Irrational mechanics, draft Ch. 14

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John Clark

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Mar 21, 2024, 11:39:32 AM3/21/24
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Giulio Prisco wrote on  https://www.turingchurch.com/p/irrational-mechanics-draft-ch-14

>"I’ve been talking of the ultimate God (the cosmic operating system, aka Mind at Large" [...] The cosmic operating system is alive and aware, or better super alive and super aware, and computes above and beyond what we call time.
 

 I like your term "cosmic operating system", but I think it's a mistake to equate that to the traditional concept of God. The Cosmic Operating System is not a person or even a super person, it need not be conscious or intelligent and it might operate the universe but not have created the universe. The existence of the universe might turn out to be a logical necessity because "nothingness" is unstable. 


> "We need, or at least I need, a concept of life after death that is solid enough to suspend disbelief. Without such a concept of life after death I would fall into the deepest state of paralyzing despair, and jump off the closest window to exit this unpleasant game but God is not enough".
 

As far as life after death is concerned, the idea of an invisible man in the sky does not give me any comfort or hope, especially not a God as unpleasant as the Christian or Muslim God. The existence of God is not necessary or sufficient for life after death, but the fact that quantum mechanics says information cannot be destroyed because everything evolves according to the Schrodinger equation in a reversible deterministic way is a little more interesting; of course quantum mechanics could turn out to be wrong about that but I sorta doubt it, so it gives me a little hope. Not a lot but a little.  That's why I'm going to have my brain frozen to liquid nitrogen temperatures when I die. I want the information that makes me be me be scrambled as little as possible. I want to make it as easy as I can for your cosmic operating system.

 > "and penultimate God-like cosmic engineers"  

I don't think such cosmic engineers exist in the observable universe… at least not yet.  I believe that if someday we build a Jupiter brain and then ask it "does God exist?" His  reply will be "He does now". 

> "I guess there is a high degree of entanglement between persons who love the same people, do the same things, or have similar thoughts and feelings, 

Quantum entanglement is a real thing and there is even a theory that the geometry of spacetime is the product of the quantum entanglement of information and there's some sort of correlation between spatial distance and entanglement, but so far it's just a theory, or maybe a theory for a theory. 

> and that entanglement propagates in time.

Your sort of entanglement and  quantum entanglement do  have that in common.

> "I don’t think technological resurrection needs a perfect copy of a quantum state."

I think that is a virtual certainty, otherwise you'd become a different person many trillions of times every second, every time an air molecule bumped into you and changed the quantum state of your body. 


 John K Clark 



Giulio Prisco

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Mar 22, 2024, 12:26:29 AM3/22/24
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Hi John,

<The Cosmic Operating System is not a person or even a super person...>

In Chapter 8 I argued that the cosmic operating system is not less
than personal, but more than personal. If the cosmic operating system
is super alive, super conscious and super intelligent, then cosmic
operating system = God.

By the way, I've completed the book draft! In a few days you'll get
access to the entire current draft and I look forward to your
comments!

<...the fact that quantum mechanics says information cannot be
destroyed because everything evolves according to the Schrodinger
equation in a reversible deterministic way is a little more
interesting; of course quantum mechanics could turn out to be wrong
about that but I sorta doubt it, so it gives me a little hope. Not a
lot but a little.>

You have it easier than me! I don't think that everything evolves in a
reversible deterministic way (not in the Laplacian sense at least, see
chapters on libertarian determinism and Gödel), so building hope is
more difficult for me. But I've done it!

<I believe that if someday we build a Jupiter brain [-> God]...>

What if some alien civilization has already done so?

<...so far it's just a theory, or maybe a theory for a theory. >

Like everything!

<[If technological resurrection needs a perfect copy of a quantum
state] you'd become a different person many trillions of times every
second...>

This contradicts what you just said about deterministic evolution. The
quantum state (of you + the environment) evolves deterministically and
contains all those changes. But we agree that technological
resurrection does not need a perfect copy of a quantum state.
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John Clark

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Mar 22, 2024, 9:31:33 AM3/22/24
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On Fri, Mar 22, 2024 at 12:26 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Giulio

><  "If technological resurrection needs a perfect copy of a quantum state] you'd become a different person many trillions of times every second"
 
> "This contradicts what you just said about deterministic evolution"


I don't see the contradiction. Yes it's possible, even probable, that a single air molecule bumping into you could change you enough that one year from now your history and your conscious experience will be very different from what it would've been if that particular air molecule had not bumped into you, but that doesn't change the fact that right now, at the instant the air molecule hit you, your conscious experience will not have changed nor would that of anybody else. And if Hugh Everett's Many Worlds idea is basically correct, which I think it probably is, then "you"  DO split trillions of times every second and they will all eventually have different histories, but NOT at the instant of the split. Up until that instant they all will have had identical conscious experiences, and it would be nonsensical to ask which one is really "you". They would all have an equal right to call themselves Giulio Prisco.

