They knew their time was limited; perhaps their sun was developing the rattlings of a nova. Rather than sending out one giant, fragile ship holding their entire civilization, they decided to sent out a trillion probes in hopes that a few would survive.
Personally, if I were doing it, I'd send out human DNA, not just raw primitive cells and then hope something develops intelligence similar to what I was...
What if their self-replicating probes' payload was code-named "DNA"?
Two problems with theory: 1) we have a huge fossil record that doesn't seem to indicate that (we have RNA appearing to predate DNA, and why would they send such primitive organisms?), and 2) It'd be a useless experiment, because nothing is reporting back to them about the solar system. What's the point?
The Great Filter (Drake's equation) teaches us that the number of other intelligent civilizations in our Galaxy alone is expected to be anything from several to tens of thousands at any given time.
The Drake Equation starts a discussion. It wasn't meant to really calculate anything. It's simply a way of describing the probability factors, but we have absolutely zero clue what the probability factors really are, especially the probability of intelligent life arising from base life.
In any case, that was Sagan's argument, and the Fermi Paradox firmly asks, if there are so many, why the hell don't we see ANY evidence, when logically they should have spread everywhere in the vast amount of time of the galaxy?
Not sure any species would be both capable of that and at the same time insane enough to stay dedicated to a million-year plan.
Put it this way: did humans "stay dedicated" to a 10,000 year plan to explore the earth? No, people just naturally did it, once they get tired of where they were and wanted to go somewhere else. Once a race has successfully done it once, why wouldn't they do it again? And again? And continue generation after generation for millions of years?
And even if they didn't, once you launch a self-replicating probe, you wouldn't necessarily have the goal of exploring the entire galaxy, just the local star systems, and "whatever else we can get back". But eventually, the probes *would* make it through the entire galaxy, even if that civilization ceased to exist.
I also like the theory of an AI-enabled probe that seeks out and communicates with other civilizations, then beams back what it learns. I think it's inevitable that we'll have that sort of technology.
I don't understand this... Because they aren't building replicating probes to conquer a galaxy??
Pretty much. In the timespans were talking about, *someone* should have tried to reach the nearest stars, or sent probes to do it, which through geometric progression, should have explored the entire galaxy.
Re:Have some patience, we'll run across them... ev
on
The Fermi Paradox is Back
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Provided that one model of the inevitable course which all civilizations must absolutely follow is true.
You made one crucial mistake in the above... it doesn't take "all" civilizations, it takes only one. Only one civilization has to either want to expand throughout the galaxy, or wants to create self-replicating probes to explore the entire galaxy. Assuming intelligent life is relatively common, do you think it's reasonable that not one over the last few billion years would do it?
In Sagan's Dragons Of Eden, he shows that the extreme amount of time between now and the big bang is more than enough for entire civilizations to have flourished and died out.
Sure. But it only takes one with expansionist desires to fill up the galaxy in a handful of million years. It may even happen over and over. But the point is that life here wouldn't exist if aliens kept taking over the planet before life could start. And if aliens had been coming here (over and over, perhaps), it seems logical that we would have *some* evidence of it. But all the fossils seem to show that life evolved here from very simple organisms, and not from an alien source.
I'm not convinced that any intelligent life will necessarily develop the ability to spread throughout a galaxy or even fill it with probes.
It only takes one. There are NO civilizations that are curious enough to make a self replicating probe? There are NO civilizations that might create a sleep ship to seed other planets?
For a 1 in 1 billion chance, that's still 500 star systems. [...] Maybe other life forms have sent out self replicating probes. Why would we have necessarily noticed?
Yeah, yeah, you seem to think that no one has ever made the statistical argument before. But facts still remain that a HUGE amount of time has passed. Read about the Fermi Paradox before spouting all these arguments that have been made before... they don't explain the lack of evidence.
When I say intelligent life is "extremely improbable", I mean it might be 1e20 to 1 chance. Or 1e100 to 1 chance. or 1e100000 to 1 chance. How do we know? Maybe it took 1e100000 universes for it to happen.
Maybe other life forms have sent out self replicating probes. Why would we have necessarily noticed?
Because they would have filled the galaxy by now. The galaxy is OLD, and a self replicating probe would fill the galaxy in relatively short order, even at sublight speeds.
