Posts Tagged ‘Philosophy’

A Philosophical Question

Posted on: by Jeremiah Tolbert

Something I’ve been think­ing about lately.  In the name of tol­er­ance, should we excuse the intol­er­ance of oth­ers because that intol­er­ance is rooted in a reli­gious belief?  Essentially, if we hold tol­er­ance of oth­ers as noble thing, should be we tol­er­ant of oth­ers even when they are intol­er­ant of oth­ers themselves?

In other words, is it okay for me to hate Orson Scott Card?

Fermi’s Paradox and the Great Filter

Posted on: by Jeremiah Tolbert

The inter­est­ing astro-​​related blog Centauri Dreams had a post the other day dis­cussing one of my pet top­ics, Fermi’s Paradox. The lat­est dis­cus­sion and solu­tion to be offered comes from Robin Hanson by way of Nick Bostrom, and the idea is being referred to as the “Great Filter.” This is kind of a meta con­cept, an idea con­cern­ing prob­a­bil­ity: we see no advanced life in the uni­verse, so there must be some fil­ter event that destroys/​eliminates intel­li­gent life. Here is Bostrom’s explanation:

The fil­ter con­sists of one or more evo­lu­tion­ary tran­si­tions or steps that must be tra­versed at great odds in order for an Earth-​​like planet to pro­duce a civ­i­liza­tion capa­ble of explor­ing dis­tant solar systems.

So is this fil­ter event in our rel­a­tive past, or our rel­a­tive future?  Have we already passed through it, or is it yet to come?   Bostrom believes that the Great Silence is a good thing, and means that we’re past the fil­ter event.  If we find com­plex life, then we should be con­cerned that the event is yet to come.

As a SF writer, this stuff is a gold mine.  I’ve read quite a few nov­els and short sto­ries that dance with the Paradox.  It’s a very impor­tant ques­tion, and it really lights a match in the boiler beneath my imagination.

For instance, I was won­der­ing this morn­ing, while think­ing about the Great Filter, if the rea­son behind the silence out there might some­how be a result of the fun­da­men­tals of quan­tum mechan­ics, of which I have very lit­tle under­stand­ing of, so you’ll have to for­give me if I man­gle something.

It’s obser­va­tional bias that I keep turn­ing over in my mind.  The idea that we change the results of an exper­i­ment just by observ­ing them.  Is it pos­si­ble that once one “observer” species evolves, it’s very exis­tence is the fil­ter that pre­vents other life from evolv­ing? Our obser­va­tion changes the uni­verse?  I don’t feel like I can explain this idea. I need to read up on quan­tum mechan­ics and its impli­ca­tions to develop this line of thought further.