u/ATTst

I don't think it's likely that a galaxy could harbor enough alien civilizations to lead to a dark forest situation.

There's one thing we can say about our universe: not every rock has an alien on it.

But not everywhere is empty. It is quite possible that there are numerous planets harboring anaerobic microbial life even within our own galactic neighborhood.These kinds of things are contagious and persistent and find a way around; we've even found suspicious fossil structures on ancient Mars that show microbial mats formed when there was liquid water on its surface.

A telescope or anything that could make a spacecraft is probably so rare that this is likely the first time something like this has appeared in the thirteen-billion-year-old Milky Way galaxy.

Even with chemical rocket technology, it would take autonomous machines about 300 million years to colonize or transform the entire Milky Way Galaxy. This is a very short time considering the Milky Way's age of 13 billion years.

Of the thousands of alien civilizations that have emerged throughout billions of years of galaxy history, even if just one of their artificial intelligences showed uncontrolled expansion or destructive tendencies, it would be enough to take over the entire galaxy(Or they can directly assign this purpose to their artificial intelligence).

But that's clearly not the case. Because we appeared here 13 billion years later.This means that intelligent life should be extremely rare.

Based on the idea of physicist John von Neumann, this concept envisions a civilization traveling to other planets and building replicated and continuously expanded spacecraft (Von Neumann machines) using the resources found there.

Such probes, traveling at 10% of the speed of light, could completely colonize the entire galaxy in just a few hundred thousand years.

The absence of such a sign in the Milky Way significantly increases the likelihood that no other technologically advanced civilization exists in the galaxy.Even if the propagation speed of these machines is assumed to be 10% of the speed of light, the probability per galaxy that half the universe hasn't been consumed by these machines would have to be extremely low.

This shows us that to go from microbes to a technological civilization, a lot of things need to go right and not go wrong. This isn't inevitable progress, it's more like winning the lottery.

Danielewski mentions "The Garden of Forking Paths" in footnote #167 of the novel.

The Garden of Forking Paths is a short story written in 1941.

The story is told through the written confession of Dr. Yu Tsun, a Chinese English professor living in England during World War I, while also dealing with the theme of espionage in general.

But this story contains a different plot.

At one point in the story, we learn that one of the characters has spent the last 13 years of his life pursuing two grand goals: building a gigantic labyrinth in which all of humanity will disappear, and writing a book more complex than any novel imaginable.But when he died, all that remained were incomprehensible, contradictory sketches.

Another character in the story discovers this book.

Then he discovered that the book and the labyrinth he built were actually the same thing.The book is a temporal, not a spatial, labyrinth. In traditional novels, when a character makes a choice, other possibilities are eliminated; in this novel, time branches at every decision point, and all possible futures are presented simultaneously.

I wanted to write about it because of the similarities between The Garden of Forking Paths and House of Leaves.

We have many drives and instincts.These have a major influence on the decisions we make.

These are the reasons why we derive pleasure from feelings of success and social approval.Living in a group, making friends, cooperating, and avoiding loneliness.attraction, mate search, and the desire to reproduce.Helping those who help you, reacting against injustice, group life and tribalism.

These are just a few examples.These are the results of the drives and instincts that evolution has bequeathed to us, and they restrict our freedom.

These things not only restrict our freedom but also cause us pain.They cause loneliness to make us feel bad and lead to depression.Furthermore, our tribal instincts have led to wars, exclusion, and injustice.

If we were freed from all our impulses and instincts, we would be free from most of our problems and suffering.We would have complete free will.Perhaps our social structures wouldn't be so developed, but we wouldn't be divided by petty selfishness and greed.

Furthermore, the country we are born in, our culture, society, and even our family will influence our decision-making mechanisms throughout our lives.This is causing us to lose even more of our freedom.

That's literally the situation.Let's start at the individual level.

Even living for a hundred years is highly unlikely, and the probability of our bones fossilizing after death is a thousand times lower.

Our genetic heritage fades away much faster than commonly believed. Eleven generations from now, the genetic bond between you and your grandchildren will be no stronger than the bond you have with a complete stranger on the street.

And most likely, your name will already be forgotten by then.

If we consider it from the perspective of the human race, if the environmental damage we have caused reaches its maximum level, it will take the Earth 10 million years to recover.

This means that life on Earth will continue completely unaffected by humanity for another 990 million years.In a few billion years, the Sun will swallow the Earth.

Earth's sole legacy will be a very slight increase (0.01%) of the solar metallicity following this event.

In short, all the meaning you've created for your life, the thoughts of all the philosophers who have lived throughout history, every ideology and worldview will be discarded by the universe.

None of these represent reality for the universe.These are all just temporary things concocted by carbon-based organisms with a brain volume of only 1,300 cm³.

I believe a large portion of the human population suffers from this phenomenon, and that includes myself(and probably you).

First, we position our own group (tribe) as having a morality superior to that of humanity in general.This tribe I'm talking about could be your family, class, ideology, Political view, race, nation, gender, philosophy, any kind of collective.

We shout and accuse one or more members of another tribe of a "bad" act, but when someone from our own tribe does the same thing, we say, "Ah yes, that might be wrong,maybe.But it's not their fault."

I do it, and you do it too. We need to admit it to ourselves.

This is actually natural because we are tribalist creatures.

But that's not all. We also place ourselves at a higher moral standard within our own tribe.And probably almost every other member of that tribe does it too.I've seen this in every community I've been a part of, including my family and relatives.

I don't think anyone in this world has a higher moral character than anyone else.That includes me.

