Re:Could Earth be the only planet with intelligent life?
by pixl97 on Saturday October 07, 2023 @02:41PM
(#37804364)
>out hundreds of Von Neumann probes
This is not how VN probes work....
VN probes work more like the lily pad riddle that humans commonly fail to understand.
>In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?
The answer of course is the answer 47 to the riddle. With VN probes the answer would be "who the hell knows" at this point. Maybe interstellar space is a whole lot more dangerous than we expect and sending out countless self replicating probes isn't possible. Maybe the intelligent aliens out there are a whole lot smarter than us, and the idea of sending out probes that you effectively lose control of is recognized as a bad idea. Or, maybe there is no one else is out there. Hard to figure out with a sample size of one.
This is not how VN probes work....
VN probes work more like the lily pad riddle that humans commonly fail to understand.
>In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?
The answer of course is the answer 47 to the riddle. With VN probes the answer would be "who the hell knows" at this point. Maybe interstellar space is a whole lot more dangerous than we expect and sending out countless self replicating probes isn't possible. Maybe the intelligent aliens out there are a whole lot smarter than us, and the idea of sending out probes that you effectively lose control of is recognized as a bad idea. Or, maybe there is no one else is out there. Hard to figure out with a sample size of one.