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Missing sial, iron, and nickel explains Fermi paradox



 
 
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  #21  
Old July 31st 07, 03:43 PM posted to sci.astro,sci.space.policy,sci.astro.seti
Joe Strout
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 972
Default Missing sial, iron, and nickel explains Fermi paradox

In article . com,
Ian Parker wrote:

Like what? We're talking about things on the timescale of hundreds of
millions of years. What we do in the next century or two isn't going to
make any difference.

Statistically the most likely time for another civilization to appear
is now. Geological time indeed counts in billions. When I say
statistcally now, what I am saying is this. You habe a box a billion
years wide. You place a civilization in it. Now is as likely as any
other time.


I'm not following you here. Do you agree that, if the evolution of a
civilization is treated as an independent event, the population of such
events will form a standard distribution? If so, then there is a mean
and a standard deviation. When you say "the most likely time for
another civilization to appear is now," are you saying that the mean of
this distribution is the present?

If so, that's a sensible position -- what the Copernican principle
implies. The problem with it, of course, is that unless space
colonization is impossible, then civilizations are not independent
events; only the first one or few (the extreme outliers of the
distribution) would be independent, and the others would arise in an
already-settled galaxy.

In fact if evolution is indeed as insensitive to special conditions as
you are claiming. I will say might be so, might not then 2 hr 6 min
will ensure the galaxy. 2hr 7 min will mean we are also rans.


I haven't a clue what you're saying here.

This seems rather pointless. All indications are that there is NOBODY
else out there. So, either we're in some sort of nature preserve and
the ancients are intentionally hiding from us, or for some weird reason,
we happen to be the first, and the galaxy is ours.


All the indications are that there is none more advanced than we are.
SETI has indeed not seen Radio Reloj. So nobody is at the same level
as us.


Right.

It is possible that there are civilizations (allowing for speed
of light) that are 20-300 years ahead of us or 100+ yars behind.


Yes, and SETI proponents seem to implicitly assume this, but it's a
ridiculous position that I think comes from watching too much Star Trek.
Even on Earth, cultures that had been separated for even a few thousand
years were not 200 years apart, technologically -- they were *thousands*
of years apart. The Americans were still using bows and arrows when the
Europeans showed up with guns and steel. The Japanese were still using
swords when the Americans showed up with rifles (and the Japanese were
not all that isolated). Other examples abound -- and these are people
who are all the same species, with common ancestors in Africa not that
long ago.

Now, suppose independently evolving civilizations on completely
different worlds. They're not going to be a few hundred years apart;
they're going to be MILLIONS of years apart. The odds of two
neighboring civilizations evolving within a couple hundred years of each
other are ridiculous -- in geological terms, that's the exact same
instant. It's like grabbing two random people from the population and
expecting their height to be the same to within 0.1 mm.

And because of the exponential progress of technology, even a few
hundred years makes a big difference at this point. At thousands or
millions of years, you're looking at the difference between no
civilization at all, and some post-biological star-spanning civilization
that would make us seem like mildly clever monkeys.

Imagining everybody in the galaxy developing space travel at pretty much
exactly the same time makes for exciting science fiction, but
mathematically speaking, it's close to impossible.

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/
  #22  
Old July 31st 07, 07:04 PM posted to sci.astro,sci.space.policy,sci.astro.seti
Ian Parker
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,554
Default Missing sial, iron, and nickel explains Fermi paradox

On 31 Jul, 15:43, Joe Strout wrote:
In article . com,
Ian Parker wrote:

Like what? We're talking about things on the timescale of hundreds of
millions of years. What we do in the next century or two isn't going to
make any difference.


Statistically the most likely time for another civilization to appear
is now. Geological time indeed counts in billions. When I say
statistcally now, what I am saying is this. You habe a box a billion
years wide. You place a civilization in it. Now is as likely as any
other time.


