[ExI] Fwd: A new answer to the Fermi paradox?

[sjatkins]

This assumes that no advanced species is advanced enough to substantially control its own environment and optimize it for its needs.




On Sunday, July 19th, 2026 at 14:24, John Clark via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Sat, Jul 18, 2026 at 7:42 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> 

> 

> 

> > > >> Small star sized black holes decay sooner than supermassive Black Holes that you were talking about.
> > 

> > 

> > > You were talking about proton decay being less than BH evaporation tome.
> 

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> A Black Hole with a mass of our sun would evaporate due to Hawking radiation in about 10^67 years, a supermassive black hole might last 10^100 years.
> 

> > > I am saying use smaller holes that will evaporate before protons decay.l so their energy can be used fully.
> 

> 

> Used fully? If the black hole is spinning then you could theoretically extract about 29% of that spin energy as useful work, but trying to get work out of Hawking radiation would be far more difficult and the power levels would be absurdly low. Hawking radiation is composed of photons with extremely long wavelengths and thus are very high entropy. That's because a solar mass Black Hole would be almost at absolute zero, about 10^-8K; you have to wait about 300 billion years before you could even begin to extract useful work from that because that's how long you have to wait before the cosmic microwave background got that cold. And even then the power levels would be ridiculously tiny. The energy in a solar-mass black hole's Hawking radiation is absurdly small, only about 10^-28 watts .
> 

> 

> That said I do admit there is a way you could do a little bit better, and do it right now, although it's not practical. The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is at 2.725K and a Solar mass black hole is at 6.2*10^-8K which is much colder, so you could in theory extract energy not from the Black Hole but from the CMBR and use the much colder Black Hole as a heat sink, and the efficiency would be great. Efficiency = 1- (6.2*10^-8)/(2/725) = 0.99999998, and you can't do much better than that!
> 

> 

> The trouble is not efficiency its power levels, each square meter of your CMBR collector would only produce about 3*10^-6 watts; so a CMBR collector with the radius of the Earth's orbit would produce about 8*10^17 watts, but a Dyson Sphere around the sun would produce 4*10^26 watts, that's 500 million times more power.
> 

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> > > > >>> or perhaps future engineers will develop computers not based on atoms as we know them.
> > > 

> > > 

> > > >> So now we've gotten to the point where you need to invoke new physics in order to explain the Fermi Paradox!
> > 

> > 

> > > I am not postulating new physics, only new engineering.
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> 

> You want to build a Turing Machine using only an astronomically diluted soup of nothing but photons, gravitational waves, neutrinos, electrons and anti-electrons. Unlike Drexler style Nanotechnology or Dyson spheres/swarms; what you were talking about would take more than just improved engineering; like perpetual motion machines or faster than light travel, what you want would require new science.
> 

> 

> > > Also note, it was you who injected the speculative physics here (the assumption that protons are unstable).
> 

> 

> The difference is I did not need to use any speculative physics to resolve the Fermi Paradox, but you did. I was just pointing out that we can't know even approximately what the universe will look like in 10^100 years because over such a vast amount of time we don't know if Dark Energy is stable and we don't know if protons are stable. And even with new physics I don't think you've resolved it. I STILL don't understand why our descendants in the year 10^100 would be happy that we let low entropy photons from quadrillions of suns radiante uselessly into infinite space, rather than first converting them into high entropy photons and a completed calculation.
> 

> 

> > > >> I can explain it with nothing but existing Physics, we are simply the first in the observable universe, and as I keep saying, somebody has to be the first.
> > 

> > 

> > > I am not advocating for any position, I only thought it was worth sharing this new possibility with the list. You seem motivated to disproving it for some reason.
> 

> 

> The reason is I'm trying to find a way for what you are saying to make some sort of logical sense, and so far my efforts have been unsuccessful. I just don't get it.
> 

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> > > >>even new physics can't provide a reason for not intercepting the energy of the sun right now and using that energy to perform a calculation.
> > 

> > 

> > > If there were a way to stop stars from fusing now,
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> 

> Huh? Turning off the universe would kill all life in the universe both biological and electronic.
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> 

> > > that would be preferable to trying to exploit their solar radiation for computations today.
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> 

> I don't know how you figure that.
> 

> > > The is a large middle ground covered between 1. doing no computations at all, and 2. building Dyson swarms around every star.
> 

> 

> That's just it, I don't think there is a middle ground because once Drexler style Nanotechnology is achieved von Neumann probes will be cheap and easy to make, and some alien individual in some alien civilization is going to do so. Or at least they would if there are any alien civilizations. But I don't think there are.
> 

> > > >> Wasteful? The low entropy energy that is radiating into infinite space right now from our sun we are NEVER GOING TO GET BACK NO MATTER WHAT WE DO.
> > 

> > 

> > > Let me express these numbers in terms that humans are more adept at comparing:
> > 1¢ = all energy that will be lost to fusion of stars
> > $2.00 = all energy remaining in the rest mass of matter after the last stars have burned out.
> 

> 

> After 100 trillion years when the last small red dwarf star has burned out, how do you propose turning all those cold stellar cadavers into useful work? And if any sort of intelligence exists at that time, why would they be pleased that for the last hundred trillion years we had let all the radiant energy from all the stars in the universe fly uselessly into infinite space and are delighted that we didn't use them to perform a calculation?!
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> 

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> > > You fret a great deal over this lost cent.
> 

> 

> You're the one who believes that every intelligent entity in the observable universe without exception believes that it's very important that we do NOT prevent that cent from getting lost. And I'll be damned if I understand why because Mr. Jupiter Brain is going to value a computation made today more than a hypothetical computation that might be made in 100 trillion years, that's due to the fact that information can produce more information just like money can produce more money. A small amount of new information obtained now might have generated a huge amount of new information after 100 trillion years of thinking about the consequences of it. And besides, even Mr. Jupiter Brain can't be absolutely certain what things will be like in 100 trillion years, but He knows what things are like right now.
> 

> > > But perhaps there are better ways of spending energy resources now than building Dyson swarms. On earth, there is the concept of ERoEI (energy returned on energy invested), so while a wind turbine might return slightly more energy than it cost to build it, of there were a higher ERoEI technology, it would not make sense to invest finite energy resources on wind turbines.
> 

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> You're talking about something that will only be relevant for about a decade, maybe two. I'm talking about cosmic time in the feet of the universe.
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> 

> > > >> So how is intercepting a low entropy photon before it radiates away, make it power a calculation and turn into a high entropy photon, and only then release it into infinite space, wasteful?!
> 

> > > you dismiss the potential 10^30 X benefit of saving energy for the future.
> 

> 

> I repeat, how is intercepting a low entropy photon before it radiates away, make it power a calculation and turn into a high entropy photon, and only then release it into infinite space, wasteful?!
> 

> 

> > > >> Please explain what exactly we are "saving" and how our descendants 10^100 years from now will be better off because of our present energy frugality, because I just don't get it.
> > 

> > 

> > > From our last conversation on this you seemed stuck on in the idea that we can't go above 100% efficiency,
> 

> 

> Well of course you can't get above 100% efficiency! Perpetual motion machines don't work.
> 

> > > and didn't seem to appreciate that progressively colder temperatures enable progressively more computations for the same unit of energy. Do you now agree that there is this multiplicative effect that comes from using colder heat sinks?
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> 

> I am not going to answer your questions until you first answer my question. Please explain what exactly we are "saving".
> 

> 

> John K Clark
> 

> > 
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