Missing sial, iron, and nickel explains Fermi paradox

On 2 Aug, 15:29, Joe Strout 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.

To be brutally frank, all this is conjecture. What we need is a
powerful telescope which will give some definite answers. The figure
of 50 million years for the time it will take ET to arrive is based on
a race hypothesis, Gaussians and a non rare Earth. All plausible, but
merely plausible in the absence of observations to the contrary.

We have had surprises already. Accepted wisdom said that Jupiter and
Saturn were where they are because at their distance volatiles were
present. Jupiter could not be close than Mercury because volatiles
would not condense out.

Wrong! - There have been many Jupiters found within the orbit of
Mercury.


- Ian Parker

Ian Parker wrote:

:
:We have had surprises already. Accepted wisdom said that Jupiter and
:Saturn were where they are because at their distance volatiles were
resent. Jupiter could not be close than Mercury because volatiles
:would not condense out.
:
:Wrong! - There have been many Jupiters found within the orbit of
:Mercury.
:

Are you living in the same solar system with the rest of us?


--
"Ordinarily he is insane. But he has lucid moments when he is
only stupid."
-- Heinrich Heine

On 2 Aug, 16:35, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Ian Parker wrote:

:
:We have had surprises already. Accepted wisdom said that Jupiter and
:Saturn were where they are because at their distance volatiles were
resent. Jupiter could not be close than Mercury because volatiles
:would not condense out.
:
:Wrong! - There have been many Jupiters found within the orbit of
:Mercury.
:

Are you living in the same solar system with the rest of us?

No, the whole point was comparative solar systems and extrasolar
planets. Jupiter I have used to denote the generic gas giant. the
whole point is we make theories of the Moon. With one solar system you
can't draw conclusions. That is the point.


- Ian Parker

On 1 Aug, 17:26, Joe Strout wrote:
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?

That's a technological question, not a philosophical one. Such merging
of separate memories is a common feature in science fiction, but I'm
more skeptical about it than about uploading itself. The brain isn't
built the way an intelligent designer would design it; it's a messy
system, with information about events spread out and mixed together with
information about all other events. So recombining someone who has been
duplicated, and then had significant differences in experience, is going
to be very hard. Probably not impossible, I guess, but definitely in
the "nontrivial" category.

Actually we might conceivably do that before we did anything else.
Suppose we just wanted to have the memory of something. How would you
put it in?

More trivially - suppose we wanted to learn something. Could we do it
in an instant.

Are you thinking about the risk that VN machines will evolve, or that
they will be deliberately misused.

Both.

In terms of evolution, a Reed Soloman code will prevent evolution
in that it will be inpossible for the VN genome to change.

No, it can only make it very unlikely -- and even that, only if done
exactly right. Any flaws in the implementation will make it easier
(just as with any cryptographic scheme).

Interesting that you're willing to seriously consider the possibility
that two civilizations would arrive at virtually the same instant, but
when it comes to breaking a checksum, this you refer to as "impossible."

A checsum can take you a lot linger than 50 million years. It depends
on how long it is.

http://oceanstore.cs.berkeley.edu/pu...f/asplos00.pdf

Ocean store envisages 64 computers storing 16 pieces of information.
RS can be made as long as you like.
BTW - I believe we will get VN machines a long time before brain
downloading.

It's "uploading" please, not downloading. And I'll take that bet.

Most interstellar travel proposals involve the Forward concept. This
involes acceleration by a powerful laser. A VN machine will be needed
to construct this economically.

Only one VN machine must be built. When I say only one machine, what I
mean is only one system. Suppose I buy a VN machine. If this is part
of the system it will transmit what I am attempting to do. If I were
building bombs or something else antisocial it would create an alert.
Could I tamper with it? No because it would intrinsically need to be
connected to a network for it to work. What one would also have to
ensure would be the difficulty of getting a full set of software
unencrypted. If you were on Earth you could probably be tracked down.
If you were on a small space colony that might prove more difficult.


- Ian Parker

On Aug 2, 7:29 am, Joe Strout wrote:

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.

Besides the ongoing platetonics/(plate tectonics) and much of our
planetology's active geothermal considerations that's clearly tidal
forced, there's also the Arctic ocean basin via impact and the
subsequent antipode of those somewhat recent and thus razor sharp
mountains that happened as of 12,000 BP, and don't forget about that
little pesky establishment of our seasonal tilt, along with the matter
of fact that early humanity having all the necessary artistic skills
and rational capability as well as the best possible motivation as for
having to survive upon this fluid Earth, whereas they simply failed to
have once mentioned or otherwise having depicted or in any way
suggested their having utilized our moon's impressive illumination,
tides or for that matter of ever having to deal with terrestrial
seasons, much less having worshiped our closer and more earthshine
vibrant illuminated moon as of prior to 12,000 BP. So, where's the
counter argument(s) based upon the regular laws of physics and of the
best available science?
- Brad Guth

In article .com,
Ian Parker wrote:

Actually we might conceivably do that before we did anything else.
Suppose we just wanted to have the memory of something. How would you
put it in?

