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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Re: No Limits to Growth
Message-ID: <121200022@inmet>
Date: Sat, 28-Mar-87 09:41:00 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.121200022
Posted: Sat Mar 28 09:41:00 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Mar-87 18:42:50 EST
References: <5818@ism780c.UUCP>
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Nf-From: inmet.UUCP!janw    Mar 28 09:41:00 1987


[tim@ism780c.UUCP ]
>Let's get really silly now.  How long until we have so many people
>that the amount of space occupied by people is expanding at the
>speed of light?  About 11,000 years.  Does anyone want to argue
>that this is not an upper bound on human population?

I do. The physical universe as we know it is not the same as  the
physical  universe our ancestors knew - even 100 years ago, still
more different from 1000 years ago, still more 11,000 years. 
It is arguable that the change accelerates.

Therefore, considerations based even on the most fundamental
principles of modern science cannot be projected too far where
the evolution of the species that discovered them is concerned.

E.g., consider the science-fiction idea of parallel universes.
There is, of course, no reason to predict our heirs will discover
such things and expand into them. Or that they won't.
They'll know far better - we can't predict a damn thing about
them, as our paleolithic ancestors couldn't about us.

Any particular long-term prediction made now is unlikely to  come
true.  And this applies to the prediction that the limit indicat-
ed in the top paragraph will stay valid.

Except in one sense:
>upper bound on  human population?
                 ^^^^^

Our descendants 11,000 hence are unlikely to be human.
Artificial evolution is already beginning to be technically possible.

			Jan Wasilewsky