A wild hypothesis

As I was writing my master thesis in political science I could not stop thinking about the implications of one of the theories I was formulating, namely the one concerning critical phases in the development of civilisations. In short my theory suggests that every civilisation, which exceeds a given limit in terms of instrumental influence on its planet's ecosystems and in terms of mass destruction capacity, enters into a critical phase. During this phase it will be decided whether the civilisation dies or whether it manages to transcend its original form and become truly universal.

In the essay I argued that humanity right now experiences such a critical phase in its history.

But as this was an academic essay and not one of my personal speculations I did not pursue a particular line of thought. As the telescopes and the stars might already have given away I was thinking about the possibility that this theory was not only applicable to human history but rather to all sentient species that might exist in the vastness of space.

If that is a valid assumption, the dilemmas we are currently facing in terms of a worsening ecological crises and the development of weapons of mass destruction, may in fact be a self-imposed test of our maturity as a species. If we are to endure this phase (or test) we must develop entirely new ways to interact socially. Ways which will demand the greatest of all of us. To put it simple, we must leave our infancy of war, economic oppression and social alienation. Let us now assume that others have walked down this path ahead of us. Let us further assume that they are aware of our current misery. Yet they have very good reasons not to intervene. Because if we can not prove to be capable of wisely wielding the technological and instrumental power we now possess, how could we possibly be trusted with the technology of a civilisation that has endured for thousands of millennia?

Let me underpin some of these statements. There are 400 billion stars just in the Milky Way Galaxy. If advanced life has developed orbiting just one out of every million of these stars, there would still be nearly half a million sentient species. Just in our galaxy. But each one of them quarantined from one another by hundreds of light years. Only by developing their technology will the different species be capable of communicating with each other. However, when they acquire that technology, as we humans did for about half a century ago (the first radio astronomical SETI project was launched in 1960), they may well be faced with the same risks of global annihilation as we currently are. As Carl Sagan once put it: "maybe civilizations arise all the time, but wipe themselves out as soon as they are able".

Of course, some of them might find a technological and cultural equilibrium at a level comparable to for instance the one of 16th century Europe. But the ones that do enter what we call modernity are, according to my opinion, most likely to either perish or to transcend their primitive social constructs (i.e. war, tribes, capitalism and the like). This is due to the limited temporal extension of the critical phase as I argue on pages 22-25 in my master thesis. And if they do manage to become "bright children of the stars" their technological level will most likely be aeons into the future compared to the one that we possess. Consequently they will communicate with devices that we currently can not even begin to understand how they work. This may be the explanation to why we yet have not been able to eavesdrop any intergalactic communications.

By now I presume that you, dear reader, may have an objection or two. The famous philosophical concept of Ockham's razor states that "entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity" and that in the choice between one complicated and one simple solution we should always choose the simple one if they both provide a satisfying explanation of the phenomenon (lack of interpretable radio signals) which we want to understand. So, instead of assuming the existence of far-advanced species we could simple assume that there is no one out there.

If that is true, God, whose existence I strongly believe in, would have created this immense universe for the sole benefit of mankind, just as an intriguing side scene.* All the billions of stars and planets would serve no other purpose than telling us how small we are compare to Everything. I will not describe this as a ridiculous standpoint. Until we receive indisputable proofs of other intelligent life in the universe it is still, at least in theory, possible to argue along such anthropocentric lines. But for me personally it is this idea, that God created the universe solely to provide a scene for his play about humanity, which has been my gravest objection against my own religion, Christianity. Leaving that side-track for now I will finish by addressing why I find it unlikely that a highly advanced civilisation would contact us at our current stage.

Those of you who are familiar with the TV-series StarTrek already know what I am aiming at, namely the "prime directive". Beings and worlds are, as I wrote before, quarantined from one another. And as Sagan points out, "the quarantine is lifted only for those with sufficient self-knowledge and judgment to have safely travelled from star to star". Until we prove ourselves capable of that, prematurely letting us out of the quarantine could have devastating consequences. Just think of what we have done to the Earth and to each other. But if we do prove ourselves worthy, chances are good that we eventually will join a growing intergalactic community of sentient life.

Rasmus Karlsson, 3rd of September, 2003

* An atheist might remark that their is (at least) yet another possibility, namely that the origin of life or intelligence is exceedingly improbable.