By the way, if the things that we already understand about quantum mechanics ever start to sink into the zeitgeist of the general population then the English language is going to need to make some big changes, especially about the way it handles personal pronouns. And I suspect other languages are going to have to do the same. 

> "The quantum state (of you + the environment) evolves deterministically and contains all those changes."

Yes, if everything evolves according to the Schrodinger Equation then that must be the case. There have been some very sensitive experiments which try to find circumstances where the prediction of the equation does not exactly conform to the results of experiment; some competitors to the Many Worlds idea, such as objective collapse theories, claim that the equation needs modification, but so far at least the unmodified Schrodinger Equation has passed all tests with flying colors. But if experimenters ever do find an example where the original Schrodinger Equation doesn't work then they will have proven that Everett's Many Worlds idea is dead wrong. Personally I don't think they're going to find anything but I've been known to be wrong.

 >"But we agree that technological resurrection does not need a perfect copy of a quantum state."

Yes.

>>< "I believe that if someday we build a Jupiter brain [-> God]...>"

> "What if some alien civilization has already done so?"

If that were the case then the Galaxy, if not the entire observable universe, would look radically different from what we see; and I'm not talking about anything subtle, you wouldn't even need a telescope.  

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis
nnr


Jesse Mazer

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Mar 22, 2024, 10:14:52 AM3/22/24
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On Fri, Mar 22, 2024 at 12:26 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:


In Chapter 8 I argued that the cosmic operating system is not less
than personal, but more than personal. If the cosmic operating system
is super alive, super conscious and super intelligent, then cosmic
operating  system = God.

Hi Giulio, just wondering, do you think of this cosmic operating system as something that exists at present, or is it more like an Omega Point style idea (without Tipler's specific assumptions about physics/religion) that intelligence will find a way to persist in performing computations and storing records forever, so that "God" can be identified with the infinite limit? One could also speculate that this infinite future in some sense retroactively influences or defines the probabilities of various possible histories leading up to it, whether via something like simulation hypothesis, or certain views on the interpretation of quantum mechanics like Wheeler's participatory universe or the Bousso/Susskind paper at https://arxiv.org/abs/1105.3796



You have it easier than me! I don't think that everything evolves in a
reversible deterministic way (not in the Laplacian sense at least, see
chapters on libertarian determinism and Gödel), so building hope is
more difficult for me. But I've done it!

Is the objection to Laplacian determinism specifically about the paradoxes that arise when a physical system in the universe tries to predict events in its own causal future (the sort of issue discussed at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10670-020-00369-3 )? Or do you have objections that would apply even to the idea that we (or future Omega Point style intelligences) could retroactively verify that any given finite section of our past history unfolded in a way that perfectly obeyed deterministic laws acting on initial boundary conditions?

Jesse



 

Giulio Prisco

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Mar 23, 2024, 1:39:05 AM3/23/24
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Hi Jesse, excellent points! Replies inline below.

On Fri, Mar 22, 2024 at 3:14 PM Jesse Mazer <laser...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 22, 2024 at 12:26 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> In Chapter 8 I argued that the cosmic operating system is not less
>> than personal, but more than personal. If the cosmic operating system
>> is super alive, super conscious and super intelligent, then cosmic
>> operating system = God.
>
>
> Hi Giulio, just wondering, do you think of this cosmic operating system as something that exists at present, or is it more like an Omega Point style idea (without Tipler's specific assumptions about physics/religion) that intelligence will find a way to persist in performing computations and storing records forever, so that "God" can be identified with the infinite limit? One could also speculate that this infinite future in some sense retroactively influences or defines the probabilities of various possible histories leading up to it, whether via something like simulation hypothesis, or certain views on the interpretation of quantum mechanics like Wheeler's participatory universe or the Bousso/Susskind paper at https://arxiv.org/abs/1105.3796
>
>>

I see the cosmic operating system operating above time as we conceive
of it, so if something exists at all then it exists also at all times.
The cosmic operating system exists and acts above time, but from our
in-time perspective we can think that it "will exist" in the future
and retroactively influences the past. The simulation hypothesis is
not necessary if the cosmic operating system itself is a
superintelligent Mind, but it is still a simple and useful metaphor.

