Kaku/Friedman: My take on what is going on

[Ezechiel]

This could be total BS
What do you think ?
... surrounded by billions of stars, the potential for a swarm of phenomenon originating from wildly different sources at different evolutionary exotic stages is there... or isn't there ?

 

[Ezechiel]

LOL, lots of views and no comments

The chart kind of takes the 'PARA' out of paranormal and supports claims such as 57 alien species catalogued. I wonder what Stanton Friedman would think of my equation of planetary type 1 civilizations and clumsy attempts at inter-stellar travel )

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/226606/57_different_alien_species/

Is this chart readable at all ?

 

[pixelsmith]

the chart is confusing. but then i am not all that intelajent... intellagent... um... intelligent.

 

[Ezechiel]

the chart is confusing. but then i am not all that intelajent... intellagent... um... intelligent.

Ah man lol... Read it from bottom to top ... Start at level 0 , each row is a stage of evolution with expected behavior at right

 

[Ron Collins]

I have never given much credence to futurism. Kaku is the latest example of a really smart guy that eloquently communicates his concepts of the future and its organization. If the history of such presumptive pontification has shown us anything it is that he will most likely get 10 to 15 percent right. The rest will be born out of knowledge and advancements we have no ability to conceptualize given our current understandings.

In fact, there is no way to remotely define the stages of civilization without a comparative analysis. Specifically, we would need to compare the technological history and milestone achievements as they relate to our own independent development. The psychological and sociological evolutionary motivations for civilization advancement would need to be examined. Physiological and environmental factors would need to be studied. Ideally you would need 3 or more such independently formed non-localized(i.e. from separate solar systems) civilizations before even beginning to make a coherent classification. Anything less(and probably a whole lot more) is complete fantasy. Essentially, that is what Kaku has given us. Assumptive organizational mental masturbation.

For instance, I doubt that a civilization must first control and then harness the collective power of their planet before venturing into local or deep space. Given the proper motivations human beings could build and deploy spacecraft capable of making manned flights to destinations in the solar system. We posses the technological knowledge. but we do not have the motivations to do so.

If for instance tomorrow SETI found that a star a couple of light years away had a planet with a civilization capable of sending radio signals as we know them. It was dark and then BOOM, there were signals. Those signals were consistent and increasing in number we would have our motivations to build and send probes. Motivation is the key. Necessity is the mother of invention. I have no doubt that this kind of motivation would spur an acceleration of our understanding and practical applications for propulsion and power management. In relatively short order we would be launching probes and following that up with even more advanced models ad nauseam.

Does this activity catapult us into a different civilization type? No. Not according to the Nikolai Kardashev organizational methodology which is the basis for the expanded technological definitions Kaku has added. In fact, given that motivation, one could easily see that the focus could move from a solar-system centric explorative doctrine to a focus on interstellar travel and extrasolar exploration. Effectively halting, by way of attracting the better and brighter scientists to other endeavors, the advancements in Earth sciences.

So in order to reach out to other planets we needn't be ridiculously more technologically advanced than we are today. We just need the proper motivations. I would argue that without a specific scenario of motivations governing the progression a civilization may never actually reach type 1 and still become very prolific throughout the galaxy.

I could go on but I doubt there are many that have made it this far. Suffice to say that I am not a fan of trying to apply a persons futurism organizational concepts to observed phenomenon. I would sooner place the moniker of "Unknown" on it and leave it at that. It seems more honest to me.

 

[trainedobserver]

Great post Ron. I've always thought the primary motivation for space exploration should be preservation of the species rather than exploration and curiosity. As long as we have all of our eggs in one basket, so to speak, we are begging to become extinct. Given enough time there will be another extinction event of some kind whether that is a killer gamma ray burst, collision, or catastrophic climate change. We should be uniting as a planet to put human beings somewhere else whether that is the moon, Mars, or where ever.

Are there secret space programs already doing this? Has someone already been building deep underground facilities, seed vaults, and so forth with this sort of thing in mind? I'm not sure.

 

[Ron Collins]

Great post Ron. I've always thought the primary motivation for space exploration should be preservation of the species rather than exploration and curiosity. As long as we have all of our eggs in one basket, so to speak, we are begging to become extinct. Given enough time there will be another extinction event of some kind whether that is a killer gamma ray burst, collision, or catastrophic climate change. We should be uniting as a planet to put human beings somewhere else whether that is the moon, Mars, or where ever.

Yeah, that would be the best motivator. A limited timeline and concerted efforts designed on one purpose. The hard sell would be that a large majority wouldn't make it. That fact may also doom the survivors to a short existence as they would have very little overall support. Kind of like the premiss behind the newest Battlestar Galactica. Colonies left the original planet and spread out to known habitable planets.

Fictionally, these colonies were ultimately successful because of a strong support structure from the home planet. In the "Oh My God" scenario It would be a large gamble I think. Each survivor ship makes a break for a different potentially habitable planet and hopefully someone hits. Now the interesting thing about that scenario is how humans would conduct themselves.

For instance, what does our own history tell us we would do if we found a world inhabited by a lesser advanced species? Surely we would respect their rights to their planet and move on in hopes of finding a suitable uninhabited planet we could then claim... right?

At any rate I think that exploration will require a major triggering motivation. Cataclysmic, an outside threat, outside curiosiy due to knowledge of E.T., or some other thing that captures the hearts and imaginations of the greater public. Otherwise, we as a species are too comfortable in our daily lives to really reach out.

