Originally Posted by Andy '85

If an alien civilization were to encounter ours, I don't think the greeting phrase would always include something along the line of "We come in peace."

This is the romatic view of interstellar travel. What you are not considering is the sheer diffiiculty involved with just getting there. Consider that accelerating 10 tons of stuff to relativistic speeds (which is needed to get to stars because they are so far away) would take something like 400 Quads of energy. Global energy consumption was 379 quads in 1999.

Obviously the total energy output (wealth) of our civilization isn't sufficient to do much in the way of interstellar travel at this time. It should also be apparent that a necessary requirement for interstellar travel is great personal wealth, as defined by the ability to expend enormous amounts of energy per person. This is so simply because a great deal of energy per person is needed to get a person and his baggage to other stars. At present, the richest individuals may possess 0.05-0.1 quads worth of wealth. So they would need to be some 10000 times richer to begin to control the amount of energy needed for interstellar travel.

But as we get more and more advanced we will generate and use more and more energy, right? There is a catch. The 379 quads of energy used in 1999 comes to 0.043 quads per hour. The Earth currently radiates about 506 Quads per hour. At our current level of energy use we can easily radiate this extra energy away. If we increased our energy production a 1000-fold we would add 8.5% to the quantity of energy the Earth radiates, which would require a warming of the Earth by nearly 11 degrees F, which would be pretty devastating. Thus, there is a fundamental limit on the amount of energy transduction Earth inhabitants can carry out.

The only way for individuals to increase their power dramatically is for there to be fewer individuals. Total energy transduction could probably be increased 100-fold from today's levels without affecting Earth's energy balance adversely. And if population were to fall 100-fold (due to the demographic transition that comes with industrialization) then energy transduction pe person would rise 10,000 fold and we could expect some individuals to possess the wherewithal to travel to stars.

But with such an uncrowded Earth, would they want to?

Of course one doesn't have to travel himself. With nanotechnology and self-replicating machines a very small probe could be sent. With a payload of less than a pound the energy tied up in such a flight would become within the reach of individuals today (provided the technology existed for interstellar travel). Such technology does not exist, and by the time it does I would expect our wealth (energy transduction) to have grown (and our population to have fallen) to the point where energy economics wouldn't limit interstellar travel, but the issue of why bother would.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Self-replicating machines obviate only the need for human labor.

They also obviate the need for capital, as they create their own. As for raw materials, we have plenty of raw material to carpet the desert with solar cells. What we don't have is the capital to pay for it all (the machines and labor to do all this work). Actually we already have this same situation today, if you consder humans as self-replicating machines, which in a way they are. The difference between humans and inorganic machines, presumably, is that humans have consciouness and thus require motivation to do their thing autonomously, whereas inorganic machines do not. But maybe sophisticated self-replicating inorganic machines would have consciousness and require motivation to do their thing--just like people. Thus, they could explore space as Rick suggests, but might not want to.

On the other hand, maybe the alien machines have already come and we are they.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

They also obviate the need for capital, as they create their own.

Capital, i.e. money, is merely a set of agree-upon tokens for exchange, with which one can purchase raw materials and labor. When speaking of a shortage of capital, you mean a shortage of raw materials and/or labor; "capital" is merely shorthand.

As for raw materials, we have plenty of raw material to carpet the desert with solar cells.

Actually, solar cells aren't self-replicating, so that isn't really a good example. But your statement is untrue, as the raw materials and labor necessary to do that are already earmarked for other purposes.

Self-replicating machines, like less advanced forms of automation, solve production problems if and only if those are caused by shortages of labor. Throughout economic history, though, except for brief anomalous periods when expansion into newly-discovered lands provided a temporary glut of natural capital, the limiting factor on production has been resources, not labor. Modern economics mostly fails to recognize this, I believe, because it was formed during one such anomalous period following the discovery of America. We are about out of that period now, though, and the limiting factor is again becoming resources, not labor. Self-replicating machines won't help us with that.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Throughout economic history, though, except for brief anomalous periods when expansion into newly-discovered lands provided a temporary glut of natural capital, the limiting factor on production has been resources, not labor.

Um, the sun rains down energy for free. Wind provides high value kinetic energy. Both are very abundant resources and hardly limiting.

The reason we don't use wind or solar is because windmills and solar arrays are expensive to build. Expensive windmills means expensive wind power. But if windmills built themselves, then they wouldn't be expensive and wind power would be cheap. Same thing for solar. We would then use cheap wind/solar power rather than expensive fossil fuels. Wind/solar "fuels" are cheap: once you buy the land, you never run out of it. Fossil fuels are more expensive because after you have bought the land, the resource eventually runs out and you need to buy more land.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Actually, solar cells aren't self-replicating, so that isn't really a good example.

Of course they aren't.

But your statement is untrue, as the raw materials and labor necessary to do that are already earmarked for other purposes.

Resources aren't "earmarked". There are millions of low paid service workers who would love to have a manufacturing job making solar arrays. No "earmarked" labor here. The only reason why these low-paid service jobs are filled is people can't find better work and the cost of this labor is so low that it isn't cost effective to automate.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

The reason we don't use wind or solar is because windmills and solar arrays are expensive to build. Expensive windmills means expensive wind power. But if windmills built themselves, then they wouldn't be expensive and wind power would be cheap. Same thing for solar.

Once again, money is merely a token used to purchase labor and materials. If something is expensive to build, that means it takes much in the way of labor and/or resources. Money itself isn't really capital; it's a token of exchange used to purchase, and account for, real capital, which is labor and resources.

There isn't any question of windmills building themselves. The concept of self-replicating machines doesn't imply that suddenly ALL machines become self-replicating; only those designed to be that way, and a self-replicating machine that could also function as a windmill would be a heck of a lot more expensive to build than a plain old windmill. Self-replicating machines do remove labor from the cost equation, but increase resources, since energy must substitute for labor. There is no free lunch.

Self-replicating machines have been envisioned doing space exploration and development, not for terrestrial use, for reasons like this.

Wind/solar "fuels" are cheap: once you buy the land, you never run out of it. Fossil fuels are more expensive because after you have bought the land, the resource eventually runs out and you need to buy more land.

