Missing sial, iron, and nickel explains Fermi paradox

Ian Parker wrote:
On 31 Jul, 20:25, Joe Strout wrote:
In article .com,
Ian Parker wrote:

No, I think it will be nornal. Probably if we are the first
civilzation the gap will be of the order of a million years, or at
least 100,000. However you can't be absolutely sure.

You can be very extremely darn close to sure. In a normal distribution,
the spacing between the outliers is quite large (as compared to those
near the mean, which of course is rather small). What "large" means
depends on the standard deviation, but in the case of
time-to-civilization, any reasonable model will result in a standard
deviation of hundreds of millions of years, if not billions.

In that case, the spacing between the two most extreme outliers at one
end of the distribution being a mere 100 KY is quite unlikely. Millions
or billions is more likely.

The model I was
thinking about at the back of my mind was the radioactive atom. It is
not impossible that there could be another civilization close to ours.
Unlikely perhaps, but just possible.

Right. Not sure what radioactive atoms have to do with it, but of
course we can only speak of probabilities. The probability you bring up
here is very, very small.

In my discussions on ET I have sought to eliminate the impossible. NOT
the improbable.

Well, great, but that doesn't help much. It's not impossible that we're
all just figments of the God computer's imagination, which will be shut
off next week. It's not impossible that the our solar system is inside
a vast shell 1 LY across, built by aliens, which serves as a giant 3D
display, and eventually the Pioneer and Voyager probes are going to go
splat against it. It's not impossible that there is some way we can't
yet fathom for advanced races to leave the universe of their birth and
get an entire universe to themselves, thus explaining the apparent
emptiness we see.

But, most of those we can't even assign probabilities too. This one we
can, and it works out to a very small number. (No, I don't have a
number handy; it's been a while since I actually did the math.) Why
focus on such an unlikely situation, when there are far more likely ones
that fit the observations just as well? (Namely, that we're the first,
and our closest competitors are millions of years ahead or behind us.)

I am saying that with a large number competition is more intense and
there might be one near us. We of course don't know. For all we know
Earth could be rare.

It really doesn't matter how many there are; competition won't be more
intense in any case, since all that matters is the first couple of
outliers. If there are many participants, then the outliers will be
more extreme, and thus more spread out. If there are few (i.e. life is
rare), then the outliers won't be as extreme, but they'll still be
spread out.

I feel I'm explaining this poorly... where's a statistician when you
need one?

I will agree that an ET at our level is improbable but not impossible.

Indeed. I believe that well within 50 years we will have a full space
capable Von Neumann machine. An interstellar probe may well be closer
than we imagine. Unmanned of course.

Perhaps. I believe that within 50 years, we'll have mind uploading.
(Ray Kurzweil puts it at more like 20 years, but I am a pessimist.) If
you and I are both right, then those "unmanned" probes may well have
people on board, albeit in digital form.

That is an interesting thought. I have a philosophical point here.
Suppose we split our brains. One bit went to Alpha Centuri. The other
bit went around here on Earth. Could you put those two memories
together? Could two separate memories be knitted together? We could of
course simply back ourselves up when we were about to do anything
dangerous.

A civilization a million years in advance of us, I repeat, is an
impossiblility. We would know about it.

Unless they are intentionally hiding from us. In that case, I have no
doubt that they could do so successfully, and our crude efforts to
detect them would be futile.

But I tend to feel that this is unlikely. More likely, there's simply
nobody out there, and won't be anyone else for millions of years. When
those late-comers finally arise, they'll awaken to a galaxy long since
settled by us and our descendants.

Agreed.

What I have in mind for the medium future is in fact the large
fragmented telescope. Justification - Finding out for sure. I think
Einar is right. If we do not advance it we do not have curiosity we
are indeed doomed. This is not to say that manned space flight is the
best strategy, or that we need to think of colonies in the solar
system in the medium term. In the medium term, and possibly even the
short term, we need to think about improving automation techniques
with an eventual VN aspiration.

I don't agree. VN machines are certainly possible, but I hope they're a
long way off, and carefully regulated. If ever there was a technology
ripe for disaster, that's it. I see very little benefit to justify the
risk.

