Category: Technology

Transcension

The Transcension Hypothesis is a little-discussed theory posed by futurist John Smart in order to explain the phenomenon known as the Fermi Paradox. For those unfamiliar with the Fermi Paradox, it is scientists’ way of asking, “why are we so alone?” It addresses the paradox born of the fact that the universe is full of innumerable stars surrounded by even more planets and yet we have only discovered life on one so far: our own. If the universe is so vast, even if life is rare, why haven’t we been introduced yet?

There are many possible answers to the paradox and I will state my meaningless opinion on it in a moment, but I first wanted to introduce the transcension hypothesis to all of you who stay awake at night wondering when you’ll finally be abducted by aliens, because it will certainly be keeping me awake for some time pondering this theory.

The transcension hypothesis offers up and unique explanation for why we haven’t made contact with extraterrestrial life: aliens are introverts.

Alright, it’s far from that simple (unfortunately). The basic premise states that as aliens become sufficiently advance they begin to explore ever more inward, rather than outward. We as humans are and have always been explorers and are constantly casting our nets further and further away to see what we catch, but it could be possible that, as technology advances at an exponential rate, we will no longer have to look outside of ourselves for answers, or really, for anything at all.VR

Virtual worlds, virtual reality, and augmented reality are already a part of our lexicon. They are still in their infancy, but the next decade promises to bring significant advancements in the field. Before long, we may be able to explore the stars in our own homes. The desire to set out and discover may be quenched by technology’s ability to accurately mimic the experience. At some point, actual corporal existence itself may become obsolete as we get so good at simulating the real world that our floating brains in jars will no longer be able to tell the difference. And if technology continues to advance exponentially, the experience will only get deeper, more real with time as a civilization advances.

We like to imagine advancement leading to outward expansion, as this is what we have done for the entirety of our very short existence, but this hypothesis asks us to consider the idea that technology will reach a tipping point wherein we can expand out no further and instead collapse forever inward, so deeply into ourselves that nothing, not even light can escape. We may become a species sized black hole of our own making.Black Hole

If this is probable, or even possible, perhaps it has already happened. Perhaps an advanced civilization far ahead of us, one we would expect to be roaming the stars is actually exploring the innermost recesses of consciousness, unseen, in a void so complete they can no longer be found. Perhaps advance races transcend the notion of outward expansion along with physical form long before they reach the stars. We’re looking for the meaning of life, the universe, and everything (42) out there when perhaps others have already found it in their own selves. The mind is a powerful thing, perhaps the most powerful in the universe.

But even if this is possible, that doesn’t mean that all advanced civilizations will go this route. There could still be those who never shook off their juvenile wanderlust. Which brings me to my personal opinion on the Fermi Paradox. I subscribe to a combination of two other, rather more popular hypotheses, The Great Filter and the Rare Earth Hypothesis. There is a lot to talk about here, and perhaps I will at a later time, but in short the Great Filter is just that, a filter for advanced life; it is the “you shall not pass” sign on advancement. Essentially, any sufficiently advanced race will destroy itself before it can become interstellar. Or perhaps the filter is further back. The Rare Earth hypothesis states that life in the universe is common, but advanced life capable of building space probes, questioning their existence, and maintaining blogs are exceedingly rare. Life rarely gets to this point and only a very specific and very lucky set of circumstances has allowed us the ability to write blogs.

I’m waiting for the Mars 2020 mission, hoping like many others we will finally find proof of life, either living or past, on Mars, because this would lend credence to my current worldview (or universe-view). Basic, simple life could be abundant throughout the universe; it could exist everywhere it is possible for it to exist. But complex, multicellular, philosophizing human-like creatures are a statistical anomaly. One that, in the sheer vastness of space, was bound to happen at least once or twice. Consciousness is, after all, the way the universe observes itself. Perhaps that one other civilization in the universe is just too busy with their VR goggles to notice us.

Or maybe I’m totally wrong and the aliens will finally come just to spite me. If any alien civilizations out there are reading this, please feel free to prove me wrong. Please.

Gears

If you’re playing really fast and loose with the semantics, it can be argued that a device created somewhere around 100 BC, discovered in 1901, is one of the first computers. Known as the Antikythera Mechanism, the device was found on an ancient shipwreck and after decades of analysis, those studying it can conclude that the device was used to calculate various astronomical measurements and have even made replicas of what the device may have looked like and how it functioned.Antikythera mechanism

Now I’d like to play the “what if” game. The technology and calculations behind the Antikythera Mechanism were probably lost during antiquity. When it was first discovered, scientists didn’t even know what they were looking at, and it took x-ray scanning technology to fully unwrap its mysteries. The mechanism was likely fourteen-hundred years ahead of its time, as technologies of similar complexity did not appear until the fourteenth century. What if it hadn’t been lost?

Fourteen-hundred years is a long time, and progress is anything but linear. We experience great bursts of technological and socio-political development that last for decades followed periods of darkness, but it makes me wonder sometimes, just how great was this setback?

When we look back at antiquity we are met with people who believed in democracy, who invented mathematic equations, who looked up at the stars and built computers to track them. If we showed them all we have now, they may recognize themselves in it. Pluck someone out of the dark ages and they’d scream magic up until their head explodes. I’m generalizing here, but there was an obvious trend upwards, towards discovery, toward the stars, but somewhere along the way, it was lost along with the Antikythera Mechanism.

Where would we be today had we held onto it? And I don’t mean the mechanism, I mean the attitude of discovery that created it? Would we have made more and more complex computers to map out the sky? Would we have invented telescopes a thousand years further back to see deeper into the void? Would we be a millennium ahead of where we are now?Antikythera mechanism II

History is weird like that. History is not a science, and it moves in stops and starts. There’s no way to predict how fast which part will move. Each gear moves at its own pace. Politics, human rights, technology, they each have their own gear and their speed is unpredictable. Sometimes they even turn around and move backward. Unfortunately, we don’t have a machine to calculate these things for us like the Greeks made. There is no mechanism to predict how history will go. But since antiquity, perhaps since before history, it trends toward up, closer to the stars even as the gears tick on in random patterns. That, at least, hasn’t changed much.