>>
>> You have it easier than me! I don't think that everything evolves in a
>> reversible deterministic way (not in the Laplacian sense at least, see
>> chapters on libertarian determinism and Gödel), so building hope is
>> more difficult for me. But I've done it!
>
>
> Is the objection to Laplacian determinism specifically about the paradoxes that arise when a physical system in the universe tries to predict events in its own causal future (the sort of issue discussed at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10670-020-00369-3 )? Or do you have objections that would apply even to the idea that we (or future Omega Point style intelligences) could retroactively verify that any given finite section of our past history unfolded in a way that perfectly obeyed deterministic laws acting on initial boundary conditions?
>

Both. All in my book draft. If there are multiple intersecting
timelines (which by itself negates Laplacian determinism), then
perfect retrodiction is as impossible as perfect prediction.
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Giulio Prisco

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Mar 23, 2024, 2:02:12 AM3/23/24
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Hi John,

<...at the instant the air molecule hit you, your conscious experience
will not have changed nor would that of anybody else.>

Your conscious experience doesn't change like it would change if you
are hit by a brick, but the quantum state of your body changes (it is
now entangled with the molecule). And this is why I don't think a
perfect copy of a quantum state is needed for technological
resurrection.

<...so far at least the unmodified Schrodinger Equation has passed all
tests with flying colors.>

I would be very surprised if this remains the case for long. The
history of science shows that *all* theories are eventually upgraded.
We are babies on the cosmic scene, I think we still have a lot to
learn.

<...all you'd need is a glance into the night sky.>

But perhaps they are subtler than that. Note that we observe wild
animals with cameras hidden inside decoys that look & smell like one
of them, and I've seen videos that suggest the animals think a decoy
is one of them. Sure our super aliens are at least that smart.
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John Clark

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Mar 23, 2024, 6:28:32 AM3/23/24
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On Sat, Mar 23, 2024 at 2:02 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

<...all you'd need is a glance into the night sky.>

>> "But perhaps they are subtler than that. Note that we observe wild
animals with cameras hidden inside decoys that look & smell like one
of them, and I've seen videos that suggest the animals think a decoy
is one of them. Sure our super aliens are at least that smart."

In order to be smart a brain is required and to operate a brain energy is required, but right now in our galaxy alone hundreds of billions of stars are radiating all their energy uselessly into infinite space. That is not very smart and a Jupiter brain would never allow that to happen, certainly not for a trivial reason like in order to fool Homo sapiens into believing that He doesn't exist. 
  
But events that have occurred during the previous 12 months have increased my confidence that the galaxy WILL be engineered in the near future, by that I mean in less than 50 million years. 

 See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

l5m

Giulio Prisco

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Mar 23, 2024, 7:09:15 AM3/23/24
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<...billions of stars are radiating all their energy uselessly into
infinite space....>

Billions do, but perhaps millions (or thousands) don't. They are
talking of Tabby's star...

Even if Tabby's star is not that thing, come on man, some imagination!
They could extract energy from the quantum vacuum (zero point field
and all that). Perhaps their astroengineering consists of giant
utility fogs that fill entire stellar systems and condensate to do
things where and when needed. Perhaps they have left matter as we know
behind and live as blobs of thinking quantum fields. Just thinking
aloud...

<...the galaxy WILL be engineered in the near future, by that I mean
in less than 50 million years.>

I think so, too!
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John Clark

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Mar 23, 2024, 2:42:38 PM3/23/24
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On Sat, Mar 23, 2024 at 7:09 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

><...billions of stars are radiating all their energy uselessly into nfinite space....>

> "Billions do, but perhaps millions (or thousands) don't."

I could explain the existence of no Dyson spheres in the Milky Way, and I could explain the existence of many billions, but I could not explain the existence of just a few thousand; the idea that we just happen to exist during the tiny sliver of time in which that would be the case seems too improbable to consider. 

They are talking of Tabby's star...

I think dust could explain the Tabby star observations much better and certainly more simply than ET can. It's mind boggling to suppose that we are alone in the universe, and it's mind boggling to suppose that we are not, but one of those things must be true, and I think one of them is significantly more likely than the other. 

  
> "They could extract energy from the quantum vacuum (zero point field
and all that). Perhaps their astroengineering consists of giant
utility fogs that fill entire stellar systems and condensate to do
things where and when needed. Perhaps they have left matter as we know
behind and live as blobs of thinking quantum fields" 


And perhaps a simpler explanation is that ET does not exist because we are the first, after all the observable universe is finite in both space and time so somebody's got to be first.

