I am not a nuclear physicist and I haven’t read the paper, but given that there were no observations of sun-like stars going Nova and that anything humans can do can also probably occur naturally just by chance, the odds of this being workable given the current technology are too low to worry about. Though maybe a bit higher than of the LHC creating an earth-swallowing black hole. But still at the Pascal’s mugger level.
An obvious rejoinder to this is that while a Boeing 747 could assemble itself naturally by chance, the fact that we don’t see any 747′s occurring naturally isn’t evidence for their impossibility. Therefore doesn’t your point about no sun-like stars going nova only carry weight if we assume that there is other intelligent life in the observable universe?
As a side note, I read somewhere that John von Neumann once had an epiphany in which he imagined that supernovas were the final acts of civilizations that had learned to harness the power of nuclear fusion. We could even imagine von Neumann probes being constructed with this purpose, destroying every star in their forward causal cone. You have to admit, it would be a funny old universe if it turned out that such a thing were possible!
The absence of 747s spontaneously assembling is evidence for their impossibility. Its just that evidence is completely overwhelmed by all the additional evidence we have indicating that it is possible—evidence which appears lacking from this particular case.
Or nuclear bombs. Why could we apply the same argument here? “We never see any nuclear explosions on earth, either during human history or in the form of radioactive craters, therefore it is very implausible that if we combine specially crafted and refined substances we will get something like that.”
I am not a nuclear physicist and I haven’t read the paper, but given that there were no observations of sun-like stars going Nova and that anything humans can do can also probably occur naturally just by chance, the odds of this being workable given the current technology are too low to worry about. Though maybe a bit higher than of the LHC creating an earth-swallowing black hole. But still at the Pascal’s mugger level.
An obvious rejoinder to this is that while a Boeing 747 could assemble itself naturally by chance, the fact that we don’t see any 747′s occurring naturally isn’t evidence for their impossibility. Therefore doesn’t your point about no sun-like stars going nova only carry weight if we assume that there is other intelligent life in the observable universe?
As a side note, I read somewhere that John von Neumann once had an epiphany in which he imagined that supernovas were the final acts of civilizations that had learned to harness the power of nuclear fusion. We could even imagine von Neumann probes being constructed with this purpose, destroying every star in their forward causal cone. You have to admit, it would be a funny old universe if it turned out that such a thing were possible!
The absence of 747s spontaneously assembling is evidence for their impossibility. Its just that evidence is completely overwhelmed by all the additional evidence we have indicating that it is possible—evidence which appears lacking from this particular case.
Or nuclear bombs. Why could we apply the same argument here? “We never see any nuclear explosions on earth, either during human history or in the form of radioactive craters, therefore it is very implausible that if we combine specially crafted and refined substances we will get something like that.”
Natural nuclear fission did occur on Earth, though it didn’t leave a crater.
And nuclear fusion is occurring naturally in the Sun and also not leaving craters. :)