Posted by James on 7/31/2007, 9:41 am, in reply to "Re: Fermi's Paradox, Cosmology, and, Are We Alone?" Meteors and asteroids play a large role in the gravity of a star system. Removing them for transmutation could have some rather dire unforeseen circumstances. The short and dirty of this is that even with transmutation abilities, one has to pick and choose from already available matter, consider heavily the ramifications from using that matter, and then move forward. Of course, any use of available matter reduces the pool of available matter, not all of which is usable for these purposes anyway. The problem is not as simple as you would like to make it, and there is absolutely no way that even a society with transmutation technology could completely escape the need to colonize and find new resources. "Fermi (and others) considered the vast distances involved, made precise calculations, and concluded that even at currently attainable speeds, the galaxy could have been traversed several times and in all directions, by expansionist ET civilizations." I disagree with those calculations as there is a very wide degree of potential error in them given the unknown variables involved. "Nor did Fermi commit the logical fallacy. He did not say that lack of evidence was any sort of evidence at all. He simply pointed out that there is a lack of evidence, and that we should explain it. One of the possible explanations is that there are no other civilizations, and another is that there are, but we have not detected them. The "not detected" explanation poses further questions, at which point the discussion branches into a hierarchy of plausibility." I did not say that Fermi made the fallacy, but rather that others are quick to make that fallacy. It has been and continues to be my firm conviction that you are oversimplifying this matter.
199.80.67.240
"I remain mystified. There simply is no shortage of matter, surplus matter. Even if there were, a space-faring society could use meteors, asteroids, a nearby planet--- no, I give up on this one."
