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Many physicists have pointed out several flaws in the dark forest theory, which makes for a great read but doesn’t really carry over to the real universe 1:1.
by 9dev 2mo ago
Many physicists have pointed out several flaws in the dark forest theory, which makes for a great read but doesn’t really carry over to the real universe 1:1.
- Schlagbohrer 2mo agoCan you point me to more info on that or just tell me? I am curious about reasons to be more optimistic than that book lays out. I would much prefer the Carl Sagan view of the Cosmos as one where it simply makes no physical nor cultural sense at all to be aggressive toward other stellar civilizations.
- Vvector 2mo agohttps://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-dark-forest-hypothesis-is-absurd https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-dark-forest-hypothesis-is-...
- xenophonf 2mo agoThat link is paywalled. This might be a better one. https://medium.com/predict/why-the-dark-forest-theory-is-probably-wrong-a3d03568d88d https://medium.com/predict/why-the-dark-forest-theory-is-pro... This video is pretty good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0SvgT9Lc2M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0SvgT9Lc2M This post attempts a formal refutation. https://www.pgmusings.ca/journal/dfh https://www.pgmusings.ca/journal/dfh
- graemep 2mo agoWhat flaws? Do they apply to variants such as Greg Bear's and related ideas such as berserkers?
- pavel_lishin 2mo agoDo Forge of God/Anvil of the Stars differ significantly from pretty bog-standard dark forest scenarios? I don't remember any other of his books that might apply, but I haven't read all of them. (I probably should. What I have read was great.)
- graemep 2mo agoits a few years since I read Liu Cixin's books and even longer since I read Greg Bear's, but the technology was very different, and it was not as uniformly hostile. The primary technology used to destroy civilisations in Bear's books was self-replicating machines, and there was an advanced civilisation that tries to defend or rescue those attacked, and punish the aggressors - so its a bit less bleak.
- cyberax 2mo ago"Dark forest" doesn't work from a game-theoretical standpoint. It assumes that it's cheap to destroy entire planets and solar systems. Yet no-one seems to be colonizing other systems. The optimal strategy in this case is to expand as quickly as possible, before others can grab or destroy resources.
- idontwantthis 2mo agoI think one idea is that there aren't very many habitable planets. The Trisolarians are coming to Earth because it's their only option, not because they want to destroy humanity.
- cyberax 2mo agoThen it's even weirder. Detecting planets around stars is trivial, yet nobody is running to get that prime real estate? Still makes no sense.
- aeve890 2mo agoIn the book, the trisolarans aren't coming to earth just because is the only habitable planet, it's because it's the closest one too. The don't have FTL and they spend the full resources of their dying civilization to build a fleet that will reach earth in ~400 years. So yeah, a lot of prime real state but no way to reach it.
- cyberax 2mo ago400 years is nothing. At this speed, all the Galaxy would have been colonized long ago. This subplot in the book is at least reasonable. Somehow aliens capable of pico-scale engineering can't make a telescope to observe the nearby solar systems, but OK, whatever. Cultural blindness and all that. It's the later plot with the "dark forest" that makes no sense. There are ships capable of moving at relativistic velocities and spacetime-altering weapons.
- Rover222 2mo ago
- bpodgursky 2mo agoWhy would physicists have anything useful to say about this theory?
- 59percentmore 2mo agoBecause environment makes culture and physics are the environment at relativistic speeds and cosmic distances.
- Schlagbohrer 2mo agoCulture at some level grows out of biology and physics, it's downstream of those things. The material basis of a civilization will have a tremendous long term impact on its culture.
- EA-3167 2mo agoThere are loads of issues with it as hard sci-fi, but the bigger issue is that it's meant as a political allegory far more than it's meant to be hard sci-fi. Where I think it shines to some extent in the latter case is its ability to explore scale and build intuition about the vast scales involved in space. Otherwise though? Sophons destroy the entire premise of the "Dark Forest"! Still as I said the series is far more concerned with overt allegories (West vs East, Collectivism vs Individualism, etc), and more covert allegories that allegedly criticize the CCP's way of doing things. I don't read Mandarin, but I suspect the ability to do so and the high context nature of the language, helps a lot in getting that across.