See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

hwk

spudb...@aol.com

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Mar 23, 2024, 5:02:37 PM3/23/24
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Point of order. Astronomers and Physicists don't even agree, anymore on the essential facts. Age of the Cosmos, for example. For me, I'll go with the quasi-mystical conclusion that we inhabit a Neural Net, aka, The Universe is Autodidactic. Feel free to make it all dead empty, or, filled with Saucer men. Yes we can be happy with a majority conclusion. Unless, its based on improved equipment, it all starts smelling like a religion JC, but it now has the aroma of snippets of several faith. Meh!

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spudb...@aol.com

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Mar 23, 2024, 5:19:52 PM3/23/24
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Under such a supposition of zillions of copies of you, being the Sean Carroll objection against 'immortality,' my reply is. "Good enough for Government work." The second thought is, screw it, we don't run the show, so go out an have a pizza. be grateful that you survived for the most part.. Beggars can't be choosers, and that the presentation led by A. Strominger some years ago (Presented by Dr. P. back in 2019 June) indicates that the Universe has Memory function, Database Fans! It is the interaction of photons and gravity, Also, this was Hawkings last paper in the collection. Color me a sentimentalist. 



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spudb...@aol.com

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Mar 23, 2024, 5:21:50 PM3/23/24
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Announce when its out Dr. P. I'm in a dowloading mood from Zon. 

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Brent Meeker

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Mar 23, 2024, 9:46:25 PM3/23/24
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On 3/23/2024 11:41 AM, John Clark wrote:
On Sat, Mar 23, 2024 at 7:09 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

><...billions of stars are radiating all their energy uselessly into nfinite space....>

> "Billions do, but perhaps millions (or thousands) don't."

I could explain the existence of no Dyson spheres in the Milky Way, and I could explain the existence of many billions, but I could not explain the existence of just a few thousand; the idea that we just happen to exist during the tiny sliver of time in which that would be the case seems too improbable to consider. 

They are talking of Tabby's star...

I think dust could explain the Tabby star observations much better and certainly more simply than ET can. It's mind boggling to suppose that we are alone in the universe, and it's mind boggling to suppose that we are not, but one of those things must be true, and I think one of them is significantly more likely than the other. 

  
> "They could extract energy from the quantum vacuum (zero point field
and all that). Perhaps their astroengineering consists of giant
utility fogs that fill entire stellar systems and condensate to do
things where and when needed. Perhaps they have left matter as we know
behind and live as blobs of thinking quantum fields" 


And perhaps a simpler explanation is that ET does not exist because we are the first, after all the observable universe is finite in both space and time so somebody's got to be first.

It's simpler to suppose that all technological civilizations that could beam EM signals out hundreds of light years (which we can't yet) are more than hundreds of light years apart and having reached that same conclusion decided to pursue knowledge by other means.

Brent

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hwk

 






 

<...the galaxy WILL be engineered in the near future, by that I mean
in less than 50 million years.>

I think so, too!


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Brent Meeker

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Mar 24, 2024, 1:09:31 AM3/24/24
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On 3/23/2024 2:19 PM, 'spudb...@aol.com' via Everything List wrote:
Under such a supposition of zillions of copies of you, being the Sean Carroll objection against 'immortality,' my reply is. "Good enough for Government work." The second thought is, screw it, we don't run the show, so go out an have a pizza. be grateful that you survived for the most part.. Beggars can't be choosers, and that the presentation led by A. Strominger some years ago (Presented by Dr. P. back in 2019 June) indicates that the Universe has Memory function, Database Fans! It is the interaction of photons and gravity, Also, this was Hawkings last paper in the collection. Color me a sentimentalist. 



Inline image




On Friday, March 22, 2024 at 09:31:33 AM EDT, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:


On Fri, Mar 22, 2024 at 12:26 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Giulio

><  "If technological resurrection needs a perfect copy of a quantum state] you'd become a different person many trillions of times every second"
 
> "This contradicts what you just said about deterministic evolution"


I don't see the contradiction. Yes it's possible, even probable, that a single air molecule bumping into you could change you enough that one year from now your history and your conscious experience will be very different from what it would've been if that particular air molecule had not bumped into you, but that doesn't change the fact that right now, at the instant the air molecule hit you, your conscious experience will not have changed nor would that of anybody else. And if Hugh Everett's Many Worlds idea is basically correct, which I think it probably is, then "you"  DO split trillions of times every second and they will all eventually have different histories, but NOT at the instant of the split. Up until that instant they all will have had identical conscious experiences, and it would be nonsensical to ask which one is really "you". They would all have an equal right to call themselves Giulio Prisco.

