Beyond Godlike
Bad decisions make good stories. Hostile-by-default-on-contact based plots in pretty much all the alien sci-fi — from comic books to novels to movies — subscribe to this notion over and over again.
An exocivilization advanced enough to come in contact with another civilization will never explore the possibility to meet each other on unfriendly terms. We discussed this quite thoroughly in the previous part of this two-part series on assimilating Fermi Paradox.
By the end of the first part, we narrowed down the prospective possibilities in three general buckets:
- We’re in a simulation. Nihilistic, and unworthy of discussion.
- We’re the eventual alpha-civilization. Optimistic edge-case, the most extreme & unfalsifiable god-complex, discussed in first part.
- We’re an adolescent member of an interconnected network of symbiotic supercivilizations. Realistic(!) generic-case, free from the base assumptions of #2, and thus most abstract & hardest to approach.
So, naturally, we have to approach it. In this article.
A quick recap
In the previous article, we had three special considerations, which lead to its conclusion, that we are the supercivilization that eventually becomes the gatekeeper civilization of our Universe.
Those special considerations were:
- Single outcome
- Exclusivity of the extreme
- Hostile-by-default interactions
However, those considerations are only boundary conditions added for simplicity, and not necessarily fundamental. A generic solution will have to be unbounded by these conditions, and that’s what we’re upto next — one step at a time.
A detour into the Multiverse
A phase space is where all the possible states of a system are available. Let me try to (over) simplify the concept. Similar to when you were introduced to the concept of time as a dimension — you have to break out of your pit of common sense to get a grasp of it. Our perceptual 3D world is filled with all the “where” — but time as a dimension elongates along all the “when” — if punched together, in spacetime, both work in tandem. Phase space, in this analogy, will then be an ensemble of all the “which” of that spacetime.
To avoid the technical differences while taking an analogy too far, and also to avoid getting beaten up on the streets by theoretical physicists — I’m going to stop using the term phase space, and rather call this something more friendlier, and familiar — Multiverse.
You see a cube of cheese in front of you. In a (quantum) multiverse, that cheese is:
- not there (that milk was used to make yogurt instead)
- is infested with fungus
- is partially eaten by a mouse
- is about to be grated for a meal
- … etc.
All of the above.
Starting from what’s called a “set of initial conditions” (read: most fundamental laws of the host universe), each universe in the multiverse contains all the possible iterations of eventualities.
From forcing particles to go through a particular slit in a double-slit experiment, to deciding whether or not to drop out of school — whenever a causal relation is forced by choice, that worldline in the multiverse is split across all the probabilistic outcomes. Yet, it collapses into a single outcome, differently, for the observers in each of those universes.
So, we see only one outcome to take place. It’s just because we have no access to the universes which had different outcomes. Each of the other universes go on about their own ways as the butterfly effect of that event, until something else makes it split again.
The probability of universes where Trilobites thrived, or Dinosaurs celebrated their industrial age, or Neanderthals colonized the galaxy aren’t too different than that of Homo Sapiens becoming a universal supercivilization.
So, we can see, that the ‘single outcome’ that we’ve previously based on, doesn’t necessarily apply at a higher level. We have to assume all the supercivilizations that are possible, within the scope of our universe’s starting conditions, and theorize their interactions from there.
A peek into the superbrains
There’s a famous Tagore poem that goes:
উত্তম নিশ্চিন্তে চলে অধমের সাথে।
তিনিই মধ্যম যিনি চলেন তফাতে।।
Loosely translates to: “The superior feels fine hanging out with everyone (even the most inferior). Mediocre is the one who (has to) maintain safe distances.”
Feeling of insecurity, uncertainty, fear… defaulting to hostility on contact etc. are not the attributes of the alpha.
Take the example of modern humans at current time. We’ve evolved enough to come to a point where we’re not threatened by any other species. Doesn’t matter whether they have longer fangs, sharper claws, lethal venom — we as a species don’t really feel at survival risk from them. In fact, we take it upon ourselves to ensure the other species don’t go extinct, or even have them as pets/companions. It’s silly to even presume having a serious enmity/grudge against some other flora/fauna. So much so, that species that are very close to us on evolutionary scale, like Chimps, Gorillas etc, we love to observe/study their cognitive growth potential with adoration & admiration.
There’s no reason for this interaction between developed vs underdeveloped would have to be any different at a higher abstracted level of cognition. The civilizations that crossed the great-filter would consider themselves as developed, and the ones yet to cross it (like current human civilization) as underdeveloped. All the supercivilizations that crossed the great-filter wouldn’t necessarily be identical — much like human races and demographic distributions; but they’ll still identify with each other at a level plane, than they would with other underdeveloped civilizations.
This implies that the “hostile-by-default interactions” assumption is not only a special case, it’s most likely a false one in practicality.
