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[Tumetsu]

Btw. if you want to be safer, you are better off staying on earth. Its atmosphere shields away the majority of external threats.
That's not something you will get on Mars. And even when you manage to make Mars a second Earth, you can still not escape the solar system since sun is the only energy source you have.

Safety is a relative term which could be considered as function of time or rather the rate of scientific progress. With our current and near term tech Earth is surely safer. In the long run with enough tech and knowledge it should be possible solve all safety issues of off-world colonies. Also, Sun is not only viable energy source. We already know about fission, fusion, and antimatter and have already harnessed first one and are almost there with second one. When Sun dies and if there is sentient, technologically advanced beings still around they surely have solved the energy problem to move out from solar system.

Over time humans will evolve into another species anyway. Also all prior zeitgeist and generations died, for example there is no one left of the roman empire, it is a world long gone, and so will be ours. Now instead, if the point is just to keep sentient life alive then isn't it silly to assume that earth is the only place with sentient beings in the universe? Think about that.

I usually count our descendants however different they are as "humans" when talking about distant future. Keeping sentient beings in universe seems itself a worthwhile goal for me. Sentient information processors and knowledge creators make things interesting Also while I think that there is somewhere other similar beings so far evidence suggests that those are really rare and therefore I think we should cheer on the only case we know of - us.

In the end I think one's degree of nihilism explains a lot of the attitudes towards these things and is at least partially emotional lean which people then try to rationalize in either way. I don't think there is any "definite answer" on do sentient beings have any value in grand scheme of things or is progress desirable so it pretty much just boils down into opinions with more or less valid rationalizations.

[Dacke]

yup, something like that

to me:
pleasure > suffering
which has to do with actual individuals

but it's not clear to me that:
existence > non-existence
when it comes to hypothetical individuals in the future

[J-Snake]

Safety is a relative term which could be considered as function of time or rather the rate of scientific progress.

If you want to argument in these terms, a function to your liking does not exist.

For example it doesn't matter how much scientific progress you make, the law of energy conservation remains valid, you will eventually only be able to explain it in a more general manner.

[J-Snake]

In the end I think one's degree of nihilism explains a lot of the attitudes towards these things and is at least partially emotional lean which people then try to rationalize in either way. I don't think there is any "definite answer" on do sentient beings have any value in grand scheme of things or is progress desirable so it pretty much just boils down into opinions with more or less valid rationalizations.

On a more general note:

The problem is that most people contemplate their lifespan as something relatively constant, something that keeps existing approximately the same way. In reality it is only a snapshot of a long movie. What many tend to do is judging the movie by the sum of its frames, or even worse, trying to hold on to one single frame. However the natural value is not to interrupt the happening, just let it flow and each part will live up to its natural potential and contribute to the ongoing story.

In short words, bother about your own context and part, only then everything lives up to its potential.

[Tumetsu]

Safety is a relative term which could be considered as function of time or rather the rate of scientific progress.

If you want to argument in these terms, a function to your liking does not exist.

For example it doesn't matter how much scientific progress you make, the law of energy conservation remains valid, you will eventually only be able to explain it in a more general manner.

I'm not sure I follow your first statement. I commented on how you said that the future people would depend on Sun and I replied that that is not really true since physical laws certainly allow other usable energy sources than stars. I don't see any reason why advanced enough civilization would be limited to our solar system technology wise. Stars are just an easy source of energy but by no means necessary provided civilization has enough technological knowledge for lets say reliable fusion. Of course in far far distant future heat death will probably end everything.

Also by safety being function of scientific progress I mainly meant that more knowledge lets us to prepare for and protect ourselves from external threats be it a lion in savanna or asteroid in collision line with Earth. Of course progress always brings new problems and threats so there will always be problems and threats to solve.

but it's not clear to me that:
existence > non-existence
when it comes to hypothetical individuals in the future

I suppose this is about the age old problem of why anything exists and is existence valuable in itself. Though I don't know if that matters in practice since at least for now people make children anyway so there will always be new individuals whose standard of living should be our concern. Unless of course some catastrophe happens or people will stop making babies.

[Dacke]

I don't know if that matters in practice

it (only?) matters wrt to the argument that we need to move off planet to save the species (rather than actually making anything better for actual people)

which is an extension of the existential risk argument given by many tech people (and notably philosopher Nick Bostrom):
That the most important ethical concern is to preserve the species from any existential risk. Where everything else (like making sure people have good lives) is less important, because it isn't an existential risk so at least there will be more people later.

In practice there is usually a big overlap between creating better lives for actual people and making sure humanity goes on. But the difference in perspective can inform priorities, like tech people getting the idea that they're being über-ethical when they argue about existential risks and dismiss actual living condition as secondary concerns.

[J-Snake]

Stars are just an easy source of energy but by no means necessary provided civilization has enough technological knowledge for lets say reliable fusion.

This assumption ignores fundamental laws of physics. Even with the best tech right here on earth, life cannot be sustained over long periods of time when the sun suddenly disappears. It is because no subsystem of the universe can be perfectly closed, a substantial amount of energy will still leak, and in order to get it back you need an external energy source.

And more restrictions are imposed upon a space ship. Its resources are very limited compared to a planet, plus it needs energy not only to sustain life but also for propulsion.

[Tumetsu]

This assumption ignores fundamental laws of physics. Even with the best tech right here on earth, life cannot be sustained over long periods of time when the sun suddenly disappears. It is because no subsystem of the universe can be perfectly closed, a substantial amount of energy will still leak, and in order to get it back you need an external energy source.

