Aww, no alien empires yet

[Cray]

WISE didn't spot any Dyson spheres or galactic civilizations yet. Clearly, we need to build the Argus Array soon.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015...0-galaxies

[stevebowers]

They were really only looking for type III civs, or at least high type II civs with lots of stars in use. Still, disappointing.

I'm hoping that most civilisations discover some curious method of optimising their existence. Baby universes, femtoscale civilisations, translation to another brane- something like this, that makes dyson spheres irrelevant. Trouble is you need every single civilisation in 100,000 galaxies to reject the Type III route.

[Drashner1]

It should be noted that the Kardashev Types date from the 60s and may have as much relation to how civilizations actually develop as the imaginings of Jules Verne to with the 21st century we live in.

To take but one factor: A civilization the successfully achieved Zero Population Growth might be hugely advanced - but have no need of things like Dyson Spheres or the like simply because their resource needs are both stable and far below the level where such constructs are required (even if it might be trivial for them to create them if they wished).

The answer to the Fermi Paradox may be something as simple as totally effective birth control and a social model a bit different from our own. It should also be noted that, from our own experience, when you raise people's standard of living and give them access to education - they are less inclined to produce large numbers of children.

I can think of maybe a half dozen scenarios in which alien civs could be relatively common - and not detectable by the methods and models we are using now.

Todd

[chris0033547]

Quotes from the article:

[..]scientists have found 50 galaxies with unusual radiation signatures, indicating something strange is happening inside many distant collections of stars -- even if it's nothing to do with aliens at all.

[..]In particular lead author Roger Griffith identified 50 galaxies out of the 100 million catalogued by Wise, and the 100,000 studied in more detail, which had "unusually high levels of mid-infrared radiation". "Our follow-up studies of those galaxies may reveal if the origin of their radiation results from natural astronomical processes, or if it could indicate the presence of a highly advanced civilisation," Griffith said.[..]

I don't know, why the authors of the article are so pessimistic. These two quotes are amazing news for me.

If you want, you can also take a look at this discussion, which focuses on the Fermi Paradox later on:

http://www.orionsarm.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=1250

Maybe looking for megaprojects like a Dyson Sphere is a wrong approach anyway. A Dyson Sphere is basically "just" a number of "solar cells" catching light from a star. But there might be better ways to use a star's energy. Perhaps something like this? :

http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/480d45f717577

Or maybe the ultimate fate of any civilisation is to become like the Efficiency Maximization Paradigm. Ultimately beings like baseline humans, superiors and so on still have some kind of role to play in the OA universe scenario. But in real life this might not be the case. In real life, the existence in utopian virtual worlds might be the way to go. Any form of biological life could eventually evolve to become like the EMP or the Diamond Network and the Panvirtuality with their vast cybercosms and dedicated basement universes.

[stevebowers]

One thing I think can be ruled out is galaxies with cultures that possess magical energy sources, such as the energy supposedly available in the Star Wars galaxy to run turbolasers, or the bilateral energy source used by the Culture to power their GSVs.

If a civilisation could literally pull energy out of another dimension like that, they would not need stars - they could just live on luxurious habitats in deep space (this is basically what a GSV is, after all). A civilisation with magical sources of energy of this kind could have unlimited growth until the luminosity of their magical energy exceeds the luminosity of the stars in that galaxy by an arbitrary amount.

[Rynn]

Incidentally Charles Stross posted a blog on the topic of the Great Filter coincidentally a few days before this came out. Anders Sandberg has posted in it (and there's a link to a recent blog by him). Stross speculates on some filters (in a half serious manner) and then asks commenters to offer up their own ideas.

My proposal was number 7, copying to here:

So this dials up the speculation a few notches but a possible fGF could be a scientific discovery that provides the same benefits of interstellar travel without requiring it. Important modifier: the edges of this discovery lie along multiple paths that would need to be taken in order to develop interstellar technology.

As an example; a new theory of high energy/exotic physics (useful if you want an interstellar rocket) that makes it possible to construct wormholes. But these wormholes don't travel within our universe but connect to other ones. Third and final point to put the last nail in the coffin for interstellar travel, it's possible to influence these wormholes to connect to a universe with desirable physical laws.

The consequence of this is that before any civilisation gets to the point of sending out rockets they find it much easier to colonise into much more hospitable universes.

[iancampbell]

It should be noted that the Kardashev Types date from the 60s and may have as much relation to how civilizations actually develop as the imaginings of Jules Verne to with the 21st century we live in.

To take but one factor: A civilization the successfully achieved Zero Population Growth might be hugely advanced - but have no need of things like Dyson Spheres or the like simply because their resource needs are both stable and far below the level where such constructs are required (even if it might be trivial for them to create them if they wished).

The answer to the Fermi Paradox may be something as simple as totally effective birth control and a social model a bit different from our own. It should also be noted that, from our own experience, when you raise people's standard of living and give them access to education - they are less inclined to produce large numbers of children.

I can think of maybe a half dozen scenarios in which alien civs could be relatively common - and not detectable by the methods and models we are using now.

Todd

Your point about birth control and the like is well taken, but we can't know that it applies to all lifeforms. For an example where it doesn't apply because nobody has discovered effective birth control without undesirable side effects, see the Moties.

Another example of a sapient lifeform that wouldn't have the attitudes of humans might be one that produces huge numbers of offspring without investing much in them, and accepts enormous levels of infant mortality - much as Earth organisms such as amphibians and fish do. Sapient frogs wouldn't think like us in this respect - or many other respects, for that matter.

[Rynn]

Your point about birth control and the like is well taken, but we can't know that it applies to all lifeforms.

Yeah that is a key condition of the fermi paradox: it just takes one species to try and colonise and in a relatively short amount of time they're everywhere. That mostly applies to the galaxy rather than intergalactic but doesn't change much. They needn't even colonise directly; another way of putting it is that it would just take one self replicating probe, tasked with building up the industry to dismantle all the planets and build a matrioska, and we have a K3 situation also in no time.

I remember when I first heard of the fermi paradox as a kid I thought it must be wrong because no species could have had the time to colonise the entire galaxy, even if they were a billion years old. Then it was pointed out to me that on the scale of the universe even slow speeds lead to the same effect. For example:

- Assume a VN probe situation
- Average travel time 100,000 years
- A 100,000 year Matrioshka construction time (assume for now every star is suitable)
- Only two (successful) probes sent out once the Matrioshka is complete

Even with that it only takes 7.8 million years to convert the entire milky way, a time scale 8 times less than that of the gap between now and the dinosaurs.

[stevebowers]

Stross' scariest answer to the Fermi Paradox/absence of KIII civilisations is something he calls the menace of the 'griefers'; species with an axe to grind could send out von Neumann machines designed to build Nicoll-Dyson lasers, and vapourise every life-bearing planet (or just the ones with civilisations).

[FrodoGoofball]

My own pet theory on the Fermi paradox is that the Drake equation value for "habitable planet => life" may be very, very, very small. Of course it's also possible the reason for the Fermi paradox is something we haven't even thought of.