It’s lonely at the top, and whoever is at the top would be glad to have someone by their side, someone to talk to, someone who can comprehend them. They’d ensure the great filters are properly in place to determine which kind of civilizations are allowed in, filtering them out of existence if they don’t qualify (pest-control). But the ones who do eventually qualify shouldn’t expect hostility from them.
Which, in turn, also implies that the “exclusivity of the extreme” doesn’t hold true anymore. Cause it turns out to be a dependent variable of hostile interactions.
Summing it up, so far…
- It’s more likely that there are innumerable supercivilizations out there than it’s likely that there isn’t
- They’re mighty enough to be able to manipulate worldlines at will
- They’re most likely connected together by a common consortium
- They look forward to welcoming other upcoming civilizations, worthy of joining the table
Some indirect predictions based on these would be:
- They (probably) take precautions to prevent unworthy civilizations from reaching super status by means of implementing the great filters as spacetime engineering, to keep the consortium in order
- A civilization like human civilization — contrary to the usual analogies of it being at its infancy — actually might be embryonic. The birthing process would likely be analogous to reaching the era of temporal engineering. It may sound ludicrous, but similar to crossing oceans on wooden ships on wind, crossing event horizon will eventually become a reality — probably sooner than the most optimistic of expectations.
- The universe we perceive is (probably) just a hatchery (or, one of the hatcheries) with limited constraints, sustenance, observation and safety like that of an womb. It’s a controlled environment, which is (probably) why we see the lucky Goldilocks zones of “just right” sequence of events.
Yet another detour through embryonic analogy
Let’s consider, a human foetus achieved superconsciousness. It dabbled into the “am I alone?” kinda questions for a while, then got to work to find it out.
Through rigorous process of calculating the amount of stuff (let’s say, placental enzymes) it’s releasing into the outgoing bloodstream, and the density of them in the incoming bloodstream, it comes to the conclusion that the amount of blood required for this has to be about 5 litres, and the body to support that has to be about 60kg. But it can only account for about 250ml of blood and 3kg of its body mass.
That’s just 1/20th of what it can perceive. Where are the rest of the stuff?!?

Funnily and coincidentally enough, that seems a lot like our perception of the universe and its known to unknown ratio (i.e. ~5%).
The existence itself might seem very scary, lonely, and insanely lucky fluke to the unborn baby. Add to the fact it counts events like, when it needed bones to develop there was a sudden surge of calcium, and when it needed the lungs to develop, there was a surge of corticosteroids in the incoming bloodstream. It thinks… what are the odds!
Now, think of the mother/parents and doctor(s) expecting the baby. How do they look at it. What can they do to explain it to the baby what all is happening? Not much. Neither can/would they pull the baby out into the world prematurely. All they can do is to ensure the best care for a healthy birth. And that’s it.
The baby eventually, over the course of childhood, will find out that — no, it’s not alone, there are 7 billion of them out there. Some of them not only loves it, but worked really hard to ensure its well-being when it wasn’t self-capable.
The current state of human sentience is a LOT like this. Isn’t it?
The sentience that lived
Coming back to the main thread, we got upto the point that we’re an embryonic civilization, on our way to the birthing process, (likely) under the care of supercivilization(s), who can’t wait to see us grow up.
Now, what are they looking at in terms of growth? The humans?
Likely not… I mean, not only.
From a bio-chemical soup to single cell organism to multi organ lifeform — if the line is stretched further forward, it doesn’t go towards one winning species in particular, as one might commonly assume. Even if humans might be the most important/interesting part in this chapter of the multiverse — like the brain in human body — it’s not the only thing that makes the lifeform work as a whole.
There has to be a very careful symbiotic synergies of all the parts working in tandem, doing their own different parts, but towards a very definite common goal of sustaining life. It’s true for the most basic single cell organism, to the largest single lifeform known to us. Any anti-synergic mutation will eventually be shaken off — as George Carlin would put it — “like a bad case of flees”.
There’s no reason it will be any different at a higher abstraction level.
Perhaps the great filter is — in itself — a civilizations’ own limitations, failing to work as a single unified unit, with all the lifeforms, species, races and cognitive & technological progress etc. working as different organs of a single body.
A civilization that fails to harmonize itself, is obviously too disastrous & incompetent to be trusted with even greater power, so it’s best to let go of them. Like discarding the weaklings at the Spartan Agoge process, or maybe a cosmological abortion, if you will.
Would we be able to cross the great filter, or are we going to be among the statistical majority of failed efforts? We can only try our best at making the right choices, so it leads towards the most prospective world line for us all.

Closure
When I started thinking on this topic, years back, I had thought of writing an actual book on this, explaining everything I wanted to. But, I realized it’s very unlikely that someone would actually read it, at least in foreseeable future. So, I got this out as a two part thought experiment.
Maybe one day I’ll come back to read it again to see if the logic still holds true.
Until then, if you ask me, if I believe in higher power, if I believe in intelligent design, if I believe in God — this will remain as my answer to that question.

