The only sensible reason for keeping humans in the Matrix

There have been many discussions on if humans are imprisoned in a simulated reality such as presented in the movie The Matrix. In the Matrix, the reason for imprisoning humans is to extract energy. A reason not very plausible, since it would be much less trouble to keep, say, pigs. They could perform the same function and cause much less razzling. In the book Under the skin from 2000 Michael Faber instead keeps the humans for meet production. Now, also this is something pigs would do better.

So, what reasons are the for aliens or machines or other humans to imprison humans. Well, I can only see one: for the computing power of our brains. It is reasonable to assume that there is something unique with the human brain. Unique enough that it could be worth the trouble of creating a simulation like the Matrix. What do you think? Any other reason?

A new answer to the Fermi paradox

I read a very interesting blog post about what the new big thing after IoT, drones and 3D printing will be. They name it the continuum. Of course, they are right. Further, recently, I also look at the two pod casts from Kurzgesagt about the Fermi paradox where the filter theory and other ideas about solutions to the Fermi paradox are discussed.

I have previously discussed an idea to a solution, and here is another one:

Maybe the transition for any species from "primitive" to "transcended" is of the order of a couple of thousand years. Thus, the time span is so short that the state we are now is only shared between one or very few intelligent species at a given time. Hence no one to talk to.

The "transcended" state could consist of us morphing into a single organism using the continuum as discussed in the above blog.

Where are the ETs? And how to colonise another planet, the realistic way

There was a discussion on the Swedish radio the other day about why we have not seen any aliens since the Universe is so big with so many start and planets, and for all we know, if the right conditions exists, life do pop up.

To me the answers are mostly quite far fetched, and there is a much simpler one: To travel with the fastest vehicle the human race has created: the Helios-2 probe, travelling at 250 000 km/h relative to the sun, it would take a little more than 18 500 years to reach Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to the Sun. Conclusion: It is tricky to travel in space. Now lets' assume there is a moderate density of life in the Universe, say life in every 10th star system. Then it is not surprising that no one has come here; it is simply to much work to get here. There is for sure other intelligent life out there, and maybe they have worked out a way to move to other stars, but everything we know points at that this will be a difficult process, more aimed at preserving the human spices and exploring than a realistic replacement for Earth and the population living here.

If you were to send a crew to a new star system, with the purpose of using the planet(s) available there for expansion, and you can chose between a system which is already inhabited by a primitive race (us) or an empty one where you will not have to bother anyone else. Which one would you chose?

It should further be noticed, that no sensible communication will be possible once the new colony has been established: Signal propagation will take years and have very limited capacity. Thus, establishing a new colony will essentially be a permanent separation.

My take: to colonise a new exo-planet the steps needs to be.
1. Send a team of micro/nano-machines that can build larger machines that can build larger machines ... that can build large machines.
2. Terra-form or at least make part of the planet habitable.
3. Send human and other DNA (or the DNA information in some more robust form.
4. Grow life using the DNA and the machines on the foreign world.

Thus, one can send many space ships, cause they’re small and not so energy consuming. And maybe some will survive the trip. The immense time to travel will be less of a problem for the travellers since they will not be conscious.