E.T. a machine

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Then again a species with an long long life span would not need to build machines to colonize other worlds at STL speeds.

That I doubt. The distances are too big. If assuming that said species would need to find not just any planet, but a planet within a given range of physical and chemical settings that are vital for said species, then the distances would even become bigger and the choices fewer. for comparison, even if we would consider the speed of light (which would mean any object travelling with the speed of light gaining infinite mass, so in our theories lightspeed cannot be reached), the next star to us, Alpha Centauri, still would be 4.4 years away - at lightspeed, mind you.

A highly advanced civilization may incorporate artificial intelligent robotics in to its own organic bodies or even minds and vice versa.

the first: yes, but then why not go all the way and delete the vulnerable, maintenance-intensive organic parts alltogether? that'S what would make a cyborg a full machine. And "vice versa"? What do you mean?

Lets not forget the opposite idea an advanced species creating an organic artificial intelligence.

We already have that in a way. Dog races are artifical human creations. but that does nothing for the argument that a form of mahcinery might be better suited to survive the stress and the timespan of space travel, then vulnerable organic hulls of limited lifespan.

A species that evolved in space, or underwater, or in the atmosphere of a gas giant might not even develop technology.

Yes. I have a soft spot for thinking about certain cetaceen and dolphins like that.

A species like ours that made a few choices in technological innovation could have developed manned rocketry before electronics, and colonized space with slide rules and spreadsheets.

Hardly, a purely mechanical device hardly would incorporate the calculation precision needed to "colonize space" - because colonization would need to hit not just the moon nearby, but planets far away. Mind you how long it took us to even find the first planet around another sun - and what ammount of high technology and computer and electroinic and advanced physics was necessary for that.

A species with a feudalistic society might stifle technological progress past a certain point to allow its rulers to maintain power over the masses.

Yes. But we see in our own example thats aid supression could as well been acchieved by subtle manipulation - by the use of such technological progress.

The possibilities are endless. But we got to go out there and find out.

Endless - probabaly not, since some things simply do not go together; but very, very many variations: yes. With the "go out there and find out" I have some difficulties, though. The object of this consideration seems to be a little bit - too big. Not to mention that it is constantly changing and constantly growing.

With the images and ideas we have at present about physics and technology, I think we are encapsuled within very tight limits to what is possible for us. If man reaches just the planets within eyesight in our solar system, let's say as far away as Juptier, maybe Saturn - then this already would be a success that might bepossibole for us in a distant future, but that I already do not take for granted.

The distances we deal with when considering the milky way, not to mention the local group of galaxies or the whole cluster or universe, are simply too unimaginable. currently we cannot even land a man on Mars with a technology that would be fail-safe enough to reduce risks of malfunctions or vulnerabilities to cosmic influences like micro-meteorites to suich a low level that we would think of them to be of the kind we expect such troubles when drivbing in our car. we need weeks and months to repair a toilet that is revolcing around earth at just some hundred kilomters altitude, and to do so costs us logistical efforts and an industrial investement that in earlier times would have been enough to conquer and colonize a whole continent. Space travelling we call this? A little kid that during holidays drives towards the beach and ocean with its parents, and can hear the waves from far away, is not already a sailor by listening to that sound.

If we ever manage to visit - in person the planets of our solar system, then this already would be a monumental success for this vulnerable evolutional desoign that we are. and even for this "close" goal we still need to survive long enough, as a species, or/and a civilisation that asks questions and wants to find out. Unfortunately, many ideologies and special interests are at work in our present that want anything but this.