Stuart_Armstrong comments on Linked decisions an a "nice" solution for the Fermi paradox - Less Wrong

2 Post author: Beluga 07 December 2014 02:58PM

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Comment author: Manfred 07 December 2014 07:50:50PM *  2 points [-]

After some googling, their conjectures seem to be "well, we've only checked a few thousand stars, and only in the radio region of the spectrum. Our best highly speculative guess has detectable civilizations originating on one in every few million stars, so either civilizations are expending to less than 1000 stars on average, or they're not using radio waves, or our guesses about how common they are are wrong."

Comment author: Eniac 08 December 2014 01:20:29AM 2 points [-]

so either civilizations are expending to less than 1000 stars on average, or they're not using radio waves, or our guesses about how common they are are wrong

Absent FTL communication, it is hard to imagine a scenario in which any central control remains after civilization has spread to more than a few stars. There would be no stopping the expansion after that, so the first explanation is unlikely.

A civilization whose area of expansion includes our own solar system would be perceivable by many means other than radio, so the second explanation is really not relevant.

That leaves the third as the most likely explanation, I am afraid.

Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 08 December 2014 09:11:08AM 2 points [-]

Absent FTL communication, it is hard to imagine a scenario in which any central control remains after civilization has spread to more than a few stars.

Each expansion part is led by an AI with a shared utility function, and a specified way of resolving negotiations.

Comment author: Eniac 09 December 2014 12:37:23AM 1 point [-]

I don't see how this amounts to central control. At best it is parallel predetermination, but that breaks down because the actions of the AI are determined by the environment, not the utility function alone. Central control implies two-way communication and is impractical when the latency is measured in decades.