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The passage reads: As I remarked in the first lecture [see Eq. (11)], the number of galaxies that lie within a sphere n<4 grows like e^{2\psi} when \psi is large. So, when we try to establish linkages between distant societies, there will be a severe problem of selection. There are too many galaxies at large distances. To which of them should we listen? To which of them should we relay messages? The more perfect our technical means of communication become, the more difficulty we shall have in deciding which communications to ignore.

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The passage reads: As I remarked in the first lecture [see Eq. (11)], the number of galaxies that lie within a sphere n<4 grows like e^{2\psi} when \psi is large. So, when we try to establish linkages between distant societies, there will be a severe problem of selection. There are too many galaxies at large distances. To which of them should we listen? To which of them should we relay messages? The more perfect our technical means of communication become, the more difficulty we shall have in deciding which communications to ignore.
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Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 15-Dec-2022 18:16:26 UTC Robert McNees
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In the final lecture, Dyson argues that communication might also be possible over deep cosmological scales.
Near the end he acknowledges a problem for far-future societies communicating across deep time that sounds an awful lot like something we deal with today.

In conversation Thursday, 15-Dec-2022 18:16:26 UTC from mastodon.social permalink