The cost of wind or solar is not just the land it's built on. It's also the construction, maintenance, and replacement cost for windmills and solar arrays. At present, it exceeds the cost of oil, although as oil becomes scarcer, that will eventually no longer be true.

Um, the sun rains down energy for free. Wind provides high value kinetic energy. Both are very abundant resources and hardly limiting.

There's a law of ecology that applies here, and has an economic counterpart. The law is that life is limited by the necessity in shortest supply. It doesn't matter how abundant other necessities may be; life cannot exceed what can be supported by the scarcest necessity, except temporarily and at a cost of future lower-level sustainability.

Economic production is also limited by the necessity in shortest supply. W/r/t the production of electricity from sunlight, it is safe to say that sunlight itself is not the limiting factor.

Resources aren't "earmarked". There are millions of low paid service workers who would love to have a manufacturing job making solar arrays. No "earmarked" labor here.

I should have clarified that I was speaking in terms of your idea of self-replicating machines providing a "free lunch" of solar power. But in any case, labor is only one of the resources required to produce those arrays. There is also energy, water, and certain raw materials. Those resources are earmarked for other purposes that are currently more profitable (or more immediately necessary).

Labor would only have to be expended to produce one self-replicating machine, but energy and construction materials would have to be expended continuously to power that machine as it produces copies of itself, and so in the end the cost would be no less than doing it with current technology.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

There isn't any question of windmills building themselves. The concept of self-replicating machines doesn't imply that suddenly ALL machines become self-replicating; only those designed to be that way, and a self-replicating machine that could also function as a windmill would be a heck of a lot more expensive to build than a plain old windmill. Self-replicating machines do remove labor from the cost equation, but increase resources, since energy must substitute for labor. There is no free lunch.

You didn't read the original claim. Rick argued that another race could send out self-replicating probes as a way to get around my argument that a race capable of actually going to other stars would have no interest in actually doing so. What Rick is talking about isn't what you are thinking of as self replicating machines. He is talking about a machine that lands on a plant and builds an elaborate infrastructure that can take raw materials and energy from all over the planet to construct other probes and launch them to other stars. It is quite a device.

A device with the properties that Rick proposed could be used to build solar cells or windmills or any sort of useful infrastructure (e.g. capital) instead of space probes, all by itself--without human intervention, that is, for free (as far as its human owners were concerned).

Here's how such a device could be used to solve the energy crisis. The devices would produce solar panels using the desert sand as a source of silicon, and atmospheric water vapor as a source of water. To reproduce itself it would need metals and plastics and such. Humans living near the desert would dump their trash at the edge of the desert where the devices are programed to get their food. They would obtain energy from the sun, structural materials from the garbage and export the surplus electricity to the people living outside the desert.

To optimize the growth of their solar array they would adjust the "nutritional" characteristics of the trash they supply. Like other kinds of organisms these devices would be able to use a variety of "substrates" (otherwise they could hardly colonize other planets). For example, they might be able to use paper, wood, plastic, tar or solvents as a carbon source and any metal as a conducting material. Glass can be sued as the raw material for their solar cells. Eventually they will fill up the whole desert and won't be able to grow any further. Their ability to process garbage would go way down as they would not need to eat much anymore and they would excrete scads of electricity.

This device amounts to a portable ecology. Any race advanced enough to do this would be living very much in harmony with their environment and has little interest in leaving. In effect, they would be Elves.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

There is also energy, water, and certain raw materials.

Sunlight provides all the energy needed for growth, by design to are to produce surplus energy. That is, they will occupy more space than need to obtain the eenrgy required for growth, resulting in an excreted surplus in the form of electricity. Very little water must be consumed, the rest is recycled, this is just part of the device. The limiting "raw material" is space. The desert has far more silicon and metals than space. The desert would fill up and the devices would stop replicating, having run out of space.

In my example I did specify filling up a desert with solar arrays. It is the space in this desert that is the limiting factor--by design. Solar arrays need a lot of space because sunlight is a dilute energy source.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by Andy '85

If an alien civilization were to encounter ours, I don't think the greeting phrase would always include something along the line of "We come in peace."

This is the romatic view of interstellar travel. What you are not considering is the sheer diffiiculty involved with just getting there. Consider that accelerating 10 tons of stuff to relativistic speeds (which is needed to get to stars because they are so far away) would take something like 400 Quads of energy. Global energy consumption was 379 quads in 1999.

Obviously the total energy output (wealth) of our civilization isn't sufficient to do much in the way of interstellar travel at this time. It should also be apparent that a necessary requirement for interstellar travel is great personal wealth, as defined by the ability to expend enormous amounts of energy per person. This is so simply because a great deal of energy per person is needed to get a person and his baggage to other stars. At present, the richest individuals may possess 0.05-0.1 quads worth of wealth. So they would need to be some 10000 times richer to begin to control the amount of energy needed for interstellar travel.

But as we get more and more advanced we will generate and use more and more energy, right? There is a catch. The 379 quads of energy used in 1999 comes to 0.043 quads per hour. The Earth currently radiates about 506 Quads per hour. At our current level of energy use we can easily radiate this extra energy away. If we increased our energy production a 1000-fold we would add 8.5% to the quantity of energy the Earth radiates, which would require a warming of the Earth by nearly 11 degrees F, which would be pretty devastating. Thus, there is a fundamental limit on the amount of energy transduction Earth inhabitants can carry out.

The only way for individuals to increase their power dramatically is for there to be fewer individuals.

Sometimes I don't know whether you're serious or not.

This 'limit' is in fact trivial. While it's true that the insolation/radiation balance is written in physical law, there's no reason to think that human society will be in any sense confined to Earth when we're ready to begin manned interstellar travel.

LIMITING ASSUMPTION: (This assumes our current understanding of physics is right, with the c-limit on velocity, and thus that there aren't easier ways we don't know about.)

Manned star flight is probably at least a century away, given my limiting assumption above. More likely it's further in the future. A society spread out across the Solar System could make use of energy budgets limited only by available supply and ability to convert the energy, since both the intake and use of energy would be outside Earth's environs. You could cover Mercury with solar panels, for ex, by means of replicating systems, or build city-sized arrays of nuclear reactors on the Moon, and have no effect whatever on Earth's environment.

