|
My guess is that it's more likely that any sort of "filter" is just related to interstellar space travel being impossible (or impractical to the point of uselessness) for complex life, rather than something related to the development of life itself, or aspects of civilizations. I can pretty confidently say that simple life is virtually guaranteed to be extremely common, to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if it even exists elsewhere in our solar system. Complex life is trickier, because it took a very long time to develop on our own planet, and when you're talking about time periods on the order of "billions of years" the universe is actually pretty young. There's also the fact that, IIRC, a lot of the heavier elements necessary for life as we know it to exist didn't exist for the first couple generations of stars, limiting the time frame further. edit: I think it's still likely that other intelligent organisms confined to their own solar systems exist, though. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Nov 29, 2018 |
#
¿
Nov 29, 2018 18:48
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 11, 2024 10:37 |
|
|
thegalagakid posted:Prove I'm wrong, or that you're right. The main issue is that practical interstellar travel, or particularly FTL interstellar travel that would be necessary for any sort of interstellar civilization to be a thing, is basically in the territory of "magic" in terms of being technology that doesn't exist and for which there's no reason to be confident it will exist in the future. People often make dumb comparisons to flight in this context, but the situations aren't remotely comparable. Basically, it's reasonable to think other intelligent life exists, but it's not reasonable to assume that this will naturally result in that life developing the sort of technology that enables practical interstellar travel and interstellar civilizations. A lot of people operate under the false assumption that literally anything can be accomplished with technology, but there's nothing about the universe that guarantees that, for example "life being able to practically travel on the scale of a galaxy" is even possible. (This isn't to say it necessarily isn't possible, but that's why I compared it with magic; it's something for which no evidence exists.) edit: To put it another way, assuming that tech will inevitably progress to the point where stuff like FTL travel is possible is basically the same as any other sort of religious belief, and there's certainly no reason to think it's more likely than it not being possible. The universe wasn't exactly "created" with the imagination of Earth humans who had been exposed to science fiction in mind, so there's absolutely no guarantee that every fantastical thing that you can imagine must be possible with sufficient technological advancement. Lightning Knight posted:And if they can't, then perhaps that is the great filter. I think that assuming the great filter is nuclear weapons or even global warming is human-centric tho, assuming similar evolution and social development as us. If I absolutely had to guess what a "great filter" is (if any exists), I would assume it's practical interstellar space travel. While it's very difficult for multicellular life to form, and took billions of years on Earth, the universe is so massive and there are so many planets that I'd still bet that it's happened elsewhere. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Nov 29, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Nov 29, 2018 23:27
|
|
|
Deptfordx posted:That it may not just not be possible to build machines with the kind of reliability that would be required over centuries of slower than light travel. This exactly lines up with my feelings on the issue. There is no natural law stating that all our wildest technological dreams must be possible, and it's entirely possible there just literally isn't any way for life to practically travel interstellar distances. This doesn't mean we shouldn't still keep exploring the idea, but a lot of people just kind of treat it as a given that we'll figure out how to do this stuff someday.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 29, 2018 23:38
|
|
|
MSDOS KAPITAL posted:You don't need FTL to have an interstellar civilization, just STL and bodies capable of surviving the trip (and probably also immortal, if you want people to care to make the trip). We have the former, and while the latter is beyond our ability right now, it's not the sort of "not allowed by physics as we currently understand it" sort of problem that that FTL is. Yeah, this is why I kept throwing the word "practical" in there; it's not impossible that humans could travel to other stars, but you'd never have anything that could really be called an "interstellar civilization" in the sense most people think of it. And even then, that's reliant on a bunch of technological progress that, while much more plausible than FTL travel, still isn't guaranteed to be possible. Speaking of barriers to interstellar travel, are there any plausible solutions to the issue of radiation? edit: Regarding the issue of "changing the human body," I personally consider stuff like "the elimination of aging" more plausible than stuff like "being able to 'upload' the brain" (or otherwise allow the mind to be divorced from the human body). The latter I think can basically be filed in the "similar to FTL travel, basically magic" territory.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2018 00:19
