RE: Singularity Exo-Paleontology

From: Devon Fowler (dfowler27@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Mar 25 2004 - 23:02:45 MST


A nice essay there Paul, you seem to know quite a bit about the history of
the universe and our galaxy specifically. If your numbers are accurate and
that technological progress was setback by things like ecological disasters
during the pre-cambrian era than perhaps a technolocgical singularity, as
you define it as the advent of technology, could have indeed happened in the
time frame you provide.

"With the Cambrian Explosion soon after, all the major
>phyla of life we see today emerged on to the scene.
>Between the Cambrian explosion and today, there have
>been 5 great extinctions, the last of which was 65
>million years ago, when 90% life including all the
>Dinosaurs were wiped out by a comet. From this lowly
>10% that was left emerged almost all the complex life
>we see today."

This is assuming that again the 10% figure is right and that there weren't
other forms of subspecies that we have yet to uncover that survived,
paleontolgy like all science, does not assume 100% knoweldge and or
understanding of all species of animals that were roaming the earth at that
time, can you speak for even more adaptive species that could have feasibly
avoided such disaster? In fact your guess is as good as mine since fossil
records are still scarce from that pivitol period.

"Since we know both the earth and sun are each 4.5
>billion years old, the earliest possible earth like
>planets could have appeared as early as 1 billion
>years after the big bang."

Just because our planet is 4.5 billion years old as no correlation with the
births of other earlier planets and stars "couldve' is a conjecture based
upon merely the known age of our galaxy...what about othrer big bangs
occuring and other times previous to our big bang?

I think most of this period’s stagnation was the
>result of bad luck. Perhaps the correct mutations
>necessary for the emergence of multi-cellular life
>simply have a very low probability of occurring. We
>know that quadrillions of bacteria were spread out all
>over the earth, and only after 3.4 billion years of
>random mutations and conditions eventually gave rise
>to the first multi-cellular organisms.

I agree with this,,, as evolution itself is mostly due to probabiltiies and
the slow process of evolution which has to do with 'luck' who knows how
many years this could've taken had slight eco conditions have been
different? The rare earth hypothesis seem to be in keeping with your line
of thinking...being how could such random mutation have occurred in the
first place or we the exception to the rule?

>Since we know that the first planets were forming as
>early as 12.7 billion years ago, and using earth’s
>history as our example, this means that the first
>technological singularity could have occurred as early
>as 10.7 billion years ago, or 3 billion years after
>the Big Bang. If we take out my conjectured time
>compression of evolution, we add an additional 2.5
>billion years, then we get 5.5 billion years after the
>big bang, or 8.2 billion years ago.

I see what your saying...but fail to grasp your computations...why 10.7
billion? if the big bang as you say happened 12.7 plus 3 billion totaling
in 15.7 billion years ago that would make your conjecture of the tech
singularity by your calculations to be 12.7 billion years ago. taking out
your compression this would make it 7.2 billion years ago that a potential
technological singularity could have occured.

But what do you mean by a singularity in terms of technology? Do you mean
the advent of such basic hunter gatherer tools created by homo-sapiens or
rather whatever came before Sapiens? Or are you referring to some explosion
in technolgoy that feasibly could have happened had things gone differently?

