How easy is it actually to reverse engineer a UFO?

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Yeah, Saberhagen invented the concept in the early 60s, pre Star Trek, I believe. I'd like to think space is too vast and the initial cost too great for intelligent beings to set such destructive devices in motion but if they are fire and forget machines, at least one alien race is bound to do it sooner or later.

 

[Swedish Borg]

I think it goes back to "Frankenstein". The creature that attacks its creator. If you've read the book after Frankenstein refused to create a mate for his creature, well, he's started the work but then destroyed it, the creature took revenge by destroying his entire life. I don't remember that theme being used previously in literature but I could be mistaken.

 

[valkyrie013]

One of the things that really hasnt been touched on too much in at least Syfy TV is if an alien race does exist more than likely they'll be utterly and completely different that their thought processes will be alien as much as they are .
To them ending in entire species would be some kind of service or they see you as lower than them or just a biological imperative to create more of themselves and you're just a hindrance.
It doesn't have to be some type of capitalist religious another interest reason to destroy the world destroy the species. They just need something we never even thought of.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

H G Wells' Martians in The War of the Worlds had no compunction about exterminating man and attempting to terraform (marsform or aresform, surely?) the Earth by using the red weed. They were desperate to survive and humans were no more valuable than a food source to them.

 

[Dryson]

Would alien alloys even work with Earth based manufacturing processes?

Would Earth be able to reproduce the alloys it discovers or would the alien home planet be needed?

Another reason to invade the alien home planet.

 

[Santaman]

Good luck trying to invade them when you can't even get out of Earth's low orbit..

 

[Swedish Borg]

Good luck trying to invade them when you can't even get out of Earth's low orbit..

The farthest we've sent three people at once is about one light-second away ( the closest start is one hundred twenty million times as far) and one of them had to wait in orbit while the two others gathered a few rocks on the surface and the last time was nearly FIFTY YEARS AGO!!! We couldn't even do it today if we wanted to.

 

[Tim Walker]

Looking down the scale for size/intricacy....

I can imagine us becoming inspired, and seek to-in a very general way-build devices at smaller levels. At least as far down as nanotech, because that level we can at least detect.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

At the nanoscale, any nanodevice is effectively a large molecule so we'll have to be wary of potential ecological or chemical problems if they are deployed in common use, not to mention the oft-touted grey goo threat if we make devices that are self replicating.

 

[Swedish Borg]

At the nanoscale, any nanodevice is effectively a large molecule so we'll have to be wary of potential ecological or chemical problems if they are deployed in common use, not to mention the oft-touted grey goo threat if we make devices that are self replicating.

Maybe it would be prudent to make them vulnerable to a code or an EM frequency that would order them to stop replicating. Nanotechnology could be used to absorb polluting compounds, like plastic, not by eating them but by transforming them into biodegradable substances that would then naturally be aassimilated by the ecosystem.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Maybe it would be prudent to make them vulnerable to a code or an EM frequency that would order them to stop replicating. Nanotechnology could be used to absorb polluting compounds, like plastic, not by eating them but by transforming them into biodegradable substances that would then naturally be aassimilated by the ecosystem.

The problem is that such replicating entities are essentially lifeforms (life on Earth being based on evolved, spontaneously created nanotechnology) and might well mutate into a form where the stop signal no longer works. There was an episode of Doomwatch (The Plastic Eaters) back in the 1970s that imagined having to deal with genetically engineered plastic-eating bacteria running amok. One might do well not to release such technology, whether biological or engineered, into the environment. Many of the molecules in our bodies such as proteins, RNA, and DNA are long-chain condensation polymers and something that comes along and disrupts those molecules would be bad news. Nevertheless, research is being done in this area. Let's keep our fingers crossed...

The Race To Develop Plastic-Eating Bacteria (forbes.com)

 

[Swedish Borg]

The problem is that such replicating entities are essentially lifeforms (life on Earth being based on evolved, spontaneously created nanotechnology) and might well mutate into a form where the stop signal no longer works. There was an episode of Doomwatch (The Plastic Eaters) back in the 1970s that imagined having to deal with genetically engineered plastic-eating bacteria running amok. One might do well not to release such technology, whether biological or engineered, into the environment. Many of the molecules in our bodies such as proteins, RNA, and DNA are long-chain condensation polymers and something that comes along and disrupts those molecules would be bad news. Nevertheless, research is being done in this area. Let's keep our fingers crossed...

