Fermi Paradox

[Diche Bach]

YES! Eratosthenes!! He also invented a very cool "number sieve"

And he apparently had a really large head . . .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes#/media/File:Eratosthene.01.png

 

[magnemoe]

37 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

True about the social sciences being more squishy, but  . . . from my outsider perspective it looks like physics at least is showing signs of still not quite being "fully developed yet" too (not the Newtonian stuff, which seems "solid" at least in so far as it very nicely explains how stuff works at the "intermediate" scales): examples being A. traditional gravity only accounts for what? 25% of the observed "attraction" between stars and galaxies? thus the black box "we have no idea what this means" concept of "dark matter." B. The accelerating rate of expansion of the universe defies everything else and requires another deus ex machina in the form of "dark energy." C. and then we have that whole "quantum area" where even the most basic "experiments" with an LED and some cardboard with slits cut in it can reveal the true "boundaries" of scientific understanding.

We think we know a lot, but I suspect we know very damn little, and I think it behooves us to comprehend that. Moreover, some of the coolest "discoveries" happened a long time ago, and using the simplest of methods: for example that Greco-Egyptian fellow who inferred the diameter of the Earth to within 10% accuracy by measuring the shadows cast from poles placed and distant latitudes at the same time of day . . . can never remember his fricking name and thus impaired in finding links to discussions of his stuff. Want to say it was like "300 BC" . . .

 

Yes, how more unsure we are the more is left for speculations, cosmology is an obvious one. 

Quantum mechanic is mostly understood in that we can calculate on it, check it with experiments and build stuff based on it, understanding it is something else

This discussion too, its open as we know so little, we know far more than we did 30 years ago but mostly in that its plenty of exoplanets, bias again we don't really know how many earth like as Kepler data biases large or close orbit planets. 
its an upcoming mission who is an kepler follow up and will scan more of the sky. 

Future larger telescopes will answer much of this as in oxygen and ch4, it will not detect primitive life, finding it is hard, thinking of all the mars expeditions who answer is probably not.
Lots of good planets without oxygen and life is rare, I think life would eat much of the hydrocarbons in the original atmosphere earth had?
Advanced life would be hard, I think lots of plant growth on continent require more advanced plants. 
Nothing else until we get an probe into orbit around an exoplanet. 

And it will be far simpler to make something who reach an close star in 100 year than making something as advanced as an probe and last for thousands of years. 
For the first we have some ideas, no we can not make something like an fusion reactor but its something its spend lots of resources on as an power plant. 
Something who will last thousands of year must be able to rebuild itself from microchips to nuclear reactors in short an von neumann machine. This will either be nanotech more advanced than ourself or something so large you need an orion engine just to get out of the solar system. 

[Sigma88]

On 8/18/2016 at 5:50 PM, Green Baron said:

Evolution would not have been successfull (and of course still is successfull despite of human interference sorry couldn't resist :-)) on earth had conditions been more "spacey".

humans do not interfere with evolution, they are part of it

[Green Baron]

If that was the case in a strict sense then i would have died at age 7 and many others here likewise weren't alive any more.

We heftily interfere in spreading into/destroying niches in all areas, in breeding household animals and crops and for that to be successfull had to remove the origin species or restrict them to areas, cause they would interfere with the genes of the household species, destroying the efforts of breeding.

More examples necessary ? Climate, pollution ? Our actions change everything, if that's not interference ... ?

In the long run our species will go the way all species have gone before (yeah yeah, predictions are difficult), but i read some try to change the genes actively. Is *that* interference ? (No valuation here, just statement)

Peace :-)

Edit: to put it in simple words: in a lot of areas, artificial selection has replaced natural selection. I tend to call that interference :-)

 

Edited September 1, 2016 by Green Baron

[Sigma88]

24 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

If that was the case in a strict sense then i would have died at age 7 and many others here likewise weren't alive any more.

We heftily interfere in spreading into/destroying niches in all areas, in breeding household animals and crops and for that to be successfull had to remove the origin species or restrict them to areas, cause they would interfere with the genes of the household species, destroying the efforts of breeding.

More examples necessary ? Climate, pollution ? Our actions change everything, if that's not interference ... ?

