Why we're the only intelligent life in our galaxy
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Actually, if you recall, I started by assuming that every single star had an Earth-like planet, as an attempt to find an absolute upper bound on how long it would take a civilization to colonize the galaxy. Of course, the number of habitable or usable planets doesn't really change much the amount of time required to colonize the galaxy through exponential expansion.DemoCoder said:
Personally, I think we're more likely to augment our own bodies instead of developing new ones, for purely cultural reasons.
Of course, that's just information, not processing power, which would require much more. But you do bring up an interesting point: it may be more feasible to launch a spacecraft that doesn't carry humans, but rather human embryos in cryostasis. Combined with an AI capable of growing and caring for the first generation of embryos, this could be the cheapest way to colonize.
But you have to understand that the amount of mass carried doesn't actually effect how fast we can get an object to go, except for the intial boost of acceleration imparted on the spacecraft from an external source (which won't get anything very near c). Instead, it's the ratio of mass-energy that can be used as fuel to the total mass of the craft.
That's a rather cynical view of science (even for my jaded bones!). You also seem to have a very mechanistic view of the scientific process. The great ideas in science come from great minds ("geniuses" if you want to use the common lingo). Great minds are very rare. The conditions also have to be right (no way was Einstein going to formulate Relativity before Newton had had his say, for example). Simply doing twice as much science doesn't necessarily mean that you come up with twice as many Einsteins or twice as many theories of relativity.DiGuru said:
Revolutionary ideas can, will and do get accepted in science. OK the scientific world-view may not change 15 minutes after the publication of the idea, but given time science iterates towards the best solution. The "revolutionary" ideas which get rejected are rejected because they're wrong!
As for marketing ... yes science is abused by certain people (the ID brigade being only one examples) and many ideas are marketed as science when they're actually little more then religious clap-trap. That's why those of us in this thread who have scientific backgrounds or *shock horror* actually work as scientists are reacting so aggressively to the use of scientific-sounding forms of words to justify semi-religious faith-based points-of-view.
zidane1strife
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We'll probaby be living in vr-space, human-esque bodies might be used for fun, but most transactions and day to day life is likely to take place entirely within a computational substrate.Chalnoth said:
Ideas, but truly revolutionary ideas?Chalnoth said:
Chalnoth said:
I would say that this statement is wholly false, there is no evidence to suggest humans evolved faster than anything else on this planet, what evidence in the last 2000 years is there to show that we have evolved since the mythical Jesus story was hatched? BTW living longer does not count.
We have not become more (or less) intelligent, the only thing that has evolved is our "enlightenment" as we have become more aware of the workings of our universe, we have developed technology, from the wheel to the computer, and now with our ability to transfer very large amounts of information at a whim, we are accelerating our "enlightenment" therefore increasing the rate at which our technology evolves, however this does not mean that we as a species evolve faster.
our intelligence will not evolve significantly in the next 2000 years, however what will and is happening is we are removing the limit of our intelligence by specialising and transferring our knowledge to others, the more complete we can get that transfer the better we can utilise our intelligence, and that is what technology is facilitating.
Another question that facinates me is how another intelligent life form would have evolved, when you consider the history of the earth, the event that facilitated our evolution is the ice age, mammals were better able to cope with cold temperatures because we are warm blooded (and fur, of course we don't have fur any more) and we quickly dominated, once the ice age was over, the dinosaurs were extinct which allowed mammals to dominate.
So without an ice age, does that mean an evolved life form from somewhere else would be lizard like?
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
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Deimos said:
From a purely Darwinian point of view, we've actually evolved more slowly in recent times. We've used our technology, intelligence and our social system to actually allow individuals to live, breed and thus pass on their genes that would otherwise have been naturally bred out of our race because they are undesirable or dangerous traits. We've actually used our skills and social system to thwart "survival of the fittest".
From a technological and social point of view our "evolution" has sped up as we've used more complex and widespread tools to bootstrap ourselves up to the next level of bootstrapping. You only have to look at how far we've come in the last hundred years compared to the thousands of years before that.
The timescales you're talking about are all out of whack though. We've been a technologically sophisticated species for a few thousand years only (a hundred generations or so). I mean I'm no expert but I'd be surprised if one would expect significant evolution over that number of generations (unless the species is subjected to extreme environmental stress, which humans demonstrably has not been).
Stating that we've evolved less over the past 2000 years than we did in the preceding 2 million years seems to me like a Statement Of The Bleedin' Obvious(TM).
Stating that we've evolved less over the past 2000 years than we did in the preceding 2 million years seems to me like a Statement Of The Bleedin' Obvious(TM).
Deimos said:
I sincerely doubt that. I think we have, not by a small margin.
