3 types of Extraterrestrial Civilizations

Why the **** aren't we even a type 1 civilization? <cries>

CONFORM TO MY WISHES VOLCANO, DAMN YOU!


EDIT: Finished watching. I always love that guy. Great stuff. I like the whole concept of expanding robots to explore the universe.
 
lol, physicist making remarks about world politics

doy.
 
We are a 0.7 civilization raziaar.

He didn't mention type 4 and 5 though. Four is at a galactic super cluster size, while type 5 is at the size of a Universe.
 
I've seen him talk about this kind of thing in a mini-series on the BBC, Visions of the Future.

I like Kaku but he massively underestimates the role of the internet, artificial intelligence, and embedded processors in general. In the series I mentioned, what do you think the section about the future of the internet amounted to...? I'll tell you, it was just Kaku fiddling around in Second Life :| For all the guy's brilliance, I don't think he really grasps the potential inherent in a few things. Futurists and technological singularitarians like Ray Kurzweil and Vernor Vinge have a better grasp of the forces at play in the technological arena IMO, which is cool because I find their vision of the future a bit more compelling.

Oh and his comments about terrorists, that they're scared of the transition to a Type 1 civ., are laughable. I would bet my balls that when a suicide bomber straps up, the last thing going through their mind is the fear of becoming a spacefaring cyborg.
 
I don't find it laughable. Rather, it seems that he's just having trouble whittling down all his reasoning and ideas to a single, easily-digestible statement. I do the exact same thing whenever I try and simplify my ideas for other people, where what I say is misconstrued as laughable, simple, or just retarded.

What he probably means is that their "fear of becoming Type 1" is really their religious dispositions coupling with their hatred/derision/vengeance towards Western civilization (for whatever reasons, and they are many and complex) resulting in what appears to be their active destruction of societal progress.
 
Stigmata said:
...is really their religious dispositions coupling with their hatred/derision/vengeance towards Western civilization (for whatever reasons, and they are many and complex)
Click to expand...
Right, exactly. I'm of the opinion that any and all simplification of these issues is a bad idea, especially when it's inaccurate oversimplification. Saying 'they're scared of progressing' sounds glib and reminiscent of 'they hate our freedoms'.

If there's any group that could possibly pose an obstacle to the course of human progress, I highly doubt that it's a group of angry muslims with AK's and C4. They're in no position to suppress anything, least of all emerging technology. More likely it will be elites who seek to blind us to certain issues (eg. the plight of disenfranchised people around the globe) while being blind to important issues themselves (like the potential of technology, eg. stem cell research, a free internet, etc.).
 
Type 3 Civilization; The why do we give a f*ck Civilization

And yeah, I like Kaku to, especially his analogy about why Aliens wouldn't give a rats ass about us (like trying to communicate with a colony of ants)

while type 5 is at the size of a Universe
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Wouldn't that be equivalent of God?
 
After 5 minutes it starts to go veeeerrry downhill....


"When you are a type 2 Civilization, you are immortal."

Ooooookaaaay.....
 
Well if you've harnessed the energy of hundreds of stars to power your civilization, and are in possession of the technology to do that...
 
Nicky 0123 said:
After 5 minutes it starts to go veeeerrry downhill....


"When you are a type 2 Civilization, you are immortal."

Ooooookaaaay.....
Click to expand...

Well it is technically true. I mean sure it doesn't account for all possibilities, but you're talking about a civilization that is beyond a single world. How we are right now, we can rid ourselves to extinction. Even if an entire planet blows up(not just nuclear holocaust) for the type 2... they still have people on tons of other planets.

Stigmata said:
Well if you've harnessed the energy of hundreds of stars to power your civilization, and are in possession of the technology to do that...
Click to expand...

Yeah, this.
 
I'm glad this ranking system is based on absolutely nothing. How can you rank something to which, as far as we know, doesn't exist, and then compare it? I guess I'm just not all the interested in what he had to say.
 
Raziaar said:
Well it is technically true. I mean sure it doesn't account for all possibilities, but you're talking about a civilization that is beyond a single world.
Click to expand...

Doesn't mean they can't die, which is actually what Immortal means, living forever and all that...
 
Qonfused said:
I'm glad this ranking system is based on absolutely nothing. How can you rank something to which, as far as we know, doesn't exist, and then compare it? I guess I'm just not all the interested in what he had to say.
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly.

I'm sorry Mr. Kaku, but I think it's highly likely that the first intelligent aliens we will encounter will be primitives, which we will exterminate to steal their natural resources and further expand the great Terran Empire!
 