I'm not following you here. Do you agree that, if the evolution of a
civilization is treated as an independent event, the population of such
events will form a standard distribution? If so, then there is a mean
and a standard deviation. When you say "the most likely time for
another civilization to appear is now," are you saying that the mean of
this distribution is the present?


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. 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.

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

If so, that's a sensible position -- what the Copernican principle
implies. The problem with it, of course, is that unless space
colonization is impossible, then civilizations are not independent
events; only the first one or few (the extreme outliers of the
distribution) would be independent, and the others would arise in an
already-settled galaxy.

In fact if evolution is indeed as insensitive to special conditions as
you are claiming. I will say might be so, might not then 2 hr 6 min
will ensure the galaxy. 2hr 7 min will mean we are also rans.


I haven't a clue what you're saying here.


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.

This seems rather pointless. All indications are that there is NOBODY
else out there. So, either we're in some sort of nature preserve and
the ancients are intentionally hiding from us, or for some weird reason,
we happen to be the first, and the galaxy is ours.


All the indications are that there is none more advanced than we are.
SETI has indeed not seen Radio Reloj. So nobody is at the same level
as us.


Right.

It is possible that there are civilizations (allowing for speed
of light) that are 20-300 years ahead of us or 100+ yars behind.


Yes, and SETI proponents seem to implicitly assume this, but it's a
ridiculous position that I think comes from watching too much Star Trek.
Even on Earth, cultures that had been separated for even a few thousand
years were not 200 years apart, technologically -- they were *thousands*
of years apart. The Americans were still using bows and arrows when the
Europeans showed up with guns and steel. The Japanese were still using
swords when the Americans showed up with rifles (and the Japanese were
not all that isolated). Other examples abound -- and these are people
who are all the same species, with common ancestors in Africa not that
long ago.

It could be too much Startrek. It could also be that SETI knows that
it can only look for civilizations within these limits. If a
civilization is a million years ahead of us we sure would have heard
from it by now. If it is behind us, does not have radio of any type it
will be impossible to detect.

Now, suppose independently evolving civilizations on completely
different worlds. They're not going to be a few hundred years apart;
they're going to be MILLIONS of years apart. The odds of two
neighboring civilizations evolving within a couple hundred years of each
other are ridiculous -- in geological terms, that's the exact same
instant. It's like grabbing two random people from the population and
expecting their height to be the same to within 0.1 mm.

It is improbable but not totally ridiculous.

And because of the exponential progress of technology, even a few
hundred years makes a big difference at this point. At thousands or
millions of years, you're looking at the difference between no
civilization at all, and some post-biological star-spanning civilization
that would make us seem like mildly clever monkeys.

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.

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

Imagining everybody in the galaxy developing space travel at pretty much
exactly the same time makes for exciting science fiction, but
mathematically speaking, it's close to impossible.

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.

BTW - I do not agree with the continuation of SETI in its present
form. ET can only be found by general improvements in observational
technique. We should look out for non ET knowledge too. A large
telescope will map out dark matter in great detail. We will know, or
at least stand some chance of knowing, what it is. Does it consist of
supersymmetic particles as most cosmologists seem to think?


- Ian Parker

  #23  
Old July 31st 07, 08:25 PM posted to sci.astro,sci.space.policy,sci.astro.seti
Joe Strout
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 972
Default Missing sial, iron, and nickel explains Fermi paradox

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?

It is possible that there are civilizations (allowing for speed
of light) that are 20-300 years ahead of us or 100+ yars behind.


Yes, and SETI proponents seem to implicitly assume this, but it's a
ridiculous position that I think comes from watching too much Star Trek.

It could be too much Startrek. It could also be that SETI knows that
it can only look for civilizations within these limits. If a
civilization is a million years ahead of us we sure would have heard
from it by now. If it is behind us, does not have radio of any type it
will be impossible to detect.


Good point. Yet, if you've invested years of your life into SETI, you
get emotionally attached to it and can't let logic or negative results
sway your position. So you end up imagining a galaxy full of
civilizations that have evolved at exactly the same moment as us
(geologically speaking), illogical though that is.