The Race To Develop Plastic-Eating Bacteria (forbes.com)

That may be true for bio-like nanotechnology but what if these were like microcomputers linked to a machine instead. No DNA to worry about, just a machine-building another one (either alone or collectively) following a blueprint that would remain unchanged thanks to a set of well-placed redundancies. I mean we already have computers who can make billions of billions of calculations without a single mistake, so why not?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

That may be true for bio-like nanotechnology but what if these were like microcomputers linked to a machine instead. No DNA to worry about, just a machine-building another one (either alone or collectively) following a blueprint that would remain unchanged thanks to a set of well-placed redundancies. I mean we already have computers who can make billions of billions of calculations without a single mistake, so why not?

I was never convinced by descriptions of nanoscale mechanical computers made by people such as Eric Drexler. It's a very hostile environment for such mechanisms to operate in. Copying errors will still occur even with correction mechanisms supposedly better than biological ones and it just takes one among trillions to go badly wrong.

 

[Swedish Borg]

I was never convinced by descriptions of nanoscale mechanical computers made by people such as Eric Drexler. It's a very hostile environment for such mechanisms to operate in. Copying errors will still occur even with correction mechanisms supposedly better than biological ones and it just takes one among trillions to go badly wrong.

Well, it seems to me that a mistake would cause the nanoprobe (?) to cease to function but that it would be very unlikely to cause it to keep duplicating itself.

However, if we go with the pseudo-DNA solution, we could make the system ultra redundant and self-correcting so that the rate of mutation would be near zero. and the likelihood of malignity (as in cancerous malignity) to be near zero (but much closer to zero) as well.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I think this is a pessimist/optimist, glass half full/glass half empty debate. Based on past experience, I expect advanced technology to screw up in some unforeseen, disastrous, and usually expensive to fix way. I worry that people will still be debating the reality of the threat while the grey goo is digesting the soles of their shoes. I'm more worried about such a scenario than I am about that from AI. To be assimilated by an intelligent singularity or to be disassembled by an unintelligent one - that is the choice but it's not enticing.

 

[Tim Walker]

We may see a blurring of bio-technology and nanotechnology-by using organic molecules for computation.

Two different concepts that I am aware of:

1. Computation with DNA.

2. Computation with peptides.

Other concepts include trinary computers and artificial neural nets. I would assume that these and other concepts have already been explored by alien technological civilizations (if they exist).

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

...and, of course, don't forget quantum computers.

My suspicion is that with sufficient computing power, it becomes very tempting to live in a virtual world rather than go to the difficulty of travelling to other star systems or dealing with the real universe. If you want to extend the life of the star that's powering your computer systems, draw mass from it. It won't be as luminous but it'll last longer. Perhaps keep the extracted mass to make a new star when the first reaches end of life. Eventually you'll have to move but by then your race has probably completely uploaded itself so its just a matter of moving the computing cores and solar collectors to a new star. Imaginary worlds can be just as delightful (if not more so) and much less dangerous than real ones.

 

[Swedish Borg]

...and, of course, don't forget quantum computers.

My suspicion is that with sufficient computing power, it becomes very tempting to live in a virtual world rather than go to the difficulty of travelling to other star systems or dealing with the real universe. If you want to extend the life of the star that's powering your computer systems, draw mass from it. It won't be as luminous but it'll last longer. Perhaps keep the extracted mass to make a new star when the first reaches end of life. Eventually you'll have to move but by then your race has probably completely uploaded itself so its just a matter of moving the computing cores and solar collectors to a new star. Imaginary worlds can be just as delightful (if not more so) and much less dangerous than real ones.

Concerning computer power, we're getting close to a maximum and that max is far from being enough to simulate believable virtual realities.

So unless we find new ways to compute much more efficient than the current microchips then people living in a virtual world won't be a thing for a very long time, maybe forever.

 

[Tim Walker]

But why would you want VR to be believable? (Except for training or educational purposes?)

I recall mention that there is the possibility of changing the laws of physics within the context of the simulation. For example, when dropped objects would fall up instead of down.

Perhaps future generations will embrace the surreal rather than the believable.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

There's always massive parallel computation and new technologies such as vacuum transistors seem to come along to help Moore's law persist. Whether we'll ever have quantum computers with trillions of qubits, I don't know, but I wouldn't take bet against it.

If one's simulated persona is uploaded and effectively immortal, time in the sim can run at whatever rate is necessary to accommodate the required degree of realism. One's original body is long dead, of course, but if the integration of the physical consciousness with the simulated one persists for long enough, it's conceivable that it might be moved between the substrates and one would perceive one's existence as continuous.