In the long run our species will go the way all species have gone before (yeah yeah, predictions are difficult), but i read some try to change the genes actively. Is *that* interference ? (No valuation here, just statement)

Peace :-)

Edit: to put it in simple words: in a lot of areas, artificial selection has replaced natural selection. I tend to call that interference :-)

 

it's a common misconception, but actually humans are part of natural selection as everything else.

to give you an example:

if a parassite becomes too aggressive it may very well end up draining its environment and ultimately have no place to spread.

when that happens the parassite goes extinct alongside every other creature that couldn't adapt to the changes introduced by the parassite

 

edit:

to expand on your examples:

breeding animals and growing "crops" is not exclusive to humans, ants do it as well for example (they farm aphids and grow fungi)

climate pollution: the Great Oxygenation Event is the perfect example

and many animals change their genes, by selecting suitable mates. viruses can also "genetically modify" bacteria, plants and even animals.

humans cannot actively edit "genes", we use the tool that nature gives us to do so (mostly viruses and bacteria)

 

this is not "interfering" as in "changing something you are not part of". we are contributing to the changes, but that's completely "natural"

Edited September 1, 2016 by Sigma88

[Green Baron]

Nope, humans have broken out of the parasite-existence and form their genome and that of others. That's interference. I'm not valuating that, but the process of genetic variation and natural selection is not valid any more or i couldn't write this. I won't discuss (dis-)advantages but that's a simple fact.

I'm astonished that this is a case of debate here ;-)

Basics of Evolution: genetic variation - natural selection. Selection these days is partly an artificial thing, the variation thing will soon(tm) be as well.

Ok ? :-)

Maybe, after a hearty war over ressources, i'll change my view again ...

 

 

Edit: of course, humans evolve if that was your misunderstanding, just with artificial interference.

 

Edited September 1, 2016 by Green Baron

[Sigma88]

9 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Nope, humans have broken out of the parasite-existence and form their genome and that of others. That's interference. I'm not valuating that, but the process of genetic variation and natural selection is not valid any more or i couldn't write this. I won't discuss (dis-)advantages but that's a simple fact.

I'm astonished that this is a case of debate here ;-)

Basics of Evolution: genetic variation - natural selection. Selection these days is partly an artificial thing, the variation thing will soon(tm) be as well.

Ok ? :-)

Maybe, after a hearty war over ressources, i'll change my view again ...

 

just because humans feel like they are above nature that doesn't mean they are.

humans are interfering with evolution/natural selection just as everything else is.

asteroid impacts interfere with evolution/natural selection. but I bet you don't consider those some kind of non-natural-phenomenon

[Green Baron]

 

I'm trying to explain human interference with natural evolution and you're making a world-view thing out of that. That's not "above nature" that's working with the stuff at hand. Since our hands and brains allow we can work with the evolutionary processes. Where's the problem in understanding that ?

An asteroid doesn't CRISPR nor breed cute kittens. Well, it does kill, but that's not even an argument.

Edit: you have the last word cause this probably leads to nothing and after all it's a game forum :-)

Edited September 1, 2016 by Green Baron

[Sigma88]

4 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

I'm trying to explain human interference with natural evolution and you're making a world-view thing out of that. That's not "above nature" that's working with the stuff at hand. Since our hands and brains allow we can work with the evolutionary processes. Where's the problem in understanding that ?

An asteroid doesn't CRISPR nor breed cute kittens. Well, it does kill, but that's not even an argument.

Edit: you have the last word cause this probably leads to nothing and after all it's a game forum :-)

I just pointed out that the human interference is not to be considered an external factor on evolution/natural selection, but a subset of them.

if you are saying the same thing then it was not clear, arguing that humans are beyond nature is a concept that belongs in religion, not science.

Not without proper arguments for it at least.

Also, since this very concept is key to understand the fermi paradox I believe it's pretty in topic for this thread.

[simonh]

Please excuse me, the below is just my interpretation of your positions. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I think this Green Baron/Sigma88 back-and forth is as much semantic disconnect as anything. Sigma88 just considers human influence over genetic change to be natural and therefore part of evolution. So Sigma88 all genetic change is evolutionary by definition. It seems to me Green Baron draws a distinction between genetic change influenced by an un-planned environmental factors different from genetic change caused by man-made factors and direct human editing of the genome. It's purely a matter of different uses of terminology.

Sigma88, why is this key to understanding the Fermi Paradox?

