Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!decvax!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!REM@MIT-MC From: REM%MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP Newsgroups: net.space Subject: Interstellar space travel -- is it possible? Message-ID: <15074@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Wed, 11-Jan-84 02:24:00 EST Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.15074 Posted: Wed Jan 11 02:24:00 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 7-Jan-84 02:29:47 EST Lines: 25 From: Robert Elton Maas You say there's no motivation to create progeny unless we can establish two-way comunication with them. Yet all around this planet I see creatures leaving progeny around; animals lay eggs and abandom them, they later hatch, and the parents never even get to hear the offspring say "mama" not to mention any interactive communication; people plan for their children's education in the event the parents should die, by buying life insurance, even though the life insurance will never be paid to a child who can converse with the parents, only to an orphaned child; people write scientific papers with no insurance anyone at all will read them during the scientist's lifetime. -- The basic fact of evolution is that reproduction is one-way. A creature gives life to its offspring in the hope that the offspring will carry the genes onward after the original creature has died, not that the offspring will somehow give something back to the parents in the indefinite future. The motivation to reproduce is advantagous, those creatures which don't have it die out, and with them the gene pools that lack that gene. Apparently you somehow lack that gene, or misunderstand yourself enough to deny that motivation despite actually having that genetically-deterined motivation. If you don't want your genes spread around, that's fine with me, 1E11 years hence my genes will exist but yours will be extinct.