By the time we're ready to attempt manned interstellar travel, we're almost surely not talking about a civilization on Earth, but something much larger, of which Earth would be one part. The total species-wide energy budget could be several orders of magnitude greater than the limit you note, while power use on Earth itself could be lower than today, for environmental reasons, if we wished to do things that way, and the economics of it worked.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Sunlight provides all the energy needed for growth, by design to are to produce surplus energy. That is, they will occupy more space than need to obtain the eenrgy required for growth, resulting in an excreted surplus in the form of electricity.

I seriously doubt this. For a machine to replicate itself would require a considerable amount of energy, which must therefore be diverted from other uses. It is true that Von Neumann probes would find plenty of resources to reproduce themselves, but the assumption is they are using a whole stellar system for the purpose, no other uses being in play to compete with the probes. That is not the case on Earth, where a biosphere must be supported.

A device with the properties that Rick proposed could be used to build solar cells or windmills or any sort of useful infrastructure (e.g. capital) instead of space probes, all by itself--without human intervention, that is, for free (as far as its human owners were concerned).

What I have been trying to get across here is that "without human intervention" and "for free" are not equivalent. You are treating cost as if it were a function solely of labor (borrowing from Marx, I suppose). That is the case if and only if resources are so much more plentiful than labor that they are effectively limited only by the labor available to extract them. That was pretty much the case for a while after the discovery of America, but it is not true any longer. Whatever energy and materials the machines used to build the solar arrays would be diverted from other potential uses, and that represents a cost.

In fact, machine labor uses resources to substitute for human labor. That is true even at the simplest of levels. A steam engine or diesel engine burns coal or oil instead of using human muscle. So robot-built solar arrays would actually be MORE expensive than human-built ones, not less, because they would use scarce resources instead of plentiful labor for construction.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

I seriously doubt this. For a machine to replicate itself would require a considerable amount of energy, which must therefore be diverted from other uses.

Plants manage to replicate themselves using solar energy while producing excess stored energy.

So robot-built solar arrays would actually be MORE expensive than human-built ones, not less, because they would use scarce resources instead of plentiful labor for construction.

What scarce resources? The physical inventory of matter does not change. Long before these robots run ot of materials for their construction, they will run out of space. Space is the limiting resource. And you are right, a desert filled with solar arrays cannot be used for other purposes. What purposes do you have in mind for this desert?

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

This 'limit' is in fact trivial. While it's true that the insolation/radiation balance is written in physical law, there's no reason to think that human society will be in any sense confined to Earth when we're ready to begin manned interstellar travel.

But man will be confined to Earth when we begin colonization of the solar system. (see below)

A society spread out across the Solar System could make use of energy budgets limited only by available supply and ability to convert the energy, since both the intake and use of energy would be outside Earth's environs. You could cover Mercury with solar panels, for ex, by means of replicating systems, or build city-sized arrays of nuclear reactors on the Moon, and have no effect whatever on Earth's environment.

Of course. But for what purpose would you build these generators on the Moon or Mercury? Who is going to build them? People from Earth, of course.

But Earthlings can never use the energy produced from them at home because of the energy budget. Thus, they can never obtain a return on their investment. So they aren't going to get built.

I am not arguing physics here. Unless you are proposing some coercive government project that will tax citizens of Earth to pay for energy-producing equipment on other planets that they can never use, it isn't going to happen. At least not until individuals become so rich that they can fund these developments as a hobby.

You are arguing technology, I am arguing economics and politics. Look, we could have built a 2001-like space station by 2001. It was technically possible. We could have gone to Mars by now and have a permanent Moon base. All these things I expected to see by this time when I was a kid.

It didn't happen. Not because we couldn't do it, but because we didn't want to. It's exactly the same thing with alternate energy. We could have gotten off gasoline by this point, but we didn't want to. There was no good reason to do so. If the Hubbert peak is correct, there will be a good reason to do so and then we will.

Space flight is about as old a technology as integrated circuits and biofuels. Yet integrated circuits have experienced a Moore's Law in their capability, while space flight is essentially unchanged and biofuels has advanced very slowly. IC's could make money with no preconditions, biofuels require expensive oil to make sense, and space flight doesn't make sense.

We will go into space because some people will want to as a hobby or for the thrill. So there will be a tourist industry. We won't cover Mercury with solar cells because there is no benefit from doing so. And I expect at some point a few probes might be sent to nearby stars as a tour de force.

But there won't be any colonization of space, because it simply isn't worth it, and the Fermi Paradox provides evidence that this is so.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

You are treating cost as if it were a function solely of labor (borrowing from Marx, I suppose). That is the case if and only if resources are so much more plentiful than labor that they are effectively limited only by the labor available to extract them.

What sort of definition of resource are you using? Resources are not static things. What constitutes a resource depends on the economic context, which is fluid. What is a resource today might not be tomorrow and things that are not considered to be a resource today might be tomorrow.

For example, oil can be manufactured from garbage. But we currently don't do this, instead we pump it out of the ground. Now it takes materials (natural resources) to recover oil from the ground and it takes natural resources to manufacture oil. It also takes human resources (technology and labor).

Do you think that making oil from garbage utilizes more natural (as opposed to human) resources than extracting oil from the ground?

Similarly do you believe that solar cells over their lifetime consume more natural resources than using the energy-equivalent amount of oil?

Do you think it is scarcity of natural resources that prevent us from using solar energy, or wind power or other alternatives to petroleum?

Do you think it is scarcity of natural resources that limits access to health care?

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

What sort of definition of resource are you using? Resources are not static things. What constitutes a resource depends on the economic context, which is fluid. What is a resource today might not be tomorrow and things that are not considered to be a resource today might be tomorrow.

This statement is often used to make the preposterous claim that resources are never scarce, always abundant, and essentially infinite. In effect, that is what you are doing. This is nonsense.

Do you think that making oil from garbage utilizes more natural (as opposed to human) resources than extracting oil from the ground?

Yes. Specifically, it uses more energy.

Similarly do you believe that solar cells over their lifetime consume more natural resources than using the energy-equivalent amount of oil?

