Asshat wormie
2023 Asshat Award Winner
- 16,820
- 30,964
Having a connectome mapped isnt going to allow for modeling intelligence, let alone transferring it on space ships.
- 1
The Fermi Paradox -- Where is everybody?
- Thread starter pharmakos
- Start date
khorum
Murder Apologist
- 24,338
- 81,363
You mean consciousness. Having a full connectome mapped (including the entire optic and nervous system) would HAVE to model a functional human nervous system or, well, it wouldn't be a full map! Why would anyone consider it a full mapping if it doesn't display all the expected neurochemical function of the thing it's supposed to map? The technology has already progressed far ahead of what leading connectomicists have hoped and concurrent advances in heuristics and computing will only make it faster:
Journal Nature said:
If you're saying that ion beam microscopy must necessarily scan only DEAD connectomes (because the process is destructive) and there would be no reason to expect that a full connectome scan could approximate a live human... then that would technically be true, but then we'd have a more complete understanding of the human connectome and a functional model could be turned back on more or less like we did with the other connectomes we've virtualized so far, like that poor worm we stuffed into a lego robot.
As to whether our computing substrate have enough Moore's Law expansion in them to accomodate the needs for a human connectome, that's a reasonable qualification. But the IEEE's computing group expects the continued persistence of Moore's Law on IC density for several more DECADES (Moore himself expected the expansion to end by 2025), and the physical limits for computational density on current materials and energy capacity goes as far as the mid 2300's.
As far as consciousness goes there's enough butthurt about quantum states and metaphysical considerations to derail this thread more than it's already been derailed. But it doesn't need to be conscious, it just needs to work.
Last edited:
- 1
Asshat wormie
2023 Asshat Award Winner
- 16,820
- 30,964
What I am saying is that having a map of the connectome doesnt mean we have any idea how it works. We cant even figure out the basics of a single neuron interaction with its environment, having a map of all the neurons isnt going to illuminate jack shit as far as the context herein is concerned. Also computational power can grow all it wants but it will never be enough to solve anything NP hard with same precision as biology seems to have managed.
- 1
khorum
Murder Apologist
- 24,338
- 81,363
LOL you've been trying to make this point across two threads now. What's so arbitrary about extinct and not extinct? If some externality is sufficient to eradicate ALL species that met our 1969 capabilities from colonizing the entire galaxy in the 5 billion years this has been possible, then whatever that externality is __WOULD QUALIFY__ as a Great Filter.
Extinction is extinction, whether voluntary because it's too hard or altruistic because it hurts space whales of an excruciating raging scream because our best wasn't good enough. Every proton loses its spin eventually sure, but the thread's question is "Where IS EVERYBODY" because they should've been everywhere for five billion years.
Last edited:
- 1
You're using a (true) attribute of the end state to make categorical statements about the intermediate state. Over a large enough time horizon everything dies as a matter of physics, and treating that as the only relevant factor trivializes the discussion of our current reality to the point where there's nothing very interesting to talk about.
Last edited:
- 1
pharmakos
soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
- 16,306
- -2,236
The galaxy might be full of micro-machines
Nanoscale alien robots could be a thing. Barry Keily reports.
cosmosmagazine.com
- 1
pharmakos
soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
- 16,306
- -2,236
The whole point is that, given the total age of the universe, the time needed to spread across the galaxy is just a drop in the bucket. Even with 1969 rocket tech and species that give as little of a fuck as possible, they'd spread across the galaxy in Xmillion years. When the universe is 1000X as old as that. Yeah, it's possible that almost all civilizations don't give enough of a shit to do it. But it only takes one, and we haven't seen that one yet. Even tho it's impractical and unrealistic, it's possible, and given the size of the numbers involved, even a small possibility should have led to something by now. And we've seen nothing.
