thermodynamics. There may be short term local reductions in entropy, but eventually, inevitably, entropy must increase. >Resilient, error-checking, self-healing systems are possible. You cannot have such systems be perfectly efficient. That isn't physics, it's magic.
      - ericb 2y ago
        No one suggested perfect efficiency. I'm debating with you, a product of a similar reproductive process (evolution) where a system of throwing away the bad offspring has worked just fine. Magical indeed!
        ben_w 2y ago
        In fairness, that's a bad argument because this same process also gives us cancer. I'd instead point out that while "perfect" isn't possible, we can relatively simply design the system to have an error rate such that there's less than a 1e-12 chance of an error occurring anywhere in the universe even if you did turn the entire mass of the universe into probes. I'd counter that with the point that people are very bad at accounting for all the possible ways that systems can fail, and that while it's easy to create an error correction code that good, the actual failure rate of the system as a whole is likely to be much, much worse.
        2y ago

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

> That's a big if. That's a tiny "if". Were you to ask me to write a science fiction story where the premise was that they were indeed impossible, I'd struggle to come up with ideas why that might be the case. In principle it must remain true, even if the "self-replicating probe" were gigantic human colony ships, and humans were some kind of component of the scheme. And if humans are sufficient components to make that work, why not something simpler than a big drooling man-monkey? It's not that they're impossible. I don't think we'd need even another 200 years to do it. I just don't think we have the time. We're on a fast course to extinction, and by the time most people realize that this is so, the last chance to avert it will be 30 or 40 years in the rear-view.

ericb 2y ago

> That's a big if. Is it? Since humans can send probes, and reproduce ourselves, technology and civilization, it proves that a slower self-replicating bio-mechanical system has this capability and now we're left debating if a faster more compact system is possible, which doesn't seem like a leap?

krapp 2y ago
It is a leap. Human beings are dependent on a specific, very delicate ecosystem and technological civilization to be able to replicate with the stability and scale that we do. We also can't replicate ourselves using arbitrary matter, we require the presence of a diverse breeding population. You can't just take human beings, push them out into space and expect them - somehow - to multiply exponentially and without error using any arbitrary matter they encounter over millions of generations, but that's the baseline expectation of Von Neumann probes. Add to that all of the assumptions required to use Von Neumann probes as an explanation for modern UFO folklore. One might assume that a simplistic organism could survive and thrive more easily in interstellar space (something like a virus or tardigrade, for example.) Complex organisms tend to be more delicate and more prone to replication errors over time, as well as more sensitive to things like the radiation of interstellar space. But that isn't what people are reporting - they're reporting large, complex, technological, apparently even piloted vehicles. And that's not even getting into the interdimensional stuff, links between UFOs and the supernatural, or abductions. Obviously Von Neumann probes haven't consumed the galaxy. Therefore, either no technological civilization has ever existed in the universe other than ourselves, in which case UFOs/UAPs cannot be Von Neumann probes because they obviously haven't consumed the galaxy, and don't behave in the ways that such probes would be expected to, or else technological civilizations can and likely do exist, and Von Neumann probes aren't as simple or inevitable as people seem to think. And it still doesn't explain UFOs/UAPs as reported.
- ericb 2y ago
  > haven't consumed the galaxy That's absurd. If you can make a self-replicating probe, you can code a heuristic that prevents a grey goo scenario. Cells reproduce, but they haven't consumed the galaxy. > doesn't explain UFOs/UAPs as reported. So, the existence of spurious reports magically invalidates actual probes?