michaelm@3comvax.UUCP (05/16/86)
[I haven't heard of the line eater monster in a long, long...]
A great deal of discussion has been taking place in net.space on
Fermi's Paradox ("Where are they?") and on such ideas as Dyson Spheres.
Freeman Dyson is, of course, the internationally recognized physicist
at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and -- in addition
to originating the Dyson Sphere concept -- I believe he has much to
contribute on the subject of Fermi's Paradox as well. To introduce
some of Dyson's ideas into this discussion, I'm herewith submitting
the text of the Third J. D. Bernal Lecture, which Dyson delivered at
Birkbeck College, London, on May 16, 1972. The lecture was printed
for private circulation by Birkbeck College in 1972, and reprinted
as Appendix D in the book *Communication with Extraterrestrial
Intelligence (CETI)*, edited by Carl Sagan, published in 1973
by MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England.
I've divided the text, in accordance with Dyson's original chapter
headings, into a series of six articles. Because his talk has much
to say on the subject of biology, I am crossposting the series of
articles to net.bio. Because I believe these ideas should be
known to every science fiction lover, I'm also crossposting the
series to net.sf-lovers. Unless the responder specifies otherwise,
however, replies will be directed only to net.space.
*Communications with Extraterrestrial Intelligence*, by the way,
is the proceedings of a conference, held in Soviet Armenia, and
sponsored jointly by the Soviet and American academies of science.
Participants included such notables as I. S. Shklovsky, C. Sagan,
F. D. Drake, P. Morrison, F. Dyson, T. Gold, M. Minsky, G. Stent,
C. Townes, F. H. C. Crick, and many others. It's packed full of
fascinating speculation, and carefully considers the problems in
estimating the probable number of communicating technological
civilizations in the Galaxy. *Very* highly recommended. (Note
that this book is not the same as another book entitled *CETI*
on the same subject -- sorry, I don't recall the author's name.)
I would also like to recommend the recent book by Freeman Dyson
entitled *Weapons and Hope*, which is the most thoughtful and
sympathetic to all points of view discussion of arms control
and the current dilemma for humankind that I've ever read.
Now, on to "The World, The Flesh, and The Devil". Enjoy!
--
Michael McNeil
3Com Corporation "All disclaimers including this one apply"
(408) 970-1835
{hplabs|fortune|idi|ihnp4|tolerant|allegra|glacier|olhqma}
!oliveb!3comvax!michaelm
When we are a million species spreading through the galaxy,
the question "Can man play God and still stay sane?" will
lose some of its terrors. We shall be playing God, but
only as local deities and not as lords of the universe.
There is safety in numbers. Some of us will become insane,
and rule over empires as crazy as Doctor Moreau's island.
Some of us will shit on the morning star. There will be
conflicts and tragedies. But in the long run, the sane
will adapt and survive better than the insane. Nature's
pruning of the unfit will limit the spread of insanity
among species in the galaxy, as it does among individuals
on earth. Sanity is, in its essence, nothing more than
the ability to live in harmony with nature's laws.
Freeman Dyson, 1979, *Disturbing the Universe*