>From: Paul Hughes <psiphius@yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: sl4@sl4.org
>To: sl4@sl4.org
>Subject: Singularity Exo-Paleontology
>Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 17:13:35 -0800 (PST)
>
>When is the earliest possible time in our universe
>that a technological singularity could have occurred?
>
>Let’s examine the evidence and make some conjectures.
>
>In order to determine the theoretical earliest time we
>need to know what the necessary precursors are for a
>technological singularity is. Since the Earth and the
>emergence of our own civilization is the only example
>we have, we’ll assume that life and therefore
>technological civilization requires a planet as a
>necessary prerequisite for a technological
>singularity.
>
>So when were the first planets formed? Since planets
>require heavy elements, the earliest possible time
>would’ve been after the supernova explosion of a
>first-generation star. The first generation of stars
>started forming approximately 160 million years after
>the Big Bang. The most short-lived of these stars were
>the blue giants. All first generation stars were
>composed entirely of hydrogen and helium and no heavy
>elements. Thanks to nucleosynthesis in the cores of
>these stars, all the heavier elements through Uranium
>were first created during this time. After the first
>of these blue stars exploded, all it’s material
>including the heavy metals, formed the necessary
>conditions for birthing stars with proto-planetary
>systems.
>
>According to this story,
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/10/science/space/10CND-PLAN.html?ex=1080277200&en=01f45dab7c7c1289&ei=5070=
>
>The Hubble Space Telescope found tantalizing evidence
>that planets first appeared much earlier in cosmic
>history, around 12.7 billion years ago, and therefore
>may be more abundant than previously suspected.
>Since we know both the earth and sun are each 4.5
>billion years old, the earliest possible earth like
>planets could have appeared as early as 1 billion
>years after the big bang.
>
>So from here we look at Earth’s history to ascertain
>our final figure. This is where a bit of guesswork is
>required.
>
>For now, lets examine the historical record of life on
>our planet. There is now observational evidence that
>archaebacteria, the first type of life, were around as
>early as 3.97 billion years ago. For the next 2.2
>billion years life on Earth consisted of nothing more
>anaerobic bacteria and archaeans. Then about 1.8
>billion years ago eukaryotic cells appeared as fossils
>too. With the beginning of the Middle Proterozoic 1.8
>billion years ago, comes the first evidence of oxygen
>build-up in the atmosphere. This global catastrophe
>spelled doom for many bacterial groups, but made
>possible the explosion of eukaryotic forms. These
>include multicellular algae, and toward the end of the
>Proterozoic, the first animals.
>
>With the Cambrian Explosion soon after, all the major
>phyla of life we see today emerged on to the scene.
>Between the Cambrian explosion and today, there have
>been 5 great extinctions, the last of which was 65
>million years ago, when 90% life including all the
>Dinosaurs were wiped out by a comet. From this lowly
>10% that was left emerged almost all the complex life
>we see today.
>
>So the real question now is could this 3.97 billion
>year history of life have evolved quicker? We know
>the first 2.2 billion years of life consisted of
>nothing more than simple anaerobic bacteria and
>archae, and the next 1.2 billion years single-celled
>eukaryotic oxygen-breathing bacteria. So for the
>first 3.4 billion years the degree of evolutionary
>change was almost non-existent. There is no reason to
>suspect the emergence of eukaryotic cells couldn’t
>have happened sooner, perhaps as earlier as a few
>million years after the first bacteria. The
>mechanisms underlying these punctuated periods of
>evolution are still largely unknown, so it’s mostly
>conjecture. But lets take a crack at it anyway.
>
>I think most of this period’s stagnation was the
>result bad luck. Perhaps the correct mutations
>necessary for the emergence of multi-cellular life
>simply have a very low probability of occurring. We
>know that quadrillions of bacteria were spread out all
>over the earth, and only after 3.4 billion years of
>random mutations and conditions eventually gave rise
>to the first multi-cellular organisms. If the result
>is largely by chance, then life multi-cellular life
>could have occurred shortly after life first appeared
>at all. Then again, mutli-cellular life could be so
>rare, that only 1 out of a million bacteria bearing
>planets gives rise to multi-cellular life during the
>lifetime of its parent star.
>
>It’s quite possible that multi-cellular organisms
>could have emerged as early as 3 billion years ago,
>giving rise to the equivalent of the Cambrian
>explosion 2.5 billion years earlier than it did. This
>leaves the last 543 million years after the Cambrian
>Explosion until now. Perhaps if we had a larger gas
>giant in a orbit closer than Jupiter’s, there would
>have also been less asteroid and cometary impacts
>during this period, further accelerating the right
>kinds of conditions for life to occur. In the scheme
>of things, this time frame is small enough that I
>won’t compress it any further for the sake of this
>essay, and assume that 500 million years is the
>minimum time necessary for complex technological
>civilization to evolve from the first appearance of
>multi-cellular life forms.
>
>So assuming my 2.5 billion year compression of the
>history of life is possible in a planetary system with
>the right conditions, this means technological
>civilization on the Earth could have occurred as early
>as 2 billion years after the formation of Earth
>itself.
>
>Since we know that the first planets were forming as
>early as 12.7 billion years ago, and using earth’s
>history as our example, this means that the first
>technological singularity could have occurred as early
>as 10.7 billion years ago, or 3 billion years after
>the Big Bang. If we take out my conjectured time
>compression of evolution, we add an additional 2.5
>billion years, then we get 5.5 billion years after the
>big bang, or 8.2 billion years ago.
>
>This leaves us with a theoretical minimum of 8.2 –
>10.7 billion years ago when the first technological
>singularity could have occurred.
>
>Comments, feedback, flaws?
>
>
>Paul Hughes
>
>
>
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