4 ms·

I'm a big believer in the universe as predicted by the Fermi Paradox, and that we'll only ever interact with "human-descended" intelligences. My gut still says

I'm a big believer in the universe as predicted by the Fermi Paradox, and that we'll only ever interact with "human-descended" intelligences. My gut still says it's more likely we'll talk to aliens than harvest vacuum energy. Entropy says we don't get anything for nothing. (I Am Not A Theoretical Physicist, though - or a xenobiologist, for that matter.)

radarsat1 14y ago
That's an unfortunate attitude. He's not claiming "something for nothing," he's saying that zero-point energy (which demonstrably exists) could one day be harvested. It's very difficult, but not unimaginable. I'm sure people said the same thing about nuclear energy until it was very, very clearly demonstrated. It has very little to do with aliens, however.
- AkThhhpppt 14y ago
  The aliens bit was continuing the GP's probability comparison, nothing more. That's a fallacious comparison: E = mc^2, the discovery of the neutron, and the discovery of uranium's fissile nature told us very clearly how to get nuclear energy (getting nuclear energy _controllably_, however...). Special relativity told us exactly how much power was available. Solid physics. With ZPE extraction, the physics doesn't give us any way of accessing the energy beyond the Casimir effect, which is pretty restricted. Actually powering anything is in the realms of perpetual motion machines; wikipedia discusses it better than I can here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy#Free-energy_devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy#Free-energy_... (Edit: Rutherford did say the idea of nuclear energy was "hogwash", so you're right there...)
JoeAltmaier 14y ago
Non-human aliens, like apes? Dolphins? We've already seen non-human intelligences, in our own back yard. Not a great leap to imagine them elsewhere.
- AkThhhpppt 14y ago
  Ok, where I say 'alien', imagine I said 'extra-terrestrial'. We know the probability of the universe evolving intelligent life from scratch is 1. We know nothing about the probability of the universe evolving intelligent life from scratch twice, and the Fermi paradox implies we're very unlikely to ever find out more.
  - JoeAltmaier 14y ago
    Disagree. No reason to dismiss multiple intelligent lifeforms on one planet as not 'from scratch'. The operative word is 'intelligent'. Probability of life is unknown; but that's not the issue presented.

radarsat1 14y ago

That's an unfortunate attitude. He's not claiming "something for nothing," he's saying that zero-point energy (which demonstrably exists) could one day be harvested. It's very difficult, but not unimaginable. I'm sure people said the same thing about nuclear energy until it was very, very clearly demonstrated. It has very little to do with aliens, however.

AkThhhpppt 14y ago
The aliens bit was continuing the GP's probability comparison, nothing more. That's a fallacious comparison: E = mc^2, the discovery of the neutron, and the discovery of uranium's fissile nature told us very clearly how to get nuclear energy (getting nuclear energy _controllably_, however...). Special relativity told us exactly how much power was available. Solid physics. With ZPE extraction, the physics doesn't give us any way of accessing the energy beyond the Casimir effect, which is pretty restricted. Actually powering anything is in the realms of perpetual motion machines; wikipedia discusses it better than I can here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy#Free-energy_devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy#Free-energy_... (Edit: Rutherford did say the idea of nuclear energy was "hogwash", so you're right there...)

JoeAltmaier 14y ago

Non-human aliens, like apes? Dolphins? We've already seen non-human intelligences, in our own back yard. Not a great leap to imagine them elsewhere.

AkThhhpppt 14y ago
Ok, where I say 'alien', imagine I said 'extra-terrestrial'. We know the probability of the universe evolving intelligent life from scratch is 1. We know nothing about the probability of the universe evolving intelligent life from scratch twice, and the Fermi paradox implies we're very unlikely to ever find out more.
- JoeAltmaier 14y ago
  Disagree. No reason to dismiss multiple intelligent lifeforms on one planet as not 'from scratch'. The operative word is 'intelligent'. Probability of life is unknown; but that's not the issue presented.