The Singularity can explain why we seem alone in the Universe

8 min readMay 20, 2015

by T. Reyes

Civilizations shot out of a cannon. The Singularity could represent a passage that all must take and could explain the silence.

Yet another attempt at SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) has come up empty. A first phase analysis of Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) data has turned up no indication of advanced civilizations — Type 3 on the Kardashev Scale — among 100,000 galaxies studied. This number of galaxies constitutes just a millionth or less of all galaxies in the Universe but it cannot be dismissed as insignificant.

Kardashev Level 3 civilizations would harness the power of whole galaxies.

We once again must turn to the question — “where are they?” — as Enrico Fermi called out to Los Alamos colleagues. The Fermi Paradox haunts us. But is it too soon? Certainly, no one would call off the search with this latest negative result. The researchers call their results just the first step in the study of the WISE data.

An illustration of NASA Wield Field Infrared Explorer (WISE) as it functions in Earth orbit. WISE’s all-sky survey in the 3.4, 4.6, 12 and 22 μm wavelength bands were used by Wright, et al. to identify anomalous galactic spectra in their SETI.

In my previous SETI article, “Will We First Find Simple or Intelligent Life beyond the Earth?”, I touched upon another explanation for the deft silence of the Cosmos. Begin with this question: Is the Technological Singularity — the perceived moment at which A.I. becomes self-aware and exceeds human intelligence — a passage that all advanced civilizations must face?

Myself and others residing in the center of the cyclone — Silicon Valley — are keenly aware of an acceleration. Today, the accelerating acceleration of technological advancements offers an explanation for how far more advanced civilizations evolved.

Under the scenario of a fast passage via the Singularity, Kardashev Level 1s (right), such as we are reaching, never evolve to Level 2s (left, a Dyson Sphere).

The Singularity could be a critical moment in the existence of all technological civilizations. It may be a bridge all must cross, a catapult, being shot out of a cannon, that sends all that cross the bridge into another realm of existence. The Kardashev Scale that defines levels of advanced civilizations could be grossly short-sighted. Rather, there could be our level of technological civilization and then everyone else who are far more advanced — beyond our comprehension.

Surviving the Technological Singularity would mean that civilizations could experience a very sudden surge of new knowledge and capabilities from a artificial super-intelligence. Rather than take thousands of years to climb a ladder of technological advances, all civilizations could be making a rapid advance in just a matter of years. This may at least be the destiny of Humanity and soon.

Like a card in the game of Monopoly, civilizations may be handed an immediate advancement beyond Kardashev Level 2 and 3, that is, if they survive the passage that is already a concern to Humanity.

This concept is not new but myself and other contemporaries are arriving at the same idea in various forms. A more formal pronouncement of the scenario was put forward by John Smart and described as the Transcension Hypothesis in 2011 and initially considered on his website in 1999. Even still, the idea stems from a broader idea that has floated for decades that advanced civilizations could be far beyond us, god-like, and effectively hidden from view.

It may be that the Universe is chocked full of Kardashev Level 1 civilizations essentially at our own level, and then also all those that were shot out of the Singularity cannon and survived. The singular leap in knowledge and know-how could make all the far advanced civilizations invisible to us because with their power of mind came also efficiency and economy. They are not scaled up versions of a Kardashev level 1 with hundreds of billions of mouths to feed and technological systems demanding the power of star clusters, black holes or entire galaxies. Never mind for now whether they remain organic, artificially-based or cyborgs of some sort.

Three foundations with different approaches are tackling the issues and questions raised by the rapid increases in technological progress including the possibility of the Singularity.

However, two questions come to mind from this hypothesis: 1) how does one prove the hypothesis prior to having ourselves make the potential “transcenion”, and 2) in the mean time, how difficult will it be to find the stragglers — civilizations at our own level?

The questions have been tackled by Smart and members of their institute — Acceleration Studies Foundation. To make a complete and formal hypothesis, Smart has conceived an explanation for their existence post singularity. Called STEM for “space, time, energy, and matter”, he describes a scenario of advancement that takes on extreme efficiency of STEM. However, he follows that after a short period of just a few centuries, technological advances top out and the advanced civilization transitions to what he calls an extreme density STEM state — that of a black hole.

