Astronomy, Astrobiology, & The Fermi Paradox I: Introductions, and Space & Time

This is the first in a series of posts I am putting together on a personal blog I just started two days ago as a collection of my musings on astrobiology ("The Great A'Tuin" - sorry, I couldn't help it), and will be reposting here. Much has been written here about the Fermi paradox and the 'great filter'. It seems to me that going back to a somewhat more basic level of astronomy and astrobiology is extremely informative to these questions, and so this is what I will be doing. The bloggery is intended for a slightly more general audience than this site (hence much of the content of the introduction) but I think it will be of interest. Many of the points I will be making are ones I have touched on in previous comments here, but hope to explore in more detail.

This post references my first two posts - an introduction, and a discussion of our apparent position in space and time in the universe. The blog posts may be found at:

http://thegreatatuin.blogspot.com/2015/07/whats-all-this-about.html

http://thegreatatuin.blogspot.com/2015/07/space-and-time.htm

Let's consider a few propositions:

There is enough cumulative early filtration that very few civilizations develop, with less than 1 in expectation in a region like our past light-cone.
Interstellar travel is impossible.
Some civilizations have expanded but not engaged in mega-scale engineering that we could see or colonization that would have pre-empted our existence, and enforce their rules on dissenters.
Civilizations very reliably wipe themselves out before they can colonize.
Civilizations very reliably choose not to expand at all.

1-3 account for the Great Filter directly, and whether biological beings make AI they are happy with is irrelevant. For #4 and #5 what difference does it make whether biological beings make 'FAI' that helps them or 'UFAI' that kills them before going about its business? Either way the civilization (biological, machine, or both) could still wipe itself out or not (AIs could nuke each other out of existence too), and send out colonizers or not.

Unless there is some argument that 'UFAI' is much less likely to wipe out civilization (including itself), or much more likely to send out colonizers, how do the odds of alien 'FAI' vs 'UFAI' matter for explaining the Great Filter any more than whether aliens have scales or feathers? Either way they could produce visible signs or colonize Earth.

yes, 1 is equivalent to an early filter.

2 would be somewhat surprising since there's no physical law that disallows it.

3 comes close to theology and would imply low AI risk since such entities would probably not allow a potentially dangerous AI to exist within any area they control.

4 is sort of a re-phrasing of 1.

5 is possible but implies some strong reason many would all reliably choose the same options.

For #4 and #5 what difference does it make whether biological beings make 'FAI' that helps them or 'UFAI' that kills them before going about its business?

Do you mean that an alien FAI may look very much like an UFAI to us? if so I agree.

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Astronomy, Astrobiology, & The Fermi Paradox I: Introductions, and Space & Time

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