|
|
|
HappyHippo posted:There are also extremeophiles that can survive intense radiation. I don't know of any reason that genetic engineering couldn't achieve the same given enough time. This doesn't seem like a "laws of physics" issue to me. Oh, my point isn't "this stuff isn't possible," but rather "it might not be possible." There is nothing guaranteeing that stuff like "putting human minds inside machines" is even possible (particularly in any sense that would prefer the "self" of the original). You can't really divorce the human brain from the human body (since so much of the way it works and what makes us who we are is dependent upon the specific biology), so the idea of somehow wholly reproducing the human mind inside a mechanical body isn't necessarily a thing that is possible. Genetically engineering humans to be able to survive in harsher environments, as you sorta mention, is actually more plausible, IMO.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2018 00:49
|
|
|
mycomancy posted:That's exactly what I'm getting at. We think intelligence is where it's at because we're intelligent, but it likely was a one-of event that's incredibly rare which adapted a specific organism to a specific environment. That's how we see evolution work in nature. The issue with this logic is that it doesn't properly take into the absurd number of dice rolling that is taking place on literally trillions of planets. It can be exceedingly unlikely and still occur millions of times.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 2, 2018 03:26
|
|
|
Raenir Salazar posted:Much of science fiction is possible. The question is whether it is outside plausibility and is some kind of science themed magic fantasy. You're making the mistake of assuming that any hypothetical technology that doesn't break known laws of physics is possible. This is not a safe assumption. It's entirely possible that the nature of our universe makes some engineering challenges impossible, and that (for example) materials meeting certain criteria literally can't be produced. That obviously doesn't mean people shouldn't continue trying to expand the definition of what's possible, but you can't just say "given enough time, virtually anything that we don't currently know to be impossible can be done." edit: Put another way, in the same way that new knowledge can open doors, it can also close them. We might not know some things about the universe that make certain technology possible, but we also might not know some things that make it impossible. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Nov 25, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Nov 25, 2019 22:10
|
|
|
Captain Monkey posted:200 years ago, the cellphone I’m posting this from would be so completely beyond the realm of technology that it would be almost impossible to imagine. Every aspect, from the way it uses electricity to the idea of a computer, or the internet, or texting, or a cell phone, or even just a phone existing. The manufacturing and some of the materials are absolutely wildly beyond what was possible then. It's mainly in response to people implying (if not explicitly stating) that anything that doesn't break known laws of physics is possible. It's not a huge deal or particularly relevant to current space travel research, but as long as people are bringing up hypothetical things like Neumann probes I think it's fair to make a sort of logical/philosophical comment on the problems with just assuming that anything can be achieved that isn't currently known to be impossible.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 27, 2019 05:40
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 11, 2024 10:37 |
|
|
twodot posted:The burden of proof here feels wonky. Like yeah it's certainly possible that some unknown at this moment problem could cause, for example, von Neumann probes to be impossible, but bringing it up without a pretty good argument you already know the unknown problem seems like a problem. Well, the person making a positive claim is the person claiming "doing X is possible." If someone out of nowhere said "X definitely isn't possible," yeah, the burden would be on them. But for something that hasn't yet been achieved and doesn't have some straight-forward known path towards being achieved, the "null hypothesis" should just be "we don't know and probably shouldn't just assume such radically advanced technology will become possible given enough time/effort." Captain Monkey posted:Sure, if that was being done in a way that fosters discussion. Typically it comes across more as ‘this is impossible how dare you talk about how it might be you dumb nerd’ which is weird for the thread where were specifically talking about cool potential space travel and other space stuff. I was only responding on the specific topic of Von Neumann probes and people explicitly arguing that they're possible (or will be with enough time/effort). And the topic of Von Neumann probes usually comes up as part of a philosophical discussion on how their existence would make the existence of extra-terrestrial life apparent, so whether they're even possible to produce is actually very relevant when someone is making the point that "we'd know of ET life if it existed because Von Neumann probes would have spread it everywhere." Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Nov 28, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2019 02:54
|
|