And because of the exponential progress of technology, even a few
hundred years makes a big difference at this point. At thousands or
millions of years, you're looking at the difference between no
civilization at all, and some post-biological star-spanning civilization
that would make us seem like mildly clever monkeys.

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.

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.

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.

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/
  #24  
Old August 1st 07, 03:41 AM posted to sci.astro,sci.space.policy,sci.astro.seti
Einar
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,219
Default Missing sial, iron, and nickel explains Fermi paradox


Ian Parker wrote:
On 31 Jul, 13:37, Einar wrote:

It?s quite possible to
imagine, say for every 10 species that happen in the Galaxy at least 9
linger indefinitelly at a preindustrial state of development.


Maybe, but I really doubt it. Once you have cultural evolution
outstripping genetic evolution, I think things are going to proceed
rapidly and inevitably pretty much as they have for us. Memes evolve
just like genes, only much faster. The scientific method is a powerful
one because it works (it produces useful results), which is why it has
caught on pretty much universally here (right-wing nut jobs aside), and
it would do the same in any alien culture too. That will ultimately
lead to labor-saving devices, more intensive energy use, etc.


The idea of an "industrial revolution" is again an oversimplification of
history. In reality, it was much more continuous like that, a long
stream of ideas and inventions feeding upon one another, each step
enabling the next steps. It's been an exponential curve, pretty much
any way you measure it, which produces the illusion of little progress
when you're living through it, but extremely rapid progress when you
look back (or forward) on it.


I think it was very important the idea that christianity invented that
of the separation of the realms, i.e. that there were activities that
were nonreligious. The ancient world lacked this distinction, hence
religious activities and ideas permeated all types of activity. In the
hierarchy of gods there was a god for every realm of activity. This
appears to be the single largest difference between christianity and
islam, in islam all activities belong to god. While the church may
have been selfishly reserving religious activities for itself solelly,
in order to maximize its own power, this created more opportunities
for thought, speculation about things, free of religious thinking.

This is why I think itīs no coincidence that scientific thought was
gradually able to develope within the christian countries. However,
that does not yet necessarilly give an explanation for the industrial
revolution.

The ancient Greegs knew about steampower, yet did not develope it.
Same about the Chinese, not enough is known about wether that was the
case in India. The Roman civilization inherited all the knowledge og
the Greegs, and was much richer to boot. But while it appears that
development of industry would have been possible, it didnīt happen.

There has been a great deal of discussion about why the industrial
revolution took place. I think that theoretical knowledge had more
effect than people suppose.

James Watt was at Glasgow university and he had to get a Newcoman
engine working. He found that the engine was very inefficient. What
happenned was that when water was poured onto the cylinders the water
boiled at a lower lemperature because of the change in pressure. He
went to see Joseph Black at Edinbourgh who told him about this. Watt
then designed an egnine with valves where the steam pressure, and
hence water temperature was kept up. So knowledge of thermodynamics
may have been more inportant than is generally realized.

Christian civilization did indeed have this spirit of enquiry and
managed to acquire considerable theoretical knowledge. I think you are
probably right there.

Britain was successfuul because she had a mercantile economy. Other
countries went in much more for state control, particularly overseas.

People have been exploring it why this happened in Britain in the end.
What was so special about Britain that impetus eventually developed to
create a practical steam engine?

In the ancient cases of models of steam powered experiments, there was
clearly allways lacking reliable and efficient means of transforming
the energy in the steam into logomotive power. It was the invention of
the moving piston which was the big break. That took decates to be
developed.

In Britain uses were found for the extremelly inefficient early tipes
of piston arrangement, i.e. to pump water from coalmines. By that time
Britain no longer had enough forests to fuel those engines, so only in
the very immediate viscinity of coal mines were they at all practical.
Over time the engines were improved, and around the beginning of the
19th. century the steam engine became practical for other
applications.

