The Fermi Paradox and SETI Success

On Aug 15, 12:52*pm, Paul J Gans wrote:


After all, how many of us know how to chip stones so as to form
a proper stone age tool? *


(raises hand) I do!! I do!!!

I was taught how to chip arrowheads as a little kid in the early 70's,
by the grandfather of a friend of mine who lived on the Pine Ridge
Reservation in South Dakota.

The old-style glass insulators for power lines, make the best
arrowheads.

The thick glass at the bottom of beer bottles works pretty well, too
(though you have to chip the curve out).




================================================
Lenny Flank
"There are no loose threads in the web of life"

Editor, Red and Black Publishers
http://www.RedAndBlackPublishers.com

On Aug 15, 10:14*am, Free Lunch wrote:
On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:03:19 -0400, "Robert J. Kolker"
wrote in talk.origins:

'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank wrote:

How many bacteria are there on earth . . . . . . . . . .. ?

I think mass would be a better measure than number. Still, the insects
outweigh the mammalian population and are better adapted to Earth, as it
is, than mammals.

The first forms of line on this planet were one celled thingies. I
suspect such like organisms will be the last forms of life on this planet.

Don't bacteria outweigh insects?


I think they outweight ALL multicellular life.

Indeed, the deep-earth extremophiles, by themselves, might outweight
all multicellular life.

Life on earth is, always has been and probably always will be,
dominated by bacteria. We multicellulars are just a flash in the pan.



================================================
Lenny Flank
"There are no loose threads in the web of life"

Editor, Red and Black Publishers
http://www.RedAndBlackPublishers.com

On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 18:31:07 +0100,
Mike Dworetsky wrote:
"Paul J Gans" wrote in message
...
In talk.origins John Wilkins wrote:
Paul J Gans wrote:

In talk.origins John Harshman wrote:
...
Yes, one solution would be for all civilizations to render themselves
undetectable very soon after becoming detectable. This assumes they
don't go in for travel or communication, and never make noticeable
changes to their habitat (like Dyson spheres and such). It seems to me
that this assumption would require humans to be a very unusual sort of
intelligence, because we're going to go in for communication and travel
as soon as we figure out how, if we don't collapse first.

Other civilizations might well be signalling us like mad using
techniques we've not yet invented.

Or techniques we have abandoned? Semaphores?

Or obviously artificial signals such as the ones that begin:

"I am Mr. Harson Gumbaw, nephew of the reigning oligarch
of Obway. I would like you to join me in a business venture
that will make us both rich..."

--
--- Paul J. Gans


Contest proposal: the best interstellar Nigeria-scam radiogram.

I am the Sub-adjutant to the Fifth Plural of Epsilon Bootes. Since the
impisonment of the Fifth Plural, the Ninth General Assembly of Episilon
Bootes has held many millions of the Fifth Plura's tender discs. I desire
to free these tender discs to permit greater flow of my economic fortunes,
and ask your assistance in this venture. Please forward your banking
information, so that I may transfer the value of these tender discs
offworld, thus opening new economic fortunes free of the Ninth General
Assembly's involvement. In return, I shall leave with you a generous
economic bonus for your assistance in this manner.

If you could also fax information on various missile installations, nuclear
submarines, airforce installations and a plain of sufficient area for
several dozen Qag-class Ultakiller Cruisers, please do so, as we are looking
for a nice place to camp and consume.

--
Aaron Clausen

On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:55:44 -0700 (PDT),
Chris.B wrote:
On Aug 15, 1:18*am, John Harshman mumbled:

That was Chris. B's second bizarre, stream-of-consciousness post in this
thread. What newsgroup does he/she usually live in, and is he/she always
like that?

Merely pointing out the gaping flaws in the acceptance that the human
race is an optimised intelligence.

Who exactly is accepting that? Short of Creationists, I doubt there's a
single person here who thinks that humans possess optimized intelligence.
Even more telling, I doubt anyone here would even know what the f-ck
optimized intelligence is.

