One Cannot Live in the Cradle Forever by Robert de Neufville

Hi Robert,

I want to respond to your statement, "it seems to me that if advanced civilizations were common, then one might choose to make its presence known." Upon reading it, I realized that I did not expound the point I was making sufficiently.

A civilization with foreknowledge machines simply would not make contact with a civilization without them, because this would invite conflict. They would be able to look ahead to see when a given civilization would attain viewer foreknowledge themselves, and when contact would be initiated with that civilization, so they would not have to wonder about when to make contact or debate the matter amongst themselves.

Think about it this way, such a civilization would not stay hidden out of fear, they would stay hidden out of compassion. If a civilization without access to viewer foreknowledge (i.e., a future-blind civilization) were to encounter any other civilization, the future-blind civilization might form an aggressive posture due to fear of the unknown. This might cause the future-blind civilization to attack, in which case the future-sighted civilization would have to defend itself, and this would obviously not go well at all for the future-blind civilization. So, it may be that graduating from the future-blind stage is a universally understood prerequisite to first contact for civilizations everywhere.

So, from this perspective, on the assumption that all civilizations advanced enough to achieve interstellar travel would also be future-sighted, it would not be the case that, "if advanced civilizations were common, then one might choose to make its presence known." Just thought I'd add these ideas to my previous comments.

Warm regards,

Aaron

(My thanks again for the helpful review, Robert.) This is just a note to say I'll be rating your essay (along with the others on my review list) some time between now and May 30. All the best, and bye for now, - Mike

Hi Robert,

In case you'd like to look at at least one of the references I was planning share with you about superluminal signaling experiments, you will find it in my most recent post at the bottom of Michael Allan's page. As you may know, this topic is relevant to the content of his article, so it was natural to discuss it there.

Warmly,

Aaron

Hello Robert

Evolution is a process of adaptation & given enough time & raw materials will eventually produce a fully evolved, perfectly adapted life form, which particular life form will be evidenced by the facts that it will be able to live - indeed thrive - anywhere, at any time, under any conditions, or relocate or terra form to suit, doing so, moreover, without causing any waste, loss or damage to either itself or its surrounds, animate & inanimate alike.

We were well on our way to achieving this most exalted of existential states, 'when a funny thing happened on the way to the forum' - in a word 'patriarchy'.

Evolutionary viability as critically relies on 'female centrality' (see my essay) as it does on the availability of sufficient & suitable subsistence resources.

This is the law which we have broken.

Unless we dismantle patriarchy & re-centralise women we're doomed.

But if we do not only will we escape extinction but nature will quickly turn us into its crowning work.....

Margriet

Robert,

I found your essay exceptionally well aimed and argued and right on topic. A great pleasure to read, thank you. I feel a top score coming on! Your message is loud clear and true; "Adapt or Perish" and "Our existence is more tenuous than we generally realize." I also somehow feel this is the precurser essay to my own essay which continues the theme with new fundamental results showing a firm direction to go and methodological description.

However I agree you're right that; "Overcoming the technical challenges may be easy in comparison to using our collective power as a species wisely." and in far more ways than one. I'd also extend that to easy; "...in comparison to implementation in the face of old belief led science". For me scientific discovery implies 'change'. For many it seems the opposite is true!

I agree it's a fair view to say; "I don't think we understand the risks well enough yet to honestly say exactly what we need to do." I propose first resolving the great fundamental anomalies, then improved understanding will identify the greatest risks. Also our ability to avoid catastrophes will improve. Without that focus we may be consigned to being a momentary speck in the history of the universe.

Great job, well done. I hope you enjoy mine. The derivation uses quite simple 3D geometry and logic. QM becomes intuitive and understandable, even by young students (see the reproduced 'classroom experiment' in the end notes).

Best of luck in the competition.

Peter

Robert

I thought your well written essay framed the issue facing humanity in very clear terms. I do believe we are on the same page and thank you for your comments on my essay. If you have not already done so, I suggest you also read the essay by Walter Putnam which adds yet another dimension to the discussion. I also, think Marc Séguin's idea of the need to become future-literate fits in quite well.