Britain also was by that time a world power, able to import and export
to allmost everywhere. So circumstances appear in many respects to
have been very advantagous in Britain, more so than anywhere ellse and
also more so than at any time before. Sounds bit chancy to me.

- Ian Parker


Preciselly why industrial revolution happened may never be fully
answered. However, I read your other posts and noticed you are hoaping
mind can be copied. Personally I find it unlikelly ever to be
possible. Mind you, sure they are learning a real lot, but a large
aspect of the problem, even though a way might be found to record
thoughts being made as they are made, is that real lot of the
information stored in the brain is not thought about with regularity.
There are lots of memories, things you donīt often think about, and in
addition things that are there that you think you have forgotten but
which can be triggerd into remembrance by a chance event. All of these
things, memories that you are avare of having, and those you are not
avare of having, are part of what make you who you are, part of what
has made you who you are. Therefore, in order for a record to be the
very same personality it will have to contain it all, ellse it will
not be the same.

Cheers, Einar

  #25  
Old August 1st 07, 04:31 AM posted to sci.space.policy,sci.astro.seti
Joe Strout
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 972
Default Mind uploading (was Missing sial, iron, and nickel explains Fermi paradox)

In article .com,
Einar wrote:

Preciselly why industrial revolution happened may never be fully
answered. However, I read your other posts and noticed you are hoaping
mind can be copied.


I think that was me, not Ian (whom you were quoting -- and BTW, do feel
free to trim your quotes out of consideration for your readers). Here's
a web site I put up about it way back in college, when the idea was
still pretty novel: http://www.ibiblio.org/jstrout/uploading/

Personally I find it unlikelly ever to be
possible. Mind you, sure they are learning a real lot, but a large
aspect of the problem, even though a way might be found to record
thoughts being made as they are made, is that real lot of the
information stored in the brain is not thought about with regularity.


I'm afraid you're babbling nonsense here. Mind uploading has nothing to
do with recording thoughts as they're are being made. Such is probably
not possible, in any level of detail, and would not be useful (for this
purpose) even if it were.

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.

There are lots of memories, things you donīt often think about, and in
addition things that are there that you think you have forgotten but
which can be triggerd into remembrance by a chance event. All of these
things, memories that you are avare of having, and those you are not
avare of having, are part of what make you who you are, part of what
has made you who you are. Therefore, in order for a record to be the
very same personality it will have to contain it all, ellse it will
not be the same.


Quite right. And all of that is encoded in the structure of your brain.

To make this on-topic for sci.astro.seti, mind uploading brings such
obvious benefits that we can reasonably expect any technological
civilization we encounter to be already uploaded. Moreover, this
implies that their artificial bodies could be built to suit whatever
purpose is at hand -- including blending in with humans. But this is
the point at which the conspiracy theorists start bringing out their tin
foil hats, so I'd better stop.

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/
  #26  
Old August 1st 07, 04:36 AM posted to sci.astro,sci.space.policy,sci.astro.seti
Fred J. McCall
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,736
Default Missing sial, iron, and nickel explains Fermi paradox

Ian Parker wrote:

:
:Why is Los Angeles called Los Angeles and not Fu Ming or some Chinese
:name? The Spanish won the race, or rather they won a sprint finish. In
:1421 the Spanish were not leading the field.
:

If that's true, why was the New World divided by the Pope into Spanish
and Portuguese spheres of influence AND NOBODY ELSE?


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn
  #27  
Old August 1st 07, 11:44 AM posted to sci.astro,sci.space.policy,sci.astro.seti
Ian Parker
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,554
Default Missing sial, iron, and nickel explains Fermi paradox

On 1 Aug, 03:41, Einar wrote:
Ian Parker wrote:
On 31 Jul, 13:37, Einar wrote:


It?s quite possible to
imagine, say for every 10 species that happen in the Galaxy at least 9
linger indefinitelly at a preindustrial state of development.


