The Copernican Principle seems to imply that all observers see the same kind of universe, namely, an uninhabited one apart from the observers’ home planet. The SETI cultists’ refusal to accept this observation and their increasingly convoluted conjectures for why we can’t detect ET’s show that the quest has become irrational by scientific skeptics’ own standards.
After some googling, their conjectures seem to be “well, we’ve only checked a few thousand stars, and only in the radio region of the spectrum. Our best highly speculative guess has detectable civilizations originating on one in every few million stars, so either civilizations are expending to less than 1000 stars on average, or they’re not using radio waves, or our guesses about how common they are are wrong.”
so either civilizations are expending to less than 1000 stars on average, or they’re not using radio waves, or our guesses about how common they are are wrong
Absent FTL communication, it is hard to imagine a scenario in which any central control remains after civilization has spread to more than a few stars. There would be no stopping the expansion after that, so the first explanation is unlikely.
A civilization whose area of expansion includes our own solar system would be perceivable by many means other than radio, so the second explanation is really not relevant.
That leaves the third as the most likely explanation, I am afraid.
Absent FTL communication, it is hard to imagine a scenario in which any central control remains after civilization has spread to more than a few stars.
Each expansion part is led by an AI with a shared utility function, and a specified way of resolving negotiations.
I don’t see how this amounts to central control. At best it is parallel predetermination, but that breaks down because the actions of the AI are determined by the environment, not the utility function alone. Central control implies two-way communication and is impractical when the latency is measured in decades.
The Copernican Principle seems to imply that all observers see the same kind of universe, namely, an uninhabited one apart from the observers’ home planet. The SETI cultists’ refusal to accept this observation and their increasingly convoluted conjectures for why we can’t detect ET’s show that the quest has become irrational by scientific skeptics’ own standards.
What does this second sentence mean? If everyone sees that the universe is uninhabitated this makes the Great Filter more of a problem, not less of one, and it needs a resolution. That you don’t like some of the explanations doesn’t make the attempt to understand what is going on irrational.
The Copernican Principle seems to imply that all observers see the same kind of universe, namely, an uninhabited one apart from the observers’ home planet. The SETI cultists’ refusal to accept this observation and their increasingly convoluted conjectures for why we can’t detect ET’s show that the quest has become irrational by scientific skeptics’ own standards.
After some googling, their conjectures seem to be “well, we’ve only checked a few thousand stars, and only in the radio region of the spectrum. Our best highly speculative guess has detectable civilizations originating on one in every few million stars, so either civilizations are expending to less than 1000 stars on average, or they’re not using radio waves, or our guesses about how common they are are wrong.”
Absent FTL communication, it is hard to imagine a scenario in which any central control remains after civilization has spread to more than a few stars. There would be no stopping the expansion after that, so the first explanation is unlikely.
A civilization whose area of expansion includes our own solar system would be perceivable by many means other than radio, so the second explanation is really not relevant.
That leaves the third as the most likely explanation, I am afraid.
Each expansion part is led by an AI with a shared utility function, and a specified way of resolving negotiations.
I don’t see how this amounts to central control. At best it is parallel predetermination, but that breaks down because the actions of the AI are determined by the environment, not the utility function alone. Central control implies two-way communication and is impractical when the latency is measured in decades.
What does this second sentence mean? If everyone sees that the universe is uninhabitated this makes the Great Filter more of a problem, not less of one, and it needs a resolution. That you don’t like some of the explanations doesn’t make the attempt to understand what is going on irrational.