The Kardashev Scale of Alien sentient evolution
Maturity alludes us & we are ‘children’ aping Gods
In 2017 the United States Federal Government was exposed for suppressing the reality of UFOs and deliberately covering-up the existence of something ‘out there’ that remained unexplained and ‘way beyond’ our technological capabilities.
With the lid off this ‘steamer’, speculation has billowed forth with old ideas getting fresh consideration. Much of this is being viewed through the fogged glasses of feverish and untethered imaginations.
In 1964, the Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev, formulated a theoretical model for determining the level of advancement of alien civilizations. His purpose in doing so was to ascertain the feasibility of communication between such advanced life forms based in the probability that they would be capable of harnessing sufficient energy to transfer signals using a coded isotopic radio signal across the vastness of space. As such, he makes no speculation as to the nature of aliens, but much is implied by his supposition of the usefulness of his theory in the first place. Its ‘value’ is grounded in the assumption of endless technological development and growth as the natural evolutionary outcome of advanced sentient beings. Others seem to have taken this “vessel” to pour their fitful dreams into.
Kardashev based his calculations on the assumption of an ever increasing amount of energy these hypothetical alien civilizations might be able to harvest and consume, with the amount being linked in direct proportion to their level of development, which he divided into three stages. This calculation is referred to as the Kardashev Scale and it is still held to be worthy of consideration by some in the astronomical community.
https://www.space.com/kardashev-scale
But others have a different response:
“The Kardashev scale's focus on infinite growth as a measure of progress has also become difficult to swallow. It was rooted in the dominance of SETI at the time by radio astronomers, Ivanov said. "For radio astronomers, bigger is better," he said. "Intuitively, for them, more power meant a more advanced civilization." Yet over the decades, as humans have begun to experience the global chaos caused by our tapping of fossil fuels, the risks of idealizing constant energy-hunger have become clear.” Meghan Bartels “The Kardashev scale: Classifying alien civilizations” Space.com (above link)
According to Kardashev, the first stage is defined by the energy capability produced as resources of the home planet are consumed.
In the next level of ‘advancement’, this consumption moves on to harvesting the sources of energy and material within the requisite solar system, with such flights of fancy as the Dyson sphere, which was later proposed as one way to accomplish this by harvesting the output of the sun, en masse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere
From there, the energy of entire galaxies would be resourced. Some later theorists have even suggested the preposterous notion that eventually this ‘civilization’ would grow to consume the universe ad infinitum.
Kaeashev’s theory is both extraordinarily grandolesque and in my opinion, fundamentally flawed, for reasons other than its framework of exponential growth. It is conceived in isolation from the interconnectivity of all things and suffers for it.
The fact is that a deeper understanding of our limitations as an ‘embryonic’ sentient species does not seem to have been taken into account.
What Kaeashev envisions could be defined as ‘runaway technology’— locked into endless expansion serving obsessive compulsive species proliferation based in an overarching species-centrism — and untethered greed.
It may be that advanced species have no desire or need for territorial expansion or even contact in the conventional sense. As reflected by the handful of our most advanced and mature ‘guiding lights’ (Buddha, Krishnamurdi, etc) it is likely such beings would value self-effacement over ego projection — or perhaps prefer neither.
It is not clear from the various sources that I’ve read regarding the K Scale, whether an alien sentient species would be fundamentally rapacious, narcissistic and destructive, with its cognitive maturation stunted and static, or rather in possession of total incorruptible control of its morality and ethos. While the theory as it is commonly presented appears to infer the former, I believe such expansion would only be possible if the latter pursued it — which I doubt they would. Only a mature race would be capable of responsibly harvesting energy without robbing from other life forms. In a universe largely consisting of ‘dead zones’ there would be no impediment to this path forward, but that wouldn’t necessarily make it preferable for non-mature aliens less apt to prioritize ‘responsibility’.
At our current level of ‘non-stewardship’ such responsibility escapes our ‘notice’ and we are now witnessing the sum-total result of this deficiency — potential collective self-annihilation.
Our misguided desires have always stunted human development and denial continues to muddy our self-awareness, splitting it into over reaching self-aggrandizement, at odds with unbalanced self-depreciation.
Our warped sense of superiority seesaws with a continual undermining of our collective self esteem — each feeding off the other while locked in endless rotation, like dwarf suns.
This duality subconsciously skews the perspective of our endeavors and unintentionally
Kardashevs’ theory drags all this baggage on board. While using mankind’s nebulous developmental path as a template for assuming the nature of wholly unknown alien sentient beings, he fails to address our relentless, severe and glaring limitations, as seemingly outside his narrow subject range. However, in this case exclusion does not negate context.
