In news:1143103111.598482.176560@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com,
ianparker2@gmail.com <ianparker2@gmail.com> typed:

The reason they never left robots to maintain the pyramids or if
they did they have long since rusted away to dust is the fact you
can't maintain technology without people, and technology as we know
it is still reliant on human infrastructure and is in our World a
result of a Capitalist Feudal system, and the whole tower of Babel
is reliant on every other part, and we still have people living in
the stone age, we have to have some people living in the stone age,
because they create the resources for the next stage of development
in the system and so on.

Look, the whole Von Neumann concept is that machines replicate
according to a genetic template. They can also repair again according
to that template. Biuological organisms have DNA, VN machines have
information stored on some medium or other. A VN genome is protected
using Reed Soloman, or other error correcting code. That is the basic
concept. This last contribution of yours seems to hint at Intelligent
Design. If what you say is correct- personally I think it is arrant
nonsense, it would imply that life is "irreducibly complex". If life
it NOT "irreducibly complex" maintaining a pyramid/sphinx in sunny
Egypt where energy is readily available is a totally manageable task.
If you can't do it you should not be thinking about interstellar
travel. An interstellar journey depends on Reed Soloman, it depends
on constant renewal of the spacecraft against radiation and other
damage in a long time frame. Removed from the vicinity of stars you
need a nuclear/antimatter process of some sort thoughout your
journey. Indeed spacecraft destined for thye inner solar system use
solar energy, those destined for the outer use a Pu240 isotope
generator. There is plenty of Silicon and Aluminium in the sands of
Giza as there is on the Moon.

I have portrayed the VN machine as an inevitable result of
understanding CAD/CAM and basic Engineering Physics. Everthing these
days is on a CAD system of some sort, even cloths. If we understand
CAD/CAM we can perform the full range of human manual functions.
Intellectual functions, including working with ProEngineer and AutoCad
is another matter.

I will end by looking at how the Pyramids (and Easter Island) were in
fact built. I am a regular viewer of "The Time Team". They were built
with simple chipping tools. It took them a long time to do it, but
stone thipping, and dragging by teams of people will do it. A
cautionary tale. The inhabitants of Easter Island used up all their
forests, and could not afford to continue statue building. Society
disintegrated.

There is one point that can be made about "The Time Team". A VN
machine on Earth would simply represent the extension of automation
technology. It would mean that places like Thailand no longer enjoyed
a cost advantage over the US and EU as the manufacturing labor cost
shrank to zero. In space the TT is relevant in that their simulation
could help to reduce VN seed mass. You don't need a high level of
technological sophistication for electrcity, you do need the
knowledge of how to do it. We ought in fact to be looking at how chip
making and chip making machines can be produced from first principles.

Well I was going to say that in some ways I couldn't see the point in robots
when genetic engineering might be a more effective way of creating a self
sustaining slave race. OTOH though machines certainly have their uses they
can go places biological entities can't and perform mindlessly repetitive
tasks without complaint and it is possible to control how much free will a
machine has and if it misbehaves you can simply switch off it's power,
without permanently killing it, they are so turn-off-an'-onable ;)

However one major vulnerability machines have at present particularly in
space is the fact that micro circuitry is very susceptible to radiation
contamination. which means the computers NASA can send have to be specially
adapted to cope with the levels of electronic interference caused by
radiation emitted from the sun. This means the sort of chips they can send
into space are no where near the sort of power available in consumer
electronics on Earth.

This would seem to be a major problem with the concept of VN machines at
least at present, micro circuitry is particularly susceptible to radiation
contamination and there is no way around that at present using electronics
which doesn't involve making it bigger and heavier. e.g adding extra
circuitry to cope with errors, or adding insulation such as lead.

However it's debatable whether electronic circuitry is the way to go,
obviously with genetic engineering one could create cyborgs and possible
biological computing systems. But the easiest way to create sustainable
technology would be through genetic engineering IOW create a hybrid race
that are especially suited to space travel.

Of course it appears that may already have been done and it may be what the
grey aliens are, which considering they have been seen by millions of people
most of whom describe their appearance in a similar way would seem to
indicate that they actually exist and of course the fact they appear to
remove genetic material from people and indeed farm animals and have been
doing this a long time before human beings had any understanding of the
possible reasons behind this activity i.e genetic engineering and cloning of
their own kind would seem to indicate there is some truth in these
sightings.

As an aside the main problem I find with the whole Intelligent Design v
Evolution arguement/debate and the whole polarisation of views surrounding
these issues is a truely intelligent God would let evolution take care of
creation, which pretty much blows both idea's out the water LOL ;)

-- 
Amanda