Nicky 0123 said:
Doesn't mean they can't die, which is actually what Immortal means, living forever and all that...
Click to expand...
The entire concept of immortality is flimsy and hypothetical at best, and completely illogical and impossible at worst. If you have the technology and the energy to keep your body/mind/consciousness from ending or breaking down, then for all intents and purposes you are immortal.
 
Wait, immortal? Is it assumed that a type 2 civilization has found a way to prevent entropy? Kind of reminds me of that Asimov story... forget the name.

Also, which type of civilization would you have if you built a megastructure that envelops the earth and assimilates the moon? Cookies for reference get.
 
Michio Kaku rules, even though he just seems to pull this stuff out of his ass
 
I think by immortal he is referencing the entire species and not just an individual. As it stands right now our species could be wiped out by any number of things. However if we expand our territory far enough into the stars no known event could cause the whole of humanity to perish. I think that statement is a bit naive tho as I doubt war is solely a human phenomena, just to give an example. Given enough time, I think everything comes and goes, including type 3 civilizations.
 
Laivasse said:
Oh and his comments about terrorists, that they're scared of the transition to a Type 1 civ., are laughable. I would bet my balls that when a suicide bomber straps up, the last thing going through their mind is the fear of becoming a spacefaring cyborg.
Click to expand...

I lol'd ****ing hard at this.
 
Why are futurologists so sure of everything they're saying? Prediction is difficult, particularly about the future.

Also, why would a civilisation of a certain level care about 'efficiently colonising the galaxy'?
 
Remus said:
My thoughts exactly.

I'm sorry Mr. Kaku, but I think it's highly likely that the first intelligent aliens we will encounter will be primitives, which we will exterminate to steal their natural resources and further expand the great Terran Empire!
Click to expand...

If we discover intelligent life, the odds that they would be in their primitive stage is highly unlikely. It is FAR more likely that they would be millions of years more advanced than us. I believe in some of his other videos he discusses this.

As for immortality, all it takes is for us to be able to put a human mind on a computer, why is that so hard to believe?

I recommend reading his book, Physics of the Impossible, it's very interesting.
 
Tyguy said:
If we discover intelligent life, the odds that they would be in their primitive stage is highly unlikely. It is FAR more likely that they would be millions of years more advanced than us.
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"It is FAR more likely that they would be millions of years less advanced than us"

It can go both ways...
And since he is speculating, his opinion is worth 0.
 
Remus said:
"It is FAR more likely that they would be millions of years less advanced than us"

It can go both ways...
And since he is speculating, his opinion is worth 0.
Click to expand...

The universe is around 15 billion years old. That fact alone should tell you that the chances of finding a civilization in there infancy is minute, considering that advanced civilizations have (or would have been) around for millions/billions of years.

It's pretty simple if you put some thought into it and understand that humans have been apparent in the universe for a laughably small period of time.

Watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2qezQzfgIY
 
Sulkdodds said:
Why are futurologists so sure of everything they're saying? Prediction is difficult, particularly about the future.
Click to expand...

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it"

Cookie for anyone who knows who I quoted from :cheers:
 
20th Century Fox invented the future.

Futurama is our future, ladies and gentlemen.
 
Very interesting, and certainly fuel for any sci-fi enthusiast like myself, but can't the human race worry about actually sending a man to another planet first?

And as a side note, I wouldn't want to see new worlds through countless robotic eyes, I want to see them for myself. To pick up the sand and watch it fall. To lightly kick the vegetation with my foot. No matter how practical it is, sending robots out to do that makes me angry. :/


DEATH eVADER said:
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it"

Cookie for anyone who knows who I quoted from :cheers:
Click to expand...

Alan Kay, when he was chillin' with Xerox. I think.
 
Tyguy said:
The universe is around 15 billion years old. That fact alone should tell you that the chances of finding a civilization in there infancy is minute, considering that advanced civilizations have (or would have been) around for millions/billions of years.
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Yes of course... :rolleyes:
So according to your logic only our civilization can be in it's relative infancy in the present time... Right...

There are so many factors to be taken into consideration it's not even funny.
What if one civilization has lived in blissful ignorance for thousands of years in a state similar to our dark ages, while another has advanced to somewhere near our level only to blow themselves up.

Assuming out of thin air that the universe is filled only with super advanced civilizations that have existed for millions of years isn't at all scientific.

