Colonization Of The Stars And Contact With Aliens: The Last False Hope Of The Secularists

On 1 Mar, 15:15, wrote:
You've never had a hard drive crash?

A single hard disc crash would mean a replacement. What we must not
allow to happen is to have 63 discs PERMANENTLY
I was talking about a

gross error like 63 discs being present insead of 64. Builing a genome
with 64 discs is a vital part of the genome. You do not give up after
one error, you give up after several. The cyhances of a single error
occuring are in fact s,all. Computers are sold with Windows or Linux
error free.

No obvious errors perhaps, but they are not identical to each other,
any more than all worker ants are identical despite having identical
genetic codes. The simplest example is screws - you can buy a bag of
screws that look pretty darn identical, but run them under a
microscope and you will see they have significant microscopic
differences that will in the end impact their performance. You keep
focusing on the code - even if the code is perfectly retained, how it
is put into pratice by the machine - after all, the code is a set of
instructions that the physical machine has to interpret - may be
changed.

The probability of a mutation is set by mathematics.

And since when is Windows error-free?

It is copied error free. You get the same error on lots of machines.
It is copied faithfully. There are quite a lot of non technical issues
surrounding Microsoft. The purchase of SUSE and the twisting of IPR
laws. That is a separate issue. I will agree with you though. BTW -
Have you heard the Bill Gates joke. If you get images of Linux via
Yahoo you get a load of bikinis. This is alt.atheism as one of the
groups. I thought of 9-11 and the jihardic "screensaver". Also I note
the EU is going to impose further fines.

1) The scale of geological time.
2) The fact that a beneficial mutation with spead with exponential
speed througout a population. No a VN machine, or more strictly a VN
swarm will have 64 memory stores. If one does not work it will be
replaced.

Genetic human mutation occurs every single birth. You get the major
genetic reshufflling due to sexual reproduction but you also contain
noticable if not immediately apparent genetic mutations. Of course,
any mutation that prevents the fetus from developing in the womb will
be screened out, but there are significant genetic mutations - such as
Down Syndome, also known as trisomy 21 due to the presence of an
entire extra chromsome 21 in the fetus - that impacts development
severely but allows for birth, and that's only one of thousands of
reproductive errors that result in disease. So is the child recently
in the news born with 12 finger and 11 toes - I could go on for quite
along time You might want to type "genetic mutation" and "disease"
into google. Most mutations, as I've said, leave the offspring worse
of - but some don't, and some improve.

Women do not get haemophilia because they have 2 copies. Heck I am
proposing 64.


But all this to one side - what are the VNs doing that is worthwhile
to the originating civilization?

Do we need VN machines? I think we do. We do for a variety of reasons.
If you want to do anything meaty in space, anything involving millions
of tons of material we need to go the Moon or an Asteroid and take a
megaton of aluminium out.

Why would we want to do this? We're not short enough on Aluminum to
motivate us.

We are if we are building things in space. We don't want to use launch
capacity.


I think sellement on VENUS should be a target. Why Venus? Because if
we can control the environment to the extent of making the place
habitable we will have passed a milestone in our development. We will
have become "Type I"

If we could do that, why wouldn't we just use the same tech to make
the Earth into whatever we want?

Good point! I am in fact in favor of colonizing Venus but NOT Mars.
Hang on a minute and I will explain why. If generals and politicians
are simply sending a handpicked team into space - Nazi style, then I
will agree with you. If people are to go in LARGE numbers without any
medical checks except for current infectious diseases that is another
matter. Type 1 of couse means the latter.

I can wax lyrical about generals and politicians. They failed to
destroy the Smallpox virus when they had the chance too. They are
working on genetically engineered bugs. While that is the case one
should oppose any long term settlement in space. I agree. Evolution
tends to make viruses less deady. It is not an advantage to kill the
host. A stuffy nose is fitness for both genomes. You can readily see
the danger.

However a full Type 1 is of a different nature. We should of course
reject all non Type 1 colonies.


Do we want to be "Type 1"? I think we must. Our civilization will be
less vulnerable to catastrophe. Also lets look at the Fermi Paradox.
One solution to Fermi is that we are in a race. We need VN before
other people. Venusian national anthem "Winner takes it all!". This is
not of course certain, but there is sufficient probability to give us
pause for thought.

While I understand the attraction of getting all of our eggs out of
one planetary basket, it's just not feasable any time soon. Mars and
Venus are not habitable and we lack the technology to make them so -
heck, we lack the technology to make the center of Austrailia fully
habitable, or antartica.

What do you call soon. A VN machine is the type of breakthrough that
can occur quickly. It is very much linked to the development of AI.
Suppose we can assemble flatpacks. That is a vital stage. A rigorous
mathematical definition of VN can be made in terms of graph theory. We
have processes with inputs and outputs. If the net inputs (those not
matched by outputs are readily available raw materials we have done
it. Von Neumann presented this in the simplest form. He postulated
that a robot put a fuse into a robot with a fuse.
R + F + M - 2M F = Fuse, R = Robot without fuse and M is the machine.
This is a trivial graph although often trivial examples illustrate
important general principles. In a Von Neumann machine the number of
net inputs, that is to say inputs without being matched by outputs or
raw materials is zero. Von Neumann postulated for his simple graph
robots and fuses as being raw materials. If we have furnaces on the
Moon or asteroids we have a meaty problem. Very different from the
trivial graph above. The interesting fact is that given a a set of
processes (existing on the Web) AI in the shape of a travelling
salesperson type of algorithm could actually help us achieve a minimal
seed.

You talk about Antarctica and Australia. The two are very different.
We want Antarctica to remain frozen for the sake of the rest of the
world. It would flood. The center of Australia would be habitable if
we used solar energy to desalinate sea water.

But the most likely solution to Fermi is that space travel on any
scale is not sustainable due to the physical constraints of the
universe in which we find ourselves.

To be blunt I don't believe this. There are scemes for interstellar
travel - viz Forward. Of course travelling here is simple. You just
put AI on the Web. In discussing UFOs I always put in "?Puerde lectar
en espagnol?". Are the enthusiasts human? Why do they post? ET can
speak for himself. No we get a VN machine - provided on the Web by
them, and we simply provide lasers at this end.


- Ian Parker