"There are specific conclusions of practical interest to be drawn from coupling of these reasonable assumptions with the astrophysical and astrochemical structure of the Galaxy. In particular, we suggest that the outer regions of the Galactic disk are most likely locations for advanced SETI targets, and that intelligent communities will tend to migrate outward through the Galaxy as their capacities of information-processing increase, for both thermodynamical and astrochemical reasons."
OK, now we're talking.
4 comments:
Excellent technical SETI article, Mac! Thanks. Made me realize that I'm WAY behind on my serious SETI reading. Also, in following some of the references, I came across the Shkadov Thruster, which is device for actually moving a star!!! Way, way, WAY cool! (Some of this stuff is even BETTER "escapist" lit. than s.f.!) And speaking of Shkadov Thrusters in the context of SETI, it just occurred to me that one possible form of very detectable advanced alien tech would be stars whose motion doesn't seem to fit that of the general region where they're found. These could be stars being accelerated by Shkadov Thrusters! In fact, I recall reading a couple of months ago in "New Scientist" (I think) about just such a star in the MW, which is, apparently, seriously hauling ass compared to the surrounding stars.
The tragedy here is that, by and large, the SETI "intelligentsia" don't want to talk about this stuff . . . because it's tantamount to claiming that ETs might already be here. Can't have that.
I just read this paper.
It's very clear and interesting.
After reading it, i cant but think of Clarke and "they are there ... they are just TOO intelligent to come over". Personally Mac, i dont like it when you go into the paranormal realm of UFO's ... i still see them as "nuts and bolts" but Valle's ideas are nothing but amazing ... maybe we are just part of a big experiment and they are using Pavlovian methods sort of speak ... thanks Mac, this is a great paper indeed!
Postbiological evolution may present the seventh megatrajectory,
triggered by the emergence of artificial intelligence at least equivalent to the biologically-evolved one, as well as the invention of several key technologies of roughly similar level of complexity and environmental impact, like molecular nanoassembly (Phoenix and Drexler 2004) or stellar uplifting (Criswell 1985)
Seventh megatrajectory? Nanoassembly? Human-level ai? Smells like Singularity ...
Moving on, something I noticed: the article suggests looking for Jupiter Brains. It also mentions a digital perspective; specifically the thermodynamic problems of computing. Thus, SETI should be looking for thermal differences and bigass computers, yah?
This in turn brought to mind Seth Lloyd's "Ultimate Laptop". A primary (to put it mildly!) problem with that theoretical ubercomputer was packaging.
Put the two together and you get something interesting: an extremely advanced alien race could build (or have built) a super-Jovian body around an "ultimate laptop", using the gas giant gravity to hold it together.
I really, really wish that concept was original to me.