While his theory may appear expansive to others, for me it is breathtakingly two-dimensional.
As it is perceived and referenced by its exponents, it would appear to ignore the necessity for changes in our ethos essential for long term survival, instead using our ‘techno prowess’ as a foundation on which to build.
Yet it seems apparent that pro-active maturity would radically alter the trajectory and potential of our future and that a lack of it, will prove fatal. Without this realization, I believe, speculating about other cosmic civilizations becomes ego driven foolishness.
Continued acceptance of Kaeashev’s model rests in its appeal to our species bias, which blinds us to the greater cosmic parameters essential to survival. Because man has the ability to not just alter the natural world, but to live to a certain, costly extent outside it, we think we have the freedom and power to ignore its rules and laws. We are now being shown how erroneous this assumption is. Due to this conceit, humanity remains mired in their self-absorption and convinced of their privilege.
We sacrifice our children on this alter.
By espousing his theory in the first place, one might infer that Kardashev had his feet firmly planted in the ‘cement’ of what we collectively perceive as the apotheosis of all human achievement — technology. The ‘power’ and ‘mastery’ we assume this gives us, inflates our already overblown assumption of supremacy over all other things within our ‘domain’. Our stagnant maturation undermines this ‘mastery’, resulting in the massive level of destruction we endlessly engage in.
To a great degree, Man’s technological ‘goals’ reside in the production of weapons, tools for the exploitation and misuse of resources, excessive and irresponsible travel, wasteful food production and processing, and the manufacturing of distracting ‘shiny baubles’ for the masses. We are rapidly loosing our cultural connections and spiritual acumen as we channel our energies increasingly into techno dominance and its frivolities. This constricts balanced growth, as a broader perspective of life and its multiflorious offerings becomes closed off from essential developmental pathways.
Man’s ‘centristic myopia’ is so ingrained, that our privilege is left free-ranging with little to check its consumptive rampage. Even when ‘torched’, ‘species narcissism’ will rise from the ashes, as it is too deeply rooted in our psyches and buried under millennia of concreted denial. It permeates and pollutes much of our thinking.
By now we should have come to understand that we lack the necessary level of maturity to master our own minds and control our base urges. A mature species would not allow itself to spread across the universe while selfishly consuming resources to the detriment of other life forms, as we are currently doing here on earth. It would understand the necessity and benefits of population control and strive for harmonic balance with the environment (and by extension the cosmos), exercising cautious sustained oversight. Exploration outward would be balanced with and even curtailed by ‘inner’ exploration, unfettered from religion, superstition, preconceptions and fear, as well as unsullied by manipulative ‘propaganda’ and power grabbing agendas.
That we are capable as individuals of such maturity is proven by the few who throughout our history have attained it. Whether or not it can manifest collectively remains to be seen. This evolutionary potential depends on our having the necessary ingredients within us for such profound change. Looking at a caterpillar, we know with certainty it ‘contains’ a butterfly based on our experience, without which the transformation would otherwise appear impossible.
Closer to home, are the examples of ‘out of control’ teenagers who with in a few years, straighten out and become productive, respectable adults. I was taught that Mark Twain was one; along with others in his ‘pack’ of hellions, among which were two that became a banker and senator respectively. Evidently, few at the time thought it possible. Pushing boulders downhill onto passing wagons appears pretty far gone.
The change I hypothesize here, suffers from a lack of prior experience sufficient enough to kill its acceptance as even a possibility.
What I am proposing as a counter to Kardashev’s theory (as it seems to be generally understood), is a form of metamorphosis and until it happens, only a dream. But the orchestrated catastrophe of our times convinces me that it must happen if we are to survive and that, in our current larval state, we are incapable of the objectivity necessary for predicting the probability of this happening.
When I look around, I see that many critical aspects of our lives are undergoing a florescence while experiencing contangent exponential growth. Furthermore, they appear to be all heading towards a singular crisis point in time. This possible ‘grand confluence’ suggests to me the patterns of cathartic change — or a collective ‘breakdown’, if we don’t prove to have ‘the right stuff’.
I’ve long suspected that the evolutionary pattern of species maturation we appear to be undergoing, plays out all over the cosmos, with countless variations, but conforming to a more or less predetermined pattern. This might prove to be a self-regulating mechanism of the universe, perhaps acting as a ‘fail-safe’. Sentient aliens capable of advanced technology either attain the necessary level of maturity to control it, or it turns on them and they are destroyed by it, thus purging the threat they pose to the ‘health’ of the cosmic whole. It is survival of the ‘fittest’, and as in earthly evolution, the ‘fittest’ is relative to their ‘fitness’ as a productively functioning part of the greater whole.
