Greg Egans Diaspora and the Fermi Paradox.
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   Gamma Ray bursts (caused by colliding neutron stars
or some other mechanism) is not something the human
species wants to witness close-up.
   It has been speculated that the burst could be started, when kinetic
energy is converted
into an intense flash of neutrinos, faintly tinged with gamma rays,
before the neutron stars merge to form a black hole. Even a distance of
a hundred light years would be uncomfortably close for organic life.
   And if thats not bad enough, Egan is the man to frigthen us with
even worse disasters, lurking out there in the night sky.

   Egans invention is the "core blast". Here the core
of the Milky Way collapses and starts to create new space-time.
Unfortunately not entirely orthogonal to our universe,
but intruding into our world. With extreme temperatures as
a consequence. Temperatures that breaks up nuclei within a radius
of fifty thousand light years.

   We would expect smart species to flee an upcoming
Gamma Ray burst and move to safer regions of the Galaxy.
And likewise for core blasts and similiar contingencies.
Except that means leaving the Galaxy behind and turning
it over to the poor, soon to be toasted, ignorant species.
   Which BTW exlains the Fermi Paradox. Smart species don't
want to be toast - so they left the Galaxy :-)
   Not even stopping to set up a radio beacon broadcasting
a "tough luck" to the stay put nitwit species.

   In Egans "Diaspora" things were going great for humanity
in the late twenty-first century: A mass influx of blood
an flesh humans into computers or network of computers,
which functions as the infra structure for a community of
conscious software (The "Introdus"). New citizens created
by running mind seeds, or by assembly and customization of
preexisting components ("psychogenesis").
   All in all an ersatz "Garden of Eden" for humanity.

   Gamma Ray burst are then a little troublesome. But no
more. When the Earth is lost the refugees can move to some
other part of the Galaxy and recreate the lifes they
once lived, by running simulation software. No problem.
   Minds could also be redesigned to encompass interstellar
distances. One self spanning thousands of stars (Fred Hoyle).
Local contingencies dealt with by non-conscious subsystems.

   The real killer is still something like the core blast.
Hopefully, wormholes to other universes might then be found.
But universes with how many dimensions? Surely, our minds
will need major repair work to cope in a, say, 5 dimensional
universe? But with such technology perfected we are ready
to explore the multiverse.

   Even such exploration will end though. After an eon
or two. But thats ok, cause then we will be complete.
Having played out every possibility within ourselves.
   Or so at least according to Greg Egan.

   FUT: rec.arts.sf.science

-Simon

Simon Laub
silanian.tripod.com