Yes, at present, because it takes more energy to produce an equivalent of solar cells than it does to extract and process oil.

Do you think it is scarcity of natural resources that prevent us from using solar energy, or wind power or other alternatives to petroleum?

Yes, again, it is due to the energy profit factor.

Do you think it is scarcity of natural resources that limits access to health care?

If you are speaking of foreign countries where health care access' limits are sensible, yes. If you are speaking of the U.S., ultimately yes, but mostly it is due to greed.

You didn't answer my question about what you are defining as resources. You are simply dismissing it.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Do you think that making oil from garbage utilizes more natural (as opposed to human) resources than extracting oil from the ground?

Yes. Specifically, it uses more energy.

How so? I was thinking of the TDP process

Similarly do you believe that solar cells over their lifetime consume more natural resources than using the energy-equivalent amount of oil?

Yes, at present, because it takes more energy to produce an equivalent of solar cells than it does to extract and process oil.

I find this hard to believe. After it is produced a solar panel will produce electricity for many years. Do you have a link showing how this result was arrrived at?

Do you think it is scarcity of natural resources that prevent us from using solar energy, or wind power or other alternatives to petroleum?

Yes, again, it is due to the energy profit factor.

I don't understand what you mean here.

Do you think it is scarcity of natural resources that limits access to health care?

If you are speaking of foreign countries where health care access' limits are sensible, yes. If you are speaking of the U.S., ultimately yes, but mostly it is due to greed.

I don't understand this at all. What natural resources limit the abbility to provide medical care?

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

You didn't answer my question about what you are defining as resources. You are simply dismissing it.

A resource is a naturally-produced commodity used to satisfy a need. Needs include, without limitation, food, water, energy, shelter, clothing, living space, entertainment. Resources can be either renewable or non-renewable. Renewable resources are flow-limited; that is, there is a limit to how much of the resource can be used sustainably over a given time. Nonrenewable resources are stock-limited; that is, there is a limited amount of the resource available in total. Nonrenewable resources are also flow-limited but less strictly so than renewable resources because sustainability isn't an issue (they aren't sustainable anyway); rather, the flow limits are purely technical.

One resource can substitute for another but not with equivalent richness and utility. For example, coal can be used instead of oil to produce energy, but it does not produce as much per weight of fuel, nor as conveniently. There are also some resources, such as fresh water, that have no substitutes, and no resource is infinitely replaceable.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Do you think that making oil from garbage utilizes more natural (as opposed to human) resources than extracting oil from the ground?

Yes. Specifically, it uses more energy.

How so? I was thinking of the TDP process

So was I. Your calculations showed TDP had an EPR of 7 or 8 compared to petroleum's 10. I actually think your estimate was high as it did not include transportation costs, but even at best oil is a richer, better energy source (for the present).

Similarly do you believe that solar cells over their lifetime consume more natural resources than using the energy-equivalent amount of oil?

Yes, at present, because it takes more energy to produce an equivalent of solar cells than it does to extract and process oil.

I find this hard to believe. After it is produced a solar panel will produce electricity for many years. Do you have a link showing how this result was arrrived at?

I've done a Google search and will try to find one, but don't have the time this morning. The best info I can find is that PV has a potential EPR (with improvements not yet applied) of 10, i.e. as good as oil is now. That's very promising, but the implication is that it's not there yet.

I'm not putting solar down. I think it's a large part of where we need to go. But the reason it isn't competitive with oil economically is largely that it has a lower EPR and hence a higher cost.

Do you think it is scarcity of natural resources that prevent us from using solar energy, or wind power or other alternatives to petroleum?

Yes, again, it is due to the energy profit factor.

I don't understand what you mean here.

It is almost true that EPR determines cost, although not quite. But energy is such a cost-determining factor in our society that it comes close. There is no alternative to petroleum (at present) which can match the amount of energy it produces as a function of the amount of energy used to extract it. That will of course cease to be true as petroleum production declines, but, although this will make alternatives market-viable, it will also make our lives harder, unless we compensate by increasing efficiency.

I don't understand this at all. What natural resources limit the abbility to provide medical care?

Energy, mostly. Energy to build hospitals, manufacture and power medical equipment, manufacture pharmaceuticals. That at least is why medicine is so much more expensive today than it was 100 years ago; it can do a lot more, and most of the "more" that it can do is resource-intensive. Of course, doctors' time is also expensive, but that's nothing new.

In the U.S., energy really isn't the limiting factor, though, because again we have to look at the necessity in shortest supply, and here it is distribution efficiency and fairness, not energy. A lot more people could have medical care than do. That's why I had to insert the qualifier.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

So was I. Your calculations showed TDP had an EPR of 7 or 8 compared to petroleum's 10. I actually think your estimate was high as it did not include transportation costs, but even at best oil is a richer, better energy source (for the present).

But you are forgetting the depletion of the oil. If I own the mineral rights to land with oil underneath it, and you want to drill for the oil, you have to pay me. Your resource cost isn't just the energy you use to rcover the oil, its also the energy you pay me for the oil. So you have to consider the fraction of the oil you have to sell to pay me for the depletion of the oil, which lowers the EPR to a value considerably less than 10. This is a real cost, because when the oil runs out, my mineral rights are worthless.

Garbage has a negative depletion value in the sense that depleting it prevents resources (landfill space) from being consumed. When you factor in the resouce value for garbage for TDP its EPR rises above the 7-8 value.

Thus, the true EPR for TDP is considerably higher than it is for oil. If it wasn't there would be no interest in it.

Similarly do you believe that solar cells over their lifetime consume more natural resources than using the energy-equivalent amount of oil?

I've done a Google search and will try to find one, but don't have the time this morning. The best info I can find is that PV has a potential EPR (with improvements not yet applied) of 10, i.e. as good as oil is now. That's very promising, but the implication is that it's not there yet.

Once again, you are neglecting depletion. Solar energy has a far higher EPR than oil, this is why it is so appealing.

I'm not putting solar down. I think it's a large part of where we need to go. But the reason it isn't competitive with oil economically is largely that it has a lower EPR and hence a higher cost.

No, EPR is only one component of cost, and not necessarily the most important. The EPR for oil acconts for little of its cost, it's mostly depletion. Otherwise the market price would be $6-10 a barrel, instead of $40.

