effects of intelligence on the universe

[Metric]

The universe is currently on the order of about 10^10 years old. If things evolve as we understand them, all nuclear fusion will have ended and all stars will be dead at a few degrees Kelvin in roughly 10^17 years. (numbers coming from http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/end.html )

An interesting thought occurred to me, the other day. If human (or other) intelligence progresses past a technological singularity, and thinks it a good idea to colonize the universe, then a natural long-term plan for each star-colony is to waste as little energy as possible, so that intelligence can be preserved for as long as possible. Making maximum usage of star-power basically means that no high-energy light should be emitted out into space -- it is much better to use it for something useful and then to emit it as low-energy light (this is the idea of the Dyson Sphere), or to find some way to store it. In either case, it is wasteful for a supremely powerful intelligence to let stars simply shine.

Now, because I have to make some assumption, I'm going to assume that independently evolved technological intelligences will crop up at a rate of one per galactic supercluster over the next the next few 10^9 years (since we're entering a stage of universe development where the increasing number of sufficiently high-metalicity star systems should be making the evolution of life more and more common). Since your average galactic supercluster is something like 10^8 light-years across, one could imagine essentially the entire universe colonized by superintelligence in something like 10^10 years -- i.e. when the universe is about twice as old as it is now.

The implication is that the universe may essentially become dark at this time, due to the fact that it's illogical to waste high-energy light. I.E. a fascinating property of a universe like ours may be that for something like 99.999% of the time that stars should be shining -- they don't. Instead, you have truly massive amounts of "deep thinking" going on, for a long, long time...

The moral of the story: get your stargazing in now, while the getting is good.

[AWoodside]

Very interesting idea. Of course, an assumption you're implicitly making is that the energy required to build, set up, and maintain whatever technology you're using to capture all a star's energy is small enough relative to the star's energy that it's worth it to do so. This doesn't seem like that unbelievable of an assumption, but I'm not sure if it's clear cut.

[pokerbobo]

There is also a theory that the universe will continue to expand, finally reaching a point where it starts to contract. The contraction will be slow at first but will accelerate as gravity increases. Finally contracting to the size of the initial "big bang". No real use in conserving energy if this is the case.

[Metric]

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Very interesting idea. Of course, an assumption you're implicitly making is that the energy required to build, set up, and maintain whatever technology you're using to capture all a star's energy is small enough relative to the star's energy that it's worth it to do so. This doesn't seem like that unbelievable of an assumption, but I'm not sure if it's clear cut.

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Yes, there are several assumptions hiding under this idea. This one, I think, is probably pretty tame -- the Dyson sphere idea has already been out there for a long time (and it found its way to an episode of Star Trek, so it must be true [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] ).

[Metric]

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There is also a theory that the universe will continue to expand, finally reaching a point where it starts to contract. The contraction will be slow at first but will accelerate as gravity increases. Finally contracting to the size of the initial "big bang". No real use in conserving energy if this is the case.

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Yes, always possible -- but the best evidence right now points to a cosmological constant that will ensure continued expansion and eventual heat death of the universe, making long-term conservation of resources a really good idea for intelligent life.

[Piers]

The affect of intelligent life on the universe is strictly limited to localised effects by the speed limit.

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The moral of the story: get your stargazing in now, while the getting is good.

[/ QUOTE ].

I disagree. My judgment is that you have greatly underestimated the frequency of intelligent life, and overestimated the affect of intelligent life can have on the universe.

So assuming your correct about the Dysen Sphere thingy (big assumption) I can’t see more than 5% of stars disappearing.

Still I am guessing. Maybe if we a much large frequency of intelligence supporting stars, plus some form of creeping colonising over millions of years, you might be right. But I still don’t think so.

[HP]

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There is also a theory that the universe will continue to expand, finally reaching a point where it starts to contract. The contraction will be slow at first but will accelerate as gravity increases. Finally contracting to the size of the initial "big bang". No real use in conserving energy if this is the case.

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Yes, always possible -- but the best evidence right now points to a cosmological constant that will ensure continued expansion and eventual heat death of the universe, making long-term conservation of resources a really good idea for intelligent life.

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hey btw what's the latest on this? Are stars actually accelerating away from each other (last I heard), Or are stars accelerating towards each other but not enough to collapse?

[speedfreek]

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hey btw what's the latest on this? Are stars actually accelerating away from each other (last I heard), Or are stars accelerating towards each other but not enough to collapse?

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This is pretty much the most popular current cosmological theory:

The expansion of space is something that is measurable at the largest scales only, i.e. between us and the more distant galaxies. It is theorised to happen in areas with no gravity, or that the expansion is such a weak force that any gravity overcomes it.

The expansion of space is metric, which means it is the metric that defines distance that changes over time. This means that any unit of distance will change by the same factor as any other unit over a given time - in the time it takes 1 meter to expand to become what used to be 2 meters all distances double, so 1 billion ly becomes 2 billion ly. This is how distant galaxies can recede from us at apparent speeds that are faster than light.

We can only measure the expansion of space using the redshift of objects over around 5 billion light years away. This is when the redshift is dominated by cosmological redshift, where light has been actually stretched by the expansion of the space it has passed through. At closer distances, the effect of the expansion is much less (for the actual rate of expansion is extremely small) and so any redshift of a closer object is dominated by relativistic doppler effect, where the light is apparently changed by our relative speed to the object we are observing.

We think the rate of expansion is accelerating because where we have objects of a known magnitude (type 1a supernovae) that show up over large distances, we can more accurately estimate their distance using both redshift and the difference between their absolute and apparent magnitude. When we measure these supernovae, we built up a picture where the closer ones had moved away from us further than expected when compared to the more distant ones.

But stars aren't accelerating away from each other - distant galaxies are. There is no measurable effect of expansion within galaxies themselves, or between close clusters of galaxies, only in the vast empty areas between the clusters of galaxies.

And in fact, it is misleading to think of the distant galaxies as accelerating away, as that implies inertial motion. It is more accurate to say the distance between us and the distant galaxies is increasing at an accelerating rate, through no movement of ours or their own, but through the space in between us growing.

[HP]

ty speedfreek

on more Q if you don't mind:

Is it possible we could point a beam of light at a distant galaxy, and it never gets there due to the space in between expanding? Either from our frame of reference or theirs?

[Metric]

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The affect of intelligent life on the universe is strictly limited to localised effects by the speed limit.

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Not a problem for this idea -- it should not be too hard for a superintelligence to colonize a galactic supercluster on the timescale of 10^10 years, given that the average supercluster is only about 10^8 lightyears across.

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I disagree. My judgment is that you have greatly underestimated the frequency of intelligent life,

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That's because I was being conservative -- if intelligent life is more common than my assumption, then this particular effect is more likely to happen, rather than less likely.

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...and overestimated the affect of intelligent life can have on the universe.

So assuming your correct about the Dysen Sphere thingy (big assumption) I can’t see more than 5% of stars disappearing.

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So your disagreement appears to be based entirely on the assumption that almost all stars will be ignored by a colonizing superintelligence. I don't see a justification for this -- why live for X years and think Y thoughts if you could live for 2X years and/or think 2Y thoughts via clever harnessing and/or conservation of power emitted from other stars? Once you've colonized a given galaxy, why let the vast majority of available energy go directly to waste?

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Still I am guessing. Maybe if we a much large frequency of intelligence supporting stars, plus some form of creeping colonising over millions of years, you might be right. But I still don’t think so.

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If you've got some specific idea for some limiting factor in galaxy colonization, you should say what it is. If there isn't some specific limiting factor, total colonization seems almost guaranteed.