Do you believe we are alone in the universe?

The universe is far, far, far too big and ancient a place to reasonably rule out life elsewhere. Even if the galaxy is currently lacking intelligent life other than our own (and I'm not convinced it is - our expectations of what intelligent life should be doing with itself is, obviously, prejudiced toward our own ideals), I don't think it was nor will be. I'm also much more optimistic about FTL.

 

[Stormbow]

I'm in a weird place on this subject.

I don't believe in Heaven or Hell at all, but I believe in spirits, ghosts, and the like because I've had experiences that I attribute to them— whether or not they have someplace to live seems irrelevant and unprovable to me. (I have tons of ghost stories.)

And then I do believe in the possibility of aliens— even though I've never truly had an experience I could attribute to them —because it seems preposterous to me that aliens would not exist. (There was that time in the California desert, but I could not verify an actual alien experience there...)

 

[Morrus]

Why is replication even necessary. The race could just make a bunch of probes that go from system to system to system.

The replication is what makes it spread like a virus, making the coverage get exponentially faster. Like that doubling the grains of rice on a chessboard thing — but even more so, because each makes a few dozen copies rather than just one.

 

[Maxperson]

The replication is what makes it spread like a virus, making the coverage get exponentially faster. Like that doubling the grains of rice on a chessboard thing — but even more so, because each makes a few dozen copies rather than just one.

Oh, I understand that. However, if you're a race that is that advanced, aging if it was ever a problem to begin with, has probably been conquered. If imperfect replication is going to be an issue, slow it down a bit. Time is on your side.

 

[Umbran]

Oh, I understand that. However, if you're a race that is that advanced, aging if it was ever a problem to begin with, has probably been conquered. If imperfect replication is going to be an issue, slow it down a bit. Time is on your side.

No, it isn't. Remember that even if the aliens are immortal, the stars aren't! There are at least 100 billion stars in the Milky Way (possibly up to 400 billion). And the lifespan of a star like the Sun is about 10 billion years.

Let us say that you only want to visit 10% of the stars in the galaxy - that's 10 to 40 billion stars. Even if you visit one every single year, most of the stars will burn out long before you can reach them! Oh, and in only 4 billion years, the Milky Way is going to collide with Andromeda, and what do you figure that's going to do with your 10-billion-year exploration plan?

 

[Umbran]

If we use your roleplaying game analogy then how can we fight the BBEG when it was not even part of our unified plan for completing the campaign. And how can our party even act without considering all the possible permutations that might happen; without consulting with everyone else first to make sure that we have a consensus?

Um, like you are supposed to do with a campaign, you *gasp* talk about it!

You speak as if collaboration among spacefaring nations is somehow new. We've been doing it for decades.

... the whole process is going to take a while.

Yes, it is. However, the return on the investment is... *AN ENTIRE FRIGGIN' PLANET*. Let us not pretend this investment wouldn't have a payoff.

Overall, such a project will likely take centuries before someone could walk on the surface of Mars without protection. But if you are thoughtful about it, there are milestones, points along the way - when you need to worry less about abrasive dust, when you have to worry less about explosive loss of pressure, when you can grow crops with less protection, and so on - where you get a return on your work.

This is all why unplanned random action toward the end won't work. Yes, this is all larger than anything humanity has tried before. So has been each and every development in space... *ever*.

So there is a USA section, a Soviet section and a European section that were all built off the same plans, the same 'unified' plan? No of course not. There is no such unified plan.

As if everything is All-Or-Nothing?

Those modules join together, you know. They share systems - power, air, environmental sensors, computers, and so forth. There were only two ways to get them up there - in a Space SHuttle cargo bay, or on the top of a Russian rocket. You couldn't have a nation build a module, just hope it fits in the Shuttle payload bay, and then figure out how to connect them together once it is up there! Even if the nation has a significant amount of design freedom within a given module, you can bet your gold fillings that those designs were vetted by others to make entirely sure everything was up to snuff.

Simply put - the ISS cost on the order of $150 billion to build. And you think they didn't plan the frak out of each bit? Really? They just made it up as they went along, that's what you think?

 

[Umbran]

The main problem with this idea is that there would be a single point of failure that would ruin everything.