Simon Hibbs

[magnemoe]

53 minutes ago, simonh said:

Please excuse me, the below is just my interpretation of your positions. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I think this Green Baron/Sigma88 back-and forth is as much semantic disconnect as anything. Sigma88 just considers human influence over genetic change to be natural and therefore part of evolution. So Sigma88 all genetic change is evolutionary by definition. It seems to me Green Baron draws a distinction between genetic change influenced by an un-planned environmental factors different from genetic change caused by man-made factors and direct human editing of the genome. It's purely a matter of different uses of terminology.

Sigma88, why is this key to understanding the Fermi Paradox?

Simon Hibbs

its also an difference in method,
First we have humans as an environment factor, this is pure natural selection and seen often, not only animals learning to live of humans but also more veird stuff. Favorite albino moose became more an more common in Sweden, it was a few but it became far more common. Explanation is that hunters are redudant to shoot an white moose but rater look at it. Ended up with hunters was asked to hunt them too as it was an unwanted effect.

Second we have evolution shaped by humans as we selected who animals who was to live, domestication worked like this as the most problematic animals was eaten first, not any difference from natural selection.
Second is planned breeding where you breed special traits, look on all the dog breeds, this not real natural selection, its much faster and more focused.
It also break the rule that the change has to be beneficial all the time through the transition. 

Last is genetic engineering, special as you could do stuff who could not evolve like mix genes from very unrelated species. 
 

[Green Baron]

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

Artificial evolution through active management as a result of technology and scientific insight to achieve a planned goal (well, the first farmers / household animal breeders didn't plan, it was an automatic outcome) versus evolution through natural mechanisms alone. Artificial evolution uses natural mechanisms.

Artificial selection is the older part in this, artificial variation was (and is) for example done through the application of radiation, and in the future will (probably) be achieved through specifically aimed laboratory-actions (i am no specialist). Again: artificial evolution uses the natural mechanisms.

That's by no means a negation or misunderstanding of natural evolution as @Sigma88 seems to assume, but it is human interference.

Here's the catch: It allows a lot of individuals to live a happy life that would "naturally" (read: when unattended by a specialist) have died. The cultural and technological achievements allow that.

Artificial evolution will stop when abandoned for whatever reason. Many artificial species from aquarium fish to wheat spp. will disappear because they can't multiply without human help. One day, humans might loose the ability to interfere because the prerequisites get lost (brain, immune system, global war, idk). Until then they interfere.

@Sigma88 accused me of putting humans "above nature" and in that course of religious viewpoints: absolute nonsense !

Hough !

Edit: for the Fermi paradox, idk, but we can assume that an evolution elsewhere, based on the same elements, would follow the same rules if it had long enough time to develop. Then the elsewhereans will probably discuss similar things ... ? /joke

Edited September 2, 2016 by Green Baron

[Green Baron]

On 1.9.2016 at 4:53 PM, Sigma88 said:

I just pointed out that the human interference is not to be considered an external factor on evolution/natural selection, but a subset of them.

No, i'm not saying we're "beyond" it, humans form it. Humans use the natural mechanisms for influence, for breeding new species and influencing existing ones. More than parasites but may well be overcome by parasites. That should be acceptable for you :-)

 

 

Edited September 2, 2016 by Green Baron

[PB666]

http://phys.org/news/2016-09-genesis-projectnew-life-exoplanets.html

Genesis project.

[Green Baron]

14 minutes ago, PB666 said:

http://phys.org/news/2016-09-genesis-projectnew-life-exoplanets.html

Genesis project.

Dr. Marcus comes to mind :-)

Phew, a lot of fantasy in there ... and i fear Gros has problems with large numbers. Oxygenisation from an existing ocean and atmosphere with the prerequisites took 2 billion years. Also, passive flight to other stars with a load of bacteria ? Well, some have time and fantasy :-)

Edit: beware of Khan !

 

Edited September 2, 2016 by Green Baron

[Sigma88]

@Green Baron my intention is not to insult/accuse you. If you got that I apologize.
 

5 hours ago, Green Baron said:

No, i'm not saying we're "beyond" it, humans form it. Humans use the natural mechanisms for influence, for breeding new species and influencing existing ones. More than parasites but may well be overcome by parasites. That should be acceptable for you :-)

yes, this is what I meant by "being a part of evolution", many people think that humans have in some way exempted themselves from the natural selection process (and admittedly it does look like that at a first glance) but really it's just because we evolved to give more importance to our species that others (as a result of the survival instinct, which includes the self preservation of the species) and we think we are breaking the rules when in fact what we are doing is exactly caused by those rules. this doesn't mean that we are a succesful, many organisms have managed to fail at survival before us, we might be just another failure of life on earth and go extinct in a relatively short period because of natural selection. The fact that we might bring the extinction upon us is the perfect example of how poorly evolved we might in fact be, but there's still hope.


