X-Message-Number: 21635 Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 08:57:38 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #21631 - #21634 To the various people discussing other civilizations: First of all, the issue of whether or not there will or won't be a "technological singularity" isn't relevant to the existence of other civilizations. Even the idea presented by Morgan remains irrelevant to any technological singularity: if we discover other universes, and means to get to them and/or exploit them, whether we do it slowly or take several hundred years would not matter. Second, no one would deny the possibility of many explanations based on some notion of what future science, now unknown to us, may be able to accomplish. As a true explanation, however, such notions don't tell us anything at all because the possibilities for future science are much too wide. Not only that, but suppose we do find a way to visit/exploit other universes. In what way does that literally prohibit us from visiting and exploiting our own universe, too? Any freely available area is bound to be used, one way or another. Even interstellar travel, which many people think cannot happen because we now have no way, even in our imagination, of doing it within PRESENT human lifespan, would become trivial to people who live for thousands of years ---- as WE all hope to do. So mere distance would not convince us not to use that matter, even if we had still other places to go to. As Skrecky (I believe) put it: lots of nice free real estate, ready for the taking. Just because we've also found other nice free real estate elsewhere does not mean that the real estate in our Galaxy ceases to be nice and free. As astronomers think more and more about the limits on places where a "technophilic" society could evolve, they come up with lots of problems for other than a narrow range within the Galaxy. As yet they haven't excluded many stars, but things seem to be moving that way (remember that the Galaxy has many stars, and even with the restrictions some still look like the Sun). The case for other civilizations has slowly gotten weaker and weaker over the last 50 years. Best wishes and long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21635