It doesn't have to be. As I already noted, on Earth, on the surface, with the protection of Earths' atmosphere and magnetic field, and the Sun's magnetic field, we still see one error per 256 MB of memory per month due to cosmic rays. My work laptop, then, experiences nearly 770 such errors in a year.

Now, imagine the data storage such a machine needs. Traveling at 0.1c, it will take that machine ~40 years to reach the nearest star. How many errors do we expect? If it were just ten of my laptop, it'd be on the order of 10,000 errors. We are talking about needing at least a couple orders of magnitude more for this machine, yeah? So... millions or tens of millions of errors? We are no longer talking about having a single point of failure, we are talking about having an accumulated burden of errors. How many of these can the thing tolerate before it stops working, or works oddly, in some way?

To be honest for someone smart enough to create such a machine it seems odd to think that they would send one. Even Christopher Columbus did not discover America by sailing in one ship so why would we expect an even more advanced species to make such a stupid decision?

Um... that's why they are self-replicating. You send out one, or a handful, and they reproduce. But, that's the point - if you have a living creature that reproduces, over tens and hundreds of thousands of years, you get changes! Species are not stable on million-year timescales. Consider that the species we think of as modern humans is not 500,000 years old - we have gone from stone knives and bearskins to the Space Shuttle in that time. You figure the species that is these machines will go blithely along following its original directives for a million?

 

[Ryujin]

you want V'ger? 'Cause that's how you get V'ger.

 

[Shasarak]

It doesn't have to be. As I already noted, on Earth, on the surface, with the protection of Earths' atmosphere and magnetic field, and the Sun's magnetic field, we still see one error per 256 MB of memory per month due to cosmic rays. My work laptop, then, experiences nearly 770 such errors in a year.

Now, imagine the data storage such a machine needs. Traveling at 0.1c, it will take that machine ~40 years to reach the nearest star. How many errors do we expect? If it were just ten of my laptop, it'd be on the order of 10,000 errors. We are talking about needing at least a couple orders of magnitude more for this machine, yeah? So... millions or tens of millions of errors? We are no longer talking about having a single point of failure, we are talking about having an accumulated burden of errors. How many of these can the thing tolerate before it stops working, or works oddly, in some way?

Um... that's why they are self-replicating. You send out one, or a handful, and they reproduce. But, that's the point - if you have a living creature that reproduces, over tens and hundreds of thousands of years, you get changes! Species are not stable on million-year timescales. Consider that the species we think of as modern humans is not 500,000 years old - we have gone from stone knives and bearskins to the Space Shuttle in that time. You figure the species that is these machines will go blithely along following its original directives for a million?

If you are worried about data corruption then you could try including a physical blueprint with every copy of the self replicating machine. That way every machine is built off the same plan which means that you dont have to worry about them evolving into some kind of new creature spontaneously halfway through the exploration cycle or changing their directives because they got bored.

Because, to be completely honest, your arguments of evolutionary drift are not very convincing given that a) there are already creatures on Earth that have existed for millions of years and b) we are talking about machines built from a set of plans rather then an assortment of chemicals growing in solution.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Why is replication even necessary. The race could just make a bunch of probes that go from system to system to system. A race that advanced can shield the probes sufficiently and collisions and cosmic radiation won't be an issue.

To put a different spin on things than those who have replied before me...

Even if you assume the building of a single probe, it is still going to need the functional equivalen of perfect replication to perform explorations over millions of years just to keep itself functioning. Never mind unexpected collisions or cosmic events- parts wear out and need replacing, even when operating entirely within design parameters. Materials deteriorate.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If you are worried about data corruption then you could try including a physical blueprint with every copy of the self replicating machine.

We already do this with current technology for assembly-line robots, and STILL errors creep in over time. Software errors happen (either due to coding errors or what radiation does to computer systems); manufacturing dies erode and fall ouside of QC tolerances; moving parts degrade; material fatigue destroys parts.

Because, to be completely honest, your arguments of evolutionary drift are not very convincing given that a) there are already creatures on Earth that have existed for millions of years and b) we are talking about machines built from a set of plans rather then an assortment of chemicals growing in solution.

I would be supremely suprised if any biologist asserted that there is a terrestrial species that has remained unchanged at the genetic level for a million years.