Mathematical lower limits on the rate of growth of extraterrestial civilizations

[entelecheia]

A quote from Michio Kaku:

3) The laws of planetary evolution. Any advanced civilization must grow in energy consumption faster than the frequency of life-threatening catastrophes (e.g. meteor impacts, ice ages, supernovas, etc.). If they grow any slower, they are doomed to extinction. This places mathematical lower limits on the rate of growth of these civilizations.

I have developed an hypothesis called Zero Friction Age (analogy with the rails of a train); or a moment in the history of a technological civilization in which science focuses all its energy on engineering, not wasting more energy on remedial activities. Has evolved to a level that would minimize/eliminate completely all destructive phenomena: Social: government and financial treachery, astroturfing, political and religious ideologies, etc. Natural : climatic and geological hazards, diseases, threats of meteors, supernovas, etc.) shaping a nearly perfectly peaceful society.

These corrective activities of science (curative medicine, long trials, etc) would disappear and the entire global scientific activity would focus all its energy exclusively on engineering.
Does it could require a world government based on informatics? A new world order and 100% transparent?

As making a speculative parallelism with Moore's Law, technological acceleration could entail more technological acceleration until entering a vortex of unprecedented speed ...

Then at that threshold, that turning point, physics could ‘touch’ metaphysics:
-bad infinity, - liberty antinomy - interstellar travel & time dilation - timetravel paradoxes –

 

[Read-Only]

A quote from Michio Kaku:

3) The laws of planetary evolution. Any advanced civilization must grow in energy consumption faster than the frequency of life-threatening catastrophes (e.g. meteor impacts, ice ages, supernovas, etc.). If they grow any slower, they are doomed to extinction. This places mathematical lower limits on the rate of growth of these civilizations.

I have developed an hypothesis called Zero Friction Age (analogy with the rails of a train); or a moment in the history of a technological civilization in which science focuses all its energy on engineering, not wasting more energy on remedial activities. Has evolved to a level that would minimize/eliminate completely all destructive phenomena: Social: government and financial treachery, astroturfing, political and religious ideologies, etc. Natural : climatic and geological hazards, diseases, threats of meteors, supernovas, etc.) shaping a nearly perfectly peaceful society.

These corrective activities of science (curative medicine, long trials, etc) would disappear and the entire global scientific activity would focus all its energy exclusively on engineering.
Does it could require a world government based on informatics? A new world order and 100% transparent?

As making a speculative parallelism with Moore's Law, technological acceleration could entail more technological acceleration until entering a vortex of unprecedented speed ...

Then at that threshold, that turning point, physics could ‘touch’ metaphysics:
-bad infinity, - liberty antinomy - interstellar travel & time dilation - timetravel paradoxes –

While I suppose it COULD happen, if they are anything like humans the probability would be somewhere near zero.

 

[Arne Saknussemm]

Aren't you hypothesizing a bit too wildly optimistically? A technological civilization in which science focuses all its energy on engineering? Surely there is something to be said for pure research? Poetry and romance?

You wrote: "not wasting more energy on remedial activities. Has evolved to a level that would minimize/eliminate completely all destructive phenomena: Social: government and financial treachery, astroturfing, political and religious ideologies, etc. Natural : climatic and geological hazards, diseases, threats of meteors, supernovas, etc.) shaping a nearly perfectly peaceful society."

But what fun would that be? Really, my first thought was of the Psychlos, of L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth, a race interested in nothing but mining. Then I thought of Star Trek's Borg. Is that what you have in mind?

"Minimize/eliminate completely all destructive phenomena"? And who would minimize or eliminate the minimizers and eliminators? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - who would watch the watchers?

And what would happen to TV classics such as Dance Fever?

Please excuse me if I have misunderstood your whole concept, but it's more than a little frightening. I think I'd prefer to take my chances with geological hazards and meteors.

 

[entelecheia]

Aren't you hypothesizing a bit too wildly optimistically? A technological civilization in which science focuses all its energy on engineering? Surely there is something to be said for pure research? Poetry and romance?

Apologies. It was not a serious idea, i should not write here.

I wondered why there are scientific disciplines that are routine and boring, and at the other end of the scale, other exciting . The first ones remedial, performed by imperative necessity, and apparently contrary to the innate motivation.

It occurred to me that the explanation is perhaps due to the 'poor quality science' astroturfing everywhere, and that in an extraterrestial civilization, science would advance at a much faster rate, so that there were no routine and boring jobs ('not intrinsic').

Which arouses intrinsic motivation: particle physics, theoretical physics, astrophysics, cosmology, philosophy, computer science, meta-mathematics, bioengineering, biotechnology, genomics, neurobiology, etc.

Which are studied by necessity: dentistry, orthopedics, earthquake resistant design, surgery, law, etc.

Kant - Metaphysics of Morals:

And this we must admit, that the judgement of those who would very much lower the lofty eulogies of the advantages which reason gives us in regard to the happiness and satisfaction of life, or who would even reduce them below zero, is by no means morose or ungrateful to the goodness with which the world is governed, but that there lies at the root of these judgements the idea that our existence has a different and far nobler end, for which, and not for happiness, reason is properly intended, and which must, therefore, be regarded as the supreme condition to which the private ends of man must, for the most part, be postponed.

 

[Arne Saknussemm]

I've read your post above (#4) four or five times, and I perhaps understand what you are saying. However, your last paragraph still eludes me. Especially the underlined parts.

I now see that I missed the whole ET aspect of your original concept. I thought you had been suggesting some future, Utopian human society. So wasn't it clever of me to compare your vision to Psychlos or Borg even though I hadn't realized you had meant alien civilizations to begin with? They seemed rather, non-human.

Since you do mean extraterrestrials, why bother? Shouldn't we leave them to sort out their own societies? We don't even know with absolute certainty that there are any. If there are, they may be so far away that we may never meet, or not meet any time soon. Then, how likely are they to listen to us about how they should run their society?

If you want to continue this discussion as an amusing exercise in pure speculation, that's fine though. Please just be clearer. I hope that I have not misunderstood what you are trying to say.

 

[entelecheia]

I've read your post above (#4) four or five times, and I perhaps understand what you are saying. However, your last paragraph still eludes me. Especially the underlined parts.

Who would even reduce them below zero...Kant suggests that far nobler end is a good will good in itself. A will that acts for the sake of duty. That last concept seemed to me too vague. According to my hypothesis, the latter would be related to Zero-Friction Age.

In a hypothetical alien civilization, this apparent paradox reason-happyness would last only a few years, due Zero-Friction Age is reached immediately after the Industrial Age.

We will have enough time to begin the colonization of other planetary systems, before a meteor or supernova radiation delete us?
If the answer is no. Then our failure would be the rate at which our technology evolves is too slow. Does the 'friction' have something to do? I would say yes.

I now see that I missed the whole ET aspect of your original concept. I thought you had been suggesting some future, Utopian human society. So wasn't it clever of me to compare your vision to Psychlos or Borg even though I hadn't realized you had meant alien civilizations to begin with? They seemed rather, non-human.

Few sci-fi movies captures my interest. Human or not. The question is open:

Stephen Hawking: Between the next thousand years or so it will take man to make the planet uninhabitable and the billion years it will take for the sun to turn our planet into an arid wasteland, there is always the chance that a nearby supernova, an asteroid, or a quick and painless black hole could do us in.

Probabilistically between could mean how many centuries? Can scientists predict the moment of a massive stellar explossion (near-Earth supernova)?
http://bigthink.com/dangerous-ideas/5-stephen-hawkings-warning-abandon-earth-or-face-extinction