Honestly it doesn't ignore laws of physics but is rather based on laws of physics. With fusion it is possible to generate energy from hydrogen or in theory of many other elements. This is how stars itself shine. So in principle there is nothing preventing us using fusion provided we have a) hydrogen and b) enough knowledge (tech) to do so. While the energy conservation principle is true and there would be leakage, there should be lots of fuel for interstellar travelling between stars and entropy will cause problems far later in future. What I'm saying is that one doesn't really need stars ("natural" fusion reactors) since there is nothing magical in them which could not be replicated artificially. They are just really useful.

The rest of problems are essentially engineering problems but those do not have any fundamental obstacles provided by laws of physics. Also, I need to emphasize that I'm not arguing this being feasible in our current or close future technology since you mentioned the death of the sun as "deadline". I think it is so distant future that we really can't judge what is feasible by then and what not, only what should be possible in limits of laws of physics.

@Dacke
Yeah, that is true. I don't really know the ultimate motivations of people like Bostrom behind survival. Do they see it as a separate concern from good quality of life? Personally I always saw these things overlapping and survival and space exploration as a natural progression in the quest of improving human condition. Thanks for your comment, I never really stopped to think about the possibility of the subtly different viewpoints and their possible implications on priorities.

[Dacke]

mutual understanding achieved, conversational success!

Like you, I generally think of space stuff as a natural extension of general improvement. My objections are only towards certain kinds of arguments for doing it, like those in the spirit of Bostrom.

[ProgramGamer]

I think I cracked the case. Scientists are actually really bored and are just doing this whole colonization thing for the challenge. You know, how sometimes in games you go for 100% completion because the game is fun anyways even though it's really hard. Astronauts are the achievement hunters of the scientific world!

[J-Snake]

While the energy conservation principle is true and there would be leakage, there should be lots of fuel for interstellar travelling between stars and entropy will cause problems far later in future.

Just noting, the next nearest star is 4+ light years away. Have you actually pictured how much time and energy would go into that vs how much fuel(or internal energy source) your ship could carry?

[Tumetsu]

Again that is an engineering problem and problems which do not break laws of physics are at least in principle soluble. Interstellar travel is not a problem if travel time isn't issue and we don't assume future people to be biologically similar to us. Even with our current tech we could send unmanned probes to nearest stars if we really wanted. Though don't get me wrong, interstellar travel is a difficult task but then again we are talking about really good problem solvers, the far distant future hypothetical civilization.

But essentially this discussion is useless since at the moment we can't even begin to guess what is technically feasible in far distant future other than in terms of laws of physics. Most of our current tech would have been considered impossible or infeasible hundred years ago, few decades ago or even just a few years ago.

[eyeliner]

You are a ghost, inhabiting a body made of star material, traveling through space at thousands of kilometers per second.

Why would you even need to go anywhere?

[gimymblert]

The true scientific breakthrough would be the creation of exotic material or energy that bend space in the other way than gravity. I heard there is small experimental evidence that it can be possible and NASA is studying it already.

[Schoq]

there's a small possibility that, if we're fundamentally wrong about physics in exactly the right way,

[gimymblert]

unfinished sentence to death

[J-Snake]

Let's say we have an experiment in a closed box, where a gravity of 10m /s^2 is constantly present. The box contains a
little aircraft of 1kg of weight, and this aircraft is limited to release an energy amount of let's say 8 Joule. Now can it possibly lift itself up to 1 meter, giving it the best engineering possible?

Now there might be people around who still think it is an engineering problem. But people with some physical understanding already know the aircraft would need to release at least 10 Joule of energy to lift itself up to 1 meter, regardless of how technically advanced the aircraft is.

[Dacke]

J-Snake, I have no idea what you're trying to argue. Are you saying we can't build a craft that has enough energy to escape the gravitational pull of the sun?

Because we already have. And if you can do that, you basically just have to direct the craft towards some other solar system and you'll get there eventually.

[J-Snake]

Because we already have. And if you can do that, you basically just have to direct the craft towards some other solar system and you'll get there eventually.

That's not true as basic rules of gravity still apply. May be you get a misleading impression by shown footage where you see probes flying effortlessly in space, it certainly can have a brainwashing effect. Once you are past the solar system it remains the main pull of gravity(not just the sun) for a long time. You would constantly need to release energy to get further and further away from it, otherwise you would just spin in circles with it at best.

[Dacke]

Maybe you should check your facts before you try to pull explanations out of your ass?

Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have reached escape velocity from the solar system.

Eventually, the Voyagers will pass other stars. In about 40,000 years, Voyager 1 will drift within 1.6 light-years (9.3 trillion miles) of AC+79 3888, a star in the constellation of Camelopardalis which is heading toward the constellation Ophiuchus.  In about 40,000 years, Voyager 2 will pass 1.7 light-years (9.7 trillion miles) from the star Ross 248 and in about 296,000 years, it will pass 4.3 light-years (25 trillion miles) from Sirius, the brightest star in the sky . The Voyagers are destined—perhaps eternally—to wander the Milky Way.

Given that gravity follows the inverse-square law this is hardly surprising. Getting up from the bottom of the gravity well requires a lot of energy, but just going from one body to another isn't that difficult. Maybe go play some Kerbal Space Program if you want to get a gut feeling for it. That would at least increase the chance that you get things right next time you start pretending that your personal intuition is scientific fact.