I'm snipping the rest of your post because, being a sane, well-adjusted
individual, I require paragraphs for the sake of comprehension and mental
health.

snip

--
Aaron Clausen

On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:29:52 -0700 (PDT), "'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank"
wrote in talk.origins:

On Aug 15, 12:52*pm, Paul J Gans wrote:


After all, how many of us know how to chip stones so as to form
a proper stone age tool? *


(raises hand) I do!! I do!!!

I was taught how to chip arrowheads as a little kid in the early 70's,
by the grandfather of a friend of mine who lived on the Pine Ridge
Reservation in South Dakota.

The old-style glass insulators for power lines, make the best
arrowheads.

The thick glass at the bottom of beer bottles works pretty well, too
(though you have to chip the curve out).

Way better than the way I do it. I forget that I have some flint
arrowheads in a box and bounce it around. The arrowheads chip very
easily.

In talk.origins Mike Dworetsky wrote:
"Paul J Gans" wrote in message
...
In talk.origins wrote:

[massive deletions]

Once again, the distinction between correlation and causality must be
explained.

The human population has increased in correlation with technological
innovation. That *does not* mean that if there is a small population,
technology will vanish. Indeed, if the population were to start
dropping tomorrow, it would likely *stimulate* the development of
technology to replace labor.

First-world high-tech high-consumption living standards are perfectly
'sustainable' as long as there are few enough people.

I agree. I suspect it would be far easier to create an
electric generator than to start over with stone age
technology.

After all, how many of us know how to chip stones so as to form
a proper stone age tool? But lots of us know the fundamentals of
building a generator.

--
--- Paul J. Gans


There are archaeologists who specialise in just this area--the best way to
make assorted flint tools with materials at hand (other stones, deer
antlers, etc).

Sure, but more of us can spin a copper loop in a magnetic field.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

In talk.origins Matt wrote:
On Aug 14, 9:20 pm, (John Wilkins) wrote:
Paul J Gans wrote:



In talk.origins John Harshman wrote:
...
Yes, one solution would be for all civilizations to render themselves
undetectable very soon after becoming detectable. This assumes they
don't go in for travel or communication, and never make noticeable
changes to their habitat (like Dyson spheres and such). It seems to me
that this assumption would require humans to be a very unusual sort of
intelligence, because we're going to go in for communication and travel
as soon as we figure out how, if we don't collapse first.

Other civilizations might well be signalling us like mad using
techniques we've not yet invented.

Or techniques we have abandoned? Semaphores?

They keep chucking large rocks at us, but their aim isn't very good.

Bingo!

I nominate that as the best example of interstellar contact
proposed yet!

--
--- Paul J. Gans

In talk.origins Steven L. wrote:
Paul J Gans wrote:
In talk.origins Friar Broccoli wrote:
On Aug 14, 1:06 am, John Harshman
wrote:
Friar Broccoli wrote:
On Aug 13, 8:38 pm, John Harshman
wrote:
K_h wrote:
Fermi's paradox suggests that there are little or no other intelligent
civilizations within the Milky Way galaxy. On the other hand, intelligent
life should exist on a substantial fraction of planets with life because
natural selection broadly increases intelligence with time.

.

Does it? News to me. What evidence do you have that this is the case?

.

There has been an increase in the intelligence of a broad range of
species on earth with time.

Has there? What broad range, exactly? And if natural selection
broadly increased intelligence with time, we would expect all
species to be undergoing this push, wouldn't we?

I don't see how this follows at all. I would expect different
species to adopt widely differing strategies depending on
circumstances. In plants, intelligence would be a complete
waste of resources. Others like Starfish and Jellyfish have
used other strategies to ensure they can navigate and persist in
their environments without needing intelligence.

The definition of evolutionary success is reproduction.

Not sufficient; the definition of evolutionary success is occupying and
dominating an ecological niche. A species can reproduce and yet become
extinct if it is preyed on by another species.

But it is sufficient. Without it you are extinct. With it you
aren't.

Those Galapagos finches Darwin studied were successful NOT because they
reproduced; that's the mechanism, not the goal. Their success was that
they *radiated* into all the available ecological niches on those islands.

