© 1975-1979, 2008 Robert A. Freitas Jr. All Rights Reserved.

Robert A. Freitas Jr., Xenology: An Introduction to the Scientific Study of Extraterrestrial Life, Intelligence, and Civilization, First Edition, Xenology Research Institute, Sacramento, CA, 1979; http://www.xenology.info/Xeno.htm

25.2.1  Mass-Energy Scales of Contact

The first most important basic parameter that we would like to know about any alien civilization we may encounter is: What is their matter-energy-handling capability? What class of civilization are they? This single datum will give us a good idea as to what level of contact interaction we may expect.

From our considerations of cultural power utilization we have recognized that there may exist four major classes of mature civilization in the universe: Planetary societies (10¹⁵ watts continuous), stellar cultures (10²⁶ watts), galactic communities (10³⁷ watts), and universal civilizations (10⁴⁷ watts). Therefore, in any bilateral first contact situation there can only be sixteen distinct levels or modes of contact along the mass-energy scale, as summarized in Table 25.3. The data in the table are called "power differentials," representing the difference in mass-energy-handling capability between the two interacting races. The numbers here are expressed in terms of the contactor's advantage over the contactee.

Looking at Table 25.3 as a whole, there seem to be four distinct power differentials that may occur in any first contact. First, the two civilizations may be roughly equal in power usage, in which case the power differential in the contact situation is ~10⁰, or 1. Next, two societies may meet whose power consumption differs by ~11 orders of magnitude, or by ~22 orders of magnitude, or, finally, by as much as 32 orders of magnitude.

Each such contact event is a qualitatively different situation. To help put the above figures into some kind of reasonable perspective, the series of comparisons assembled in Table 25.4 should prove helpful.

In the leftmost column we have the logarithm (order of magnitude) of the power differentials likely to be encountered in most first contact scenarios. So, for instance, we may imagine a contact in which the log power differential between the cultures is about zero. This would be roughly equivalent to a nation like the United States, which commands about 10¹² watts, coming into contact with another nation of similar power handling ability, say, West Germany.

Next, imagine a meeting between cultures differing in power usage by 11 orders of magnitude. This would be like a contact between the entire United States and a society in command of only 10 watts of power. Such a meager society could operate one tiny light bulb, play a single miniature pocket radio, or perhaps paddle one small canoe slowly into New York harbor. The phrase "hopelessly outclassed" is an extreme understatement.

But it gets much worse! Imagine a contact in which the power differential is 22 orders of magnitude. Compared to the entire energy output of the United States, this would only be about 10^-10 watts -- one-thirtieth the power output of a single human neuron -- and some one-hundred-thousandth of the energy expended by a swimming rotifer. An amoeba swimming at low speed uses about 10^-10 watts, so the power differential in such a contact scenario would represent a difference between the contacting societies as great as that between the entire United States and an amoeba pseudopoding slowly into New York harbor.

Finally, consider the most extreme case of a power differential of 32 orders of magnitude, which works out to about 10^-20 watts in comparison to all of U.S. society. It is hard for us to conceive of differences in power that are this large. 10^-20 watts is about enough energy to evaporate one molecule of water every ten seconds from the surface of the sea. We thus arrive at the incredible comparison of a society with the power of. the United States confronting another race whose power usage is barely enough to evaporate a single molecule of water off the back of a tiny amoeba as it swims into New York harbor.

These latter comparisons span such enormous scales that they boggle the mind into incredulity. Such levels of contact are wholly beyond any normal human experience. How are we to visualize a meeting between extraterrestrial societies which differ in energy as much as the entire United States and a single amoeba? And what if we are that poor lone protozoan, naively wafting into the galactic equivalent of New York harbor? Not only would such a civilization seem godlike to us, it would actually be God for any practical purpose that can be imagined.

The timescales of technological advance give us some important clues as to the nature of the technical societies we are most likely to encounter. Consider the graph in Figure 25.2 below. If we depict human technical advance -- as measured by energy output, population of, radios or telescopes, or whatever -- as a function of time, we find that technological advance appears almost to be what mathematicians call a "step function" over geological and evolutionary timescales. Progress is nil for a very long time; all of a sudden, technology shoots up to the maximum theoretical limits as defined by the fundamental laws of physics in the universe. Based on our discussions elsewhere in this book, it appears that Type II stellar civilizations will not be technology limited at all. Anything that is physically possible in theory, they should be able to accomplish in practice.

Figure 25.2 Timescale for Technological Advance

From a technological point of view, then, it would appear that the vast majority of sentient societies may lie on either side of the step (assuming humanity is a typical case).³⁸⁵³ Most cultures may be regarded as "impotent" or "omnipotent" insofar as technical abilities are concerned. Only a tiny fraction of all evolving technological societies will be in the transition phase occupied by present-day humanity. Or, to put it in another more striking way, in any contemporary first contact situation humans are vastly more likely to encounter gods or animals, almost never peers. Indeed, it may be viewed as unethical for any omnipotent civilization to contact a society which is technologically impotent or in transition.

Table 25.5 puts numbers to this basic idea. Using our estimates of the probable number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy and a "reasonable" value for the Drake Equation constant L₀ of 10^-2 cultures/year (see Chapter 23), the author has calculated the mean number and distance to civilizations that are today at approximately the human technological level. "Human level" is taken as a technological "window" in time of about 10,000 years (and we are probably in the last millennium of this span of progress). Even given the most optimistic value for civilization lifetime imaginable -- 10⁹ years -- there are only a thousand other cultures like us in the entire Galaxy, and each is 6700 light-years from the nearest other. As we select more modest values for L, we begin to suspect that we may be lucky to find another society at our same stage of development in the entire Milky Way. We might well be the only technical civilization undergoing a technological step-transition in the Galaxy at the present time.

Thus in a very real sense, in a Milky Way galaxy possibly teeming with life, mankind may yet be quite alone.

Last updated on 3 May 2010