It is almost true that EPR determines cost, although not quite. But energy is such a cost-determining factor in our society that it comes close. There is no alternative to petroleum (at present) which can match the amount of energy it produces as a function of the amount of energy used to extract it. That will of course cease to be true as petroleum production declines, but, although this will make alternatives market-viable, it will also make our lives harder, unless we compensate by increasing efficiency.

Where did you learn this EPR accounting? It misses important factors.

Energy, mostly. Energy to ...manufacture pharmaceuticals. That at least is why medicine is so much more expensive today than it was 100 years ago; it can do a lot more, and most of the "more" that it can do is resource-intensive.

I work in pharmaceutical manufacturing process development. Energy is a trivial expense in pharmaceutical manufacture.

Originally Posted by Rick Hirst

> The question is usually associated with Enrico Fermi, according
> to this anecdote:

> > Scientific American wrote:
> >
> > On the way to lunch at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory one
> > day in 1950, Enrico Fermi and three other physicists--Emil
> > Konopinski, Edward Teller and Herbert York--chatted about
> > flying saucers. At lunch, when the talk had turned to other
> > matters, Fermi suddenly said, "Where is everybody?" His
> > companions realized that the talk of flying saucers had turned
> > his mind to the possibility that there is intelligent life
> > elsewhere in the universe and that he was asking why, if there
> > is, we have seen no sign of it. The question encapsulates what
> > is now known as the Fermi paradox.

> Fermi's question can be viewed as a simple logical statement: "If
> there are exploration-minded alien civilizations, then we should
> have a record of encountering them." Thus, one must either reject
> some of the premises, or agree with its conclusion.

This is an interesting topic and as I'm sure you know, Ray Kurzweil
has argued that there's only one reasonable answer to the Fermi
Paradox: That we're the most advanced civilization in the universe.
(See http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html and search for
"Why SETI Will Fail (and why we are alone in the Universe)" about
halfway down the page.)

His argument is, in essence: If there were some other civilization
more advanced then ours, then there must be many. If there are many,
then we would have noticed one of them through its transmissions. In
fact the SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence - see
http://www.seti-inst.edu/ for example) project has scanned a
significant portion of the skies and has failed to find any such
transmissions.

Therefore, he concludes, since if there were one there would have to
many, and if there were many we would find at least one, and since we
haven't found even one, then no others must exist.

I find his argument interesting, but not convincing, because we have
no way of knowing how advanced civilizations will act once the
Singularity has occurred (the time, estimated to be around 2030 on
earh, when computers will be more intelligent than humans). Once
computers are the dominant form of intelligence in any civilization,
maybe there's some compelling reason why any such civilization would
feel it desirable or necessary to "hide itself" in terms of
transmissions.

Still, someone has to be first, and it's an interesting speculation
that l'il ol' earth is the most advanced civilization in the
universe.

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> Please consider this: It took a billion years after Earth accreted
> for prokaryotes to evolve on Earth well enough to leave a fossil
> record. Then it took another billion for eukaryotes to show up.
> Then they languished in the ancient oceans for another billion
> years before they invented metazoans. I mean just getting to
> sponges and jellyfish is so improbably as to render Earth the only
> home in the universe for these primitive creatures, and they are a
> long long way from intelligence by any frog or human standard.
> That kind evolution took another billion years.

> What makes anyone believe that this kind of evolutionary careering
> is likely to happen anywhere else? Hope is the only cause I can
> think of, and hope is not scientific by any measure. Hope is the
> province of popular seduction, like religion; it feels good when
> the odds are bad.

There's a theorem in the mathematical Theory of Probability called
"The Law of Large Numbers." The popular statement of the theorem is
that if you put a dozen monkeys typing at random at a dozen
typewriters, then eventually one of them will type War and
Peace. In other words, any outcome with a positive probability,
no matter how tiny that probability is, will occur absolute certainty
(probability approaches 1) if given enough trials.

And by the same reasoning, if the outcome occurs once, then it will
keep occurring as long as the trials continue.

Now, the fact that intelligent life has evolved on earth proves that
the probability of intelligent life occurring is indeed positive.
Therefore, it follows that intelligent life MUST eventually occur on
other planets, with probability approaching 1.

Now, you've pointed out that it took a billion years to do X, and a
billion years to do Y, and that's fine. You might argue that
something is special about earth so that it took "only" a billion
years, and that anywhere else would take longer than a billion years,
but you can't argue that the development of intelligent life in other
places is only a hope. It must happen, sooner or later.

And the fact that it took 13 billion years after the big bang to
occur on earth is a pretty good argument that it should take around
the same 13 billion years, more or less, to occur in other places as
well.

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> Does anyone here think Buicks are inevitable, too, just because
> our universe is so vast and aged?

My study of technology growth has led me to believe that
technological developments must occur in approximately the same order
in any civilization.

Things have to come in a certain order, and as soon as they
can come, they will come. That is, as soon as all the
prerequisites for an invention are available, then the invention will
occur.

I say "approximately" because there is some variation. On earth, we
needed the transistor in order to invent space travel. On another
planet with a much lighter gravity, a little bit of space travel (but
not much) might have occurred without the transistor. But the
transistor is a basic requirement for space travel.

Does that mean that Buicks are inevitable, too? Well, maybe they
are.

In another thread we discussed the exponential growth of ground
transportation, and the different technologies that went into it.
Those technologies had to occur in a certain order. The Buick
represents a certain set of technological developments -- the
internal combustion engine powered by an oil derivative, running on
four wheels, with certain aerodynamic properties.

Ignoring cosmetic differences, could the Buick have been designed
any other way to be more efficient? Obviously not, for otherwise it
would have been so designed. Therefore, the Buick had to be
designed the way it was designed, and therefore it would have
to be designed the same way in other civilizations at equivalent
levels of development.

Therefore yes, the Buicks are inevitable too.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

> We really don't have sufficient information to evaluate the
> probability of life elsewhere, on any level. We don't even know
> how life works yet, at its most most basic levels, certainly not
> sufficiently to make any kind of guess as to how likely origin
> events are.