Are there secret space programs already doing this? Has someone already been building deep underground facilities, seed vaults, and so forth with this sort of thing in mind? I'm not sure.

On the level of SERPO, doubtful. Stockpiling genetic code? Yes, I can see that..

 

[Ezechiel]

The psychological and sociological evolutionary motivations for civilization advancement would need to be examined.

True... Michio Kaku's scale doesn't address motivation and is only a presentation of possible sophistication of a civilization as it progresses in our physical universe. As your empire progresses and dominates over larger physical area, higher-level technologies are needed to sustain your control of these.
You would think controling an area of galactic scale should require some new tricks to counter einsteinian time/space limitations.

Fear and a huge ego are among the best motivators to innovate. Inventions actually shape societies/values and create new needs that inspire inventors in a mind-numbing vicious circle. (Wars are well known to accelerate technological advancement)

The first monkey that held a stick and sharpened it started a trend that spirals into inter-stellar travel and high strangeness 8) .... in that context I'm starting to consider Stephen Hawking's warning about alien contact



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40788151/ns/world_news-asiapacific
North Korea threatens nuclear 'holy war'

.... another monkey with a sharp stick lol

 

[trainedobserver]

That fact may also doom the survivors to a short existence as they would have very little overall support.

All the more reason to make it a long-term planet-wide effort where a great majority of the population would feel that their progeny and cultures would be represented and preserved through space exploration and colonization. It would be a major reset of the global mindset for sure. We're all in this together. We have a responsibility to life to see that it continues. It may not be possible. We might find that we are so resource constrained that we can't colonize space, but at least we'd have tried.

 

[Ezechiel]

For instance, I doubt that a civilization must first control and then harness the collective power of their planet before venturing into local or deep space. Given the proper motivations human beings could build and deploy spacecraft capable of making manned flights to destinations in the solar system. We posses the technological knowledge. but we do not have the motivations to do so.

For short term ventures only.

Long term engagements where earth-born humans can reasonably survive out on a space station with no gravity or on mars with reduced gravity is another ball game altogether.

Bone and muscular degradation, exposure to radiation, etc... Our biological containers are very vulnerable to alien environments. We are built for planet earth and we're kind of far from reproducing earthly conditions sustaining bones and muscles in space. Simulating gravity and making sure all the passengers don't die from radiation exposure is still a major challenge.

 

[Ron Collins]

For short term ventures only.

Long term engagements where earth-born humans can reasonably survive out on a space station with no gravity or on mars with reduced gravity is another ball game altogether.

Bone and muscular degradation, exposure to radiation, etc... Our biological containers are very vulnerable to alien environments. We are built for planet earth and we're kind of far from reproducing earthly conditions sustaining bones and muscles in space. Simulating gravity and making sure all the passengers don't die from radiation exposure is still a major challenge.

True, some things would need to be overcome for long term ventures. But these issues have attainable solutions. He'll, we already know what the problems are! If you look back at our technical ability the day before JFK made his moon speech you might have said we were 50 or 100 years from such a feat. But then BANG, instant motivation and in a few years we were walking on the moon. I still think that motivation and a collective goal oriented mentality would achieve any long term needs satisfactorily enough to make such trips a viable option. And it would do so in relatively short order.

 

[plumbbob12]

Some good post; my take on this is twofold.
1), The futurist idea on how someone could control “worm holes”, and multi dimensions is somewhat shaky because these hypothesis are still far away from any kind of formal proof, or even data that will support these ideas, (other than the mathematics). I think that there are good indications that these ideas might well be turned into a workable theory at some point. But, at this point, these ideas are still in the realm of “Para”.
2) As far as humans spending long time in space, I think this will be more of an issue than we know of at this time. The good news, however, is that back in the 60’s, General Electric was able to demonstrate nuclear rocket engines that would have easily made a trip to Mars a three month round trip experience, (for dropping off supplies, and material for later development).
Pb.

 

[Ezechiel]

Some good post; my take on this is twofold.
1), The futurist idea on how someone could control “worm holes”, and multi dimensions is somewhat shaky because these hypothesis are still far away from any kind of formal proof, or even data that will support these ideas, (other than the mathematics). I think that there are good indications that these ideas might well be turned into a workable theory at some point. But, at this point, these ideas are still in the realm of “Para”.

The natural manifestation we already know about. Its only a huge question of scale.
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100216_plasma.htm
Phys­i­cists re­port that they have cre­at­ed mat­ter at the hot­test tem­per­a­ture ev­er reached in a lab­o­r­a­to­ry, about 250,000 times hot­ter than the cen­ter of the Sun.

2) As far as humans spending long time in space, I think this will be more of an issue than we know of at this time. The good news, however, is that back in the 60’s, General Electric was able to demonstrate nuclear rocket engines that would have easily made a trip to Mars a three month round trip experience, (for dropping off supplies, and material for later development).
Pb.

Fission rockets.... imagine what fusion rockets could offer

 

[plumbbob12]

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I agree that Fission rockets would rock, and might be our only way of doing a good percent of c. I read your link to the quark-gluon plas&shy;ma, along with other papers when this phenomenon was first observed. Although very interesting, it does little to show the idea of multi-dimensions. The 11 dimensions of the most widely read idea of string theory is only shown on the white board, and so far not at CERN or Livermore as of yet. Keep fingers crossed. pb<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>
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