PS: I wrote the following wall of text before you posted that, so it might be redundant now, but I'm leaving it here anyways, because maybe someone can find this interesting.

 

[sorry for wall of text]

I'm just trying to show you a different way to understand the concept of natural selection. This is not easy and evidently forum threads are not the most efficient medium for this kind of discussions.

I can't teach you everything I've studied on the topic because that takes years (not bragging, it's a subject that touches a lot of areas), but I can give you the tools you need to understand what I am saying.

 

I'm going to put everything in a spoiler because this will most likely be a wall of text and I don't want to annoy people with this stuff if they are not interested

Spoiler

Let's start with some simple concepts.

1 - Everything in the universe behaves in a certain way because of physics
2 - Chemistry is just another name for physics (or at least a certain part of physics)

the concepts of evolution and natural selection are tightly connected, and even if they are usually associated with biology they can be found at all levels of "Nature" intended as the Universe.

Evolution itself is change, which is crucial because without change you would not have any difference at any given point in time.

We have different words for the science that describes the change at different grade of complexity, for example:

• when hydrogen atoms fall into each other and form a star, we call that physics
• when a methane molecule reacts with oxygen resulting in water and carbon dioxide + excess energy dissipated as fire, we call that chemistry
• when a glucose molecule reacts in a controlled environment with oxygen resulting in water and carbon dioxide + excess energy used by an organism, we call that biology

even though we comparmentalize the behaviour of things because they have different levels of complexity, all those phenomenon are ultimately the result of the same properties of the universe, physicists call them the 4 fundamental forces, the important thing is that everything else can be described as a result of those 4 forces.

 

if you use what we call "physics" you can *easily* get from the big bang to the point in which earth was formed, then you would use "chemistry" to define the interactions between molecules,

 

now consider this:

if the components (molecules) of this system (primordial earth) can change, it means that some of them will appear (by changing something else) and some will disappear (by changing into something else).

in such a system the only variable would seem to be the stability of these components themselves.

untill something curious happens, some of the interactions between complex molecules will just be 

 

A + B = C + D (all complex molecules)

 

but in some case you might find some interactions that are more like:

 

A + B + Z = 2*A + 2*B      (Z doesn't need to be complex)

 

(of course this is a massive semplification) but the important thing is that:

 

Z is some kind of "fuel" while and A+B are now the components of a system that can replicate itself consuming said fuel.

if Z is abbundant enough at this point you have a feedback loop that results in the increase of A and B 

 

so as a direct result of change you have that those feedback loops that appear will start to become more and more important, since they can "boost" themselves instead of being formed only from random interactions

 

in the long run this leads to very complex systems that are very difficult to describe with chemistry, so we use biology instead.

this is how you can reassume all theories of the origin of life accepted right now, life originated from "inanimate matter" as a result of chemical (=physical) interactions

 

(this excludes intelligent design, which I don't think you are interested in discussing so there should be no issues I suppose)

 

 

so what I have explained here is the broad concept of "Natural Selection": feedback loops are positively selected because they can replicate themselves, while random reactions that do not lead to reproduction are not likely to be conserved.

Apply this to living organisms and it results in "organisms that are better at reproducing themselves will spread".

 

now another important concept becomes more relevant : "Adaptation"

of course since the environment is changing, some organisms will find themselves in an hostile environment and die.

some organisms tho will have the ability to reproduce themselves in different types of environments and those will ultimately be favored.

 

(can you see the parallellism with the origin of life example?)

 

this process has been going on since always      (literally always)

 

now to the part that is crucial to what I am trying to get across.

an organism that can use the environment around itself to proliferate will be able to survive more.

many animals can build shelters for themselves and their children, they can use (eat) other organisms to live longer, have more energy and multiply more.

some animals can even actively make sure that the best food is available by farming/breeding it.

and finally there are humans.

 

the winning feature of humans is the ability to adapt by changing the environment in their favor.

for example: if we didn't have medicine we might have died.

this means that natural selection has favored a species that was able to develop medicine as opposed as others that weren't.

