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Not in the really long term -- what about when the sun dies? Think humanity will make it that long?
by jraines 18y ago
Not in the really long term -- what about when the sun dies? Think humanity will make it that long?
- jmtulloss 18y agoWell, there's nothing that can take us out now, and I don't see us allowing anything to evolve that can destroy us. So the two options are: 1. We do ourselves in 2. We get hit by a giant asteroid
- zacharypinter 18y ago3. Supervolcano
- jraines 18y agoWe're not really quite up to the task of "allowing" this or that to evolve just yet. (See drug-resistant strains of bacteria, the annual flu-shot crapshoot, etc)
- patio11 18y agowhat about when the sun dies? Geeks seem to have this funny blindspot when it comes to premature optimization if the premature optimization is something that would make for a good sci-fi novel.
- jraines 18y agoI'm not proposing we optimize right now for this eventuality. I'm pointing out that the "PR gimmick" is something that actually has to happen at some point. That's just one obvious point at which it has to happen. Your somewhat glib response reminds me this: But I should remember, Krauss said, that the long run is a very long time. He told me about a meeting he attended at the Vatican a few years back on the future of the universe: "There were about 15 people, theologians, a few cosmologists, some biologists. The idea was to find common ground, but after three days it was clear that we had nothing to say to one another. When theologians talk about the 'long term,' raising questions about resurrection and such, they're really thinking about the short term. We weren't even on the same plane. When you talk about 10^50 years, the theologians' eyes glaze over. http://www.slate.com/id/2096491/entry/2096507/ http://www.slate.com/id/2096491/entry/2096507/
- gravitycop 18y agoIf humans evolved into in silico entities, then human bodies would not need eventually to be in space, would they?
- michaelneale 18y agoYes unless there is some reason why that can't work (ie AI is impossible, or similar) then flinging meat around space doesn't make any sense.
- xiaoma 18y ago"Flinging meat around space" is a nice phrase I'll have to remember.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- bd 18y agoSpeed of light. If you would want to experience another world, you wouldn't want to have your sensors/effectors too far away from your brain. And it doesn't matter if you would be flesh or silicon. Even planets in our solar system are already too far for remote interaction.
- dfranke 18y ago> Think humanity will make it that long? Whatever is around in six billion years is going to be as different from us as we are from bacteria.
- jraines 18y agoRight. But will that race be interplanetary and/or capable of deep space survival?
- dfranke 18y agoI could tell you with considerably greater confidence whether or not it will snow in Boston ten years from today.
- rsheridan6 18y agoBased on the fact that we haven't seen any aliens, and assuming that we're not the first intelligent species in the universe for roughly the same reason I assume I'm not the first person to have some bright idea for a web app, I'm going to guess no, or at least that it's not cost effective. Otherwise we'd probably have seen von Neumann probes or something like that by now (or more likely, we wouldn't be here).
- rw 18y agoI hear Revelation Space there :)
- rsheridan6 18y agoI haven't read it. I was just thinking my favorite explanation for the Fermi Paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#Communication_is_impossible_due_to_problems_of_scale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#Communication_is_...
- maxwell 18y agoWe're quantifiably more bacteria than mammal. Evolution isn't linear, and considering humans are the only species (that humans are aware of) which can manipulate fire, build non-trivial structures with straight lines, communicate with symbols, work levers independently, carve stone, create metal tools, vary sonic pitch extra-physically, design automated processes, and travel beyond the stratosphere, there is the possibility that we're already nearly evolutionarily optimal for this universe. (Please correct me if I overestimated our uniqueness on any of the above.) Just because web source code looked a lot different fifteen years ago doesn't mean it'll change considerably fifteen years from now. Mutation can be beneficial, but it can also carry the unfortunate cost of breaking compatibility.
- eru 18y agoHumen won't be around in the long term.