And it could be that the molecule bumping into you never results in different experience at the semi-classical conscious level.

Brent

Giulio Prisco

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Mar 24, 2024, 1:33:03 AM3/24/24
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<And perhaps a simpler explanation is that ET does not exist because
we are the first...>

I can't disagree because you said the magic word: perhaps.
Perhaps we are the first. Perhaps the universe is teeming with
superintelligent life that acts upon reality in ways that we don't
perceive. Perhaps other perhapses are perhaps true and perhaps not.
Time will tell and we will see.
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John Clark

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Mar 24, 2024, 7:41:50 AM3/24/24
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On Sat, Mar 23, 2024 at 9:46 PM Brent Meeker <meeke...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> And perhaps a simpler explanation is that ET does not exist because we are the first, after all the observable universe is finite in both space and time so somebody's got to be first.

> "It's simpler to suppose that all technological civilizations that could beam EM signals out hundreds of light years (which we can't yet)"

 The late great Arecibo Observatory wasn't just a radio telescope it was also a radar telescope, it was the most powerful radio transmitter the world had ever made and had the ability to send a message to a similar sized telescope that was anywhere in the Milky Way.  
 
> are more than hundreds of light years apart

I agree, but I think advanced technological civilizations are more than 13.8 billion light years apart, and thus we will never see them and they will never see us.  
 
> "and having reached that same conclusion decided to pursue knowledge by other means."

As I've said before, to pursue knowledge you need a brain and to operate a brain you need energy; and in this galaxy alone hundreds of billions of stars are radiating all their energy uselessly into infinite space. And all the other galaxies that we can observe are doing the same thing. Don't you find that odd?

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dd0

Quentin Anciaux

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Mar 24, 2024, 7:58:41 AM3/24/24
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It depends if it was the only and easiest way to achieve it... who knows what we don't know, because we don't observe something constrained by our own knowledge doesn't mean anything, nothing to conclude from this non observation of an entire universe filled of dyson sphere. 

Quentin 

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dd0

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John Clark

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Mar 24, 2024, 8:27:24 AM3/24/24
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On Sun, Mar 24, 2024 at 1:33 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

><And perhaps a simpler explanation is that ET does not exist because
we are the first...>

> "I can't disagree because you said the magic word: perhaps."

But the scientific method and Occam's Razor insists that if the existing laws of physics can adequately explain an observation (or in this case a lack of one) then you shouldn't conjure up radical new fundamental laws of physics to explain it because doing so is unnecessary. I like Carl Sagan a lot but I think sometimes a lack of evidence IS evidence of absence. For example: If the LHC had not found evidence for the Higgs particle then physicists would've had no choice but to reject the entire idea and try to find some other reason to explain the fact that quarks have mass.

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis
orr


John Clark

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Mar 24, 2024, 8:50:44 AM3/24/24
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On Sun, Mar 24, 2024 at 7:58 AM Quentin Anciaux <allc...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> As I've said before, to pursue knowledge you need a brain and to operate a brain you need energy; and in this galaxy alone hundreds of billions of stars are radiating all their energy uselessly into infinite space. And all the other galaxies that we can observe are doing the same thing. Don't you find that odd?

>   "It depends if it was the only and easiest way to achieve it... who knows what we don't know, because we don't observe something constrained by our own knowledge doesn't mean anything, nothing to conclude from this non observation of an entire universe filled of dyson sphere." 

Because the observable universe is finite in both space and time there MUST have been a first technological civilization, and all the evidence points to us as being that first civilization. So if the existing laws of physics can explain the fact that the entire universe is not filled with Dyson Spheres (and it can) then there is no need to conjure up radical new laws of physics to explain it. Richard Feynman said science is imagination in a straight jacket, and I think he meant  you should feel free to imagine anything you like and push what we know as far as you can to see if anything breaks, but if an idea conflicts with the results of  an experiment that you believe was conducted in a competent and honest manner then the idea must be rejected. And postulating new fundamental laws of physics to explain something should be the last resort, not the first.

And I think someday the universe WILL be full of Dyson spheres, and we will be the ones who got the ball rolling. 

 
 See what's on my new list at  Extropolis
qtm

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