 

now consider this: we are the result of how nature works. and the development of a brain and reasoning skills is just the next complicated step of evolution that we find hard to put in the same "box" with biology, so we create a new one:

Physics > Chemistry > Biology > Human Behaviour

 

now think at the whole universe changing over time PAST to PRESENT to FUTURE

humans are the result of millions of years of change and have managed to be alive in the present, anything we do will either increase or decrease our chances of survival, which is exactly how natural selection works.

We are not changing the rules of survival, we are finding different ways from other organisms to achieve it.

now look at the future, if life on earth will die as a cosequence of human action it will not be because we are "against nature" but because the evolution of life on earth (which includes humans) was not "fit for survival"

on the other end, if life evolved on earth will fluorish on mars (because we bring it there) and one day the earth gets sterilized by some cataclysmic even, life that originated on earth will have survived on mars not because "we went against natural selection" but because the evolution path life on earth took (humans included) was successful in not dying.

so if you put yourself mentally into the future and look back, you will see that either humans went extinct because Natural Selection canned us, or survived and probably by then evolved in something that is not human anymore, in the same way we are not like the first hominids. and that happened  because we were favored by natural selection.

you can also immagine to see other sentient races evolve in other star systems, they as well will either live or die depending on how much they are able to survive in their environment.

This leads us to the fermi paradox:

@simonh down here I explain why fermi paradox is linked to my previous point if you are interested. You can skip the previous spoiler if you just want the answer to your question.
 

Spoiler

Since intelligent life is part of the natural evolution of the universe and is subjected to natural selection like everything else, the question of the fermi paradox becomes more interesting since we need to understand why we don't see any intelligent life.

is it because intelligent life is not favored by natural selection?
or is it because intelligent life has a different strategy than the one we think of when we define the paradox?

more specifically, we assume that an intelligent species that develops space travel would be interested in colonizing the whole galaxy because that's what we have done on earth. but it might turn out that there are better behaviours. and maybe once life reaches the ability to colonize the galaxy it also reaches a level of intelligence that allows them to really understand which is the best course of action to survive and follow that path instead of mindlessly colonizing the whole galaxy.

if this is true we have a huge advantage on other species that came before us, we already know that there is a better way, so let's figure out which one it is.

of course I only mentioned the most interesting of all conclusions I could come up with, there are other way to approach that.

The most important thing is that we need to try to remove any kind of anthropocentrism from our reasoning, because a lot of scientific breakthroughs have already shown us how wrong assumpions have put us on the wrong way in the past, and who knows how many misconceptions are still there right now that we are not aware of yet. And this, is the key to the fermi paradox. it's a paradox because reality does not match the assumptions we make of how the universe should work.

And since this assumptions are linked to the survival of intelligent species, we should really make sure to find out what's going wrong before we are taken out of the picture for not being successful at surviving.

 

Edited September 2, 2016 by Sigma88

[Green Baron]

 

I allready lied when i said you have the last word, so continuing a metadiscussion can't make things worse :-) ? The refresher on evolution wasn't particularly necessary, i studied palaeontology and palaeoanthropology as side subjects to archaeology ... but i appreciate your effort ;-) I take it you're a teacher ?

 

You didn't write it in vain, i read it. In fact i am in conformity with allmost everything. I do not question the underlying principles that you have explained so well, i feel being somewhat shoved into that corner. And i see an inclination towards determinism (attention, belief !) in your post that i'd question when it comes to very complex systems like planetary dynamics or even evolution ... but that's not the point here.

 

I did not say that humans "change the rules of survival" of the underlying principles. Not yet, but first steps are taken to edit the genome and i'd be very surprised if they would not succeed during my lifetime. Yes, natural selection/variation lead us to these abilities and natural selection/variation might take them from us. I never questioned that.
Right now we are using the principles of selection and variation in an artificial way to steer the otherwise natural processes to a more or less wanted outcome. And since we do this in most of the niches and with a speed the natural processes could never match this is clearly more than a parasite, algae or insect could do. It is not mere co-evolution, like horses and grass, or ants and bacteria that are the outcome of a natural process that over many generations selected the "favourable ones" over the uncooperative if may say so. And it's not a billion year process of oxygenisation of an atmosphere. It is active interference.

