Comments on: Shermer’s Last Law

By: Jim Barnhart

Jim Barnhart — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 21:51:11 +0000

Perhaps the World wasn’t quite ready for Shermer’s Last Law at the time. Maybe the idea is only now picking up steam. Plot the timeline curve of the comments – 6 years, 8 years, 9 years. (Admittedly not much data yet. C’mon people.)
Shermer’s statement at the end about Science’s effect on Religion may be a little off. It seems to me that religious institutions around the planet are beginning to show their flaws. They are certainly losing membership in vast numbers. The current revival of religious fervor in the monotheistic faiths from the Middle East is a predictable social backlash against their crumbling structures but will not prevent the crumbling.
I would certainly like to see the effects of computational power on society by 2050. That’s not too far away. I’ll only be 100, which is very attainable now, as long as I don’t play in traffic, so to speak.
As for N.R.G.’s comment on the difficulty of an ETI contacting us, the rapidly advancing field of Quantum Physics is opening up all kinds of possibilities in that realm of endeavor. What we need now is a test for that visiting ETI to determine its level of ‘godliness’. Of course that means we would have to first decide on a definition ourselves, beyond the current levels of superstition that we’ve been playing with for the last couple of thousand years.
So, who’s up for making a ‘Turing Test’ for godliness?

By: N.R.G.

N.R.G. — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 06:57:58 +0000

I’m sorry to see that only one comment has been made so far, but I’m happy that the commenter had the guts to comment more than six years later! This inspires me to comment again now…

I first heard ShLL in the video debate between Profs. Shermer and Phillips, which is unfortunately no longer available at YouTube (where can it be gotten?).

Hearing this “Law” had a big impact on me, providing me with a middle ground and compromise between my weakening belief in the Biblical God, and a feeling that there are things in this world that demand an explanation beyond our mere humanity.

I now believe (mostly in private so as not to unnecessarily shake up my religious peers) that whatever real gods were or are imputed to exist (as opposed to irrelevant imaginary ones), are really ETI ala ShLL, regardless of our current perception of the difficulty they would confront in trying to reach us, personally (whatever form their person might take) or even via communication.

Thank you, Michael!

By: Blog de Astronomia do astroPT » Quanto tempo leva a viajar?

Blog de Astronomia do astroPT » Quanto tempo leva a viajar? — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 08:26:08 +0000

[...] todo o lado. Lembra-lhes alguém? Alguém que está em todo o lado ao mesmo tempo? Faz-me lembrar a Última Lei de Shermer (baseada na 3ª lei do Clarke) que diz: “Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial [...]