So we've used a few hundred years of technology for almost a hundred years to look for signs of life in a (nearly?) infinite universe and not found anything. Must mean its not there.
The point isn't that we haven't found them, the point is that nothing has found this planet. And that should've happened a long time ago, either by a race expanding at a geometric rate (even at sublight speeds), or by a self-replicating probe. A billion years is a long time.
Re:Have some patience, we'll run across them... ev
on
The Fermi Paradox is Back
·
· Score: 4, Informative
With so many billions of stars and planets, the odds that there are other intelligent beings out there are astronomically large. (Pun slightly intended.)
That's the Sagan argument. Unfortunately, the fact that we exist tells us absolutely nothing about how probably intelligent life is or isn't (see: anthropic principle). Sagan's argument doesn't address the fundamental Fermi problem.
The problem is that the distances required to travel to reach them and also astronomically large, and the odds that there is life on any given planet are infinitesimally small.
True, but the amount of time that's passed until us showing up is also astronomically large. It only takes one race with an expansion desire to fill up the galaxy at sublight speeds around 1 to 10 million years (via geometric expansion). Even if it took 100 million years, that's still a blip in the life of the galaxy. At the very least, someone should have sent out self replicating probes by now. By we've seen absolutely nothing.
I'm pretty much convinced that intelligent life is extremely improbable, and that we're alone in the galaxy.
This is explicitly undesirable in the case of something like Ask Slashdot stories... I'd prefer to pick the best one from 10... be that a week old a day or a month. They are timeless, so I might as well choose my favorite.
Are you that hard up for Ask Slashdot stories? I agree that, "What Linux distribution are you using? Discuss!" is a timeless topic deserving to be discussed periodically, but it seems to me that if a topic is good and hasn't been discussed in a while, then someone will ask it again.
The issue is the list growing unwieldly. The more cruft that's in the list, the fewer eyes will hit each story to decide quality. If Ask Slashdot needs a somewhat longer period than other stories, then so be it, but IMO you're giving a bit too much weight to the "I might want that month old story in a pinch!" problem.
Alternatively, you could always have the public Firehose list have the one-week kill time, but for editor purposes, it could have a longer period so you could sift through older stuff.
The problem is that stories fall into many categories... some are time-critical and others are timeless... things like "I want a new laptop is Dell good" or "Here's a guy who tatood the BSD on his arm". Stuff like that never really needs to be 'rejected' since it could theoretically be a good story tomorrow.
I think you need to trust that good stories, if they're good stories, will be resubmitted if they suddenly become a good story because some factor changed. With that in mind, I would just give it a week and dump it. "If you love a story, let it go. If it doesn't return, it was never good in the first place.":)
You know, to be fair to Flash, I have to say that it's an incredibly well-written application overall. It's very small to download and it works very well. Heck, they actually made video consistently work on the Internet! I think you can make an argument that they are solely responsible for making video sites like YouTube viable. All video STILL sucks except for Flash.
Of course, the quality of Flash is a different question from how it's abused.:) [personally, I don't mind Flash all that much.]
Well, of course it will. Duh. Proof? Will entity X be *more* likely do adopt Linux because of GPL v3? I think the answer to that it clearly 'no'. Are there entities that will shy away from Linux if GPL v3 gains a foothold? I think the answer is clearly 'yes'. Therefore, GPL v3 will slow Linux adoption. QED.
The question is whether the *rate* of slowing really matters that much.
I guess you would also give bad grades to black kids because they had different accents? Who the hell are you?
Uh.... no.... but I would give bad grades in a speech class to someone who mumbled. This isn't about different styles of writing, it's about legibility. I wouldn't care if someone puts a horizontal line through their Z or not, but there's no excuse of total sloppiness to the point that you can't read it.
Too many people give excuses about their writing. Anyone can write neatly, and above the age of 10, they *should* be able to write neatly. It doesn't take an obsessive compulsive to produce decent lettering. I can write fast and sloppy, or I can write slow and neat. It's not that hard, it just takes a teaspoon of patience (I know, I know -- patience in the instant gratification generation? What an idea.)
I had the same problem in pen & paper days. Some of my teachers were more worried about the presentation and neatness of handwriting than they were about what I actually wrote.