Then i wrote so provokingly we are "breaking out" compared to parasites to illustrate that interference. You, @Sigma88 then braught "above nature" and "beyond" into the discussion and i started to become a little defensive. I am, be assured, far from any religious view. You say "The art inside the nature is still nature", i say it's starting to stick out. [humour]Taking the opportunity to recite the evolutionary principles was a good idea ![/humour]. :-)

Fermi paradox: you said we must let go of anthropocentric views. That is as true as possible :-). I do not value humans higher than bacteria. But i have difficulties in applying the evolutionary rules obeserved on earth to the rest of the universe without having more data to look at. I am willing to accept probabilities (and do propose them !) that the evolutionary processes here are similar to elsehwere since the elements are most probably the same. But really, without data, that is daring ...

 

Phew ... that takes time ... :-)

 

Edited September 3, 2016 by Green Baron

[Green Baron]

 

Pls. let me add a few thoughts on why we don't see intelligent life, all were discussed before. I adopt the hypothesis that a biological evolution elsewhere might follow similar rules as that on earth. I don't want to speculate about behaviour or culture, concepts of colonization or valuating a way of life.

 

Ok so here a few trivial thoughts,

- We can't look that far. We would recognize a civilization outside of our solarsystem only in the very closest stars and in the best of conditions like transitioning in front of the star and if it was shouting radiowaves at us.

- We might be "early" on a galactic scale.

- The state of microbes might be easily achieved given the right circumstances, the following evolution of complex life to intelligent life is disrupted too often and rarely has the chance to develop.

- The distances are too far. Speed of light cannot be achieved, so interstellar travel is fiction elsewhere as it is here. Energy "to go" (fusion reactors) for interstellar travel is too limited. There is too much stuff, particles, radiation, macroscopical things for complex biological life to survive a journey.

- Civilizations migth be short-lived on a galactic scale, like a few thousand years from first radio-waves to the ends, be it exploitation of the ressources, self-destruction, genetic decay, ... they quickly loose the ability to communicate, maybe as a universal outcome of biological evolution as many organisms prosper until resources are gone.

- On a galactic scale, in order to recognize each other, they must have reached a similiar technological level.

 

and finally the fun thing cause it's a game forum:

 

- ... that "better way of life"-thing: the moral gets so advanced that they think everyone else is so far below them that a contact is just a waste of time or even annoying. Ok, impossible :-)

 

 

Edited September 3, 2016 by Green Baron

[WestAir]

There's also the chance, however slight, that civilizations end up becoming completely virtual.

Imagine you can hook your brain up to a computer and live in a virtual reality with no limits. Think the holodeck from Star Trek. You can play god, you can relive history, create your own universe whatever have you. Moreover, it may even be possible to manipulate a persons subjective passing of time so that a society in a virtual world can live centuries in real life days. Why would anyone live in reality with all of the problems we encounter day in and day out in our pursuit of maximum happiness when we can just enter a holodeck and have every gratification fulfilled forever.

I can't imagine society avoiding the temptation. Who cares about reality when we can make a better one? This could be a problem all civilizations face.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, WestAir said:

There's also the chance, however slight, that civilizations end up becoming completely virtual.

Imagine you can hook your brain up to a computer and live in a virtual reality with no limits. Think the holodeck from Star Trek. You can play god, you can relive history, create your own universe whatever have you. Moreover, it may even be possible to manipulate a persons subjective passing of time so that a society in a virtual world can live centuries in real life days. Why would anyone live in reality with all of the problems we encounter day in and day out in our pursuit of maximum happiness when we can just enter a holodeck and have every gratification fulfilled forever.

I can't imagine society avoiding the temptation. Who cares about reality when we can make a better one? This could be a problem all civilizations face.

I see this as pretty plausible. holodeck or probably more plausible an direct brain interface like in the matrix. 
It would be more fun. 
However here evolution would take over. They who lived virtual lifes would not have children. They who refused to link up full time would.
It still raises an issue, its an serious chance an civilization would run into serious issues because of it. 
Even if stable it would be pretty introvert.   
 

[WestAir]

14 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

I see this as pretty plausible. holodeck or probably more plausible an direct brain interface like in the matrix. 
It would be more fun. 
However here evolution would take over. They who lived virtual lifes would not have children. They who refused to link up full time would.
It still raises an issue, its an serious chance an civilization would run into serious issues because of it. 
Even if stable it would be pretty introvert.   
 

