Post #42,314
6/14/02 12:47:32 AM
|
*grin*
Was thinking of that godawful formula for estimating the number of possible inhabited planets - can't remember the name of it.
There are 'estimates' of the number of planets in the galaxy... But you are right that they are (well, seem to be) numbers pulled straight out of the estimator's butt. Still, the observation of a more terestrial-type solar system only 41 ly. away is gonna boost those 'estimates'.
Point taken, though.
Imric's Tips for Living- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
|
Post #42,451
6/16/02 4:10:28 AM
|
Drake's Equation
[link|http://www.seti-inst.edu/science/drake-bg.html|Here], as popularized by the late Carl Sagan.
--
Karsten M. Self [link|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com|kmself@ix.netcom.com]
[link|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/|[link|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/]]
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
Keep software free. Oppose the CBDTPA. Kill S.2048 dead.
[link|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html|[link|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html|http://www.eff.org/...a_alert.html]]
|
Post #42,453
6/16/02 9:01:21 AM
|
That's the one!
Imric's Tips for Living- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
|
Post #42,461
6/16/02 11:49:59 AM
|
Yep.
On an IBM boondoggle, I heard Carl Sagan expound on it at Century Plaze Hotel (LA, CA) in 1974. He was funny and good at it. One of those things one will not forget.
He showed a slide of a bogus star chart as seen from an inhabitted planet which included our sun in the constellation the locals call the Unicorn. Our sun was at the unicorn's anus. Brought the house dowm.
Alex
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." -- Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
|
Post #42,508
6/16/02 6:32:41 PM
|
So, who are the locals...
...on an uninhabited planet?
--
Karsten M. Self [link|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com|kmself@ix.netcom.com]
[link|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/|[link|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/]]
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
Keep software free. Oppose the CBDTPA. Kill S.2048 dead.
[link|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html|[link|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html|http://www.eff.org/...a_alert.html]]
|
Post #42,506
6/16/02 6:31:03 PM
|
Von Neumann had a good argument against
I have described it before, but I am too lazy to do it again.
The first link I found from Google is [link|http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/9146/intro.html|here].
(I first heard it from Laurie Snell at Dartmouth College.)
Cheers,
Ben
"... I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything."
--Richard Feynman
|
Post #42,530
6/16/02 10:49:27 PM
|
The only basic defect of this plan appears to be:
~~ "mind cannot know itself". (Well, hardly at all. Thus far. And then there is the large question about scale.) 'We' are well within that Box.
Apart from trying to parse the conundrum though: we haven't the foggiest! about what "self awareness" means - though we mouth the words as if we not only knew, but .. are almost sure that it's just a question of techno + time before we "break the code".
Heh. Dunno what you call that tacit presumption: I call it Cosmic Hubris. Unless you also presume that, such awareness as, "I Know That I Am!" is some matter for mathematical deduction and then engineering?
(No, I cannot 'prove' what we "might discover about selves" over a few eons (were we to survive our own death wish that long. An infinitesimal chance, that?)). I can categorize fantasies though, based upon the level of self-awareness achieved thus far: I deem it miniscule and a *very* mechanical model - letting well alone the impossibility of "constructing" [Something with!] the emotional response to: An actual Realization that, "I Know That I Am".
I think Johnny blew it on this one - elementary Metaphysics 101. Clever fellow, though. As was Alan Turing. But as philosophers ??
Ashton
awed to be opposing such as Johnny. What do I think I Be?
|
Post #42,537
6/16/02 11:52:22 PM
|
Non-sequitor
Von Neumann was not trying to answer an abstract question of philosophy. He was trying to answer a concrete question.
Are there other civilizations we are likely to run into who are technologically advanced (with the kinds of technologies that we recognize)?
His answer is that, unless there is a bizaare freak coincidence, there probably are not. This says nothing about the presence of life. Or even of intelligent life which is not capable of our form of technology. (It seems likely, for instance, that the great whales are smarter than we. But they are unlikely to develop a technology that puts them into space...) Or even about what intelligent life is.
Furthermore nothing is said on whether this is good or bad. No particular value is placed on technological life. The only reason he distinguished it was that it is good at making itself noticable. (It could be fairly said that Von Neumann is pointing out how technological life will likely manage to pollute an entire galaxy in a blink of cosmic time. Make of that what you will...)
Cheers,
Ben
"... I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything."
--Richard Feynman
|
Post #42,571
6/17/02 6:59:17 AM
|
Ah - that's clearer then.
A) Are there other civilizations?
B) And with technologies we might recognize, too?
I was addressing only the self-replicating intelligent? 'seeding' idea - which might be the path we would choose, if we could.
"Technologies we might recognize". Slick - have to mull on that one; changes everything. Johnny remains safely out of my league (and that of most of the rest of us).
Thanks,
Ashton
(who'd like to believe that J. indeed said pollute ;-)
|
