A Galaxy Alive with Civilizations

The Fermi Paradox (’Where are they?’) is becoming something of a cottage industry; everyone has an answer. My own hunch is that while life is widespread, technological civilizations are not, with perhaps as few as 5 to 10 active at any given period in the galaxy. But many would disagree with this assessment, including Itzhak Shechtman. The Israeli theorist speculates that ancient super-civilizations may well be out there, and perhaps detectable through an upgraded SETI effort. But his first task, in a recent article in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, is to silence the critics.

For cosmic catastrophe theory has gained traction in recent years. In its scenarios, certain cosmic events — gamma-ray bursts, neutrino-induced extinctions, disastrous interactions with galactic spiral arms — could cause species extinction that would prevent long-lasting cultures from ever developing. A solution to the Fermi Paradox? Nobody lives long enough to visit us.

But Shechtman believes such theories disregard the pivotal role advanced civilizations could play in changing their own destinies. His terms will be familiar to anyone following the development of advanced computers:

The present paper introduces a new concept: ‘immunity-through-singularity.’ According to it, within a cosmically very short time span after a culture attains approximately the level of humanity it develops into a singularity. From that time on the rules of the game change: it becomes immune against most terrestrial and cosmic catstrophes, developing into a super or hyper civilization.

Full item here:

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=825

A quote:

The paper is Shechtman, “Is the Universe Teeming with Super Civilizations?,” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society Vol. 59 No. 7 (July, 2006). My photocopy of this article obscures the page numbers; if anyone can supply them, please do, as to the best of my knowledge JBIS continues to be unavailable online. The fact that the journal Geoffrey Landis calls ‘the home of advanced concept thinking’ should have so meager an online presence continues to baffle me.