Let me tell you, we still don't know s**t
Maybe it would have been fishes, or birds? Who knows.
There's an opinion that specialization leads to stagnation in the development of intelligence. The specialization lets a being adopt better to given circumstances in order to survive in those special conditions, but through that limits its ability to spread into other (different) environments, explore and evolve in any other way than the one more enforcing the specialization. So there are very few candidates for intelligence to begin with.
EDIT: meaning, what aided the development of intelligence in humans was the variety of circumstances and the skills needed to survive/spread.
Chalnoth said:
In the early stages yes, but the process would not stop there.
There is no requirement for real time processing. In fact, on interstellar voyages, the reserve is true. You could include just enough CPU power for 1 human, and then run all of the at 1/10,000 the speed. Then a 10,000 year journey would appear to take 1 year.
You might be interested to read the Vernor Vinge story "Long Shot" in his collection of
stories "True Names and Other Dangers"
Of course the mass fraction is what matters, but the lighter the payload, the better. See Robert Forward's interstellar laser sail for example. Bigger payloads make the engineering alot harder, less feasible.
Speed of evolution is increasing, the mistake is concluding evolution = genetic evolution.
We have changed from genetic evolution to memetic evolution, and THAT is evolving at an accelerated rate. The amount of information stored, it's rate of change, and processing power are all going up. Human beings as a species are already augmented. We are no longer just a biology, we depend very heavily on external tools and artificial structures to live as long as we do.
We have changed from genetic evolution to memetic evolution, and THAT is evolving at an accelerated rate. The amount of information stored, it's rate of change, and processing power are all going up. Human beings as a species are already augmented. We are no longer just a biology, we depend very heavily on external tools and artificial structures to live as long as we do.
Deimos said:
This is wholly predicated on the notion that human beings over the next 2,000 years will remain wholly biological, and therefore their evolution will be dictated by natural genetic evolution. I don't even think that's going to be true in the next 100 years. Within a century we are going to see cybernetic brain interfaces and possibly genetic engineering of brains which enhanced attributes. The beginnings are here today. Artificial retinas, artificial "third arms" controlled by monkey brains alone, a cat brain's perception of the world read and displayed to computer screen. All extremely primitive, but demonstrate that even with primitive understanding, wetware interfaces are possible.
I was just wondering what everyone was basing their opinion on evolution slowing or accelerating. What evidences have there been of this in science. I don't remember hearing anything about anyone observing evolution(well macro evolution). So, how do you know whether it has slowed or accelerated? Also, it does depend on what school of evolution you believe. There are schools that believe evolution happens very slowing while other schools believe it can happen very quickly in certain conrolled circumstances. It is also possible I am assuming the wrong thing. Is it possible you are discussing microevolution within the human species? Could you guys clarify a bit.
Doh, forgot to post about the OP.
In my opinion, if macro evolution is truly the method by which human life came to be, then it is indeed possible there is other life in this galaxy and even more so in the universe. All that would be required is a habitable planet for the lifeform. In fact, life could even take on a different path on otherworlds. It is possible that there could be lifeforms on planets that are completely toxic and fatal to humans. Evolution only requires that the origin of life to that planet be able to sustain life in the environment. Nature will then take its course. This is speaking ideally obviously, assuming all things go well.
Though I am not sure what it means for evolution if we do not find life on other planets. The other course belief for our origin would be that of a creator(assuming the Bible). Though it is inconclusive in the Bible whether or not there is other life in the universe. The focus in the Bible is definetely on Earth, but that doesn't mean other life is completely out of the question. Though, if I was forced to make a decision under a Biblical basis I would say there most likely isn't any life on other planets. I would like to note the tendency here.
In my opinion, if macro evolution is truly the method by which human life came to be, then it is indeed possible there is other life in this galaxy and even more so in the universe. All that would be required is a habitable planet for the lifeform. In fact, life could even take on a different path on otherworlds. It is possible that there could be lifeforms on planets that are completely toxic and fatal to humans. Evolution only requires that the origin of life to that planet be able to sustain life in the environment. Nature will then take its course. This is speaking ideally obviously, assuming all things go well.
Though I am not sure what it means for evolution if we do not find life on other planets. The other course belief for our origin would be that of a creator(assuming the Bible). Though it is inconclusive in the Bible whether or not there is other life in the universe. The focus in the Bible is definetely on Earth, but that doesn't mean other life is completely out of the question. Though, if I was forced to make a decision under a Biblical basis I would say there most likely isn't any life on other planets. I would like to note the tendency here.
Right, the only problem is that we have zero concept as to how common or rare the right conditions are. I personally think that the only thing we have any evidence at all for is intelligent extra-terrestrial life: we haven't seen it. With a fair degree of certainty this means that it's not very closeby (I'd say 95% within 100 light years or so), and I think with a still reasonably-large certainty not in this galaxy (I'd say 60%).Eleazar said:
But any life? I'd like to think it's very common. We do have circumstancial evidence, for instance, that Mars once supported bacterial life.