Maybe, but I really doubt it. Once you have cultural evolution
outstripping genetic evolution, I think things are going to proceed
rapidly and inevitably pretty much as they have for us. Memes evolve
just like genes, only much faster. The scientific method is a powerful
one because it works (it produces useful results), which is why it has
caught on pretty much universally here (right-wing nut jobs aside), and
it would do the same in any alien culture too. That will ultimately
lead to labor-saving devices, more intensive energy use, etc.


The idea of an "industrial revolution" is again an oversimplification of
history. In reality, it was much more continuous like that, a long
stream of ideas and inventions feeding upon one another, each step
enabling the next steps. It's been an exponential curve, pretty much
any way you measure it, which produces the illusion of little progress
when you're living through it, but extremely rapid progress when you
look back (or forward) on it.


I think it was very important the idea that christianity invented that
of the separation of the realms, i.e. that there were activities that
were nonreligious. The ancient world lacked this distinction, hence
religious activities and ideas permeated all types of activity. In the
hierarchy of gods there was a god for every realm of activity. This
appears to be the single largest difference between christianity and
islam, in islam all activities belong to god. While the church may
have been selfishly reserving religious activities for itself solelly,
in order to maximize its own power, this created more opportunities
for thought, speculation about things, free of religious thinking.


This is why I think itīs no coincidence that scientific thought was
gradually able to develope within the christian countries. However,
that does not yet necessarilly give an explanation for the industrial
revolution.


The ancient Greegs knew about steampower, yet did not develope it.
Same about the Chinese, not enough is known about wether that was the
case in India. The Roman civilization inherited all the knowledge og
the Greegs, and was much richer to boot. But while it appears that
development of industry would have been possible, it didnīt happen.


There has been a great deal of discussion about why the industrial
revolution took place. I think that theoretical knowledge had more
effect than people suppose.


James Watt was at Glasgow university and he had to get a Newcoman
engine working. He found that the engine was very inefficient. What
happenned was that when water was poured onto the cylinders the water
boiled at a lower lemperature because of the change in pressure. He
went to see Joseph Black at Edinbourgh who told him about this. Watt
then designed an egnine with valves where the steam pressure, and
hence water temperature was kept up. So knowledge of thermodynamics
may have been more inportant than is generally realized.


Christian civilization did indeed have this spirit of enquiry and
managed to acquire considerable theoretical knowledge. I think you are
probably right there.


Britain was successfuul because she had a mercantile economy. Other
countries went in much more for state control, particularly overseas.


People have been exploring it why this happened in Britain in the end.
What was so special about Britain that impetus eventually developed to
create a practical steam engine?


In the ancient cases of models of steam powered experiments, there was
clearly allways lacking reliable and efficient means of transforming
the energy in the steam into logomotive power. It was the invention of
the moving piston which was the big break. That took decates to be
developed.


In Britain uses were found for the extremelly inefficient early tipes
of piston arrangement, i.e. to pump water from coalmines. By that time
Britain no longer had enough forests to fuel those engines, so only in
the very immediate viscinity of coal mines were they at all practical.
Over time the engines were improved, and around the beginning of the
19th. century the steam engine became practical for other
applications.


Britain also was by that time a world power, able to import and export
to allmost everywhere. So circumstances appear in many respects to
have been very advantagous in Britain, more so than anywhere ellse and
also more so than at any time before. Sounds bit chancy to me.


- Ian Parker


Preciselly why industrial revolution happened may never be fully
answered. However, I read your other posts and noticed you are hoaping
mind can be copied. Personally I find it unlikelly ever to be
possible. Mind you, sure they are learning a real lot, but a large
aspect of the problem, even though a way might be found to record
thoughts being made as they are made, is that real lot of the
information stored in the brain is not thought about with regularity.
There are lots of memories, things you donīt often think about, and in
addition things that are there that you think you have forgotten but
which can be triggerd into remembrance by a chance event. All of these
things, memories that you are avare of having, and those you are not
avare of having, are part of what make you who you are, part of what
has made you who you are. Therefore, in order for a record to be the
very same personality it will have to contain it all, ellse it will
not be the same.