You may find it interesting that I have Christian fundamentalist
friends who believe that there's no reason why God should have
created life only on earth, and that therefore it stands to
reason that God created life on other planets as well. I've been
told that it's a conceit to believe that God created intelligent life
in only one place. As I recall, there are even Biblical quotes to
support that view (though it's been a while now and I can't remember
where they are).

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> I'm, curious if anyone expects feathers to evolve on other
> planets, just because they happened to show up here. Gould
> regarded consciousness, too, as an exaptation--a one-off trait of
> pure coincidence--rather than some kind of progressional
> adaptation, like legs perhaps. Please notice that bugs, bats, and
> flying fish have no feathers at all (if you catch my drift).

Yes, I would expect so. I assume that feathers provide the most
efficient form of flight, and therefore they would have to have
evolved sooner or later. In fact, I'm no expert on the details of
evolution, but I'd be willing to bet that feathers are a prerequisite
to other forms of life, including conscious life, because they
provide the mobility required to allow for diversified life.

If there's some equally efficient way to develop flight, then I would
not always expect feathers. But since I assume that feathers are the
most efficient way, I would expect to see feathers every time.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

> I will be absolutely flabbergasted if Gould or anyone else can
> even define consciousness in any objective way, let alone make
> valid speculations about it.

For what it's worth, after debating things like "consciousness" and
"self-awareness" in other threads, I've settled on the following
definition of both: An entity is conscious and self-aware if and only
if (1) it can set and achieve goals (possibly instinctively), and (2)
one of its principal goals is self-preservation. This definition
satisfies my own personal intuition, and it's also definite enough so
that I know how to implement it in computer software for intelligent
computers.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> Here's how such a device could be used to solve the energy crisis.
> The devices would produce solar panels using the desert sand as a
> source of silicon, and atmospheric water vapor as a source of
> water. To reproduce itself it would need metals and plastics and
> such. Humans living near the desert would dump their trash at the
> edge of the desert where the devices are programed to get their
> food. They would obtain energy from the sun, structural materials
> from the garbage and export the surplus electricity to the people
> living outside the desert.

This is an absolutely fascinating scenario. I really love it because
it points the way other kinds of scenarios, including devices that
gather energy from the ocean in the same way, or that provide for
life-sustaining environments on other planets. For example, a bunch
of such devices might fly to Mars, set up a living environment, after
which humans can follow.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> This is the romatic view of interstellar travel. What you are not
> considering is the sheer diffiiculty involved with just getting
> there. Consider that accelerating 10 tons of stuff to
> relativistic speeds (which is needed to get to stars because they
> are so far away) would take something like 400 Quads of energy.
> Global energy consumption was 379 quads in 1999
> (http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2003/05...ergybudget.cfm)
> ....

> But as we get more and more advanced we will generate and use more
> and more energy, right? There is a catch. The 379 quads of energy
> used in 1999 comes to 0.043 quads per hour. The Earth currently
> radiates about 506 Quads per hour. At our current level of energy
> use we can easily radiate this extra energy away. If we increased
> our energy production a 1000-fold we would add 8.5% to the
> quantity of energy the Earth radiates, which would require a
> warming of the Earth by nearly 11 degrees F, which would be pretty
> devastating. Thus, there is a fundamental limit on the amount of
> energy transduction Earth inhabitants can carry out.

Hmmmm. I wonder if there's a way to prevent that energy from being
radiated. If it's possible for the earth to enter an ice age every
few hundred thousand years, then maybe there's a way to simulate a
partial ice age -- e.g., have high-flying nanoparticles blocking 50%
of the sunlight over certain parts of the ocean, or something like
that.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> Space flight is about as old a technology as integrated circuits
> and biofuels. Yet integrated circuits have experienced a Moore's
> Law in their capability, while space flight is essentially
> unchanged and biofuels has advanced very slowly. IC's could make
> money with no preconditions, biofuels require expensive oil to
> make sense, and space flight doesn't make sense.

Surely we've advanced way beyond Sputnik. Space flight is following
its own exponential growth curve involving a whole collection of
technologies that go beyond biofuels. Just to give two examples:
there are new materials for space suits and for the hull of the space
station, and the shuttle tiles; and there are new computerized
steering systems that make the same amount of fuel go much longer.
When looked at as an entire system, space flight technology has had
many advancements.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

This 'limit' is in fact trivial. While it's true that the insolation/radiation balance is written in physical law, there's no reason to think that human society will be in any sense confined to Earth when we're ready to begin manned interstellar travel.

But man will be confined to Earth when we begin colonization of the solar system. (see below)

A society spread out across the Solar System could make use of energy budgets limited only by available supply and ability to convert the energy, since both the intake and use of energy would be outside Earth's environs. You could cover Mercury with solar panels, for ex, by means of replicating systems, or build city-sized arrays of nuclear reactors on the Moon, and have no effect whatever on Earth's environment.

Of course. But for what purpose would you build these generators on the Moon or Mercury? Who is going to build them? People from Earth, of course.

But Earthlings can never use the energy produced from them at home because of the energy budget. Thus, they can never obtain a return on their investment. So they aren't going to get built.

Get serious. They (or rather their future equivalent) will be built by people to get the energy for large-scale off-Earth projects. The energy won't be used on Earth directly. By your logic, the United States can't exist, since the economic benefits of its creation can't be channeled back to Europe.

You are arguing technology, I am arguing economics and politics.

Same thing, in the end.

I can't tell you exactly how these things will be done, because we have no idea what the shape of the future economy will be even 50 years from now, much less 100 or 200. But if the human race doesn't eventually expand outward, it will be an unprecedented shift of behavior. Even a very small group of expansionists would eventually, over time, produce a trans-Earth scale society (though it might take 1000 years).

Look, we could have built a 2001-like space station by 2001. It was technically possible. We could have gone to Mars by now and have a permanent Moon base. All these things I expected to see by this time when I was a kid.

It didn't happen. Not because we couldn't do it, but because we didn't want to.

No, because the time is not yet. Before we establish settlements, which establish exploratory bases. It was always somewhat naive to expect such things by 2001, even aside from the Generational issues (in my experience, many of those most fanatically, irratioanlly opposed to the idea of manned space flight tend to be Silents.)

