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Originally Posted by Yakk
All we need is the ability to make a ship capable of surviving in vacuum for a few centuries. Pushing it isn't that hard. And if we really needed help braking, send 5 or 50 ships, 4 or 49 of which fire lazers back and help the first ship slow down.
A society capable of both controling the energy required for interstellar travel, which doesn't destroy itself through use of such levels of energy, is another problem.
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That's my whole point.
I contend that FTL travel, or even pseudo-FTL travel, is not realistic. Your suggestion, shared by the vast majority of serious commentators and theorists, that sub-lightspeed travel is workable, is much more reasonable. Indeed, we
know it's conceptually possible.
However, theoretically possible and actually possible to implement are two different things.
Just because something is possible within the laws of physics, does not mean it can be done. This seems to be a subtle difference a lot of people here are ignoring.
One would assume that if interstellar travel was possible (or "implementable" if you prefer), then we would have been visited by now.
It's just as easy to hypothesize that civilizations destroy themselves (or are destroyed) before they reach the technological level required for sub-lightspeed interstellar travel.
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*nod*, that is tricky. So, if you can't support life, don't send life.
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Well, that's my point. I said I could envisage interstellar probes. At least, some far time into the future. But not interstellar colony ships. As Hobes said, humans are "nasty, brutish and short", and we're doomed to extinction on this rock. I don't think we'll even last the 5-6 billion years before it's swallowed by the sun.
I'm also sceptical of the possibility of true artificial intelligence. Then there's the whole concept of embuing replicants of
human intelligence in said machines. Two huge leaps that are even further away than interstellar travel itself. We don't even know what consciousness is, how it is defined, how it is created or develops... how can we even
begin to think about creating it by design.
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Alpha-C is only 160 times further away than Pluto. We can send probes to Pluto without mechanical breakdown.
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I shall have to check this. I'm surprised if that's the figure.
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My biggest objection to them is all forms of FTL-travel seem to give you time travel and causality violation. It doesn't matter if you take shortcuts -- if you take 2 trips involving 2 shortcuts, you can arrive before you leave.
You have to invent physics to avoid causality violations (either reality-splitting or some kind of background reference frame that only applies to FTL travel).
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Then you and I agree on this.
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Oh, and you can also rely on the weak anthropomophic principle. If intellgence beating you to a planet makes it basically impossible for intelligence to evolve and develop, it shouldn't be surprising that as a developing intelligence we don't see other intelligences around. In other words, someone had to be first -- and if the first guy prevents the later guys, then everyone is first.
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I'm not a fan of the anthropomorphic principle. It seems to be a trite cyclical and self-sustaining argument.
It's kinda like saying that Australia exists, and was created for my existence, because I exist in it. Bah...
Mr Mephisto