Unless it's more like a retirement or reward thing. You work hard and contribute to keeping the real world spinning, and once you've paid your dues, you get access to the holodeck to live out the rest of your life (assuming biological immortality hasn't been invented) in your own virtual sandbox.

 

Edit: In any case. A society infected with such a technology may cease to view real world space exploration as meaningful.

Edited September 3, 2016 by WestAir

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, WestAir said:

Unless it's more like a retirement or reward thing. You work hard and contribute to keeping the real world spinning, and once you've paid your dues, you get access to the holodeck to live out the rest of your life (assuming biological immortality hasn't been invented) in your own virtual sandbox.

Edit: In any case. A society infected with such a technology may cease to view real world space exploration as meaningful.

Yes however the cost would be pretty low, an society might even prefer troublemakers to make trouble in an virtual world even if an long term harm as plenty of them are useful. 

Doing interstellar colonization would be very expensive even for an advanced civilization. Note if any aliens come here claiming they are running from an dying world they are likely spies doing recon for the invasion fleet its something you can only afford if you are very rich. 

its about the will, we went to the moon, almost 50 years ago and has not gone back. the reason we went was an liquiding match between two major powers. 
We will go back simply as costs goes down to the level where major companies could do it and new powers are rising. 
However we are unlikely to stay unless its economical profitable or cheap. 

Energy requirements for interstellar colonization will require an Kardashev scale 1+ civilization and unless its close to 2 it will require an serious investment. 
I have problems seeing humans doing this sort of investment at least not over time. 
Thinking of civilizations who do, kziin and borg fits well. 

On the other hand humans has been lucky, more so I don't see any major issues in the future outside of the matrix is more fun.
First you have to be intelligent, this has only happen once. Yes its plenty of smart mammals and birds around so it might happen again in 50 million years. 
Second you have to be smart enough, you also has to think the right way, Neanderthals had as big brains as us but they did not invent much in 100k years. 
Note that if you are stupid you get part of the way however you run into roadblocks down the line. We tend to run into roadblocks and then invent around them. First was running out of game, invent farming. That solved the issues for some thousand years, next running out of wood, we started using stone coal, it created another problem with pollution so you get other sources.  Oil you do offshore and fracking and delay that problem. 

Now if you are stupid would you manage to solve them fast enough? How about you being and pure predator like cats, you would be far fewer than humans so fewer people getting good ideas. 

Another one is overpopulation, looks like we solve that, aliens might not be that lucky. Opposite one its easy so you keep you population low and don't bother start farming who is very hard work with primitive tools. 

on the second hand we humans are very good in large scale cooperation. here we are closer to social insects than mammals, it was no reason for this trait and its hardly something who evolved. it was however essential once we needed more than farming villages. 
If aliens miss this it will be no civilization among them. 

On the gripping hand we was serious lucky again, you invent long range communication and nuclear weapons, an natural first thing to do would be to create an world government. Any rebellion would be an coup trying to take over the world government. 
Now an major issue with this is that an world government would probably crack down on changes much like the ancient Chinese did. 
Then you run out of raw materials. 

 

[Diche Bach]

Ah, I see you fellas have been debating some stuff up my alley: natural--unnatural selection and that sort of thing.

There are actually some camps of professional evolutionary theorists and evolutionary anthropologists who engage in a lively debate on topics related to this.

Anthropogenic effects are clearly enormous in the recent evolution of Earth's ecosystems, perhaps even so far as to inducing or 'tipping the scale' on climate change processes (I remain skeptical of that, but not "disbelieving" so to speak). There are countless examples of humans radically changing local ecosystems: various fauna hunted to extinction in the New World by clovis technology peoples, many other species drive to extinction by one form of human action or another, vast tracts of forest cleared for farms, then left fallow, causing new forests to form (a very common pattern in much of the northeastern U.S. since the first European colonists arrived). The freaking EARTHWORM, which your average American or Canadian will identify as "as common as dirt" [url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2428511/How-lowly-earthworm-changed-face-America-forever-brought-early-European-colonists-chickens-malaria-common-cold.html]did not exist in the New World prior to it hitching rides over from Europe . . .[/url]

