Could we be the offspring of some Von Neumann probes from an ancient civilization?

[nhnifong]

Von Neumann probes are designed to record information about planets, self-replicate, and spread thru-out the universe to return data to the host civilization that created them.

They are an exploration and discovery tool that a space-faring civilization could use to find other planets in the vasty deep.

Given that they self replicate, and have plenty of time, It's pretty much inevitable that they will evolve beyond recognition in the blink of an eye (relatively speaking)

I think maybe we, DNA-based earthlings are the decedents of rouge von neumann probes that mutated to the point of no-longer serving their original purpose. (or did they!)

[Tommygun]

If I'm the offspring of advanced DNA engineering, then I should look much better naked.

I think Larry Niven had a slightly twisted version of this.

He wrote that we are all evolved livestock of a long dead carnivorous civilization.

[Accelerando]

Sure, we could be.

Why?

[nhnifong]

Sure, we could be.

Why?

I was inspired after reading Stross last night and I'm going to write some short-format sci-fi

[Accelerando]

Make sure you include lobsters somewhere.

[Vanamonde]

I think Larry Niven had a slightly twisted version of this.

Slavers seeded the planet with algae-type organisms so the planet could serve as a huge farm, then they had a war and went extinct, and life on earth evolved from there.

[Sordid]

Given that they self replicate, and have plenty of time, It's pretty much inevitable that they will evolve beyond recognition in the blink of an eye (relatively speaking)

Self-replication isn't enough to get evolution going, you also need variation. Given that evolution is a horribly inefficient process in which the vast majority of mutations are either harmful or pointless, I'm fairly sure any civilization building von Neumann probes would make certain that they replicate exactly, without variation.

[TheCardinal]

Self-replication isn't enough to get evolution going, you also need variation. Given that evolution is a horribly inefficient process in which the vast majority of mutations are either harmful or pointless, I'm fairly sure any civilization building von Neumann probes would make certain that they replicate exactly, without variation.

I don't believe so. It would mean that the 'probes' wouldn't be able to adapt to the new environment, thereby reducing the chance of success.

@nhnifong - Is that thought inspired by Prometheus?

[EndlessWaves]

Slavers seeded the planet with algae-type organisms so the planet could serve as a huge farm, then they had a war and went extinct, and life on earth evolved from there.

Most life on Earth anyway, in the known space universe humans and closely related species originated from a pre-sentient hominid that got stranded on earth a few million years ago after a failed colony expedition.

Von neuman probes seem unlikely given how inefficient the copying of early life is currently thought to have been. Any life smart enough to build that small is likely to have an excellent example of small scale copying to hand already - it's own genes.

[Matokage]

Could the meteor that killed the dinosaurs been our seed probe? We have been seeded on earth millions of yeras ago!

[LaydeeDem]

Could the meteor that killed the dinosaurs been our seed probe? We have been seeded on earth millions of yeras ago!

No. That is impossible. Mammals descended from reptiles and even lived alongside the dinosaurs. Many dinosaurs had to protect their eggs from small, possum like mammals. Some of these mammals began to go up into trees after the KT extinction and later evoled into primates, which then evolved into hominids including us.

[nhnifong]

@nhnifong - Is that thought inspired by Prometheus?

I haven't seen it yet, but it looks cool.

[Matokage]

No. That is impossible. Mammals descended from reptiles and even lived alongside the dinosaurs. Many dinosaurs had to protect their eggs from small, possum like mammals. Some of these mammals began to go up into trees after the KT extinction and later evoled into primates, which then evolved into hominids including us.

Hmm... i see. Well back to the theories board then.

I was always confused at this part of history, thanks to clarify that to me

[DeviouslyDeviant]

Forerunners

[Ydoow]

If you take an anthropology course, or evolutionary biology, you'll learn all the tricks and techniques biologist use to learn about human evolution, and evolution of life itself.

They presented me with the Endo-Symbiont Theory, and that seems most likely to me. It's backed with DNA evidence from organelles; yes, organelles.

[TheCardinal]

It is interesting to think about it but just ask yourself the question: Why should an extraterrestrial civalisation use such a crude and incredibly time consuming method? Even when you consider the possibility that they haven't discovered a way to go faster than light/

[Tommygun]

It is interesting to think about it but just ask yourself the question: Why should an extraterrestrial civalisation use such a crude and incredibly time consuming method? Even when you consider the possibility that they haven't discovered a way to go faster than light/

You do run into an issue of how to define alien logic. What may seem impractical to us, may not to an alien race.

Just look how much one culture on Earth see things differently than another human culture.

Spreading life, even if it evolves beyond recognition, maybe very important to them.

[Accelerando]

It is interesting to think about it but just ask yourself the question: Why should an extraterrestrial civalisation use such a crude and incredibly time consuming method? Even when you consider the possibility that they haven't discovered a way to go faster than light/

The idea that "speed shortens time: time is money: money is power" only emerged relatively recently in human history, credit to Lewis Mumford for that quote (but not the original). As I outlined to a very limited extent in an earlier post elsewhere, human history alone shows a fair number of (if unfortunately less-explored) alternative avenues for the development of rocketry and so-called modern technology; a species of aliens with a quite possibly very different ecology and evolutionary history from ourselves may well have taken a different course of development allowing Von Neumann probes to become a more appealing option for space exploration.

[Vanamonde]

Why should an extraterrestrial civalisation use such a crude and incredibly time consuming method?

Because it's also versatile and cheap. Make HUGE batches of cheap little spores, throw them out there not caring if only one out of a trillion survive (many terrestial animals and plants carelessly throw eggs and seeds around like this), then allow the critters to solve whatever unique local problems they encounter through evolution. As long as you don't mind waiting millions or billions of years, it would be dirt-cheap, especially if they were von neumann machines that made copies of themselves after your original batch. And if you haven't got FTL, then you're not in so much of a hurry to see a result: you can let the project cook while you're en route. Of course, you'd have no control over the final outcome. You might arrive to find you'd created a planet with a useless (to you) chlorine atmosphere, or given rise to Alien (from the movie of that name).

[Blizzy]

you are basically sending these probes "into the deep"

ether you plan for them to adapt themselves if needed, or you accept that they will hit barriers they cannot cross

[Cthulufaic]

you are basically sending these probes "into the deep"

ether you plan for them to adapt themselves if needed, or you accept that they will hit barriers they cannot cross

Actually if you read Stephen Baxter's "Titan", you will see that you can accidentally seed a planet with genetic material.

[vexx32]

What, a work of fiction? But yes, it is possible to accidentally do so. Not simple by any means, and very unlikely, but possible.

[Cthulufaic]

Well it's about a failing Nasa sending a manned mission to Titan, and you can assume how the genetic material get's there. It also talks about the Ammonia based life forms there.

[Accelerando]

Package up a colony of tardigrades in a little biosphere and bolt it to a Longshot probe.

[Johno]

The idea that evolution takes a long time is making one big assumption - that the species doing the observing is of equivalent lifespan to us.

Now, the thing is we have ONE example of an intelligent organism, and so we really don't know how common our body plan and metabolism is. We could be the mayflies of the universe (although to be fair, we could also be so long-lived as to defy belief). We just don't know.

But let's take an idea and expand on it. Supposing you had a species which had an average lifespan of, say, 500,000,000 years (in Earth time). To such a being evolution would happen quickly enough that it could be observed easily, and even manipulated. It'd be like farming.