[ExI] A new answer to the Fermi paradox?

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 17/07/2026 12:34, Jason Resch wrote:
> It is from 2017 but it was new to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aestivation_hypothesis
>
> The aestivation hypothesis is a hypothesized solution to the Fermi paradox conceived in 2017 by Anders Sandberg, Stuart Armstrong and Milan M. Ćirković. The hypothesis, published on 27 April 2017, suggests advanced alien civilizations may be storing energy and aestivating (hibernating in times of heat instead of cold), until the universe cools to better make use of the stored energy to perform tasks.
>
> As the universe cools, the potential work producible by stored energy can increase by a multiplier of 10^30 per Landauer's principle. If the goal of an advanced civilization is to maximize the number of calculations done, to generate information processing for tasks like mass-producing simulations, then aestivation would be purposeful to achieve this end.

The aestivation hypothesis (congratulations on spelling it right, incidentally) never made a lot of sense to me. There may be advantages in terms of theoretical calculations possible, but the downsides seem much more important. If you are inactive and unaware, you are vulnerable. Simple considerations of survival seem to dictate that you'd need at least a minimal consciousness and ability to act, to defend against natural disasters, and attacks from anyone who regards you as competition for resources, either now or in the future.

Another factor is all the energy that you are letting go to waste. If this cosmic era is so much more energy-dense than future eras, why not remain active and make your primary activity storing as much energy as possible for future use? I imagine that might look like engineering collisions of stars so as to make black holes, so we might see many more black holes than expected. I don't know if we have, but I imagine that activity on a scale that would enable this, would be easily detectable.

Anyway, I don't buy this as an explanation for the Fermi Paradox.

-- 
Ben