Kardashev Civilizations

Part 1 of 2.

Almost all science fiction and scientific speculation on our future advancement and that of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations follows a path of outward increasingly visible expansion into the galaxy. It starts first with colonizing the planets of their own star system, then interstellar travel, interstellar colonies, interstellar federations or empires, then out further to more and more of the galaxy, until you have a galactic wide civilization. Since we haven’t seen any of evidence of these advanced civilizations, the argument goes that that such a strong lack of evidence can only mean one thing - there are no advanced extraterrestrial civilizations. As I will argue in part 2, this is an incredibly premature conclusion.

A scheme for classifying such advanced technological civilizations was proposed by Nikolai Kardashev in 1964. He identified three high-level types and defined a logarithmic scale in terms of the power they could muster for the purpose of interstellar communications.

Type I: Controls the energy of an entire planet. This civilization can control the weather, can prevent earthquakes, and boasts mastery of an energy factor of about 10^16 watts. Though advanced, a Type I civilization still faces danger of extinction by natural disasters such as comet impacts.

Type II: Controls the energy of an entire star. It has the ability to directly mine a star. This civilization will have explored completely its own star system and will have established a number of colonies in neighboring star systems. The energy factor mastered by a Type II civilization is about 10^26 watts, or a 10 billion-fold increase over that controlled by Type I. A Type II civilization is virtually immune to extinction.

Type III: Controls the energy of an entire galaxy. Such a civilization can manipulate space-time and possesses almost godlike powers. It would be threatened with extinction only by the death of the universe itself (and even this might be avoided). Energy mastery for a Type III civilization marks another 10 billion-fold increase, to a level of 10^36 watts.

Carl Sagan pointed out that the energy gaps between Kardashev's three types were so enormous that a finer gradation was needed. A Type 1.1 civilization, for example, would be able to expand a maximum of 10^17 watts on communications, a Type 2.3 could utilize 10^29 watts, and so on. He estimated that the human race would presently qualify as roughly a Type 0.7.

Will We Become a Type 1 Civilization?

I think this is THE question of our age. A Type 1 civilization presupposes many things. Right now, we can barely predict the weather more than 4 or 5 days in advance, much less keep it stable. We have barely left the confines of our home planet, with human forays only to the moon and immediate Earth orbit. We spend incredible amounts of energy and resources bickering over inconsequential political boundaries and ideological differences. Environmental problems such as global warming and dimming are beginning to wreck havoc with our climate and infrastructure. Global resource depletion is another cause for concern, with tropical rainforests being cut down at record rates. Bucky Fuller said as far back as 1965, that we had all the necessary technical knowledge then to create a globally sustainable civilization for everyone on the planet to live like billionaires. So why haven't we? I think the problem is psychological, not technical… a lack of sufficient emotional, rational, social-somatic, and natural intelligence.

As we rapidly enter this ever decreasing bottleneck, we should soon find out if we're going to make it to Type 1. Utopia or Oblivion, there is no third way. If we can figure out how to survive the coming technological singularity, then all the problems that have plagued our planet up to this point will have been solved. Idealistic dogma, hatred, greed, poverty, war, selfishness will have all been solved, otherwise how would we make it? Once we passed this level 1 bottleneck, then it will be relatively smooth sailing from there… onward to Type 2 and 3, or at least that’s the assumption.

Type II & III Civilizations in Science Fiction

Assuming we make it to a level 1 civilization, most thinkers think that advancement towards type 2 and 3 like civilizations is the next logical step. We don’t have to look any further than popular SF to find examples of civilizations of both types. The most popular type 2 civilization is Star Trek’s United Federation of Planets. The first type 3 civilization to appear in SF was Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series, where every corner of the galaxy had been colonized.

Using Sagan’s suggestion of a more accurate gradation of scale, Star Trek is closer to a 2.1 or 2.2 on this scale, as they have only explored less than a 1/10 of the galaxy. In the Star Wars universe, it’s closer to a 2.8 or 2.9, as most of the Galaxy is part of a large, decentralized, but highly inter-connected whole. They haven’t achieved a level 3, since they’re still fighting wars between competing factions. Then there is Iain Banks Culture, which is about a 2.6 or 2.7, with a highly cohesive civilization spanning about 70% of the galaxy.

A More Literal Interpretation

Some would argue that none of these are literal achievements of either type. If we take Kardashev literally, then even Star Trek has not yet achieved level 2, they would be closer to a 1.7 or 1.8, since they have not yet tapped into ALL of a stars energy. There are at least a couple of ways to do this. The first would be a Dyson sphere, as conceived by the physicist Freeman Dyson. A Dyson sphere is a structure that completely surrounds the parent star, consuming all of the energy from that star. Such a structure would maximize the amount of energy it can get from that star, but only as fast as that star wanted to give it.

To the right is an artist depiction of a Dyson sphere in the early phases of consrtuction.

Another more efficient means, would be to utilize the entire storehouse of a stars energy in much quicker, more efficient way, and possibly extend the lifespan of that energy source. Such a scheme was devised by David Criswell, called Star Lifting. Using star lifting, you could literally mine the star deep into its core for more energy than it’s giving out naturally. As part of this process, the star would eventually be converted into a white dwarf, which would still give out a tremendous amount of energy and in turn live for trillions of years, rather than die out in just a few billion.

So technically speaking, a Type 3 civilization would be doing this type of mining with every star in its galaxy! As far as I know, there is no SF story that depicts such a civilization.

Fermi’s Paradox: Where are they?

If we assume that advanced civilizations follow this Kardashev scale, and those civilizations exist in our own galaxy, we should easily have seen them by now. Although there is some evidence of possible type 2 civilizations, anything close to a type 3 should have been discovered by now. A civilization utilizing even half of its galactic resources should be visible from at least a billion light years away. So far, no such civilization has been detected. Almost every scientist concludes that this lack of evidence is a strong indication that either advanced civilizations are either exceedingly rare and too far awar to detect or non-existent. It's possible the other civilizations have not achieve Type 2 status yet, but this is unlikely as the time to get from type 1 to 2 is very short. Once we've passed the singularity point (Type 1), then the rapid rise in intelligence combined with advanced molecular nanotechnology, would be all that is necessary to engage in Stellar lifting or Dyson sphere construction.

What this means is that the time frame from a type 1 to a type 2 is small enough that from a cosmic perspective it’s a blink in the eye. The time to go from a type 2 to a type 3 isn’t much longer, perhaps 500,000 years, assuming light speed remains a barrier. Still 500,000 years is also a blink inthe eye from a cosmic perspective. To give you an example of how short a time frame that is, if the age of the universe were the length of a 24-hour day, 500,000 years would be the equivalent of 3.15 seconds. Surely by now, if technological civilizations were common, at least one type 3 should be visible in our telescopes?

Since we haven’t seen any Type 3, there is little chance there are type 2 as well. The odds are against it. If Kardachev is correct, then it means either most intelligent civilizations destroy themselves before reaching a Type 1 civilization, or intelligent life in any variety is extremely rare or non-existent. As I have argued in Singularity Exo-paleontology, life is probably quite common in the universe, including complex intelligent life. Given the right conditions and a bit of luck, enough of these planets life would approach their own singularity.

If this is true, then either most civilizations destroy themselves before attaining it or once past it, advanced civilizations don't follow the Kardashev trajectory. That is a conjecture of mine which I'll now explain in Part 2 - Exotic Civilizations: Beyond Kardaschev.

Posted by paul at April 12, 2004 11:02 AM | TrackBack