Maybe this is a good time to mention my proposed solution to the Fermi Paradox. It does not invoke a Great Filter. The one-sentence version is that we cannot observe other civilizations if they are expanding with the speed of light.
The main idea is a 0-1 law for the expansion speed of civilizations. I argue that there is only a very short timeframe in the life of a civilization when their sphere of influence is already expanding, but not yet expanding with exactly the speed of light. If they are before this short phase transition, they can’t be observed with current human technology. After the phase transition they can’t be observed at all.
That’s an interesting idea. But it looks to me like you still need to postulate that civilization is very rare, because we are in the light cone of an enormous area.
You are absolutely correct that we need one more postulate: I postulate that expanding civilizations destroy nonexpanding ones on contact. (They turn them into negentropy-source or computronium or whatever.) This suggests that we are in a relatively small part of the space-time continuum unoccupied by expanding civilizations.
But you are right, at this point I already postulated many things, so a straight application of the Anthropic Principle would be a cleaner solution to the Fermi Paradox than my roundabout ways. Honestly, in a longer exposition, like a top-level post, I wouldn’t even have introduced the idea as a solution to the Fermi Paradox. But it does show that our observations can be compatible with the existence of many civilizations.
I believe that the valuable part of my idea is not the (yet another) solution to the Paradox, but the proposed 0-1 law itself. I would be very interested in a discussion about the theoretical feasibility of light-speed expansion. More generally, I am looking for a solution to the following problem: if a one optimizes a light-cone to achieve the biggest computational power possible, what will be the expansion speed of this computer? I am aware that this is not a completely specified problem, but I think it is specified well enough so that we can start thinking about it.
Yes. After I figured this little theory out, I did some googling to find the first inventor. It seemed like such a logical idea, I couldn’t believe that I was the first to reason like this. This googling led me to Hanson’s paper. As you note, this paper has some ideas similar to mine. These ideas are very interesting on their own, but the similarity is superficial, so they do not really help answering any of my questions. This is not surprising, considering that these are physics and computer science rather than economics questions.
Later I found another, more relevant paper:
Thermodynamic cost of reversible computing
Not incidentally, this was written by Tomasso Toffoli, who coined the term ‘computronium’. But it still doesn’t answer my questions.
This is not surprising, considering that these are physics and computer science rather than economics questions.
Hanson’s paper is most useful for answering the question, ‘if civilizations could expand at light-speed, would they?’ There’s 2 pieces to the puzzle, the ability to do so and the willingness to do so.
As for the ability: are you not satisfied by general considerations of von Neumann probes and starwisps? Those aren’t going to get a civilization expanding at 0.9999c, say, but an average of 0.8 or 0.9 c would be enough, I’d think, for your theory.
Maybe this is a good time to mention my proposed solution to the Fermi Paradox. It does not invoke a Great Filter. The one-sentence version is that we cannot observe other civilizations if they are expanding with the speed of light.
The main idea is a 0-1 law for the expansion speed of civilizations. I argue that there is only a very short timeframe in the life of a civilization when their sphere of influence is already expanding, but not yet expanding with exactly the speed of light. If they are before this short phase transition, they can’t be observed with current human technology. After the phase transition they can’t be observed at all.
That’s an interesting idea. But it looks to me like you still need to postulate that civilization is very rare, because we are in the light cone of an enormous area.
You are absolutely correct that we need one more postulate: I postulate that expanding civilizations destroy nonexpanding ones on contact. (They turn them into negentropy-source or computronium or whatever.) This suggests that we are in a relatively small part of the space-time continuum unoccupied by expanding civilizations.
But you are right, at this point I already postulated many things, so a straight application of the Anthropic Principle would be a cleaner solution to the Fermi Paradox than my roundabout ways. Honestly, in a longer exposition, like a top-level post, I wouldn’t even have introduced the idea as a solution to the Fermi Paradox. But it does show that our observations can be compatible with the existence of many civilizations.
I believe that the valuable part of my idea is not the (yet another) solution to the Paradox, but the proposed 0-1 law itself. I would be very interested in a discussion about the theoretical feasibility of light-speed expansion. More generally, I am looking for a solution to the following problem: if a one optimizes a light-cone to achieve the biggest computational power possible, what will be the expansion speed of this computer? I am aware that this is not a completely specified problem, but I think it is specified well enough so that we can start thinking about it.
Have you looked at Hanson’s ‘burning the cosmic commons’ paper?
Yes. After I figured this little theory out, I did some googling to find the first inventor. It seemed like such a logical idea, I couldn’t believe that I was the first to reason like this. This googling led me to Hanson’s paper. As you note, this paper has some ideas similar to mine. These ideas are very interesting on their own, but the similarity is superficial, so they do not really help answering any of my questions. This is not surprising, considering that these are physics and computer science rather than economics questions.
Later I found another, more relevant paper: Thermodynamic cost of reversible computing Not incidentally, this was written by Tomasso Toffoli, who coined the term ‘computronium’. But it still doesn’t answer my questions.
Hanson’s paper is most useful for answering the question, ‘if civilizations could expand at light-speed, would they?’ There’s 2 pieces to the puzzle, the ability to do so and the willingness to do so.
As for the ability: are you not satisfied by general considerations of von Neumann probes and starwisps? Those aren’t going to get a civilization expanding at 0.9999c, say, but an average of 0.8 or 0.9 c would be enough, I’d think, for your theory.