That's how they survived in order to reproduce.

Using
that paradigm I conclude that intelligence, however defined,
is totally useless for evolutionary success.

The value of intelligence is it gives the species the ability to quickly
occupy new ecological niches without needing to evolve genetically.
Humans became the top predator on Earth without taking millions more
years to evolve bigger fangs and larger size and faster legs than
saber-toothed cats and other existing predators. We did it by
outsmarting the saber-tooths and any other species vying for the top
predator niche.

Intelligence has value in our world, no doubt about it. It is
just the simple observation that by any criteria, numbers, mass,
length of existance, whatever, we are not all that successful,
intelligent or not.

What intelligence did for humans was NOT to produce more offspring than
beetles. It enabled humans to become farmers (herbivores); hunters
(carnivores); SCUBA divers (deep-sea swimmers); fliers; and most
recently, outer space explorers. We did all that without needing to
wait millions of years to evolve wings, gills, carapaces, etc. Thus
humans colonized the entire planet, including the oceans and the air and
soon outer space. All ecological niches. All by the same genetic humans.

Producing many offspring is one way to keep reproducing. Producing
them selectively is another. So is changing their gender and the
time to sexual maturity. All these exist.

And we don't occupy all ecological niches. In fact, we spread by
destroying niches and converting them to the kind of niche we
like. This is not intelligent behavior.

If we were truly intelligent, we'd be far better able to judge
risk and to understand contingencies.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

In talk.origins 'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank wrote:
On Aug 15, 12:52Â*pm, Paul J Gans wrote:


After all, how many of us know how to chip stones so as to form
a proper stone age tool? Â*


(raises hand) I do!! I do!!!

I was taught how to chip arrowheads as a little kid in the early 70's,
by the grandfather of a friend of mine who lived on the Pine Ridge
Reservation in South Dakota.

The old-style glass insulators for power lines, make the best
arrowheads.

The thick glass at the bottom of beer bottles works pretty well, too
(though you have to chip the curve out).


All right! When you finish the YouTube video so we can all
learn it, you can go to work on making a bow.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

In talk.origins AC wrote:
On Fri, 15 Aug 2008 18:31:07 +0100,
Mike Dworetsky wrote:
"Paul J Gans" wrote in message
...
In talk.origins John Wilkins wrote:
Paul J Gans wrote:

In talk.origins John Harshman wrote:
...
Yes, one solution would be for all civilizations to render themselves
undetectable very soon after becoming detectable. This assumes they
don't go in for travel or communication, and never make noticeable
changes to their habitat (like Dyson spheres and such). It seems to me
that this assumption would require humans to be a very unusual sort of
intelligence, because we're going to go in for communication and travel
as soon as we figure out how, if we don't collapse first.

Other civilizations might well be signalling us like mad using
techniques we've not yet invented.

Or techniques we have abandoned? Semaphores?

Or obviously artificial signals such as the ones that begin:

"I am Mr. Harson Gumbaw, nephew of the reigning oligarch
of Obway. I would like you to join me in a business venture
that will make us both rich..."

--
--- Paul J. Gans


Contest proposal: the best interstellar Nigeria-scam radiogram.

I am the Sub-adjutant to the Fifth Plural of Epsilon Bootes. Since the
impisonment of the Fifth Plural, the Ninth General Assembly of Episilon
Bootes has held many millions of the Fifth Plura's tender discs. I desire
to free these tender discs to permit greater flow of my economic fortunes,
and ask your assistance in this venture. Please forward your banking
information, so that I may transfer the value of these tender discs
offworld, thus opening new economic fortunes free of the Ninth General
Assembly's involvement. In return, I shall leave with you a generous
economic bonus for your assistance in this manner.

If you could also fax information on various missile installations, nuclear
submarines, airforce installations and a plain of sufficient area for
several dozen Qag-class Ultakiller Cruisers, please do so, as we are looking
for a nice place to camp and consume.

SPAM.

--
--- Paul J. Gans