Has someone answered why a civilization would send "von Neumann probes" or similar into space? It would take so long for any answers from those probes to arrive that there really doesn't seem much value in them.

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restalis 6 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

The dilemma of spending significant amount of effort and resources for a colonizing project when the result won't benefit the enterprising society is not new. When looking for a reason, considering only the (individuals' or collective's) benefits on a rational basis does not make much sense indeed. Most likely there must be something more, akin to a religious goal, aiming for species' or civilization's greater good.

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soraki_soladead 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We don't know however "It would take so long" is an anthropomorphic assumption of time scale.

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hermitcrab 20 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

It would take ~5 million years (in the sender's frame of reference) for a probe to make the journey to Andromeda and then send another back with any information. What would the point of that be?

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qingcharles 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Right. We have no idea how another species perceives time. This could be nothing to them.

And even if they do perceive it like us, that hasn't stopped humans from great projects. How many generations did it take to complete Stonehenge or the Great Wall of China? We're still on top of Voyager too after 50 years.

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bryanrasmussen 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

of course by the time we had the ability to do von Neumann Probes our anthropomorphic assumption of time scales may have changed.

How much would human life span need to increase for a von Neumann Probe to seem reasonable. I would think a life span of 600 and you're thinking, sure I won't get to see it through, but my allotted genetic offspring that I am allowed at age 500 if either of my other two have failed might.

	▲	fc417fc802 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		If you expect to live past a few hundred years it isn't clear why your lifespan wouldn't be indefinite. The prerequisites for achieving the former appear to be more or less the same as those of the latter.
	▲	rolph 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		requirements change with purpose. a "kilroy was here" sign has different purpose than "eat at joes". is it enough to say "hi, your not alone" ? would we actually want to encourage discourse, or visitation.

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abetusk 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If we're talking about civilizations that have access to energy that's on the order of many stars, the civilization itself can be considered a meta-organism that spans many millennia. Launching probes that take hundreds or thousands of years to report back becomes a small fraction of overall lifespan.

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anbende 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Well, if you personally were building von Neumann machines do any purpose in the solar system, would YOU be interested in sending some to neighboring systems knowing that you could conceivably get a response in your lifetime.

Would you be at all interested in expanding that project to outlast you?

And even if you personally wouldn’t be so inclined, surely you know or have met people who might?

Once you have the self replication, expanding scope may just be additional code…

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jerf 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

To build more computronium than you can in your own system, assuming the demand for that will always rise.

	▲	fizx 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sure, but you then can't access the computronium, because communication is so bad. Also, I wonder if good old-fashioned computing is interesting at all to a civilization that's had access to advanced AI and quantum computing for a while. Like we haven't really figured out how to get an ML model to run on a quantum computer, or how to build a quantum-native computer (i.e. surface of a black hole, or some other way that doesn't rely on our current sense of quantum error correction), but I don't know of any physical laws that preclude it. I'd bet if aliens invaded our galaxy, they'd go for the super black holes in the center, or some other resource beyond our use and understanding, not this random water planet on the edge.

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canjobear 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Some will do it, some won’t. The ones that do will be overrepresented in the universe.

	▲	krapp 38 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		An odd assertion to make, given that apparently no one has done it.

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loandbehold 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You can ask same question about any decision that outlasts you. E.g. why write a will for your children?

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Sharlin 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There are no answers expected. This is a colonization wave.