Well, I don't know if I'm willing to go this far. There's a difference between neatness and flash. If I was a teacher and had to squint at chicken scratches trying to understand what a student wrote, I'd make neatness count as well. Part of education is learning to be organized and have reasonably clear penmanship (another item that computers are corrupting). While I believe content is important (as I stated), I'm not going to say that content is the only thing that's important.
(that said, clearly insisting on letters exactly the right height is fairly absurd)
Before the US becomes a 3rd world country due to competition from India and China who can get the OLPC Laptop in special deals to make their next generation of children more competitive?
I've seen two examples of schools in my local neighborhood bragging about how their gifted fifth-grade students were using Powerpoint to give their school reports. In one case, I saw an example of it with all sort of pictures, and the GATE teacher bragged, "and one report had a video on it!!"
Of course, I'm thinking how pathetically easy it is to put together this sort of presentation, and I was struck not by the content (as I should), but by how much the teacher valued the flash over the substance of the report.
If we want to make our children more "competitive", maybe it would be a better idea to keep computers away from them as long as possible. Any idiot can learn to use a computer. I'd rather end up with educated children.
That's kinda like substituting 1000 Ford Escorts for a Caterpillar D11. You'll have a lot more metal laying about - but you won't get as much done.
Give me a 1,000 Ford Escorts with a scoop bolted on the front, and you can have your Caterpillar D11. Sure, the Escort may not be as powerful or as efficient, but I suspect 1,000 of them pushing dirt around would give me a big advantage.
You know, thinking about it, this is almost the John Henry legend all over again. We have to send a human because a machine "can't" replace them.
That's a self defeating argument - as the technology won't mature unless you send people in the first place.
Space technology is improving all the time. But it foolish to shoot for Mars when we can't even put humans in orbit economically. Why don't at least solve that problem first? And maybe see about creating a few space hotels, to figure out in-space construction? All of these technologies are stepping stones to Mars missions.
Whats the point of learning anything about it if you don't intend to go there.
It's called "science." Just because we don't intend to go to other galaxies doesn't mean we don't study them. Anyway, we might go to Mars someday, but at this point in our technological development, it's a complete waste of time. There's nothing we can get from astronauts that we can't get from a whole slew of probes.
...consider the potential benefits derived from learning to live in self contained spaces for long periods of time for humanity on earth.
This has always been a silly argument. We already have tons of data, spread over centuries about this. Sailing ships and (more recently) submarines. Heck, look at prisons if you want more data.
Can we stop pretending we're going to send astronauts to Mars? There's is no way we're going to spend the enormous amount of money required to do it, and we don't even know if the astronauts can survive the radiation exposure on the trip.
Besides the fact that it won't be done by any government in the next 30 years, it *shouldn't* be done. I've harped on this before, but it's still true: we could send 1,000 probes similar to the Mars Lander for the price it takes to do a P.R. stunt like sending humans to Mars. Yeah, it's romantic, but if the goal is science, then it's a total waste.
I like space. I'm a supporter of space. But I think humans should go on the back burner until space exploration is much, much, much more of a mature technology. We don't even have casual trips to orbit, much less the moon, much less significant space stations, and much, much less Mars.
Let's be rational about space exploration and let an army of robots do the work, instead of a few fragile, expensive humans.
Which is exactly why I put in the "for me" condition in that statement.
And you still miss the point. The point is that it's totally, completely, and gigantically irrelevant that it works for you. Let me repeat this: IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT IT WORKS FOR YOU. I'm sure it works for the developers, too, otherwise they would have fixed it (scratched itch and all that).
If the guy's system is screwed up, it's screwed up, and it's not the guy's fault. Telling him that it "works for you" is implying that it's his fault that it's screwed up. It's not his fault.
I'm not a big fan of the RIAA's tactics, but in this case, a performance is a performance. What difference does it make about the performance's motivation?
I think I'll put out an album of covers and call it a "training album". Then I can avoid paying royalties! Wheeeeeee!
Just out of curiosity, how much seismic vibration do you get out of the earth on a typical day? What if you had a huge version of this concept that harnessed power from earth vibration? (say, you had a HUGE weight suspended between springs, and the relative motion of the weight and the earth would generate power?)