I can't imagine (and I have a reasonably deep understanding of how
memory works, at least as well we currently know).

More trivially - suppose we wanted to learn something. Could we do it
in an instant.

I doubt it, but it makes for great SF.

Most interstellar travel proposals involve the Forward concept. This
involes acceleration by a powerful laser. A VN machine will be needed
to construct this economically.

Nonsense. Traditional manufacturing is perfectly capable of large
projects -- *especially* large projects composed of lots and lots of
small identical elements. It's what factories are good at. It's not at
all necessary that the factory be able to assemble copies of itself.

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, 10:11 am, BradGuth wrote:
On Aug 2, 7:29 am, Joe Strout wrote:

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.

Besides the ongoing platetonics/(plate tectonics) and much of our
planetology's active geothermal considerations that's clearly tidal
forced, there's also the Arctic ocean basin via impact and the
subsequent antipode of those somewhat recent and thus razor sharp
mountains that happened as of 12,000 BP, and don't forget about that
little pesky establishment of our seasonal tilt, along with the matter
of fact that early humanity having all the necessary artistic skills
and rational capability as well as the best possible motivation as for
having to survive upon this fluid Earth, whereas they simply failed to
have once mentioned or otherwise having depicted or in any way
suggested their having utilized our moon's impressive illumination,
tides or for that matter of ever having to deal with terrestrial
seasons, much less having worshiped our closer and more earthshine
vibrant illuminated moon as of prior to 12,000 BP. So, where's the
counter argument(s) based upon the regular laws of physics and of the
best available science?
- Brad Guth

That moon is not made of Earth. Earth hasn't even similar impact
deposits of what's causing such terrific surface mascons to exist on
that somewhat salty moon of ours.
- Brad Guth

On 2 Aug, 18:45, Joe Strout wrote:
In article .com,
Ian Parker wrote:

Actually we might conceivably do that before we did anything else.
Suppose we just wanted to have the memory of something. How would you
put it in?

I can't imagine (and I have a reasonably deep understanding of how
memory works, at least as well we currently know).

More trivially - suppose we wanted to learn something. Could we do it
in an instant.

I doubt it, but it makes for great SF.

Most interstellar travel proposals involve the Forward concept. This
involes acceleration by a powerful laser. A VN machine will be needed
to construct this economically.

Nonsense. Traditional manufacturing is perfectly capable of large
projects -- *especially* large projects composed of lots and lots of
small identical elements. It's what factories are good at. It's not at
all necessary that the factory be able to assemble copies of itself.

They will neeed launching though. You have to manufacture in a low
gravity well.


- Ian Parker

On 2 Aug, 18:45, Joe Strout wrote:
In article .com,
Ian Parker wrote:

Actually we might conceivably do that before we did anything else.
Suppose we just wanted to have the memory of something. How would you
put it in?

I can't imagine (and I have a reasonably deep understanding of how
memory works, at least as well we currently know).

More trivially - suppose we wanted to learn something. Could we do it
in an instant.

I doubt it, but it makes for great SF.

There are certain things that almost certainly could be learnt in an
instant. Spanish - If you know French. The grammatical structure is
identical. I simply will "Past Historic" and "ovino" replaces
"mouton".


- Ian Parker

Joe Strout wrote:


I´ve allways been very sceptical about such ideas. Sounds to me as
something which will be perennially 20 years away.


I doubt that. Brain-scanning technology is increasing exponentially
just about any way you measure it: resolution, volume scanned per unit
time, etc. Models based on this data are getting more and more
detailed, also in exponential fashion. (For a good overview of this
progress, see Ray Kurzweil's book, The Singularity Is Near.) He figures
it'll reach the level of whole-brain scanning and emulation around 2020
or 2025. I'm conservative, and figure 2050 or so. But it certainly
won't be "forever".

ISTR a thread years ago where Anders Sandberg
(http://www.aleph.se/Trans/) opined a very high resolution MRI would
cook the brain. Does that sound right? I know next to nothing about MRIs
and it's quite possible I'm misremembering a thread from 6 or 7 years ago.

Hop