6 replies to this topic

[orion602]

reading all this nice discussion here and other websites about mankind galloping towards singularity... I believe its possible and realistic (sooner or later), but will we be the first ones to reach singularity?

the universe is big, very big and old- there were millions of star systems that had already ceased to exist. and [maybe] many advanced civilisations with them. (lets suppose other civilisations can exist or existed) they might have been biologicaly even more suited for reaching singularity than we are. .where they are now? did they reach it at all? how would they interact if different singular civilisations met? coexist,merge,anihilate or ignore each other?

what if we are living in someone else's singularity as some kind of experiment or part of their singular world as 'natural reservation'?would we be allowed to reach our own singularity?

i know just my wild speculations but who knows..

[b0gger]

What if "dark matter" is something we are turing into?

[SIN]

Ray Kurzweil talked about other civilizations and the singularity in his book. We might be the only intelligent life in the universe. Life may be common but intelligence isn't. Once we reach the singularity we will expand outward in the universe, transforming all matter into a computer. One small problem slowing us down is the speed of light limit. Once matter reaches the speed of light its mass becomes infinite. This will be our future civilizations main problem, and all resources will be put to solving this fundamental problem. If there is a way, we will find it.

This leaves us to three conclusions:

1. We might be the only intelligent life in the entire universe.
or
2. Life is common, intelligence is rare, but only we have managed to survive this long without going extinct.
or
3. The speed of light is the limit. Other civilizations have reached it, and we have not made contact because of the size of the universe.

and on reality:
We still don't know much on the nature of reality. We could be living in a simulated universe. A simulation with a purpose. I hope.

Edited by SIN, 03 February 2010 - 09:47 PM.

[DaffyDuck]

We might be the only intelligent life in the universe. Life may be common but intelligence isn't

I don't like this idea. Evolution heads in the direction of intelligence since it is a trait that confers a significant reproductive advantage. I think any planet capable of supporting diverse life will have intelligent life given enough time.

Perhaps other habitable planets formed and cooled around the same time ours did so any other intelligent life out there hasn't reached the singularity yet, or perhaps the distances are too great. Even hyper advanced technology has to work within the laws of physics and the distances in space are vast so their signals may still be on their way here.

[Kolos]

the universe is big, very big and old- there were millions of star systems that had already ceased to exist. and [maybe] many advanced civilisations with them. (lets suppose other civilisations can exist or existed) they might have been biologicaly even more suited for reaching singularity than we are. .where they are now? did they reach it at all? how would they interact if different singular civilisations met? coexist,merge,anihilate or ignore each other?

For now we may only guess what they (alien singular civilisations) didn't do, like they didn't start to reshape the universe in their own image at least not on the scale large enough for us to notice so either they are not advanced enough or they choose not to or perhaps this kind of technology is not possible no matter how developed you are which would be quite sad... Anyway with singular civilisations there might be some conflicts of interest, mostly on some religious/ideological basis imagine two super-advanced singular civilisations worshipping their own Ultimate Intelligence as the only true God or civilisation of transhumanist(transalien?) beings meets AI civilisation that destroyed their former masters etc. there are many possibilities but war would be probably rare, I doubt singular societies would be willing to sacrifice their comfortable existence but it all depends from the political situation, there might be many factions with different goals in constant rivalry with each other some might wan't to merge with other civilisation other would gladly destroyed all of them so situation might be very complicated.

[chris w]

the universe is big, very big and old- there were millions of star systems that had already ceased to exist. and [maybe] many advanced civilisations with them. (lets suppose other civilisations can exist or existed) they might have been biologicaly even more suited for reaching singularity than we are. .where they are now? did they reach it at all? how would they interact if different singular civilisations met? coexist,merge,anihilate or ignore each other?

For now we may only guess what they (alien singular civilisations) didn't do, like they didn't start to reshape the universe in their own image at least not on the scale large enough for us to notice so either they are not advanced enough or they choose not to or perhaps this kind of technology is not possible no matter how developed you are which would be quite sad... Anyway with singular civilisations there might be some conflicts of interest, mostly on some religious/ideological basis imagine two super-advanced singular civilisations worshipping their own Ultimate Intelligence as the only true God or civilisation of transhumanist(transalien?) beings meets AI civilisation that destroyed their former masters etc. there are many possibilities but war would be probably rare, I doubt singular societies would be willing to sacrifice their comfortable existence but it all depends from the political situation, there might be many factions with different goals in constant rivalry with each other some might wan't to merge with other civilisation other would gladly destroyed all of them so situation might be very complicated.

Right, imagine for example different earth's species aqurring Singularity - ants, bonobos and us. Each one of them would use it differently, and in ants the outcome would be probably catastrophic, in bonobos they would just throw a big metaphisical party, for humans it's a split chance. So if there are other galactic races, from which some of them are hardwired for violence they might use it to conquer, if "conquer" would even be possible, because with many civilisations having this technology, there might something resembling MAD during the Cold War - no one will make the first move, at least hopefully.

Edited by chris w, 29 April 2010 - 04:13 PM.

[Kolos]

I would say most advanced technological civilizations should already reached singularity if it really comes so "natural" at some point and it takes between 200-400 years. However that doesn't mean there are many singularitarian civilizations out there because industrial revolution might be not so natural, all civilizations we know stoped at some point and even for Europe it wasn't a short, straight way but of course we can only speculate here.
I'm not sure there would be many reasons to conquer anyone at this level of development apart from some ideological reasons, after all even on our level it 's war is usually a waste of money because you loose more than you gain. But what we might fear is that some other singularitarian civilizations would come with the idea that Kurzweil described as "universe wide awakening" if their spread their inteligence throught the whole universe what happen with other civilizations? Probably they would have to reach an agreement of some sort with other Singularitarian civilizations but on the current level earth might be sacrificed to build a galactic highway.