Astronomy / Space Search for Type III civilizations

[Varrag]

After examining 100,000 nearby large galaxies using NASA WISE, a team of researchers lead by The Pennsylvania State University astronomer Jason Wright has concluded that none of them contain any obvious signs of highly advanced technological civilizations which would fit into the description of theoretical Type III civilization (Kardashev scale).

This type of civilization is consuming (almost) all energy from all stars in their galaxy, combined; thus, such galaxy should be a strong source of mid-infrared (MIR) emissions and much less bright in visible light, or even completely invisible. None has been found. Although it is worth noting that the team pinpointed five sources with unusually high MIR, and suggested that they should be more studied because it is not clear what exactly we are looking at.

Article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...izations-absent-from-100-000-nearby-galaxies/
Full study (pdf): http://www2.astro.psu.edu/~jtwright/Dyson/GHAT3.pdf

 

[Slo-Mo-Shun]

I find it difficult to even conceptualise type II and type III civilisations especially as we may not even be classed as type I (too many energy sources not yet developed).

 

[adoredtv]

Interesting, I was talking about this in another thread here a while ago - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=84402&page=4&p=1346402&viewfull=1#post1346402

The conclusion seems pretty obvious to me - we are likely to be the only intelligent life in our universe. I cringe when I see comments like "we merely have to posit that successful civilizations don’t produce such waste, and the failure of SETI is explained." Yeah sure that's possible, but ALL successful civilizations? All it takes is one smoking gun, one civilization that doesn't follow this path. Are we supposed to believe that every one of these supposedly successful civilisations followed the exact same path of "no waste produced"?

I talk about it more later in the thread I linked too. All these explanations for the lack of evidence of alien intelligence are so contrived and wholly unrealistic.

 

[Slo-Mo-Shun]

@adoretv I missed that thread. Good post. I do truly have an issue with the idea that civilisations will follow the same developmental path that humans have. Humans have a problem understanding each other when separated by a few thousand miles on Earth let alone understanding a species elsewhere in the galaxy/universe. One of humanities greatest faults is to anthropomorhise every other species in existence.

To be quite honest I am not sure that we would even recognise a civilisation that was type III.

 

[Varrag]

Thanks adoredtv, it was a good reading.

This Great Silence we are facing is surely puzzling. We are either missing something big, or as someone said, we are really in the first generation of technological civilizations currently arising in the universe, unable to detect each other. Move away from the Earth just 100 light years, and literally nothing would tell the observer that something unusual is going on the third rock from the star we call Sol.

After all, evolution took more than 4 billion years to produce sentient beings here on Earth - and it was a bumpy ride. It's a very long time even on cosmological level: almost one third of the estimated age of the universe. So, perhaps we are not the only one, but we might be among the first ones.

 

[metatheurgist]

This Great Silence we are facing is surely puzzling. We are either missing something big, or as someone said, we are really in the first generation of technological civilizations currently arising in the universe, unable to detect each other. Move away from the Earth just 100 light years, and literally nothing would tell the observer that something unusual is going on the third rock from the star we call Sol.

After all, evolution took more than 4 billion years to produce sentient beings here on Earth - and it was a bumpy ride. It's a very long time even on cosmological level: almost one third of the estimated age of the universe. So, perhaps we are not the only one, but we might be among the first ones.

I think it's more likely that sentience annihilates itself before they get off their planet. Just look at this planet - if it's any kind of guide, despite more than enough warnings about how our practices are literally consuming the world we live in the vast majority are turning a blind eye because fear, greed and superstition have a far greater hold on humanity than reason.

 

[Varrag]

^^ that's certainly a valid suggestion, and my second favorite explanation for lack of evidence that civilizations older and much more advanced than us are, or have ever been, existing in Milky way; let alone the universe. Technology could be an inevitable doom for sentient life - we might be already seeing signs that this is actually happening right now. On the other hand, it is somewhat hard to accept that absolutely no one managed to overcome the dangers of self-destruction or biological degeneration.

 

[adoredtv]

For me it's just a matter of scale. There are so many stars, so many galaxies that if hyper-intelligent life was possible we'd know about it.

The most plausible reasons to me for why we aren't seeing them are some of the most wacky sounding ones. Zoo hypothesis for example, while sounding a bit fantastical, is fairly strong compared to some of the rest. Even simulation argument/matrix theory is more plausible to me than there being a bunch of aliens out there that just don't want to contact or colonise. The idea that the universe was only suitable for life 5 billion years ago is horrible as is anything that requires all aliens to act in the same manner.

If all the aliens that supposedly exist just don't want to be found or colonise, that makes us the most alien of them all.

Multiple great filters are possible and I also tend to agree that destroying ourselves is the most likely outcome - however in that case we've still passed an extremely advanced great filter (imo) by getting signals out there first (technology). As far as I'm concerned, nothing else has or we'd have heard or seen it by now.

It could also be said that we're extremely close to passing through the "self annihilation" filter also, as really there is nothing much stopping us from living in space (constant manned ISS presence for example) or the moon/mars within a couple of decades - so either we destroy ourselves really soon or we're gonna pass that filter too.

I do believe microbial life is possibly or even probably abundant.

 

[Varrag]

Ah, yes, Zoo hypothesis... maybe a bit weird and fantastic but not completely unreasonable. Idea, so nicely represented in Carl Sagan's "Contact", that there is some sort of galactic consortium of super-advanced civilizations and "Lex Galactica" which prevents them to interfere with development of young civilizations like ours -until they decide that we have passed the qualifications and can safely join their company- is definitely exciting.