Are you thinking about the risk that VN machines will evolve, or that
they will be deliberately misused. In terms of evolution, a Reed
Soloman code will prevent evolution in that it will be inpossible for
the VN genome to change.

In terms of misuse, that would depend to a large degree on what the
current political situation was. If you had cognitive AI you could
build in Asimovs laws of robotics and put thise laws as a deeply
encrypted part of the genome. It would not be infallible as once the
knowledge of how to build a VN machine became known one would not be
dependent on one machine. I think I will agree though. We would need a
world that was on the whole peaceful.

BTW - I believe we will get VN machines a long time before brain
downloading. In fact I would probably give that 20 years. What you
basically need for VN is a flatpack assembler. It is downhill after
that.


- Ian Parker

Hmm, if a way might be found to make those split brains operate like a
one. I have a different dream, namelly communication independent of
distance, taking no time. Maybe, quantum computers could operate in
this fashion, i.e. components being separated by lightyears,
communicating through quantum entanglement.

Cheers, Einar

John Savard wrote:
On Tue, 31 Jul 2007 21:31:44 -0600, Joe Strout wrote,
in part:

Mind uploading begins with a detailed ultrastructural scan, the data
from which is used to configure a brain emulator to match the original
brain's functionality in every detail.

But it shouldn't end there. That duplicate brain should not be awakened
independently, but instead linked piece by piece to the original brain,
if it is to serve as a prosthesis for the actual *executing instance* of
the personality living in flesh.

I don't want a copy of me to be immortal, I wish to be immortal myself.

In fact, since such an "ultrastructural scan" *might* be beyond our
technological capabilities for *quite* a while, how about this: an
artificial brain made up of an un-programmed neural net, which gets
interfaced, say at the corpus callosum, as a third hemisphere of the
brain. So, over the *years* one has it connected, gradually it shares in
storing one's memories (since memory is a *bit* like a hologram) and in
one's thoughts, until, when one's flesh brain fails, the situation
becomes like that of a person who had one brain hemisphere removed due
to severe epilepsy or a brain tumor.

"Low-tech" uploading. Interfacing to the corpus callosum is *still*
pretty tough, although a recent Scientific American article spoke of new
techniques tapping into a hundred neurons, considerably more than
previously possible, in the small brain of a mouse.

John Savard
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html

Sounds really interesting. How about offering people with really
terrible disabilities the choyse of becoming a spaceship, the
lifesupport only supporting theyr brain, it being connected to such a
neural network, which functions like part of his/her brain, but which
contain knowledge and processing power, that enhance his/her
capabilities substantially.

In addition, one migh imagine a person owing such a neural network,
and being in contact mind to mind, when close enough to it, each
person having a small implanted device handling the interfacing
inbetween and the remote communication with the personal neural
network. Person's effective intellect might be pretty darn
substantially enhanced.

Cheers, Einar

Joe Strout wrote:
In article . com,
Einar wrote:

Mind you, if they ever do perfect a nondestructive method of recording
a personality, especially if done within my lifetime, I wouldn´t mind
hedging my options and create a copy of myself. Who knows, perhaps
then one would excist among the living and among the dead presuming
ther is such a thing an exchistence beyond death.

I doubt nondestructive scanning at the resolution needed will ever be
possible, but here's a way to achieve the same thing, at least with a
bit of luck: put off the uploading until your biological body has
already failed. At that point, you have nothing to lose.

Note that you can arrange for this possibility even before uploading is
developed, by having yourself frozen upon your death (a practice known
as cryonics). Once frozen, your condition is stable, and there's a
chance that you can be uploaded and revived at some point in the future.

An alternative might be if means of talking independent of distance
were discovered, perhaps quantum entanglement can lead to that
outcome. In such a case the ship might be in constant realtime contact
with home at all times.

As I understand it, there are pretty strong theoretical grounds to hold
that such FTL communication is impossible. Or at least, if it is
possible, then it can be used for a number of other seemingly-impossible
things, like sending information back in time.

Best,
- Joe

--
"Polywell" fusion -- an approach to nuclear fusion that might actually work.
Learn more and discuss via: http://www.strout.net/info/science/polywell/

If one can be frosen without harming what´s to be recorded.