Slashdot Mirror
They knew their time was limited; perhaps their sun was developing the rattlings of a nova. Rather than sending out one giant, fragile ship holding their entire civilization, they decided to sent out a trillion probes in hopes that a few would survive.
Personally, if I were doing it, I'd send out human DNA, not just raw primitive cells and then hope something develops intelligence similar to what I was...
What if their self-replicating probes' payload was code-named "DNA"?
Two problems with theory: 1) we have a huge fossil record that doesn't seem to indicate that (we have RNA appearing to predate DNA, and why would they send such primitive organisms?), and 2) It'd be a useless experiment, because nothing is reporting back to them about the solar system. What's the point?
The Great Filter (Drake's equation) teaches us that the number of other intelligent civilizations in our Galaxy alone is expected to be anything from several to tens of thousands at any given time.
The Drake Equation starts a discussion. It wasn't meant to really calculate anything. It's simply a way of describing the probability factors, but we have absolutely zero clue what the probability factors really are, especially the probability of intelligent life arising from base life.
In any case, that was Sagan's argument, and the Fermi Paradox firmly asks, if there are so many, why the hell don't we see ANY evidence, when logically they should have spread everywhere in the vast amount of time of the galaxy?
Not sure any species would be both capable of that and at the same time insane enough to stay dedicated to a million-year plan.
Put it this way: did humans "stay dedicated" to a 10,000 year plan to explore the earth? No, people just naturally did it, once they get tired of where they were and wanted to go somewhere else. Once a race has successfully done it once, why wouldn't they do it again? And again? And continue generation after generation for millions of years?
And even if they didn't, once you launch a self-replicating probe, you wouldn't necessarily have the goal of exploring the entire galaxy, just the local star systems, and "whatever else we can get back". But eventually, the probes *would* make it through the entire galaxy, even if that civilization ceased to exist.
I also like the theory of an AI-enabled probe that seeks out and communicates with other civilizations, then beams back what it learns. I think it's inevitable that we'll have that sort of technology.
I don't understand this... Because they aren't building replicating probes to conquer a galaxy??
Pretty much. In the timespans were talking about, *someone* should have tried to reach the nearest stars, or sent probes to do it, which through geometric progression, should have explored the entire galaxy.
Provided that one model of the inevitable course which all civilizations must absolutely follow is true.
You made one crucial mistake in the above... it doesn't take "all" civilizations, it takes only one. Only one civilization has to either want to expand throughout the galaxy, or wants to create self-replicating probes to explore the entire galaxy. Assuming intelligent life is relatively common, do you think it's reasonable that not one over the last few billion years would do it?
In Sagan's Dragons Of Eden, he shows that the extreme amount of time between now and the big bang is more than enough for entire civilizations to have flourished and died out.
Sure. But it only takes one with expansionist desires to fill up the galaxy in a handful of million years. It may even happen over and over. But the point is that life here wouldn't exist if aliens kept taking over the planet before life could start. And if aliens had been coming here (over and over, perhaps), it seems logical that we would have *some* evidence of it. But all the fossils seem to show that life evolved here from very simple organisms, and not from an alien source.
I'm not convinced that any intelligent life will necessarily develop the ability to spread throughout a galaxy or even fill it with probes.
It only takes one. There are NO civilizations that are curious enough to make a self replicating probe? There are NO civilizations that might create a sleep ship to seed other planets?
For a 1 in 1 billion chance, that's still 500 star systems. [...] Maybe other life forms have sent out self replicating probes. Why would we have necessarily noticed?
Yeah, yeah, you seem to think that no one has ever made the statistical argument before. But facts still remain that a HUGE amount of time has passed. Read about the Fermi Paradox before spouting all these arguments that have been made before... they don't explain the lack of evidence.
When I say intelligent life is "extremely improbable", I mean it might be 1e20 to 1 chance. Or 1e100 to 1 chance. or 1e100000 to 1 chance. How do we know? Maybe it took 1e100000 universes for it to happen.
Maybe other life forms have sent out self replicating probes. Why would we have necessarily noticed?
Because they would have filled the galaxy by now. The galaxy is OLD, and a self replicating probe would fill the galaxy in relatively short order, even at sublight speeds.