If you or I were in the place of those politicians and billionaires you point to and accuse of corruption, we wouldn't be any different.We were going to do what they did and not feel any guilt.

We only know what is necessary for survival.From our own subjective point of view, we or our tribe are moral.There is absolutely nothing that makes me, or you, or anyone else, more moral.

I generally prefer to remain an observer in online environments, but that's not really possible in offline environments.

So, if we apply simple logic, offline environments should have a greater impact on me, right?

But the opposite happens to me. This doesn't make sense.I'm generally an observer in Online, and the events that affect me are things I've learned by watching or reading. In other words, I'm not the one experiencing them.

These things happened to other people, not to me. But they affect me more than the events I experience myself in offline.

Why is it that an injustice that happened nine years ago on the other side of the world is driving me crazy now, and it just won't end? So I can't stop caring, I can't forget?

I'm not knowledgeable enough in psychology to diagnose myself. Therefore, I'll only mention the possibility of me being overly sensitive.

The feelings I experience, whether in real life or online, have a rather long duration of effect. But this effect is surprisingly more intense and frequent online than in real life.I think that a video I watch or an article I read has a greater impact on me than it does on a normal person, and I consider this to be an abnormal situation.

In my real-life experiences, it produces similar anomalous results, but not as much as it does online.l find this strange because in real life I'm experiencing this firsthand, but online I'm reading about someone else's experience.

So why is the internet's influence greater? Perhaps it's because what I read is more extreme than what I experience, and that's actually true.

Imagine an event that happened 9 years ago. This event took place almost on the other side of the world.Why then does this event haunt me for days and leave a lasting impact every time I remember it? This affects my mood at the moment and even my sleep. I can't get it out of my mind all day.

The most logical solution here might be to stay away from the internet altogether, but considering the impact even the smallest vulnerability could have on me, that would only be a temporary fix.

I'm not knowledgeable enough in psychology to diagnose myself. Therefore, I'll only mention the possibility of me being overly sensitive.

The feelings I experience, whether in real life or online, have a rather long duration of effect.But this effect is surprisingly more intense and frequent online than in real life.I think that a video I watch or an article I read has a greater impact on me than it does on a normal person, and I consider this to be an abnormal situation.

In my real-life experiences, it produces similar anomalous results, but not as much as it does online.I find this strange because in real life I'm experiencing this firsthand, but online I'm reading about someone else's experience.

So why is the internet's influence greater? Perhaps it's because what I read is more extreme than what I experience, and that's actually true.

Imagine an event that happened 9 years ago. This event took place almost on the other side of the world.Why then does this event haunt me for days and leave a lasting impact every time I remember it?This affects my mood at the moment and even my sleep. I can't get it out of my mind all day.

The most logical solution here might be to stay away from the internet altogether, but considering the impact even the smallest vulnerability could have on me, that would only be a temporary fix.

Whether the universe is finite or infinite has not been definitively determined. Here, I will only consider one scenario.

There's something about the infinite universe hypothesis that confuses me.

If the universe is infinite, then it must have always been that way.Because something finite cannot become infinite in a limited time.At least, that's what I think.

The universe is not infinitely old. At least, that's what I know.It has a specific age.Therefore, if we accept the universe as infinite, then the universe must always be infinite.Because unless infinite time is given, something finite cannot become infinite. It shouldn't.Therefore, the universe must always be infinite.

I don't think this contradicts the Big Bang.I heard that this wasn't an explosion, or even a bulge out from one point; it was something else entirely.

But I couldn't quite understand what it was. Also, why and how something that is already infinite could expand.I'm not sure if "expansion" is the right word. So I'll say "change."

A change on an infinite plane? The existence of matter and energy?

I have many questions about this. The hypothesis is basically that the formation of a black hole gives birth to a new universe.

The hypothesis is then expanded to include the element of natural selection, suggesting that universes that produce the most black holes will be more numerous and able to perpetuate their species.It even extends the concepts of reproduction and mutation to cosmological scales.

I think there's something problematic here. For example, what happens when black holes merge? Do universes merge? How does this work? Black holes evaporate. So do universes evaporate too?

Did Lee Smolin consider these situations? Does he have an answer to them?

I think Leonard Susskind's String Theory Landscape makes more sense than this.I'll take his side.

Here I will share an idea that caught my attention in the book "Life 3.0": the purposes and goals of conscious and unconscious matter.

Non-living matter can have goals, and increasingly so. If you were observing the atoms of Earth since the planet's inception, you would notice three stages of goal-directed behavior:

1. All matter appears focused on energy loss (increase in entropy).

2. Some of the matter comes to life and focuses on self-replication and its sub-goals.

3. In increasing proportions, matter is reorganized by living organisms to help fulfill its own goals.

The ultimate origin of goal-directed behavior lies in the laws of physics, including optimization.

Thermodynamics inherently aims at energy loss: increasing a scale of disorder called entropy.

Life is a phenomenon that can aid in energy loss (increasing total disorder) by maintaining or increasing complexity and replicating itself while increasing the disorder of its environment.

Darwinian evolution shifts goal-directed behavior from energy loss to self-replication.

Intelligence is the ability to accomplish complex goals.

Because we humans don't always have the resources to decide on the most optimal self-replication strategy, we've developed useful practical calculations that guide our decisions: feelings like hunger, thirst, pain, lust, and compassion.

Therefore, we no longer have a simple goal like self-replication; when our feelings conflict with the goal of our genes, we heed our instincts, as in using birth control methods.