Cheers, Einar

Somehow I am missing the connection to the paradox. It appears to lie solely in
the assumption that if there is no moon event the planet will be all ocean. That
does not compute unless we can explain the disappearance of the moon of Venus.
If Venus had had the same amount of water as earth, and there is little way to
explain a significantly different amount, there should be enough water vapor in
its atmosphere to 9000psi (600 At.) of pressure on the surface. But last I heard
there is negligible water in the atmosphere and clearly no such pressure.

We have no idea if there is a minimum amount of ocean needed to approximate an
ecology like our own however it appears reasonable that all else being equal the
amount of rainfall is proportional to the evaporative surface of the oceans. It
also follows as a reasonable assumption (but which cannot be supported in the
least, that the more life the faster evolution but we are not in a rush so a few
extra billion years does not matter.

However surface area only would be a factor in rainfall. Depth would not be. So
without a moon and nothing lost there is nothing prohibiting large and shallow
seas. The South China Sea with a depth averaging over a few hundred feet has all
the characteristics of any other ocean save it is warming at all depths. This
would speed evolution among the cold bloods.

Tectonic forces would still raise mountains and and volcanoes broad expanses
like the Deccan Plains. As long as the planet is large enough there is no reason
to suggest plates would not form and move. The only different would be the
longevity of the created land above the surface. Given Earth we find old and new
mountains in proximity such as in the US so we can expect there would always be
dry land. So maybe a world with shallow seas needs also have greater tectonic
activity requiring a somewhat more massive planet and the world average being
more like Japan. So maybe the funny thing about ET is if the ground shakes he
curls into a ball.

Am I missing something?

--
An entire cool summer is trumped by a warm day in January if you are a
global melter.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3836
nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
Mission Accomplished http://www.giwersworld.org/opinion/mission.phtml a12

Matt Giwer wrote:
Somehow I am missing the connection to the paradox. It appears to lie solely in
the assumption that if there is no moon event the planet will be all ocean. That
does not compute unless we can explain the disappearance of the moon of Venus.
If Venus had had the same amount of water as earth, and there is little way to
explain a significantly different amount, there should be enough water vapor in
its atmosphere to 9000psi (600 At.) of pressure on the surface. But last I heard
there is negligible water in the atmosphere and clearly no such pressure.

We have no idea if there is a minimum amount of ocean needed to approximate an
ecology like our own however it appears reasonable that all else being equal the
amount of rainfall is proportional to the evaporative surface of the oceans. It
also follows as a reasonable assumption (but which cannot be supported in the
least, that the more life the faster evolution but we are not in a rush so a few
extra billion years does not matter.

However surface area only would be a factor in rainfall. Depth would not be. So
without a moon and nothing lost there is nothing prohibiting large and shallow
seas. The South China Sea with a depth averaging over a few hundred feet has all
the characteristics of any other ocean save it is warming at all depths. This
would speed evolution among the cold bloods.

Tectonic forces would still raise mountains and and volcanoes broad expanses
like the Deccan Plains. As long as the planet is large enough there is no reason
to suggest plates would not form and move. The only different would be the
longevity of the created land above the surface. Given Earth we find old and new
mountains in proximity such as in the US so we can expect there would always be
dry land. So maybe a world with shallow seas needs also have greater tectonic
activity requiring a somewhat more massive planet and the world average being
more like Japan. So maybe the funny thing about ET is if the ground shakes he
curls into a ball.

Am I missing something?

--
An entire cool summer is trumped by a warm day in January if you are a
global melter.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3836
nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
Mission Accomplished http://www.giwersworld.org/opinion/mission.phtml a12

Venus has no plate tectonics. However, it might if it had oceans.

I think it´s believed Venus' oceans evaporated, once the Sun warmed
up, and that the water left the planet altogether being blown away
into space. What remains is possibly the most hostile to life plase in
the solar system.

Einar

In article . com,
Einar wrote:

Note that you can arrange for this possibility even before uploading is
developed, by having yourself frozen upon your death (a practice known
as cryonics). Once frozen, your condition is stable, and there's a
chance that you can be uploaded and revived at some point in the future.

If one can be frosen without harming what´s to be recorded.

Right, that's a legitimate concern, and one the cryonicists always
worrying about. How much damage is done by the freezing process? Note
that under ideal conditions it's not technically freezing, but
vitrification (i.e. formation of a glassy rather than crystalline form
of water). But cryonic suspension never happens under ideal conditions.

