when he says that only one civilization out of billions will need to be colonizers. Opponents are then required to show why none, out of billions of civilizations, chose to colonize. Scheffer’s answer is that once one civilization has adopted a system of information transfer then others will have a disincentive to engage in physical travel, as it will be cheaper to join the existing galactic teleportation travel club. Moreover, Scheffer speculates, if the club offers easy galaxy-wide teleportation, there is a likelihood that it could lead to a single culture through-out the entire galaxy, and if this culture has decided against colonization of the Earth, then the large numbers argument loses its force.
Similar arguments can be applied with reference to very advanced civilizations facing extinction; migration could be impractical and risky, but if they have developed sophisticated techniques for electronic communication their consciousnesses could be teleported across the galaxy without any obvious signs of mechanical transport. They could be here and we have not yet made contact.
Scheffer’s argument can also be adapted as a rebuttal of one of the argu-ments employed against the Zoo Hypothesis. For example, it is frequently argued that the Zoo Hypothesis requires an enforced agreement among millions of civilizations that Earth will not be colonized or visited. This, it is claimed, is impossible to enforce. But an homogenous galactic culture could enforce a code of practice in which Earth is treated as a nature reserve.
What has Scheffer established with his theory of teleportation by information transfer? In a series of steps he concluded that [1] travel by information transfer is plausible; [2] that it is cheaper than physical travel over interstellar distances; and [3] that if there is intelligent life in the galaxy using interstellar information travel, it has very likely facilitated the emergence of one large civilization. The first step, however, encounters philosophical objections concerning the possible simulation of consciousness; the second step is clearly acceptable if practical and conceptual objections to the first can be overcome; while the third step is highly contingent. More communication, contact and travel of whatever form, need not lead to homogeneity: it could equally produce exaggerated diversity. Despite networks of almost instant communication the warring nations of Earth are far from homogenous.
What observational predictions can be derived from Scheffer’s thesis? We could eavesdrop on their communication network if they are transmitting at a range within our reach. But, says Scheffer, they would probably transmit at between 50–60 GHz range which would be cheaper for them, but difficult for us to detect from the ground. They may have sent ships to various places in order to repair or replace damaged computers. But this might only require one visit per stellar system, which means that we would be unlikely to find them. In any case, they could have perfected their network before the Earth existed and have no further need for physical travel.
These considerations allow Scheffer to reverse Fermi’s Paradox: if humans are typical of galactic life and such intelligent life has evolved many times in the galaxy, and since we have not been colonized then there must be some reason
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why. Scheffer’s answer is that there is already a large unified galactic society, where there is no incentive for physical travel, where there is no need to trade or transport material goods.
A note on information transfer
The idea of a society, whether it is terrestrial or intergalactical, within which all relationships are conducted by means of information transfer, raises profound philosophical problems. Electronic messages, broadcasting, the Internet, in their various ways, provide a substitute for physical interaction. But these systems evolved against a background of physical contact. Politicians, scientists and members of the business community, may communicate by means of electronic data exchange, which substitutes in part for a physical presence. Major issues are still addressed in meetings and conferences where participants meet each other in the flesh. This is not a lingering habit from the days before the communications revolution: physical presence is fundamental to meaningful interaction between intelligent beings and substitution leads to a diminution of meaning.
Information transfer is precisely what the expression says: an exchange of information which already possesses embodied meanings bound up with the physical interactions of persons. Whether the distances are long or short, information transfer cannot amount to a conversation, which requires perpetual learning, adjustment and a degree of flexibility which are not communicated via a printer or telescreen.
Moreover, electronic communication is not merely parasitic upon embodied communication; it is also parasitic upon the material production of goods and wealth which is a direct outcome of embodied communication and a direct relationship with physical reality. The electronic community is a bogus community which exists parasitically on real wealth-creating communities. Electronic communicators can transfer wealth across the globe within a fraction of a second, but it is wealth that others create. They are consumers, not producers, of wealth. The so-called information revolution is a revolution in consumption, offering nothing towards the production of wealth. Real communities are bankrupting themselves in order to support an elite communi-cative system and its expensive hardware. Membership of an intergalactic network – if one exists – would hardly be advantageous if it is like the terrestrial Internet, consuming time and resources (costly electronic hardware, miles of fibre optic cables) and producing an exchange of addictive stream of conscious-ness babble, not conversation. Critics of the cyber-culture have argued that many terrestrial electronic networks provide a shallow form of community; pseudo communication, a culture consisting of aggregates of electronically linked individuals, a disembodied society (see Sardar and Ravetz, 1996).
Proponents of a cyberspace culture have claimed that their disembodied system of communication is akin to an exchange of pure Platonic forms. Cyberspace technology, so it is claimed, offers a release from the enslavement of
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