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.cb NOTES ON INTELLIGENCE IN THE UNIVERSE
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#. Alien intelligence will be like human intelligence in its
qualitative features, because similar methods must be used
to solve similar problems.

#. Alien motivational structure may be vastly different, because the
human motivational structure has many features not related to
human survival in a technological culture.

#. Humans are barely intelligent.  There may be a servo-mechanism
that prevents there being too many smart people.  There are just
not enough smart people to do the jobs properly.  An alien culture
might pass from inventing fireplaces to inventing space ships in
a few hundred years.

#. There is no reason to expect AI to stop at human-level intelligence.
If we can reach it, we can far surpass it.

#. If we survive, we will surely occupy the galaxy.

#. We may, after all, be the first intelligent race in our galaxy.
The uncertainty in the time of our being capable of occupying the
galaxy is a perhaps 500,000,000 years, while the time required to
occupy it is perhaps a 100,000 to 1,000,000 years.

#. Sagan's formula is an expression of ideology not science.

#. t = s%52/3%1p%5-1/3%1.

#. We must consider what can exist and what can evolve.  The latter
question is much harder.  For example, silicon based life, in the
Santa Clara County sense, can exist but may require carbon based life
to come into existence.

#. Postponement of the heat death.  If we don't do something about it,
our sun will leave the main sequence, and the earth will become
uninhabitable in a few billion years.  If our species, like
human individuals, prefers to postpone death as long as possible,
then life can last millions of times longer by using the gravitational
energy of the universe in an economical way.

#. Applications of black holes.  Black holes can be used as rocket
ships and can be used to collect galaxies so as to keep as large as
possible a part of the universe from expanding away.  The energy from
what we can keep from expanding away can be used to preserve life
for a very long time.