It is clear to me, that if we do not achieve a stable level of maturity, although we may survive environmental collapse, it will become just the first stage toward our inevitable extinction as a species.
If the lessons learned in this global crisis are not driven deeply enough into our collective psyche, becoming sufficient for moving us into a sustainable stage of self-realization, we will simply revert to our old ways. In a generation or two, at most, greed and denial will reassert as predominant driving forces and sink us once again into a toxic quagmire of human stupidity.
Eventually this will prove fatal.
We’re destroying ourselves because we keep making bad choices. We’re making those choices because fear and greed control us subconsciously and we are unable to rise above this because we cannot control our own minds, which is what maturity is. Man’s learning curve is both shallow and erodes quickly over time — while desire takes a hatchet to it.
We operate under the false collective assumption that we mature by becoming adults. As a result, our conception of ‘maturity’ is both ill-formed and incomplete. Man’s trappings of superiority undermine our understanding of maturation as a goal, not a given, and the fact that we think we’ve already arrived doesn’t help matters.
Fear is the great agent of change and reshaper of sub-conscious programming. By these means it possesses the potential to push collective consciousness into better alignment with cosmic priorities, which are of far greater substantive value than our own. Whether this leads to something permanently sustainable remains to be seen. How this would happen may seem unfathomable, but it is by no means impossible.
For we are on the threshold of the unknown, facing the lesson of our current rush toward auto-destruction, which cannot be learned in the conventional sense, but must be absorbed through a trauma-based cathartic epiphany and set firmly in place by the struggle imposed bearing the ‘cost’ of reparations.
Responsibility, on all levels, is a hallmark of the mature mind, as is self-control, generosity, sacrifice, empathy, and a working comprehension of the interconnectivity of all things, which loops us back to responsibility.
Ironically, our current trajectory is propelled by self-serving irresponsibility on a vast scale.
As an integral part of a much larger whole, we need to learn humility as a necessary adjunct of maturation. Our need for independence and control are ego based, and continuously derail our more noble aspirations, undermining our true potential and misdirecting us toward desired, but fundamentally hollow ‘achievements’.
Man is merely a gear, not the whole clock and we will never process the necessary energy to wind it.
We live enshrouded in the shadow of our grand edifices and oblivious to the infinity we drift in.
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Postscript:
I began working on this diary in early December 2023 and based my main premise on ideas I have been developing for many years. On 1/7/24 I came across this article from Science Daily, as a link in Saturday News Digest, Science Saturday (1/6/24) DK and was struck with its con-tangency .
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/01/240102151942.htm
“Human culture has evolved to allow humans to extract resources and helped us expand to dominate the biosphere. But the same evolutionary processes may counteract efforts to solve new global environmental threats like climate change, according to a new study. Tackling the climate crisis will require worldwide regulatory, technical and economic systems supported by strong global cooperation. However, this new study concludes that the group-level processes characteristic of human cultural evolution, will cause environmental competition and conflict between sub-global groups, and work against global solutions. Adapting to climate change and other environmental problems will, therefore, require human evolution to change.”
More recently, during the writing of this diary, a friend sent me a link to a New Yorker article:
“Vaclav Smil and the Value of Doubt” by David Owen 2/20/24 which is a profile of this little known iconoclast. Smil’s book “Growth” is discussed and from that I lift this quote:
“In the book’s preface, Smil writes that most growth processes—“of organisms, artifacts, or complex systems”—can be plotted on a so-called S-shaped, or sigmoid, growth curve, meaning that the rate of change increases slowly at first, then increases rapidly, then levels off. An error that humans make with similarly predictable regularity is to assume that the nearly vertical middle segment of an S-shaped curve can continue at that angle indefinitely (the price of Dutch tulips in the seventeenth century, the price of bitcoin in the twenty-first).
One of his conclusions is that the steady, unceasing economic expansion that economists and politicians dream of is not sustainable, and that the relentless pursuit of growth is environmentally disastrous. Smil has often said that he doesn’t make forecasts—“a pathetically and inexorably ever-failing endeavor on any level,” he told me—but predictions of a kind are implicit in much of his work. In “Growth” ’s coda, he writes, “Continuous material growth, based on ever greater extraction of the Earth’s inorganic and organic resources and on increased degradation of the biosphere’s finite stocks and services, is impossible”—a principle that, in various forms, animates almost all his work, beginning with his undergraduate thesis.”
From this, it would appear that Smil is confining himself to the limits of our planet, but for the reasons I’ve presented in my diary, I feel his conviction not to be ‘earth bound’.