As far as a Biblical basis, there is nothing we can do there. It just says that life came into being. That doesn't allow for any sort of experimentation (once you've ruled out the literal explaination which is obviously not true: that the Earth was created 20k or so years ago, as there'd be no reason for the existence of fossils, fossil fuels, geological strata, etc.).
The Bible basis I would like to say leaves it as somewhat open. But, you have to remember that the purpose of the Bible is to know of God's, his love, and his purpose on your life. Yes, there is history and it does talk about the beauty of the universe. However the intended purpose is not to explain the world scientifically. It is that people come to God. I would also like to point out that Young Earth creationists have the most Biblically sound explanation. The Hebrew word used in the Genesis account means a 24 hour day. So it would seem here, if God wanted it to mean anything else he would have used another Hebrew word meaning a period or length of time. Not only that, if God exists, and he is the God fo the Bible, that means He would be infinitely capable. Thats one thing about the supernatural, it isn't falsifiable. Making it a very difficult topic of objective discussion. Though there are still objective points to be made. Mainly in the realm of Creation Science. Ok, wow I should be shot for going off topic so much. Forgive me.
Also, an interesting way to look on things. Hypothetically if there was intelligent life, and they were closeby. Would they reveal themselves? Would we even be able to know they were there? Now, I am not declaring all those outlandish UFO mysteries(if you can even call them that) are true. I am just asking some questions. People seem to think this species would be more advanced than us and fly in some spectacular spaceship. Yet, there is no reason to think this. It is very possible they are just living their lives out on another world. That is of course assuming there is even anything out there.
Also, an interesting way to look on things. Hypothetically if there was intelligent life, and they were closeby. Would they reveal themselves? Would we even be able to know they were there? Now, I am not declaring all those outlandish UFO mysteries(if you can even call them that) are true. I am just asking some questions. People seem to think this species would be more advanced than us and fly in some spectacular spaceship. Yet, there is no reason to think this. It is very possible they are just living their lives out on another world. That is of course assuming there is even anything out there.
There has been alot of discussion in the scientific community about the speed of evolution and whether progress actually exists, starting with Stephen Gould's erroneous arguments that evolutionary progress is a myth up through Ray Kurweil's "Law of Accelerating Returns"
Technological, economic, and several other measures of humanity have been increasing exponentially. Recall that agriculture is only about 10,000 years old, the written word less, the entire industrial revolution ~300 years, computers ~ 60, internet ~ 30, web ~ 10. Those are just some cherry picked examples, but nearly every facet has been changing at an accelerated rate.
For example
This one asked key scientists to name 15 key paradigm shifts in human history, the following plot shows exponential progression no matter who picks the events
Or this interesting one on actual progress in supercomputer power
Or this one showing increased adoption rate of new technologies by society
There are dozens and dozens of time series like this, all of which point to an exponential growth in the rate of information processing as well as the rate of new information being formed and generated.
What will human life be like in 30 years? It is hard to say. But there's no question that the rate of change is accelerating.
Technological, economic, and several other measures of humanity have been increasing exponentially. Recall that agriculture is only about 10,000 years old, the written word less, the entire industrial revolution ~300 years, computers ~ 60, internet ~ 30, web ~ 10. Those are just some cherry picked examples, but nearly every facet has been changing at an accelerated rate.
For example
This one asked key scientists to name 15 key paradigm shifts in human history, the following plot shows exponential progression no matter who picks the events
Or this interesting one on actual progress in supercomputer power
Or this one showing increased adoption rate of new technologies by society
There are dozens and dozens of time series like this, all of which point to an exponential growth in the rate of information processing as well as the rate of new information being formed and generated.
What will human life be like in 30 years? It is hard to say. But there's no question that the rate of change is accelerating.
Except the creation account was not written by God. It was written by humans, and copied by humans, over centuries. Remember that these scriptures existed for many centuries before we had the capacity to make perfect copies: for these many centuries, copies were done by hand, and were very rare. There have been additions, as well as deletions.Eleazar said:
So even if you believe that the Bible was written as the inspired word of God, it has changed over the centuries, and can no longer be entirely so. Now, you may wish to believe that God would not allow the message of the Bible to be tainted, but the account of creation has nothing to do with the message of the Bible (which itself is somewhat open to interpretation).
All that the account of creation in the Bible does is give Christians the comforting belief that they know everything important about the universe. But science has proven time and again that we don't know everything important that there is to know. Christianity needs to discard the inaccurate account of creation for the faith to move forward.
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