So we've used a few hundred years of technology for almost a hundred years to look for signs of life in a (nearly?) infinite universe and not found anything. Must mean its not there.
The point isn't that we haven't found them, the point is that nothing has found this planet. And that should've happened a long time ago, either by a race expanding at a geometric rate (even at sublight speeds), or by a self-replicating probe. A billion years is a long time.
With so many billions of stars and planets, the odds that there are other intelligent beings out there are astronomically large. (Pun slightly intended.)
That's the Sagan argument. Unfortunately, the fact that we exist tells us absolutely nothing about how probably intelligent life is or isn't (see: anthropic principle). Sagan's argument doesn't address the fundamental Fermi problem.
The problem is that the distances required to travel to reach them and also astronomically large, and the odds that there is life on any given planet are infinitesimally small.
True, but the amount of time that's passed until us showing up is also astronomically large. It only takes one race with an expansion desire to fill up the galaxy at sublight speeds around 1 to 10 million years (via geometric expansion). Even if it took 100 million years, that's still a blip in the life of the galaxy. At the very least, someone should have sent out self replicating probes by now. By we've seen absolutely nothing.
I'm pretty much convinced that intelligent life is extremely improbable, and that we're alone in the galaxy.
This is explicitly undesirable in the case of something like Ask Slashdot stories... I'd prefer to pick the best one from 10... be that a week old a day or a month. They are timeless, so I might as well choose my favorite.
Are you that hard up for Ask Slashdot stories? I agree that, "What Linux distribution are you using? Discuss!" is a timeless topic deserving to be discussed periodically, but it seems to me that if a topic is good and hasn't been discussed in a while, then someone will ask it again.
The issue is the list growing unwieldly. The more cruft that's in the list, the fewer eyes will hit each story to decide quality. If Ask Slashdot needs a somewhat longer period than other stories, then so be it, but IMO you're giving a bit too much weight to the "I might want that month old story in a pinch!" problem.
Alternatively, you could always have the public Firehose list have the one-week kill time, but for editor purposes, it could have a longer period so you could sift through older stuff.
The problem is that stories fall into many categories... some are time-critical and others are timeless... things like "I want a new laptop is Dell good" or "Here's a guy who tatood the BSD on his arm". Stuff like that never really needs to be 'rejected' since it could theoretically be a good story tomorrow.
I think you need to trust that good stories, if they're good stories, will be resubmitted if they suddenly become a good story because some factor changed. With that in mind, I would just give it a week and dump it. "If you love a story, let it go. If it doesn't return, it was never good in the first place." :)
So well written that they couldn't port it to 64bit platforms without rewriting the underlying script host from the ground up.
Portability (which has multiple dimensions) is not a measure of quality, it is a design goal that may or may not be part of the goals of a project.
You know, to be fair to Flash, I have to say that it's an incredibly well-written application overall. It's very small to download and it works very well. Heck, they actually made video consistently work on the Internet! I think you can make an argument that they are solely responsible for making video sites like YouTube viable. All video STILL sucks except for Flash.
Of course, the quality of Flash is a different question from how it's abused. :) [personally, I don't mind Flash all that much.]
Well, of course it will. Duh. Proof? Will entity X be *more* likely do adopt Linux because of GPL v3? I think the answer to that it clearly 'no'. Are there entities that will shy away from Linux if GPL v3 gains a foothold? I think the answer is clearly 'yes'. Therefore, GPL v3 will slow Linux adoption. QED.
The question is whether the *rate* of slowing really matters that much.
I guess you would also give bad grades to black kids because they had different accents? Who the hell are you?
Uh.... no.... but I would give bad grades in a speech class to someone who mumbled. This isn't about different styles of writing, it's about legibility. I wouldn't care if someone puts a horizontal line through their Z or not, but there's no excuse of total sloppiness to the point that you can't read it.
Too many people give excuses about their writing. Anyone can write neatly, and above the age of 10, they *should* be able to write neatly. It doesn't take an obsessive compulsive to produce decent lettering. I can write fast and sloppy, or I can write slow and neat. It's not that hard, it just takes a teaspoon of patience (I know, I know -- patience in the instant gratification generation? What an idea.)