Agreed, but it might surprise you to hear me say it! I think what we
need is some clarification of what I am saying and not saying.

Kurzweil is talking about a complete silicon brain and life in a
complete simulation. This will become possible in the fullness of time
although it is not an objective I have talked about very much. It is a
far furure objective. Kurzweil is one of these people who you would
like to do a PhD with. He is chalenging, but you would not want to
live at his pace for ever.

No I think we can divide AI into the following categories.

1) Complete Kurzweil simulation.
2) Complete motor simulation.
3) Turing, including high order debating skill.
4) Interstellar AI requirements.

I have discussed "1". I agree with you completely.

I do not know why "2" is even discussed. Well failed astronauts don't
want to face the truth. If you have a dynamical system and the laws of
Physics it is predicatable. If we know the effects of motor
stimulation we can make an optimal path, quite simply in the majority
of cases.

"3" Turing. This is interesting. I feel before we go any further we
ought to know a little bit about how chatterboxes work. Eliza was
brought forward as a psycotherapist. All she did was remember the
inputs thast the user had made and select the most appropirate
response from a database.

Remember Eliza has no reasoning ability of her own, neither does any
chatterbox. If I am debating with you there are a limited number of
appropiate responses to the subject. If I have a large database I can
cover those responses. So in fact Turing = Bueno espagnol. For both we
need essentially the same thing, an accurate vector describing
context.

If you have been reading my previous postings you will see that I have
given AI a role in combating terrorism and also in "hearts and minds".
We need to find people who have joined, or are about to join jihadic
groups and engage them in dialogue. This, as I have said, will require
a large database, not a high order of reasoning ability.

Similarly we can form Erdos type graphs. Again if we have a database,
that database is capable of finding all the relationships it can
understand.

In the Middle East the greatest problem is getting high quality
information though uncensored. This is why I advocate the conformal
array. I have now thought of a design which is attractive in that it
cal be scaled up and a large number of conformal arrays added. I have
also thought of a low emission - could not be seen by detector vans
version which would be based on doing superhet on a shielded chip, and
setting a high frequency by means of a set of lower frequencies. The
setting of a frequency would be based on prime number theory. I will
tell you my thoughts later.

What is required for an interstellar trip. First of all it is in the
far future, or possibly not that far in geological terms. A probe wil
need to operate autonomously. If our large telescope tells us there is
a possibility of intelligent life it will need to have language
learing ability. The Hittite language was decoded with one phrase. :-

"Now you can eat bread and drink water".

There is a method of doing this.


- Ian Parker

  #28  
Old August 1st 07, 12:24 PM posted to sci.space.policy,sci.astro.seti
Einar
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,219
Default Mind uploading (was Missing sial, iron, and nickel explains Fermi paradox)


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

Preciselly why industrial revolution happened may never be fully
answered. However, I read your other posts and noticed you are hoaping
mind can be copied.


I think that was me, not Ian (whom you were quoting -- and BTW, do feel
free to trim your quotes out of consideration for your readers). Here's
a web site I put up about it way back in college, when the idea was
still pretty novel: http://www.ibiblio.org/jstrout/uploading/

Personally I find it unlikelly ever to be
possible. Mind you, sure they are learning a real lot, but a large
aspect of the problem, even though a way might be found to record
thoughts being made as they are made, is that real lot of the
information stored in the brain is not thought about with regularity.


I'm afraid you're babbling nonsense here. Mind uploading has nothing to
do with recording thoughts as they're are being made. Such is probably
not possible, in any level of detail, and would not be useful (for this
purpose) even if it were.

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.

There are lots of memories, things you donīt often think about, and in
addition things that are there that you think you have forgotten but
which can be triggerd into remembrance by a chance event. All of these
things, memories that you are avare of having, and those you are not
avare of having, are part of what make you who you are, part of what
has made you who you are. Therefore, in order for a record to be the
very same personality it will have to contain it all, ellse it will
not be the same.


Quite right. And all of that is encoded in the structure of your brain.