It is unquestionable that humans change the environments which shape selective forces for myriad species, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of species if all the little microbes are accounted for. But then, the earthworm does that too The Miracle of the Earthworm. If the rhetoric of that article is to be accepted, then even creatures as seemingly 'inconsequential' and 'lowly' as the Earthworm can have massive effects on selective environements, with rippling changes for hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of species, and the efficacy of a species in this way is not always _dependent_ on anthropogenic forces. The Earth, its life forms, and its ecosystems and geological systems are all quite dynamic all by themselves, and past dramatic changes in climate all by itself has acted as a far, FAR more potent force in shaping evolution on Earth than humans might ever dream of being. The most recent phase of intense glaciation stretching from roughly 150 million years ago up until about 10,000 years ago (and which are are still on the "closing chapters of" arguably) all by itself produced thousands of distinct megafauna varieties of mammals which are well documented, and while it is not an area I know much about (and which seemingly is not a major area of study) very likely the same degree of "adaptive radiation" in other classes and kingdoms (plants, fungi, other vertebrates, insects, etc.). The Earth 50,000 years ago was so dramatically different, it might as well have been an alien world, a world with very different climatic processes and not merely "colder." Ice Ages increase the polar regions, but they also sequester gigantic quantities of what is presently sea water and terrestrial water in massive ice sheets so large that they literally cover major fractions of whole continents and reach 3000 meters in thickness at their deepest. Hudson Bay is just a depression in the surface crust that is a remnant of the last ice age, and each year Hudson Bay gets a tad bit more shallow because it is isostatically rebounding up now that the weight of a mile thick sheet of ice has melted away.

I can recall one or two nice articles/chapters that attempted to develop a nice synthetic theoretical model for accounting for humans role in evolution in terms of 'natural / unnatural' dichotomy, though the specifics are a bit fuzzy having not read it for 8 years or so. I'll have to see if I can find those PDFs and link you to them.

[Green Baron]

 

Personally i don't see biologic evolution as a universal principle. It needs too much energy and the constraints for an ongoing evolution of "higher" life are too narrow. The first steps to microbes may be easier.

I wouldn't be too surprised if one day fossil microbial life will be found on mars if that planet really once had an ocean and there was enough energy, probably geothermal like on earth. Judging from photography some formations are seen as being sedimentary and deposited by flow of water. First semester geology: *never* judge a formation only from eyesight, i have seen geophysicists actually standing in front of an outcrop being unable to correctly tell between sedimentary and volcanic (a very basic distinction). So as long as they don't show us a proper thin-section analysis from mars i stay cool. Can one of the rovers do that ?

 

Another question, concerning fermy: It might be necessary for an intelligent species to develop means of keeping the genome from decaying / evolving (SciFy - not my idea) in order to keep their abilities. Or the "window of communication", the time between the invention of radio-technology until the disappearance, might be open too short. Though i have not the slightest doubt that such a technique would not be used to best on earth.

But then again, it doesn't really matter because the distances are much too large.

 

[kerbiloid]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)

Total estimated biomass = 50 bln t.
Total human biomass = 0.35 bln t = 0.7% = almost 1% of total biomass.

Total human brain biomass = 7*10⁹ * 1.5 / (1000 * 1000000) = 10 mln t = 0.01 bln t = 0.02% of total biomass.

I.e. 10 mln t of human brain biomass
manage 350 mln t of human bodies biomass (about 35 kg/1kg)
which more-or-less manage 50000 mln t of total biomass (142 kg/1 kg).
1:35:5000 - that's what we call the terrestrial biosphere.

Say, total chicken biomass (48 mln t) is just 4..5 times greater than total human brains biomass.

Sometimes this biomass pyramide splits off pieces of lythosphere (so-called "minerals", such as "ore" and "coal").
Then it subjects them to the external digestion in mineral shells (so-called "smelters") similar to what molluscs have.
And shapes the digestion products into mineral or pure metal excretes which compose a comfortable environment.

These extrete heaps form strange mazes, deadly for almost any living form of matter except that kind of it which surrounds a human brain as a so-called "human body".
Some pieces of the digested lythosphere pieces are floating high in the atmosphere, up to 20 kilometers altitude - so-called "planes". Usually this needs a piece of human brain matter inside but not always.
Some rare pieces of such biosphere excretes get excreted with such great speed that reach the orbital speed and then surround the Earth as a cloud.
Sometimes up to 20 kg of human brain matter at once present inside the biggest pieces of orbiting ex-lythosphere trash, but not for a long time: about 1-2% of human brain lifecycle.

Several pieces even leave the Earth orbit and spread the digestion reuslt around the star.