I had the same problem in pen & paper days. Some of my teachers were more worried about the presentation and neatness of handwriting than they were about what I actually wrote.
Well, I don't know if I'm willing to go this far. There's a difference between neatness and flash. If I was a teacher and had to squint at chicken scratches trying to understand what a student wrote, I'd make neatness count as well. Part of education is learning to be organized and have reasonably clear penmanship (another item that computers are corrupting). While I believe content is important (as I stated), I'm not going to say that content is the only thing that's important.
(that said, clearly insisting on letters exactly the right height is fairly absurd)
Before the US becomes a 3rd world country due to competition from India and China who can get the OLPC Laptop in special deals to make their next generation of children more competitive?
I've seen two examples of schools in my local neighborhood bragging about how their gifted fifth-grade students were using Powerpoint to give their school reports. In one case, I saw an example of it with all sort of pictures, and the GATE teacher bragged, "and one report had a video on it!!"
Of course, I'm thinking how pathetically easy it is to put together this sort of presentation, and I was struck not by the content (as I should), but by how much the teacher valued the flash over the substance of the report.
If we want to make our children more "competitive", maybe it would be a better idea to keep computers away from them as long as possible. Any idiot can learn to use a computer. I'd rather end up with educated children.
That's kinda like substituting 1000 Ford Escorts for a Caterpillar D11. You'll have a lot more metal laying about - but you won't get as much done.
Give me a 1,000 Ford Escorts with a scoop bolted on the front, and you can have your Caterpillar D11. Sure, the Escort may not be as powerful or as efficient, but I suspect 1,000 of them pushing dirt around would give me a big advantage.
You know, thinking about it, this is almost the John Henry legend all over again. We have to send a human because a machine "can't" replace them.
That's a self defeating argument - as the technology won't mature unless you send people in the first place.
Space technology is improving all the time. But it foolish to shoot for Mars when we can't even put humans in orbit economically. Why don't at least solve that problem first? And maybe see about creating a few space hotels, to figure out in-space construction? All of these technologies are stepping stones to Mars missions.
Whats the point of learning anything about it if you don't intend to go there.
It's called "science." Just because we don't intend to go to other galaxies doesn't mean we don't study them. Anyway, we might go to Mars someday, but at this point in our technological development, it's a complete waste of time. There's nothing we can get from astronauts that we can't get from a whole slew of probes.
This has always been a silly argument. We already have tons of data, spread over centuries about this. Sailing ships and (more recently) submarines. Heck, look at prisons if you want more data.
Can we stop pretending we're going to send astronauts to Mars? There's is no way we're going to spend the enormous amount of money required to do it, and we don't even know if the astronauts can survive the radiation exposure on the trip.
Besides the fact that it won't be done by any government in the next 30 years, it *shouldn't* be done. I've harped on this before, but it's still true: we could send 1,000 probes similar to the Mars Lander for the price it takes to do a P.R. stunt like sending humans to Mars. Yeah, it's romantic, but if the goal is science, then it's a total waste.
I like space. I'm a supporter of space. But I think humans should go on the back burner until space exploration is much, much, much more of a mature technology. We don't even have casual trips to orbit, much less the moon, much less significant space stations, and much, much less Mars.
Let's be rational about space exploration and let an army of robots do the work, instead of a few fragile, expensive humans.
Which is exactly why I put in the "for me" condition in that statement.
And you still miss the point. The point is that it's totally, completely, and gigantically irrelevant that it works for you. Let me repeat this: IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT IT WORKS FOR YOU. I'm sure it works for the developers, too, otherwise they would have fixed it (scratched itch and all that).
If the guy's system is screwed up, it's screwed up, and it's not the guy's fault. Telling him that it "works for you" is implying that it's his fault that it's screwed up. It's not his fault.
I'm not a big fan of the RIAA's tactics, but in this case, a performance is a performance. What difference does it make about the performance's motivation?
I think I'll put out an album of covers and call it a "training album". Then I can avoid paying royalties! Wheeeeeee!
Just out of curiosity, how much seismic vibration do you get out of the earth on a typical day? What if you had a huge version of this concept that harnessed power from earth vibration? (say, you had a HUGE weight suspended between springs, and the relative motion of the weight and the earth would generate power?)