Nikolai Kardashev (left) proposed his namesake scale in 1964. Only six years earlier, John Von Neumann (right)was first to use the term Singularity — “ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.”

This is where taking the Singularity as a common stepping stone leads to re-imagining or abandoning the Kardashev Scale as a measurement of advancement. The discontinuity in advancement where all possible knowledge of the Universe is achieved within a few years would avoid the messy evolution of civilizations that demand ever greater amounts of energy that could be detected by our sensors today.

While I consider this an appealing explanation for the Fermi Paradox as a consequence of the technological singularity, one must keep in mind that it is an hypothesis based on a hypothesis. This possible explanation is a double conundrum. However, if you, like many today, consider the Singularity an inevitability, then its only a question of what lies after the Singularity.

Smart also proposes that post-singularity, the civilizations in their desire for efficiency would redesign their solar systems. This is unnecessary conjecture in Smart’s post-singularity scenario. So much straddles speculation already. One could also imagine that the sudden rise in knowledge and know-how could lead such beings to do nothing — live and let live — and just marvel or participate in the Universe in ways beyond our comprehension.

However, if correct, there should be a discontinuity in the spectrum of detectable technologies across the Universe. This could explain the Fermi Paradox.

The “Transcenion Hypothesis” has the same end as the hypotheses that advanced civilizations disappear by either self-destruction or eventual natural disasters common across the time and space. In all these scenarios, intelligent life effectively disappears. However, in those other scenarios, there is likely to remain a continuum of technologies that would be detectable.

The pre-singularity civilizations such as our own would still be few and far between and their physical signatures very weak and hard to detect by the likes of their equals, that is, us. A few hundred years may be all any civilization has to show their presence. Such a time period is so brief in the time scale of the Universe that combined with the vast distances, finding those like us is an extreme challenge that our feeble technology may only now be making feasible.

In fact, this post-singularity scenario should be underlined as just one of many possible ones. Nevertheless, it is not unreasonable that a large subset of possible outcomes could involve extreme efficiency of resources and consequently, while extremely powerful in their presence, super civilizations would not be exposed as loud, noisy sore thumbs in the Universe.

Marchis and Tarter begin a YouTube hangout to discuss a search for Kardashev Level 2 civilizations — harnessing the equivalent of a star’s output.

My own thoughts first touched on this question of advancement and efficiency while listening to a Youtube hangout with Dr. Jill Tarter and Franck Marchis regarding their WISE search for Kardashev Level 2 civilizations. I thought, what if the byproducts of these Level 2s were extremely efficient and recycled waste heat?

So we come full circle, back to the recent WISE survey —“The Ĝ Infrared Search for Extraterrestrial Civilizations with Large Energy Supplies. III. The Reddest Extended Sources in WISE.”

This survey type was first proposed by Freeman Dyson in 1963. Dyson asserted that Kardashev level 2 and 3 technologies would still obey the laws of thermodynamics and consequently, large sums of energy would be converted to infrared energy just as one sees with the combustion engine emitting heat as well as locomotion. The infrared (heat) signature could be seen as an anomaly in the light from distant galaxies, hence exposing the presence of powerful beings.

The WISE survey was an important accomplishment, a milestone. The researchers and others in the SETI community will continue the search in the infrared and much more acutely. However, we remain very technologically challenged in the quest to find someone else in the Universe. If the Transcenion Hypothesis is correct, the best chance at SETI is to look for other beings existing at a tech level like ourselves. We will need a variety of bigger and more sensitive ears to listen for very meek signals equivalent to those that have leaked out of our solar system — our radio transmissions — as well as the very modest direct transmissions we have sent as calling cards. But the search for Kardashev Level 2 and 3 civilizations will also continue. Continued negative results will likely turn more researchers to consider the Transcension Hypothesis more seriously.

The Singularity can explain why we seem alone in the Universe

by T. Reyes

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Written by Tim Reyes