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Originally Posted by MageB420666
That is assuming that humans are the only intelligent life in the universe, which I extremely doubt. And we are still a long way from even making it to Mars, much less spreading throughout our own galaxy, and even doing that would be a piece of cake compared to spreading to other galaxies. I believe a close comparison of the difference in diffuculty would be roughly the same, as jumping two feet forward, compared to, say, jumping straight up and landing on a planet at the opposite end of our galaxy in about 2 hours.
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Agreed. Which is why I value the terrestial life support system a whole hell of alot. But I don't mainly value it in and of itself, I value it because it is really really damn useful.
And yes, going between galaxies looks hard. Something to work on, in the medium term. =)
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And your also assuming that intellegence is somehow "special",
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No, I am not. I am valueing intelligence. I am not assuming it is special or it has a moral superiority or anything else.
I just have chosen to value intelligence. Thought. Creativity. Hell, morals themselves are a byproduct. I think these are neat things and I want to see them spread, for reasons that don't matter.
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I doubt that our so called "intelligence" will have any impact on the universe at large, nor would any other single species, the universe is just too big.
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I see you don't truely understand the concept of 'exponential growth'.
The visible universe is less than 20 billion light years in radius.
That is less than 4*10^26 meters.
If you start with a 1 m long stick, and have it double in length every month, the meter stick would stretch accross the entire universe in less than 8 years.
If you started with a 1 m cube, and had it double in volume every month, it would take 22 years to exceed the volume of the visible universe.
Now this is ridiculous, really. The speed of light gets in the way.
However, for a truely exponential process, the barrier slowing it down is, in the end, the speed of light. An exponential civilization is a relatavistic phenomina.
Exponentially growing phenomina are not all that common in physics. I can't think of one that operates even on a planitary scale, other than life.
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We will eventually die out, just like all the other life forms on earth and, eventually, no one will ever have any idea that we ever existed.
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That is the most likely result, I agree.
Unlike the whale, there is a small chance that we, in and of ourselves, can beat the odds.
It is a small chance. And quite possibly that which beats the odds won't be recognizably human, or even organic. But it is an interesting chance!
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Because even if we do find or are found by other intelligent life, those species will die out eventually also and all memory of us shall be forgotten. Kinda depressing, isn't it?
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That is your belief.
"Where is Everybody?" Enrico Fermi. A question that nobody has provided a final answer to yet -- why is the universe so quiet?
Quantum Immortality
There isn't proof, but there is the possiblity that
A> you will never die
and
B> the human race will be the first interstellar civilization
If that doesn't make the universe seem more interesting...
Like I have said, these things aren't certain. They are even unlikely. But they are interesting, and possible. Some would even say reasonable, but I personally wouldn't go that far.
Intelligence can be viewed as a particularly 'interesting' form of information processing. And it is a form that, quite possibly, can be carried by many mediums, and spread exponentially. And, quite possibly, Earth could be the only local source of this self-replicating thingy.
In the end, of course, this is all just an arbitrary castle of arbitrary possibilities. One could live a satisfactory life, with the goal of protecting trees from devastation, or eating as many hot dogs as you could.
But, it is an interesting one.