That said, it should be noted that the orbital stations probably would have been built by now, if not for the Generational Cycle and the Silent displacing the G.I.s in the necessary positions. That's part of what transformed NASA from an effective (if clumsy) exploration and research agency into the nearly useless bureaucratic perpetual-motion machine it is today.

But the Cycle will not stop, and the interruption is not forever.

Space flight is about as old a technology as integrated circuits and biofuels. Yet integrated circuits have experienced a Moore's Law in their capability, while space flight is essentially unchanged and biofuels has advanced very slowly. IC's could make money with no preconditions, biofuels require expensive oil to make sense, and space flight doesn't make sense.

Actually, ICs are one of the reasons manned space stations dropped as priorities, since they permitted automation to take the place of people in many of the projected roles for such space stations. A good many of the things the stations were supposed to do have actually come to pass, in pure-machine form.

Which is a classic example of the pitfalls of prediction, and the law of unintended consequences.

But the automation trend is not without limit. In spite of the nearly hysterical protests by the Silent-dominated planetary sciences community that machines are better than men for exploration purposes, their limits have been harshly demonstrated of late in the Mars landers. It takes those machines months to achieve what a human geologist in a well-designed space suit could do in a day.

Dr. Robert Park is an especially vehement critic of manned space exploration. But to make his points, he has had to resort to argument by assertion and disingenuous analyses.

Economic arguments don't apply beyond the immediate future, since it's quite literally impossible to project what will and won't be profitable. If you want to argue that economics will prevent the large-scale expansion across the Solar System over the next, say, 25 years, I agree with you. Beyond that it's just guesswork.

NEVER trust economic projections to be accurate very far ahead, conditions change too quickly.

We will go into space because some people will want to as a hobby or for the thrill. So there will be a tourist industry. We won't cover Mercury with solar cells because there is no benefit from doing so.

Sorry, null argument. You can't say with any assurance whether there will or won't be such a benefit beyond the immediate future.

But there won't be any colonization of space, because it simply isn't worth it, and the Fermi Paradox provides evidence that this is so.

Sorry, again. Economic arguments are void that far ahead, and the Fermi Paradox provides evidence of nothing. The number of possibilities are so large (with 'no aliens exist near enough to matter' being a very large one) that it can be used to imply anything, and therefore implies nothing.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

This 'limit' is in fact trivial. While it's true that the insolation/radiation balance is written in physical law, there's no reason to think that human society will be in any sense confined to Earth when we're ready to begin manned interstellar travel.

But man will be confined to Earth when we begin colonization of the solar system. (see below)

A society spread out across the Solar System could make use of energy budgets limited only by available supply and ability to convert the energy, since both the intake and use of energy would be outside Earth's environs. You could cover Mercury with solar panels, for ex, by means of replicating systems, or build city-sized arrays of nuclear reactors on the Moon, and have no effect whatever on Earth's environment.

Of course. But for what purpose would you build these generators on the Moon or Mercury? Who is going to build them? People from Earth, of course.

But Earthlings can never use the energy produced from them at home because of the energy budget. Thus, they can never obtain a return on their investment. So they aren't going to get built.

Get serious. They (or rather their future equivalent) will be built by people to get the energy for large-scale off-Earth projects. The energy won't be used on Earth directly. By your logic, the United States can't exist, since the economic benefits of its creation can't be channeled back to Europe.

You are arguing technology, I am arguing economics and politics.

Same thing, in the end.

I can't tell you exactly how these things will be done, because we have no idea what the shape of the future economy will be even 50 years from now, much less 100 or 200. But if the human race doesn't eventually expand outward, it will be an unprecedented shift of behavior. Even a very small group of expansionists would eventually, over time, produce a trans-Earth scale society (though it might take 1000 years).

Look, we could have built a 2001-like space station by 2001. It was technically possible. We could have gone to Mars by now and have a permanent Moon base. All these things I expected to see by this time when I was a kid.

It didn't happen. Not because we couldn't do it, but because we didn't want to.

No, because the time is not yet. Before we establish settlements, which establish exploratory bases. It was always somewhat naive to expect such things by 2001, even aside from the Generational issues (in my experience, many of those most fanatically, irratioanlly opposed to the idea of manned space flight tend to be Silents.)

That said, it should be noted that the orbital stations probably would have been built by now, if not for the Generational Cycle and the Silent displacing the G.I.s in the necessary positions. That's part of what transformed NASA from an effective (if clumsy) exploration and research agency into the nearly useless bureaucratic perpetual-motion machine it is today.

But the Cycle will not stop, and the interruption is not forever.

Space flight is about as old a technology as integrated circuits and biofuels. Yet integrated circuits have experienced a Moore's Law in their capability, while space flight is essentially unchanged and biofuels has advanced very slowly. IC's could make money with no preconditions, biofuels require expensive oil to make sense, and space flight doesn't make sense.

Actually, ICs are one of the reasons manned space stations dropped as priorities, since they permitted automation to take the place of people in many of the projected roles for such space stations. A good many of the things the stations were supposed to do have actually come to pass, in pure-machine form.

Which is a classic example of the pitfalls of prediction, and the law of unintended consequences.

But the automation trend is not without limit. In spite of the nearly hysterical protests by the Silent-dominated planetary sciences community that machines are better than men for exploration purposes, their limits have been harshly demonstrated of late in the Mars landers. It takes those machines months to achieve what a human geologist in a well-designed space suit could do in a day.

Dr. Robert Park is an especially vehement critic of manned space exploration. But to make his points, he has had to resort to argument by assertion and disingenuous analyses.

Economic arguments don't apply beyond the immediate future, since it's quite literally impossible to project what will and won't be profitable. If you want to argue that economics will prevent the large-scale expansion across the Solar System over the next, say, 25 years, I agree with you. Beyond that it's just guesswork.

NEVER trust economic projections to be accurate very far ahead, conditions change too quickly.

We will go into space because some people will want to as a hobby or for the thrill. So there will be a tourist industry. We won't cover Mercury with solar cells because there is no benefit from doing so.

Sorry, null argument. You can't say with any assurance whether there will or won't be such a benefit beyond the immediate future.

