On Fri 10/22/10 15:07, William Mook wrote:

On Oct 5, 3:41 pm, Cardinal Chunder
<c...@foo.no.spam.xyzabcfghllaa.com>  wrote:

On 20/09/2010 6:39, William Mook wrote:

Some believe the legend of aliens is a cover story to hide the fact
that the USA in the 1950s and 60s developed cybernetic organisms -

Some people are stupid then.

Not really.  If given a choice between aliens and cybernetic humans,
cybernetic humans are a better bet.

If given the choice between aliens and cybernetic humans? Who is proposing such a choice and what is the basis for such a choice?

That's because cybernetic humans are vastly more likely than aliens if
you believe Drake's equation and the 3.0 billion year record of life
on Earth.

Drakes equation seems to be mathematically sound. However, the choice of values for the variables is pure speculation. By speculation, I mean wild ass guesswork. The results of calculations based on guesswork have no value in reality.

Consider that single-celled life arose only 1.5 billion years after
Earth formed, nearly the same time the surface cooled and water
accumulated.  Then, it another 1.5 billion years for multicelled life
arose on Earth in the wake of the development of photosynthesis which
created a crisis with oxygen.  Oxygen was a poisonous gas to the
anerobes that dominated the Earth 1.5 billion years ago.  So, life
joined into a collection of cells that created a skin that excluded
oxygen from within.  Then, very rapid development of organisms upon a
changing pattern of body forms.  Then, it took another 1.5 billion
years for big brains to occur.

This all suggests that life is easy, bodies are hard for life to do
and brains are hard for bodies to do.  So, we're at the end of two
hard to do processes.  The Anthropic Principle says it doesn't matter
how hard or unusual the process, if we're here to comment on it, it
had to happen.

The Anthropic Principle is a tautology. If there are living observers of the universe, the universe must be compatible with the observers. The statement cannot be disproved but it adds nothing to our knowledge of the universe.

The point of all this is that brains are doubly hard.

Now, add in technology.   Technology arose in 2 million years of big
brains.  This says technology is easy for creatures with brains.  But,
technology creates another crisis - something on part with the oxygen
crisis caused by photosynthesis.

Some have suggested that cybernetics is the natural consequence of
technology - and the next step in evolution.  We are an intermediary
form, not a final form.

The point is, the life span of a civilization may be very short - and
end up either in death of life on the world it arises on in very short
order - or spawn a stable answer that addresses the issue long term.

The point is, the Earth might have been lucky.  It may not be lucky
with this crisis.  If it is, it may spawn a change in living
conditions as radical as the change from a carbon dominated world with
anerobic mats and an oxygen dominated world filled with plants and
animals.

Our knowledge of life in the universe is limited to that found on our planet. The probability of life on earth is 1. Attributing the fact that we exist to luck adds no value to our knowledge.

Applying this to what we know about the cosmos says that life like us,
intelligent technical animals piloting starships, might be common in
the cosmos, but rare on the scale of galaxies.  There are a lot of
lifeless rocks.  Fewer living worlds.  Fewer still with animals.
Fewer still animals with brains.  Fewer still post animals with brains
spawning some stable situation after.  Those other systems would find
about as much interest in us as we have in bread mold.  The
intelligent technical animals with spaceships and all transitional
forms, are least likely of all.  Those like us are likely number fewer
than 10,000 in a cosmos filled with 1 trillion galaxies.

"(L)ife like us, intelligent technical animals piloting starships ..."

Characterizing man's piloted spacecraft as 'starships' is a bit silly.

Calculating the "likely number" of those "like us" is not possible at our present level of knowledge.

The Drake Equation estimates the number of technical species.  The
best way to think about it is to first think about a light bulb
factory.  The number of bulbs is equal to the rate of light bulb
production times the life of a bulb.

     N = R x L

So, if 1,000 light bulbs per hour is produced and they each have a
lifespan of 3,000 hours - 3 million bulbs are in the world.

Now, consider how to compute the number of red bulbs versus white
bulbs.  Lets say the some fraction is red (fr)  say 1/4 -

Let's say it's some other fraction. The math will work just the same but the result will be different. If we're just guessing at where to set the ratio, the result is nothing but guesswork.

     N = R x f x L

So, with f=1/4, R = 1,000/hr, L = 3,000 hr then Nr = 750,000

The same calculation can be made for ETI.

     N = R* x fp x fl x fb x fi x ft x L

Here fp=fraction of stars with planets
          fl = fraction of planets with life, easy
          fb = fraction of life with bodies, hard
          fi = fraction of brains with intelligence, hard
          ft = fraction of intelligence with technology, easy
          L = lifetime of technology, 500 years

R* in a galaxy is bout 20 per year.  fp=1, fl=.1, fb=.000001, fi=.
000001, ft=.1, L=500

    20 x 0.1 x 0.1 x 0.000001 x 0.000001 x 0.1 x 500 = 1 in 10 trillion
stars

about 10,000 species across the cosmos.

The cosmos may be filled with cybernetic life and rotten with dead
worlds - but life like us is very precious - life like us living for
more than 500 years - more unlikely still.

Or the universe may have life on only one planet. Or on tens of thousands of planets in each galaxy. Or any other number in whatever area of space you choose.

The results of the Drake equation will remain invalid until we can base the values chosen for its variables on something other than guesswork.