Re: poly: Fermi Paradox and Smolin's selected universes

From: Hal Finney <hal@rain.org>
Date: Sun Nov 08 1998 - 23:37:49 PST

Peter C. McCluskey wrote:
> I am wondering whether [Smolin's] reasoning can be extended to address the
> Fermi Paradox by hypothesizing that life capable of solar-scale engineering
> will find matter to be more valuable outside of black holes than inside,
> and significantly reduce the number of black holes produced by universes
> in which they arise. This should imply that natural selection will cause
> the expected number of such civilizations that arise per universe to be
> slightly below 1.

If universes with lots of black holes are selected for, and life does
better in universes with fewer black holes, then there would be evolution
towards universes which were somewhat less favorable for life (because more
matter is locked away in black holes).

If life works to prevent the formation of black holes that would otherwise
have formed, then universes in which life evolves will have fewer
offspring than universes in which it does not (unless life also triggers
the formation of more baby universes than would otherwise happen).

I don't see how to get from these effects to your conclusion, though.

Hal
Received on Mon Nov 9 06:43:41 1998

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