But there won't be any colonization of space, because it simply isn't worth it, and the Fermi Paradox provides evidence that this is so.

Sorry, again. Economic arguments are void that far ahead, and the Fermi Paradox provides evidence of nothing. The number of possibilities are so large (with 'no aliens exist near enough to matter' being a very large one) that it can be used to imply anything, and therefore implies nothing.

Originally Posted by Croakmore

Yes we do have a HUGE disagreement here. First off, Gould is dead, as I'm sure you know, so he's out of touch for our immediate purposes. Sorry, though, but I can't dig out of my literature his alleged remarks on consciousness. I'll have to wing it, so to speak.

Don't you differentiate ordinary "consciousness" from the so-called human variety? I do. True, an elephant or a crow can be knocked "unconscious." But why should that mean either one is truly "conscious" in the human context?

Here's where I draw the line: If a living thing can reflect on itself in terms of its eventual mortality, and if it uses this reflection in any way to address that horrifying revelation, then I would call it "conscious" of the Big C variety. This is something only humans can do (human frogs notwithstanding). This special act requires a temporal projection so unique that it amounts to the very first "discovery of time" by any living organisms on this planet (or anywhere else, as I contend). I think grave goods hold the key to the essential definition. This is where humans stand alone. In my opinion, "fear of eventual and unavoidable death" and "fear of God Almighty" are the same thing. No animals (or plants) other than humans recognize that death is certain to happen to them eventually. And no animal other than humans takes measures to appease this terrorifying condition. That's where religion comes from--the fear factor.

You can argue that other animals have technologies, sometimes even spectacular ones like spider webs, avian gravity drops, and caddisfly contraptions, but those do not impart the Big C. Chimps make tools, too, but they don't make Bibles.

Honoring the dead is unique and necessary if you know that someday you will be dead, too. Elephants may have burial grounds, and they may even cry over their dead, but they haven't a clue about what awaits them in the end. Otherwise, they would place flowers and trinkets at their grave sites. Show me one other species that does that, Brian, and I'll come over to your side of the argument.

--Croaker

I like your definition of the Big C. And I'll bet the first glimmers of mental temporalization occurred a lot earlier than anthropologists think, too.

If I had Bill Gates's money, one project I'd love to underwrite is to teach sign language to a whole load of chimps and gorillas and expose them as much as possible to the concept of death (humanely) and see what their "thoughts" are on the subject.

I have also thought about the issue of "coming into time" as being a watershed in human devlopement. In my own private little kosmology it is at that point that a distinct "mind" comes into existence as a stable vessel/replicator/transmitting-station for memes just as cells had done for genes billions of years earlier.

Originally Posted by Croakmore

Yes we do have a HUGE disagreement here. First off, Gould is dead, as I'm sure you know, so he's out of touch for our immediate purposes. Sorry, though, but I can't dig out of my literature his alleged remarks on consciousness. I'll have to wing it, so to speak.

Don't you differentiate ordinary "consciousness" from the so-called human variety? I do. True, an elephant or a crow can be knocked "unconscious." But why should that mean either one is truly "conscious" in the human context?

Here's where I draw the line: If a living thing can reflect on itself in terms of its eventual mortality, and if it uses this reflection in any way to address that horrifying revelation, then I would call it "conscious" of the Big C variety. This is something only humans can do (human frogs notwithstanding). This special act requires a temporal projection so unique that it amounts to the very first "discovery of time" by any living organisms on this planet (or anywhere else, as I contend). I think grave goods hold the key to the essential definition. This is where humans stand alone. In my opinion, "fear of eventual and unavoidable death" and "fear of God Almighty" are the same thing. No animals (or plants) other than humans recognize that death is certain to happen to them eventually. And no animal other than humans takes measures to appease this terrorifying condition. That's where religion comes from--the fear factor.

You can argue that other animals have technologies, sometimes even spectacular ones like spider webs, avian gravity drops, and caddisfly contraptions, but those do not impart the Big C. Chimps make tools, too, but they don't make Bibles.

Honoring the dead is unique and necessary if you know that someday you will be dead, too. Elephants may have burial grounds, and they may even cry over their dead, but they haven't a clue about what awaits them in the end. Otherwise, they would place flowers and trinkets at their grave sites. Show me one other species that does that, Brian, and I'll come over to your side of the argument.

--Croaker

I like your definition of the Big C. And I'll bet the first glimmers of mental temporalization occurred a lot earlier than anthropologists think, too.

If I had Bill Gates's money, one project I'd love to underwrite is to teach sign language to a whole load of chimps and gorillas and expose them as much as possible to the concept of death (humanely) and see what their "thoughts" are on the subject.

I have also thought about the issue of "coming into time" as being a watershed in human devlopement. In my own private little kosmology it is at that point that a distinct "mind" comes into existence as a stable vessel/replicator/transmitting-station for memes just as cells had done for genes billions of years earlier.

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

If I had Bill Gates's money, one project I'd love to underwrite is to teach sign language to a whole load of chimps and gorillas and expose them as much as possible to the concept of death (humanely) and see what their "thoughts" are on the subject.

How workable would that be? I'm far from up to speed on the developments in animal communication, but IIRC the famous sign-language experiments produced controversial results.

The famous intelligent-seeming 'Koko' responses, for ex, has been claimed by some researchers to be deriving more from the human 'interpreting' her signs than from the primate herself. ISTR one critic posting the actual sign-language signs, and then matching them to what her trainers said she meant, and there was a big gap.

But as I said, I'm not seriously informed about that matter.

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

If I had Bill Gates's money, one project I'd love to underwrite is to teach sign language to a whole load of chimps and gorillas and expose them as much as possible to the concept of death (humanely) and see what their "thoughts" are on the subject.

How workable would that be? I'm far from up to speed on the developments in animal communication, but IIRC the famous sign-language experiments produced controversial results.

The famous intelligent-seeming 'Koko' responses, for ex, has been claimed by some researchers to be deriving more from the human 'interpreting' her signs than from the primate herself. ISTR one critic posting the actual sign-language signs, and then matching them to what her trainers said she meant, and there was a big gap.

But as I said, I'm not seriously informed about that matter.