- 4
Sentagur
Low and to the left
- 3,825
- 7,937
Jeesus titty fucking xrist. He is still on about how we could have used 1969 tech to colonize the galaxy. NO we couldnt and any paper that suggests otherwise is absolute wankery of the highest order.
We could have shot a bunch of apes into space and be certain they would die before accomplishing anything.
Only if you take the 1969 tech and look at it through the modern lens and then take some serious liberties with your theories could you say we would be able to colonize something in a 5 million years time frame.
We could also wait 4.9 million years and accomplish the same with the modern tech and still have time to stomp all of those colonies the uppity 1969ers started down into dirt.
We could have shot a bunch of apes into space and be certain they would die before accomplishing anything.
Only if you take the 1969 tech and look at it through the modern lens and then take some serious liberties with your theories could you say we would be able to colonize something in a 5 million years time frame.
We could also wait 4.9 million years and accomplish the same with the modern tech and still have time to stomp all of those colonies the uppity 1969ers started down into dirt.
- 1
- 1
- 1
khorum
Murder Apologist
- 24,338
- 81,363
What the fuck? Hair and Hedman's paper was originally published in Cambridge's Journal of Astrobiology after considerable peer review. It has since been republished in several other journals. Of all the potentially controversial assertions they made, the FACT that 1969 propulsion technology is more than sufficient to boost a given civilization's seedships into a quarter of lightspeed __IS NOT__ one of them.
Your repeated insistence in anthropomorphizing your need to envision sending live human colonists in vast generation ships with self-contained ecosystems is the only "wankery" involved. There is no practical value in sending live humans and their entire supply trail out into interstellar space since you could send thousands if not millions of robotic seedships with the same energy budget.
And if you wanted to entertain the possibility of our civilization surviving for another 4.9 million years, IT WOULD STILL NOT BE EFFICIENT to send live colonists in hollowed-out asteroids boosted at distant stars. If we don't become extinct before 5 million years, we would have expanded to a Kardashev-II civilization to capture the total energy output of the sun, in which case we wouldn't need to send out colony ships at all, we can open one hemisphere of the Sun's dyson shell, turn it into a Shkadov engine and use the entire solar system as a colony ship.
Last edited:
- 2
- 1
- 1
ShakyJake
<Donor>
- 7,654
- 19,298
You keep saying "we". You're right, we couldn't. But an alien species that exists on a different energy level (as in they perceive time on a much slower scale) most certainly could. 80,000 years to get to the nearest star is absurd to us but to something else that might equate to an hour.
- 1
khorum
Murder Apologist
- 24,338
- 81,363
Me? No I was just restating your position that since the universe must end anyways, some civilizations might find "peace" in humbly accepting their fate and just brew craft beer and artisanal beard butter until their sun expands to obliterate all traces of their epic slam poetry forever.
I don't necessarily agree that every civilization would accept that inevitability (thus, the Aestivation Hypothesis) but I just noted that your position isn't much different from my belief that Malthusian Equilibrium compel civilizations to VOTE THEMSELVES into extinction. Both outcomes would still result in extinction, regardless of the perceived nobility of their intentions. And if "Hippie Restraint" turns out to be the barrier that keeps civilizations from rising up the Kardashev scale then "Hippie Restraint" would absolutely qualify as a Great Filter. That's because extinct is extinct regardless if you went in peace or not.
Last edited:
- 1
khorum
Murder Apologist
- 24,338
- 81,363
It's a hard notion to swallow because just about everything in human cognition is shaped by our limited lifespan. But that's just classic anthropomorphism.
To a fruit fly travelling from New York to LA seems like an impossibility because their lifespan is only a couple days. They're fast enough, but between attracting a mate and securing their offspring, the dream of colonizing a fruit stand in Venice beach is some weirdo conspiracy theory. Meanwhile some hobo can walk from New York to LA just because he can. He doesn't need a car or wings or a warpdrive, just time.
