> Space colonies would be a colossal engineering effort, but don't require any fundamentally new science.
I totally disagree. Science is science, fundamentally new science is not needed for massive engineering or artificial brain, they both require fundamentally new technologies. When you say "new science", it implies new methods of scientific inquiry or new way of looking at the world (for example Wolfram's New Kind of Science). Although it might use new facts about nature not discovered yet.
Massive Scale does not mean just a magnification of dimensions.
What will power these artificial "planets" ?
What will shield it from space debris ?
How will you reuse resources at a massive scale ?
I totally disagree. Science is science, fundamentally new science is not needed for massive engineering or artificial brain, they both require fundamentally new technologies. When you say "new science", it implies new methods of scientific inquiry or new way of looking at the world (for example Wolfram's New Kind of Science). Although it might use new facts about nature not discovered yet. Massive Scale does not mean just a magnification of dimensions.
What will power these artificial "planets" ? What will shield it from space debris ? How will you reuse resources at a massive scale ?