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If we expect to see the "brightness of the blackbox caused by the radiation of a Type III Kardashev Civilization", and we inspect galaxies that are maybe millio

by drKarl 10y ago

If we expect to see the "brightness of the blackbox caused by the radiation of a Type III Kardashev Civilization", and we inspect galaxies that are maybe millions of light-years away from us, would we not be looking at how did those galaxies look millions of years ago? That is, maybe there are Type III Kardashev Civilizations and their usage of the energy of their galaxy in fact radiates energy that would be visible to us... except that they've evolved to that point much later that the light we're receiving since it takes millions of years for that light to reach us. In those millions of years they could very well have reached that technological level, but it will take some more millions of years for that to reach us... by that time mabye that Civilization doesn't exist anymore... Maybe our civilization doesn't exist anymore... In this case we extract information from the radiation that comes from those galaxies, and the information is too slow to travel such vast distances, since it can't go faster than the speed of light. In summary, we're looking for ANCIENT Type III civilizations.

blincoln 10y ago
> In summary, we're looking for ANCIENT Type III civilizations. Yes. This is because of the low probability that intelligent life develops somewhere else at even close to the same time as it did on Earth. Our best understanding is that life has existed on Earth for something like 4 billion years, and complex life has existed for about 500 million. However, complex life capable of building spacecraft (or even radios) has only existed for a few hundred thousand (that is being extremely generous, of course), and only developed that technology in the last ~100 years. If intelligent life has or will evolve somewhere else in the universe, and progresses anything like it did here, then the odds seem overwhelmingly in favour of one of two scenarios: - It evolved millions of years ago, and if it has not wiped itself out, is virtually god-like by our standards due to its head start on technological development. - It has not yet evolved, or at best is the equivalent of primates or the proto-humans of several hundred thousand years ago.

by drKarl 10y ago

blincoln 10y ago

> In summary, we're looking for ANCIENT Type III civilizations. Yes. This is because of the low probability that intelligent life develops somewhere else at even close to the same time as it did on Earth. Our best understanding is that life has existed on Earth for something like 4 billion years, and complex life has existed for about 500 million. However, complex life capable of building spacecraft (or even radios) has only existed for a few hundred thousand (that is being extremely generous, of course), and only developed that technology in the last ~100 years. If intelligent life has or will evolve somewhere else in the universe, and progresses anything like it did here, then the odds seem overwhelmingly in favour of one of two scenarios: - It evolved millions of years ago, and if it has not wiped itself out, is virtually god-like by our standards due to its head start on technological development. - It has not yet evolved, or at best is the equivalent of primates or the proto-humans of several hundred thousand years ago.