One thing this makes more rather than less surprising is our early place in the universe’s history. The marginal, singleton-sentient observer universe is less likely to produce its only observers near the very beginning, while a universe that produces many observers produces its earliest ones earlier in its history. It seems suspicious that we find ourselves so early within the Stelliferous Era, enough so that this is one of the puzzles I’d expect any speculative cosmology to have some kind of interesting explanation for.
Our position early in the Stelliferous Era may be less surprising than it first seems. Red dwarves are likely unsuitable for complex life as they have a pre-main sequence phase lasting quite some time during which they are notably hotter. Any planet in the habitalble zone for the main sequence phase will be baked for hundreds of millions of years during the pre-main sequence phase and could easily lose all its water.
Though the setelliferious era will go on for quite some time, star formation will slow dramatically (and in fact has already slowed). If you exclude red dwarves and weight by star-years, we’re early but not nearly so early as a pure accounting of years suggests.
I didn’t anticipate this as a factor at all. My off-the-cuff counterargument would be that the actual habitable portion of the Stelliferous Era may be much shorter than we would think, given that the relative abundance of elements and what type of star you have depends on how early or late you are. For niche example, the proportion of radioactive elements and therefore heat you have depends on where you are in the “birth order” of planets, and if your planet is relatively cold for this reason it can no longer be earth-like. I could try to put together the same idea for the biochemistry, since the normal organic elements will vary too, but the difficulty there is less obvious to me.
Because most singletons don’t care to make us a part of them?
Alternately, we are. One thing I’d want to know as a singleton is how often the average sapient species makes its ASI aligned to it (so I can better prepare to meet them) I might run a bunch of sims of random likely species trying to solve alignment to make a guess. I’d compress those sims by mostly modeling the relevant minds: alignment researchers. I’d fake everything else for efficiency.
If I were aligned to be nice to sapients, I’d make most of the suffering in those sims fake. If I weren’t, I probably still would, just for efficiency.
This is the form of the simulation argument that makes the most sense to me.
One thing this makes more rather than less surprising is our early place in the universe’s history. The marginal, singleton-sentient observer universe is less likely to produce its only observers near the very beginning, while a universe that produces many observers produces its earliest ones earlier in its history. It seems suspicious that we find ourselves so early within the Stelliferous Era, enough so that this is one of the puzzles I’d expect any speculative cosmology to have some kind of interesting explanation for.
Our position early in the Stelliferous Era may be less surprising than it first seems. Red dwarves are likely unsuitable for complex life as they have a pre-main sequence phase lasting quite some time during which they are notably hotter. Any planet in the habitalble zone for the main sequence phase will be baked for hundreds of millions of years during the pre-main sequence phase and could easily lose all its water.
Though the setelliferious era will go on for quite some time, star formation will slow dramatically (and in fact has already slowed). If you exclude red dwarves and weight by star-years, we’re early but not nearly so early as a pure accounting of years suggests.
I didn’t anticipate this as a factor at all. My off-the-cuff counterargument would be that the actual habitable portion of the Stelliferous Era may be much shorter than we would think, given that the relative abundance of elements and what type of star you have depends on how early or late you are. For niche example, the proportion of radioactive elements and therefore heat you have depends on where you are in the “birth order” of planets, and if your planet is relatively cold for this reason it can no longer be earth-like. I could try to put together the same idea for the biochemistry, since the normal organic elements will vary too, but the difficulty there is less obvious to me.
Or, a Singleton tends to make the universe uninhabitable fairly soon after this early point in the habitable era. era.
Cheery thought.
Why aren’t we part of the Singleton, then?
The obvious pessimistic thought is that we are and our successors are locusts/goop/minimally sentient replicators.
Because most singletons don’t care to make us a part of them?
Alternately, we are. One thing I’d want to know as a singleton is how often the average sapient species makes its ASI aligned to it (so I can better prepare to meet them) I might run a bunch of sims of random likely species trying to solve alignment to make a guess. I’d compress those sims by mostly modeling the relevant minds: alignment researchers. I’d fake everything else for efficiency.
If I were aligned to be nice to sapients, I’d make most of the suffering in those sims fake. If I weren’t, I probably still would, just for efficiency.
This is the form of the simulation argument that makes the most sense to me.
As long as c is the speed limit it doesn’t matter that much