"Martin Andersen" <martin@al-data.dk> wrote in message 
news:41ab7649$0$156$edfadb0f@dtext02.news.tele.dk...

David Martel wrote:

Martin,

   You lost me with the first sentence. What is an "advanced 
civilization"? What is an "advanced technology"? When you start off from 
undefined but cool sounding buzzwords it is easy to reason (badly) to 
just about any conclusion.

Sorry about that. Yes, I haven't defined it.

Then please do so rather than ignoring these questions

In the book Kurtzweil

postulates the
law of accelerated returns, which states that technology will grow 
exponentially
in complexity. We are currently at the point where the growth really takes 
off, and
in maybe 30-50 years we will be this advanced civilization,

   It is indeed possible that technology will change over the course of time 
in ways that may be considered advancement. I see no reason to believe that 
this will spur or even accompany an advance in civilization ( whatever that 
is). It's not clear how or when in this advancement the state of "advanced" 
occurs, either in advanced technology or advanced civilization

capable of

building
microscopic spaceships. This law could be valid for other civilizations 
too. Hope that's more clear.

   Sorry, but it's not clear at all.

 I'm not sure of the relation to SETI which claims to be

searching for "intelligence" ( another undefined buzzword ).

Well, when giving a solution to something, it would be nice to confirm it
somehow. It's difficult to do here with undetectable spaceships. So in 
order
to detect "intelligence" (an civilization capable of sending a radio 
signal
towards earth is intelligent), the best we can do is to listen after some
signal.

   I tend to agree that SETI is  hampered by it's focus on radio waves but 
the searchers are radio astronomers and radio is what they know.

This solution to the Fermi paradox suggests intelligent life

could be
common in the Galaxy.

   You've completely lost me with this talk of a "solution". What has been 
solved and by whom? I think Fermi believed that life and therefore 
intelligent life should be common. He also believed that intelligent life 
would try to get in touch with other intelligences. He then asked why this 
hasn't happened. Obviously his conjectures on the commonness of life or the 
behavior of intelligent life could be wrong and that would answer his 
question. The solution you seem to offer is that intelligent life does not 
attempt to communicate with humanity for some reason, This isn't really the 
solution to the paradox, it's a hypothesis.


Of course if they only want to observe and gather

information, they will not send us a signal, but hopefully some will.
Or else we need to travel to the stars and observe, which we can in 30-50 
years,
hopefully.

   Does Kurzweil predict that we will reach another star within 50 years? 
I'm not convinced of this but it's not my area of expertise.

Dave M.