Advanced Civilizations and Time – A Case for Turning Off the Lights
Right now just about all of the energy on earth in one form or another has had its origin in that big ball of constantly exploding nuclear fusion sitting at the center of our orbit, otherwise known as the sun. by the time it gets to us, a little over 1,300 watts per square meter is constantly pummeling our atmosphere and transferring its way into the various systems that channel and alter it to do fun stuff like wind and rain and allowing all life on earth that has ever existed. Having this energy available to our planet is generally regarded as a good thing, and I imagine most people would rather like it to continue for the foreseeable future.
Having all of this energy constantly being given to us is pretty awesome for us, because of a little problem with the nature of reality. Being that everything that happens inevitably has to further the entropy of the universe. All the complexity and vibrancy of life on Earth is thanks to the fact that we have a gigantic ball of fire continuously churning away at its own existence so that we can have our own. This amazing and devastating occurrence that miraculously allowed us to come into being isn’t only happening here, but also in scattered pockets all over the universe, with about 300 billion hanging out just within 100,000 years viewing distance of us, and so many more beyond that that the idea that something like our own situation is unique is a bit ridiculous.
However, let’s look at our situation for a bit on that stellar scale. The earth came into existence about 4 and a half billion years ago, and we only got here toward the very very tail end of that period. In another 5 billion years, our sun will expand, and that energy that’s giving us life now will quite rudely be all up in our business, basically destroying the planet. Which is probably no big deal since we’ll have all that time to prepare for it, and the available energy it’s giving us is only going to increase leading up to it. Except then shortly after that, only a tenth of a billion years later, the sun will have exhausted all of its potential, and we’ll be left in the cold and the dark with nothing left here to keep us alive that we haven’t built ourselves. As far as the the solar system’s viability as a home is concerned, we’re currently middle aged, and humanity’s only just been born.
Now sure, there’s plenty of other stars out there, and plenty will still be there in another 5G years when we can’t live at home anymore, but what’s happening to our sun is by no means a unique phenomenon. All these giant nuclear reactors out there constantly spewing energy in all directions are on a trip toward death, just like everything else in the universe, and while more may be born, the inevitability of increasing entropy guarantees that on a large enough scale, nothing lasts forever, and every act that produces energy for change is bringing us closer to that end, and right now, just in our own backyard we’re increasing the entropy of the universe at 380 yottajoules(3.8×10^26) per second, and only 100 petajoules(10^17) of that is even getting to the earth. That is, even if we were somehow perfectly using all of the energy that came to us, which we’re so not, the sun would still be spewing out 3 billion times more in every other direction. Constantly. For five billion years. Fifteen billion billion years worth of wasted energy that we’d be letting go by allowing things to run their course. You might notice that 15 exayears(10^18, billion billion) is significantly longer than 5 billion(10^9). You might also have heard the idea that stars will only be able to continue to form for another 1-100 trillion years. that is, 10^12 to 10^14. By properly harnessing the excess energy of our own little barely existing insignificant sun, our pale blue dot could theoretically outlive the lifetime of the universe by ten thousand times.
Let’s say a civilization forms around a giant ball of hydrogen that’s consuming itself at a frankly alarming rate manages to rise up in this wonderful energy rich environment, discovers the situation they find themselves in is temporary, and, upon reaching a certain level of sophistication with the manipulation of varying forms of energy and matter, decides they’d rather continue to exist as long as possible. What do you think a rather important order of business would be?
Now, it seems fairly likely that we can only actually see about 4% of the universe, and we seem to be quite stymied by the fact that 96% of the mass of the universe is dark.
But, isn’t it a little odd that the main part of space we’re concerned with are the bits that are actively exploding?