However, the procedures are good enough that I think there is much room
for optimism. Cryoprotectant (which inhibits the formation of ice
crystals) usually gets pretty well perfused throughout the brain, and
what ice does form tends to be between cells. There is also cracking
due to basic volume changes. But both types of damage result in
separating tissues physically, but not mixing them up much -- it's like
a jigsaw puzzle where you start with the finished picture, then separate
each piece but put it back in basically the same position and
orientation it was in before. Reconnecting these separated pieces in
the computer is not going to be a very hard job.

Best,
- Joe

--
"Polywell" fusion -- an approach to nuclear fusion that might actually work.
Learn more and discuss via: http://www.strout.net/info/science/polywell/

In article ,
Matt Giwer wrote:

Somehow I am missing the connection to the paradox. It appears to lie solely
in the assumption that if there is no moon event the planet will be all ocean.
That does not compute unless we can explain the disappearance of the moon of
Venus.

We can; Venus is too hot to have liquid water.

But the case for the Moon being responsible for continents is made
pretty convincingly in the book Rare Earth. IIRC, it basically goes
like this: without the impact event that blasted much of the Earth's
crust into orbit (forming the Moon), our crust would be too thick to
support plate tectonics (just like Venus, I think). So they would end
up a very uniform thickness, and the only mountains that would form
would be from volcanoes, and these would quickly be eroded back down,
leaving a uniform planet-spanning ocean. It's only because our crust is
so thin that we can have tectonics and enough variation to produce
continents and oceans.

Hm. I'm not explaining this very well, but check out the book, it
spends a chapter or two on this topic.

Best,
- Joe

--
"Polywell" fusion -- an approach to nuclear fusion that might actually work.
Learn more and discuss via: http://www.strout.net/info/science/polywell/

On Aug 2, 5:00 am, Einar wrote:
Matt Giwer wrote:
Somehow I am missing the connection to the paradox. It appears to lie solely in
the assumption that if there is no moon event the planet will be all ocean. That
does not compute unless we can explain the disappearance of the moon of Venus.
If Venus had had the same amount of water as earth, and there is little way to
explain a significantly different amount, there should be enough water vapor in
its atmosphere to 9000psi (600 At.) of pressure on the surface. But last I heard
there is negligible water in the atmosphere and clearly no such pressure.

We have no idea if there is a minimum amount of ocean needed to approximate an
ecology like our own however it appears reasonable that all else being equal the
amount of rainfall is proportional to the evaporative surface of the oceans. It
also follows as a reasonable assumption (but which cannot be supported in the
least, that the more life the faster evolution but we are not in a rush so a few
extra billion years does not matter.

However surface area only would be a factor in rainfall. Depth would not be. So
without a moon and nothing lost there is nothing prohibiting large and shallow
seas. The South China Sea with a depth averaging over a few hundred feet has all
the characteristics of any other ocean save it is warming at all depths.. This
would speed evolution among the cold bloods.

Tectonic forces would still raise mountains and and volcanoes broad expanses
like the Deccan Plains. As long as the planet is large enough there is no reason
to suggest plates would not form and move. The only different would be the
longevity of the created land above the surface. Given Earth we find old and new
mountains in proximity such as in the US so we can expect there would always be
dry land. So maybe a world with shallow seas needs also have greater tectonic
activity requiring a somewhat more massive planet and the world average being
more like Japan. So maybe the funny thing about ET is if the ground shakes he
curls into a ball.

Am I missing something?

--
An entire cool summer is trumped by a warm day in January if you are a
global melter.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3836
nizkorhttp://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
Mission Accomplishedhttp://www.giwersworld.org/opinion/mission.phtmla12

Venus has no plate tectonics. However, it might if it had oceans.

Or, if it had a nearby moon the size and mass of our moon, as most
research based upon the regular laws of physics and planetology have
to agree that a terrain as Venus has need a nearby moon or perhaps
some other binary considerations.


I think it´s believed Venus' oceans evaporated, once the Sun warmed
up, and that the water left the planet altogether being blown away
into space. What remains is possibly the most hostile to life plase in
the solar system.