I really agree with what you wrote:

"But the greatest challenges may be political. Overcoming the technical challenges may be easy in comparison to using our collective power as a species wisely. If humanity were a single person with all the knowledge and abilities of the entire human race, avoiding nuclear war, and environmental catastrophe would be relatively easy."

If we can't rid ourselves of nuclear weapons - the biggest environmental and existential threat to our future - how can we manage the more complicated issues?

Below are a few quotes that I find relevant to you essay:

Robert A. Heinlein:

We have two situations, mutually exclusive: Mankind surviving, and mankind extinct. With respect to morality, the second situation is a null class. An extinct breed has no behavior, moral or otherwise.

Arthur C. Clarke:

There is no way back into the past; the choice, as Wells once said, is the universe-or nothing. Though men and civilizations may yearn for rest, for the dream of the lotus-eaters, that is a desire that merges imperceptibly into death. The challenge of the great spaces between the worlds is a stupendous one; but if we fail to meet it, the story of our race will be drawing to its close.

Carl Sagan:

Since, in the long run, every planetary civilization will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring--not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive... If our long-term survival is at stake, we have a basic responsibility to our species to venture to other worlds.

Good luck in the competition. You deserve to do well.

Regards

Arthur

Thank you, Robert, for your own thoughtful essay. You are absolutely right that there must be a political will to create institutional change in order that humans work together for the common good. We have that now in many different forms, but it seems scattered in many different directions as well. Maybe we are closer than we think to a consensus on what steps to take. Groups large and small are just like individuals in many ways: You can know what is the right thing to do, or at least what you should not do, and yet still do the opposite. But just as individuals mature and learn over the years to follow the conscience, maybe humanity is reaching the point where the collective conscience will prevail over base instinct. Best of luck in the contest.

I liked your essaay, but it sure seems to me to be much easier to solve those problems on Earth and avoid catastrophe, than to move people to another planet in the galaxy. I think that colonizing the galaxy has to be justified by some other reason than avoiding nuclear winter or runaway global warming.

Dear Robert,

A well written and interesting essay on the subject of existential risk and why we should care. Although I only touched on the topic of artificial intelligence in any depth, I enjoyed the broader scope of your essay. It is true that new technologies you mention hold great promise and peril and will most likely either end up being a solution to our problems or making them much worse depending on how they are used. AI in particular is difficult as it will literally have a mind of it's own. I agree too that become a space-fairing species is the only long term solution to our survival, hopefully SpaceX and similar organizations can help accelerate that development to the point where space travel becomes profitable, economical and sustainable (rather than mostly government funded).

Ropbert,

Thanks for your comment on mine. You ask about 'steering'. I suggest we're far too superficial about cause and effect, which is why we continually get unintended and even reverse outcomes. We need to look far deeper into what REALLY steer advancement.

The one thing that affects everything is our fundamental understanding of how nature works, i.e. what we are, at the smallest level. No amount of preaching or bumper stickers about what kind of people and society we 'should be' can have ANY real effect by comparison. Studying history proves the prime place of science and technology in advancement.

The key to unification is removing the illogical descriptions attached to QM by showing the real structure and classical mechanisms. Of course at higher order quantum gauges uncertainty remains, but then ceases to conflict with relativity (though both are slightly more consistently interpreted). It's a practical and immediately possible quantum leap in the right direction. It seems the real question is do we have the ability to adapt our 'beliefs' in old paradigms!

Very well done for yours, which I'm giving well earned top marks to now as I think the deadline approaches. I hope you agree mine's of similar value.

Best of luck in the judging, which is what really counts.

Peter

Hi Robert,

Thanks for your interesting essay. I especially appreciated your acknowledgment of human existence as only a tiny portion of Earth's history.

I found that your recommendations for improved decision-making, governance, and making plans for hazard avoidance resonated with my essay on computationally intelligent personal dialogic agents. I developed a prototype of this kind of dialogic web system as part of a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation that investigated ways to develop interaction skills. I see the development of a dialogic web as a clear path toward your recommendations.

I'd appreciate a rating, if you can do that, since I am a bit short on ratings. Also, if you know of some one that would be interested in collaborating with me on the further development of the dialogic web, I'd appreciate it if you would pass along my contact info. My gmail username is my first name, then a period, then my last name.

Thanks,

Ray Luechtefeld, PhD