- 2
I'm trying to draw out a point around this claim you keep making:
Infinite energy expansion and infinite survival is not an option. It doesn't matter whether a species pursues aestivation or not. They're going extinct regardless. There comes a point where physics simply becomes inimical to life. EVERY species will face a period where they cap out their energy budget because they run out of time and space, regardless of how you persist in describing it as a some kind of slow socialist suicide. (I'd say it's not suicide if you don't have a choice.)
This doesn't necessarily say anything about energy equilibrium as the Great Filter, depending on what the practical limits of energy acquisition actually are. If the limits are very large, then some other factor must explain Fermi's Paradox. If for whatever reason they are K-1 or below, then yes, this would be a candidate. We don't have enough information at this point to distinguish the two cases.
I'm making the very narrow point of "all species will face energy equilibrium at some stage and that still may not explain Fermi's Paradox".
Sentagur
Low and to the left
- 3,825
- 7,937
Ok Jenius. What is the mass of the fuel required to get that state of the art rocket(with 1metric ton payload for easier calculations) technology op to 1/4 c? And you can even launch it from orbit so you dont have to dick around with Earth gravity.
Addendum: If we could use
khorum
's rustled jimmies as fuel we could have colonized Pluto already- 1
You don't need 0.25c or 1 ton payload. "All" you need is a small von Neumann Probe moving more than ~42 km/s and a lot of time (or what counts as a lot of time to a human but is still an eyeblink on a galactic scale, as khorum keeps pointing out).
We've already done it, less the self-replicating machine. Voyager 1 will reach an extrasolar system in ~40,000 years. That proves the concept.
Last edited:
- 1
iannis
Musty Nester
- 31,351
- 17,656
It's actually kind of amazing if you look at the method for what they were doing how absolutely -tedious- that project was. It surprised me. I didn't expect glamour... but I expected something... I dunno, challenging? The challenge was in developing the toolset. Once they had that it was pure gruntwork.
- 2
Sentagur
Low and to the left
- 3,825
- 7,937
Oh we had those in 1969? Get with the program, i am not talking about possible future tech which might or might not be reachable in a few decades, what i am being contrarian about is the claim some fuckheads made in a paper that the 1969 tech(exclusively) is sufficient to help any civ colonize the universe. Those are the same idiots claiming we would have had flying cars and jetpacks in every house by now.
Khorum seems to be very invested in this so am enjoying pushing his buttons and farming a bit of NaCl.
- 1
- 1
- 1
We had sufficient propulsion tech, yes, which is the only point at issue.
You're right that we don't have the actual survival/colonization tech, but no one is claiming we do and I'm unclear why you think arguing against that scores points.
khorum
Murder Apologist
- 24,338
- 81,363
I keep making it because it's true. We are bound by thermoeconomic forces to either expand our energy capacity to match our growth or contract our population to match resource scarcity until entropic externalities either force us to adapt or eventually wipe us out. That's as true for subcellular organelles as it is for your kids' boy scout troop.
If your objection is the application of Thermoeconomics to a cliometric/econometric context, well I dunno why you would, but basically imagine a civilization with crippling inequalities in wealth distribution, everything we know illustrates an identical redistributive compulsion in THAT context as there is an fluid dynamics or the expansion of the universe. If energy is concentrated in one region long enough to produce an adaptation that prioritizes surviving beyond the planet, then there should be Kardashev-2 species everywhere.
But If it turns out that it somehow becomes impossible to overcome that local malthusian equilibrium before a species can graduate to a K1 civilization----for any reason----then that would be a credible resolution to the Fermi Paradox because it would explain why everyone went extinct: they "gave up gracefully in a totally non-suicidal manner". (Still extinct tho)
- 1
Sentagur
Low and to the left
- 3,825
- 7,937
Because we are not talking about space drag racing where thrust is the only thing of importance. I also have serious doubts we could use pack enough fuel for the 1969 propulsion tech to actually reach anywhere where we could actually synthesize more fuel once we are out of our solar system.
- 1