Venus is a relatively newish planet to our solar system, as it losing
roughly 256 times as much of its core energy as Earth. However, due
to it's slow rotation, there's simply not enough solar tidal forces to
cause the internal heat of Venus. Go figure otherwise.
- Brad Guth

On Aug 2, 5:00 am, Einar wrote:
Matt Giwer wrote:
Somehow I am missing the connection to the paradox. It appears to lie solely in
the assumption that if there is no moon event the planet will be all ocean. That
does not compute unless we can explain the disappearance of the moon of Venus.
If Venus had had the same amount of water as earth, and there is little way to
explain a significantly different amount, there should be enough water vapor in
its atmosphere to 9000psi (600 At.) of pressure on the surface. But last I heard
there is negligible water in the atmosphere and clearly no such pressure.

We have no idea if there is a minimum amount of ocean needed to approximate an
ecology like our own however it appears reasonable that all else being equal the
amount of rainfall is proportional to the evaporative surface of the oceans. It
also follows as a reasonable assumption (but which cannot be supported in the
least, that the more life the faster evolution but we are not in a rush so a few
extra billion years does not matter.

However surface area only would be a factor in rainfall. Depth would not be. So
without a moon and nothing lost there is nothing prohibiting large and shallow
seas. The South China Sea with a depth averaging over a few hundred feet has all
the characteristics of any other ocean save it is warming at all depths.. This
would speed evolution among the cold bloods.

Tectonic forces would still raise mountains and and volcanoes broad expanses
like the Deccan Plains. As long as the planet is large enough there is no reason
to suggest plates would not form and move. The only different would be the
longevity of the created land above the surface. Given Earth we find old and new
mountains in proximity such as in the US so we can expect there would always be
dry land. So maybe a world with shallow seas needs also have greater tectonic
activity requiring a somewhat more massive planet and the world average being
more like Japan. So maybe the funny thing about ET is if the ground shakes he
curls into a ball.

Am I missing something?

--
An entire cool summer is trumped by a warm day in January if you are a
global melter.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3836
nizkorhttp://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
Mission Accomplishedhttp://www.giwersworld.org/opinion/mission.phtmla12

Venus has no plate tectonics. However, it might if it had oceans.

Or, if it had a nearby moon the size and mass of our moon, as most
research based upon the regular laws of physics and of replicated
planetology have to agree, that a terrain as Venus has needs a nearby
moon or perhaps some other binary considerations.


I think it´s believed Venus' oceans evaporated, once the Sun warmed
up, and that the water left the planet altogether being blown away
into space. What remains is possibly the most hostile to life plase in
the solar system.

Venus is a relatively newish planet to our solar system, as it's still
losing roughly 256 times as much greater worth of its core energy as
Earth. However, due to it's slow rotation, there's simply not enough
solar tidal forces to cause the internal heat of Venus. Go figure
otherwise.
- Brad Guth

On Aug 2, 7:29 am, Joe Strout wrote:
In article ,
Matt Giwer wrote:

Somehow I am missing the connection to the paradox. It appears to lie solely
in the assumption that if there is no moon event the planet will be all ocean.
That does not compute unless we can explain the disappearance of the moon of
Venus.

We can; Venus is too hot to have liquid water.

But it's not too hot for certain mud and lava flows that contain h2o,
and even a thick atmospheric steam could coexist as emerging from all
that's geothermal forced.

Haven't you seen the "Fluid Arch", or many other signs of active
planetology that's taking place on Venus?


But the case for the Moon being responsible for continents is made
pretty convincingly in the book Rare Earth. IIRC, it basically goes
like this: without the impact event that blasted much of the Earth's
crust into orbit (forming the Moon), our crust would be too thick to
support plate tectonics (just like Venus, I think). So they would end
up a very uniform thickness, and the only mountains that would form
would be from volcanoes, and these would quickly be eroded back down,
leaving a uniform planet-spanning ocean. It's only because our crust is
so thin that we can have tectonics and enough variation to produce
continents and oceans.

Hm. I'm not explaining this very well, but check out the book, it
spends a chapter or two on this topic.

As long as you silly folks keep excluding the raw orbital and tidal
physics of having that nearby and extremely massive moon for our 98.5%
fluid Earth to deal with, then why of course you are not "explaining
this very well".
- Brad Guth