This reminds me of another matter, that of the conditions needed for life to evolve.
A lot of scientists assume that the conditions we evolved in are strictly necessary for life to evolve. Drawing that conclusion after studying only one planet with life, ours.
This is as if all your life you've seen only one apple which happened to be red and assuming that all apples in the world are red... Yes very scientific.:rolleyes:
 
Remus said:
A lot of scientists assume that the conditions we evolved in are strictly necessary for life to evolve. Drawing that conclusion after studying only one planet with life, ours.
This is as if all your life you've seen only one apple which happened to be red and assuming that all apples in the world are red... Yes very scientific.:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Actually most scientists don't jump to unsupported conclusions. Laymen who know a little bit of science on the other hand...
 
losttheskyagain said:
Very interesting, and certainly fuel for any sci-fi enthusiast like myself, but can't the human race worry about actually sending a man to another planet first?

And as a side note, I wouldn't want to see new worlds through countless robotic eyes, I want to see them for myself. To pick up the sand and watch it fall. To lightly kick the vegetation with my foot. No matter how practical it is, sending robots out to do that makes me angry. :/
Click to expand...
Quite. This is part of what I was getting at when I asked why a sufficiently advanced civilisation would bother building a robot colonisation fleet. At the risk of becoming a broken record when it comes to the subject of the future, it reminded me of this statement by sci-fi author Iain M Banks (full article).

The humans of the Culture, having solved all the obvious problems of their shared pasts to be free from hunger, want, disease and the fear of natural disaster and attack, would find it a slightly empty existence only and merely enjoying themselves, and so need the good-works of the Contact section to let them feel vicariously useful. For the Culture's AIs, that need to feel useful is largely replaced by the desire to experience, but as a drive it is no less strong. The universe - or at least in this era, the galaxy - is waiting there, largely unexplored (by the Culture, anyway), its physical principles and laws quite comprehensively understood but the results of fifteen billion years of the chaotically formative application and interaction of those laws still far from fully mapped and evaluated.

By Godel out of Chaos, the galaxy is, in other words, an immensely, intrinsically, and inexhaustibly interesting place; an intellectual playground for machines that know everything except fear and what lies hidden within the next uncharted stellar system. This is where I think one has to ask why any AI civilisation - and probably any sophisticated culture at all - would want to spread itself everywhere in the galaxy (or the universe, for that matter). It would be perfectly possible to build a Von Neumann machine that would build copies of itself and eventually, unless stopped, turn the universe into nothing but those self-copies, but the question does arise; why? What is the point? To put it in what we might still regard as frivolous terms but which the Culture would have the wisdom to take perfectly seriously, where is the fun in that?

Interest - the delight in experience, in understanding - comes from the unknown; understanding is a process as well as a state, denoting the shift from the unknown to the known, from the random to the ordered... a universe where everything is already understood perfectly and where uniformity has replaced diversity, would, I'd contend, be anathema to any self-respecting AI.

Probably only humans find the idea of Von Neumann machines frightening, because we half-understand - and even partially relate to - the obsessiveness of the ethos such constructs embody. An AI would think the idea mad, ludicrous and - perhaps most damning of all - boring. This is not to say that the odd Von-Neumann-machine event doesn't crop up in the galaxy every now and again (probably by accident rather than design), but something so rampantly monomaniac is unlikely to last long pitched against beings possessed of a more rounded wit, and which really only want to alter the Von Neumann machine's software a bit and make friends.
Click to expand...
The other thing that I was getting at was: presuming that a 'sufficiently advanced' civilisation might also be morally advanced, or might have back-engineered itself to be more moral (and less mortal), what need would it feel to go out and colonise everything? What desire would it have to colonise and catalogue everything that is? In the same way that the Culture is willing and able to relax a little, and take exploration slowly for its own enjoyment, I can't see such a civilisation feeling with such burning ardour the old human desire for ultimate empery.
 
Eejit said:
Actually most scientists don't jump to unsupported conclusions. Laymen who know a little bit of science on the other hand...
Click to expand...

Well forgive me for generalizing. The scientists I'm referring to are the ones which are usually invited on documentaries and drone on and on about what specific conditions would be needed for life to evolve...
 
Ah. Documentary experts. Well the ones they get to agree to make unqualified statements for television ain't exactly representative ;)
 
Eejit said:
Well the ones they get to agree to make unqualified statements for television ain't exactly representative ;)
Click to expand...

LOL, yeah.

The only problem with that is that most people including myself, don't bother to check these things, and take the information as is...
 
We can only know something if we've experienced it. And "it's more likely that there are more advanced civilizations than primitive" are just empty words. We don't know what's out there. Being aware that, so far, we are the only civilization out there, we would have to serve the median.
 
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