BTW I suppose that this should also mean that they have built some sort of "information shield" around Solar system which is filtering out everything that could tell us that we are not alone

I also like the idea that intelligent life, once it finds the way for efficient interstellar travel, relatively fast evolves into shapes and forms we just cannot comprehend; we might be even seeing the footprints of their activities all around, but we don't truly understand what we are seeing. That's where Karl Schroeder comes with: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from nature". But then again, this should be happening really, really fast, and always - no exceptions - ... so taking scale into the account, it looks very unlikely that every single spacefaring civilization follows exactly the same path.

There's plenty of interesting theories, but I still prefer two: a) we are literally the first, or among the first technological civilizations in the universe; b) self-destruction or biological degeneration are inevitable consequences of technological advancement.

 

[adoredtv]

Yes there could be similarities between zoo hypothesis and simulation theory too, basically the idea being that information on the galaxy is being withheld from us for whatever reason. That alone is interference however which forces us to ask the question "why?".

I have a real problem with us being in a "first wave" of advanced civs - 1) the Universe and Milky Way has been around for way longer than us and 2) even if advanced life was only capable of forming ~5 billion years ago at the birth of the solar system, we've had multiple mass-extinction events that would have set us back millions of years already. Did everybody else also have those too? If not why aren't they far more advanced? It's just way too convenient and contrived an explanation for me.

I'd much more readily buy into b) self-destruction being an inevitable consequence of technology, however like I said we're not that far away from getting out there and starting to colonise at least our own tiny part of the galaxy. Nobody else managed that ever? I'd love to know what we're doing that is so right up till now because it's kinda hard to see it. The alternative is of course, we are on very borrowed time.

I like to think of it though as - "If some disaster had to befall Earth that meant certain death for all humans in 10 or 20 years, could we as a species do enough to get out to the moon or mars and make it habitable before then?". For me the answer to that is yes. If all the minds and productivity in the world were put to that task we would accomplish it I feel.

For me the most depressing explanation of us being alone is the most likely one, which again forces us to ask more questions than it answers.

 

[Zieman]

I like to think of it though as - "If some disaster had to befall Earth that meant certain death for all humans in 10 or 20 years, could we as a species do enough to get out to the moon or mars and make it habitable before then?". For me the answer to that is yes. If all the minds and productivity in the world were put to that task we would accomplish it I feel.

There's the big if. Current state of worldwide affairs strongly suggests that as a species mankind would fail in such circumstances.

The guestion is about scale again, how big proportion of minds & productivity would be needed, and how big proportion could actually be harnessed - the odds seem pretty weak.

 

[Goblin King]

I can't decide. I used to fall firmly in favour of us quite possibly being amongst the first sentient species in the galaxy what with the ridiculous chain of very specific events necessary for life to evolve and then gain true sentience. But then they discovered the freeze dried zygotes on Mars and if two planets in just one system can begin to have life evolving on them then it improves the odds of there being other life in the galaxy significantly especially when looking at the size of the galaxy, let alone the universe (apparently it's really big).

It'd be a real shame if we are completely alone, but then what with all the issues we could potentially have dealing with another race - it's not like we're awesome at amicably settling disputes through diplomatic means at the moment - maybe it's not an awful thing to happen, or at least give us time to either wipe out or civilise ourselves beyond the point of needing to plant a McDonalds concession on every habitable planet and thereby ruin them for all other forms off life that come later.

Of course the other thing that could be wiping out other forms of life is the inevitability of reaching the singularity, the point where AI's have the same processing power as a human/alien brain and the resulting Skynet issues once they overtake us. If 'the machines' use the critical mass of free along with immersive gaming technology it could stop breeding in it's tracks. Seriously, how much do you play ED at the moment? Throw in centuries worth of awful internet based naked people with the mother of all Oculous rifts and the population could implode within a generation. I doubt Skynet would ever need guns or robots.

It redacted the word p*rn? I didn't know it did that. It's started already!!!!

 

[Varrag]

Seriously, how much do you play ED at the moment? Throw in centuries worth of awful internet based naked people with the mother of all Oculous rifts and the population could implode within a generation. I doubt Skynet would ever need guns or robots.

That's actually a good point: you made it brilliantly simple and striking at the same time: biological degeneration may be a lot more dangerous than we perceive. As rude as it may look at first glance, we cannot completely dismiss the scenario in which rapid advancement of technology and medicine is getting in way of evolution. Nature is merciless. Life is aggressive. Brutal inter- and intra-competition of the species and survival of the fittest have been working for billions of years and gave us humans a birth, eventually.

But it is pretty obvious that we have this tendency to build walls around us and to slowly drift away from the nature, meddling with it whenever we can and giving ourselves to our tech more and more. Maybe it's good - perhaps evolution "counts" on it. Maybe it's not - natural selection is still working with us, but not how it used to work: our tech and medicine are partially blocking it. I am not sure - there is no doubt that the technology helped us to arise and become what we are, but who can tell that there isn't a line, a point of no return, where this process turns upside down and becomes counter-productive, leading to stagnation, degradation and decline of our species?

 

[Geers]

We should build a big sign that says "Hidden Rebel Fortress" and just wait for a Death Star to turn up.

That can't possibly backfire.