Autopoietic Expansion

Hi,

I updated my webpage again:
http://www.geocities.com/alt_cosmos/index.html

>you're making autopoisis synonymous with sustainable.

Autopoiesis is one step above sustainability.

>While an autopoiesistic system is an admirable goal to aim for, it is by no
>means a necessary precursor to Habitat construction.

As a precursor, no it's not.
The habitat only needs to be sustainable to continue to exist.
But it will need to be autopoietic if it wants to seed other habitats, and
expand. The same applies for planets.

Spreading through the galaxy is a long-term goal. The most efficient means
of doing so is autopoietically (I think I'm investing new words lol).

Sustainable Settelements:
We colonise Alpha Centauri with ships from Earth. We terraform planets and
build space settlements. Both are sustainable and continue to exist for
millenia. Earth then sends more ships to colonise the next star system, and
the next, and the next. As we colonise each star system the distance we
travel gets longer and our expansion slows, until it grinds to a halt.
Remember, we built sustainable space settlements, terraformed sustainable
planets, not autopoietic ones. That is assuming each colony doesn't build
their own space ships.

If they do build their own ships:
As the colonies are no autopoietic, they will be lacking in something, and,
not wanting to see themselves as inferior to other systems will expand to
create their own empires. Empires which, when resources are limited, will
cause conflict.

Autopoietic Settlements:
With each colony we build an autopoietic space settlement, terraform an
autopoietic planet. It will require the ships to stay longer, put in more
effort, and use more resources. But it will be worth it, because each star
system will be capable of expanding by itself. The later colony ships from
Earth will travel in the opposite direction to Alpha Centauri. While Alpha
Centauri builds its own colony ships and expands to the surrounding stars,
in the opposite direction from Earth. When each system has colonised all of
the surrounding star systems, it then redirects it's growth into
researching advanced technologies, information which it shares with all
human systems. Material resources are also shared between systems.

Each system would send out it's own survey ships, to share information,
technology, material resources and people with other colonies. Exchanging
people will diversify the gene pools in each colony. Sharing resources will
increasing the rate of growth. Sharing information and technology will
maintain trust between systems. With this model, the expansion doesn't
grind to a halt but expands quadratically, with surges when breakthroughs
are made. It would be limited only by alien territories. When an alien
territory is found in a surrounding system, that system redirects its
growth towards defence. With no intent of invading, only defending itself.
Again, sharing this information with every other human system.

This model has an obvious fail point: which star sytems can a colony expand
to? Rules will need to be made, to pre-determine where colonies can expand
to, and avoid conflict.

The easiest solution is by dividing the celestial sphere on Earth into
different sectors (steridians) like the constellations. This way the
closest star (to Earth) in each constellation will be responsible for
expanding outwards.

Michael