To make this on-topic for sci.astro.seti, mind uploading brings such
obvious benefits that we can reasonably expect any technological
civilization we encounter to be already uploaded. Moreover, this
implies that their artificial bodies could be built to suit whatever
purpose is at hand -- including blending in with humans. But this is
the point at which the conspiracy theorists start bringing out their tin
foil hats, so I'd better stop.

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/


Some interesting thinking, but you must be hoping ideas for the non-
destructive procedure bare fruit.

In addition, while they are currently researching how preciselly the
brain stores memory, to name an example even though you may discover
that a specific set of neurons are storing a specific memory, that
does not necessarilly tell you preciselly how those neruons are
affecting that storage, i.e. is it the connection itself, is it
recorded inside the cells themselves sort of a chemical memory, or is
it a combination of both?

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


Most certainly, if recordings of that nature are possible, then aliens
would be using such tech, probably. If we suppose that they have built
a sturdy ship, capable of travelling more or less for forever, then
theyīd only have to modify the clock speeds of the computers to make a
long travel appear to have been done in a mere moment.

Cheers, Einar

  #29  
Old August 1st 07, 03:07 PM posted to sci.astro,sci.space.policy,sci.astro.seti
Ian Parker
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,554
Default Missing sial, iron, and nickel explains Fermi paradox

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

  #30  
Old August 1st 07, 03:10 PM posted to sci.space.policy,sci.astro.seti
Joe Strout
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 972
Default Mind uploading (was Missing sial, iron, and nickel explains Fermi paradox)

In article . com,
Einar wrote:

http://www.strout.net/info/science/polywell/


Some interesting thinking, but you must be hoping ideas for the non-
destructive procedure bare fruit.


Not at all; I suspect that non-destructive uploading is impossible, and
I'm perfectly OK with that.

In addition, while they are currently researching how preciselly the
brain stores memory, to name an example even though you may discover
that a specific set of neurons are storing a specific memory, that
does not necessarilly tell you preciselly how those neruons are
affecting that storage, i.e. is it the connection itself, is it
recorded inside the cells themselves sort of a chemical memory, or is
it a combination of both?


It's pretty much just the physical connections. Chemical states are
involved in short-term memory, but we can do without that -- a brief
retrograde amnesia happens all the time as a result of head trauma, and
yet we have no worries that the patient after such an episode is not the
same person as before. It's long-term memory (and personality traits,
etc.) that counts.

(And yes, I have an M.S. in neuroscience and have looked into these
issues deeply.)

Iīve 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".

Most certainly, if recordings of that nature are possible, then aliens
would be using such tech, probably. If we suppose that they have built
a sturdy ship, capable of travelling more or less for forever, then
theyīd only have to modify the clock speeds of the computers to make a
long travel appear to have been done in a mere moment.


Well, not if they are actually active in bodies during the trip. In
that case, the clock speeds of their brains will want to be tied to
actual physics, i.e. how fast things fall, how quickly they appear to
accelerate when you push on them, etc.

In fact, they would probably build themselves as small as possible,
since that reduces mass by the cube of the scale factor. Smaller people
(er, aliens) means a smaller ship, which can therefore accelerate and
decelerate faster on the same amount of fuel. I'm not sure how small is
possible; certainly there are limits, based mainly on how much brain
power you can cram into a small space. But given the ultimate limits on
computing density (which Kurzweil has calculated in some detail), a
brain a couple cm in diameter isn't outrageous, which for humans would
mean a height of maybe 10 cm or so, with the rest of the shipboard
environment scaled accordingly. In this case, they would probably run
their brains slightly faster than normal, since everything on that scale
happens faster than our current scale.

But probably most of the crew wouldn't be active in bodies for most of a
long trip; apart from occasional maintenance, there is no need for it.
They could instead pass the time in artificial realities, entirely
within the imagination of the ship computers; or simply as inactive,
stored data, to be activated (and probably downloaded into a body) upon
arrival.

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/
 




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