On 8/19/2024 5:38 PM, John Clark wrote:
On Mon, Aug 19, 2024 at 8:06 PM Brent Meeker <meekerbr...@gmail.com>
wrote:
/>>> //if the Milky way has on produced a handful of vNps
then it's not so implausible that none of have succeeded or
even tried.///
>> I don't know how you figure that. It seems ridiculously
implausible to mebecause it only takes one.
/> But how many trying does it take to get one succeeding./
Just ONE bacteria placed in a sterile body of water the size of the
Pacific Ocean could spread so that there were millions of bacteria in
every square inch of it in just a few weeks, provided the ocean had
the correct nutrients. And a Von Neumann probe would be far far less
picky about what it considers the "correct nutrients" than a bacteria.
Bacteria are killed by radiation and a von Neumann probe will be
too...eventually. I think you are far too sanguine about how easy it
will be to build such a thing and to know it will work for the requisite
time to build replicas. There's a scifi story about a part of the
galaxy in which vNp have been built and evolved and are now fighting one
another for resources.
Brent
>> OK, there is no disputing matters of taste.But I think you would
have to agree that not every intelligent being in the galaxy is
likely to feel about that the same way as you do ..... as a
matter of fact you're communicating with such a being right now.
/> But only those with the capability to do it count.
/
Yes but as I said before, provided I survive the meat grinder
singularity, which I freely admit is problematic, I will have that
capacity in a decade or two. And so will you. But if we don't survive
something will, and I don't believe that every single one of those
somethings will have the exact same likes and dislikes that you do. At
least one something is going to want to try a little cosmic engineering.
> /And we're something like the third or fourth dominant species
on this planet; dominant in the sense of preventing any other
potentially technological species./
Sorry, I'm not following you.
John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis
<https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>
cme
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