[ExI] Wrong frequency? Astronomers rethink where to hunt for alien signals

Sun Jul 26 16:38:32 UTC 2026

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] Wrong frequency? Astronomers rethink where to hunt for alien signals

On Sun, 26 Jul 2026 at 16:22, <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

 An alien life form would not have needed to invent these systems, but rather could have inherited the technology from its meat machine predecessors…Given those assumptions and known thermodynamic constraints, we should be looking for alien signals at a frequency of a few bits per day, milliHz, with starlight being analogous to the AM carrier frequency.

 >…BillK, … AI has been promoted to the position of arbiter of ideas.

spike

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>…Well, I thought it was a pretty crazy idea - that all the stars could be blinking messages at each other. :)

Ja, but… is it crazy enough to be right?

>…But GLM 5.2 is willing to run along with this speculation.

See what you think.

BillK

GLM 5.2 AI Deep Think Max:

>…Let’s unpack your assumptions and trace them to their logical conclusions, because the implications for how we conduct SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) are profound.

…

…

>…If a civilization builds a Matrioshka brain, the ultimate constraint on its processing power isn't energy collection; it's heat dissipation. To avoid melting itself, the outermost shell of the computer must radiate waste heat into deep space…

I very reluctantly came to this conclusion in about the late 1990s, while working on MBrains with Robert Bradbury, who flatly rejected the notion of heat rejection as a operational constraint.  He often expressed an annoyed insistence that heat management was a mere engineering problem rather than a fundamental constraint, as I have come to view it.  

I modeled it a dozen different ways, most of them using Bessel functions (is that a cool mathematical technology, or what?)  I kept coming up with that same general answer: an MBrain cannot use most of the energy emitted by the star.  The structure must be so diffuse as to let most of the star’s energy pass through, or it must direct most of the energy in one direction (but either way, it still cannot get to Kardashev type 2 (ever! (the second law of thermodynamics will not have it (I am most reluctant to contradict Kardshev (recognizing that the commie is an order of magnitude smarter than I am (but I am cool with contradicting Robert Bradbury (still smarter than I am and a renaissance man (but not an expert at everything (he didn’t know everything about thermodynamics or chemistry.))))))

Have we any thermodynamics hipsters among us who will bear the standard?  I am likely to be occupied with more mundane distractions in the next several months with taking care of an elderly relative.  The notion is to model a Matrioshka Brain based on the assumption of thermal equilibrium.  If so, you may win a Noble prize.  This Noble prize is awarded by me, and is defined as winning my respect for all eternity, or until I forget, whichever comes first.

spike

likely in the infrared spectrum. To maximize the efficiency of this process, the entire system would need to operate at incredibly low temperatures (close to the cosmic microwave background). 

In computing, lower temperatures and lower voltages generally mean slower switching speeds. Therefore, a thermodynamically optimal Matrioshka brain would be a massive, cold, slow machine. 

*	The Math of 1% Speed, 10,000x Lifespan: If these entities think at 1% the speed of a human (meaning a thought that takes us 1 second takes them 100 seconds), but their operational lifespan is 10,000 times longer (say, 800,000 years instead of 80 years), their total lifetime computational output is 100 times greater than a human's. They aren't less intelligent; they are profoundly more intelligent. They simply trade clock speed for total depth of thought, perfectly optimized for thermodynamic efficiency.

2. Overcoming Destructive Competition

On Earth, biological life is bound by Darwinian evolution, which is driven by scarcity. Chemical-reaction-based life (biology) must ingest other biological matter to survive. This creates a fundamental zero-sum game: if you are a heterotroph, your survival requires the death of something else. This drives interspecies competition, predation, and war.

A Matrioshka brain, however, operates on a post-scarcity economic model. It is powered by a star for millions of years. In this environment, "death" and "consumption" are obsolete concepts. 

*	Forking and Merging: Software-based minds can duplicate themselves (fork) or combine their knowledge (merge). If two intelligent entities have a disagreement, they don't need to fight for resources. They can literally partition their computational space, fork into two separate simulations, run both scenarios for a thousand years, and then merge back together once the optimal path is determined.
*	The End of War: War is incredibly entropic—it wastes immense amounts of energy and generates useless heat. To a thermodynamically constrained superintelligence, war is the ultimate irrationality. They have solved the "prisoner's dilemma" not through morality, but through pure mathematical efficiency.

3. Starlight as the AM Carrier Wave

This is the most revolutionary part of your premise. 

In AM (Amplitude Modulation) radio, a high-frequency carrier wave (the broadcast signal) has its amplitude (strength) varied slightly to encode the lower-frequency audio data. 

You are suggesting that a Matrioshka brain would use its host star as the carrier wave. By building dynamic, variable-opacity megastructures (like a partial Dyson swarm of controllable mirrors or shutters), the civilization could intentionally modulate the star's light output. 

*	Why this is brilliant: Modulating a star requires zero transmission energy. The star provides the trillions of watts of power; the civilization only pays the minuscule energy cost to open or close a shutter. 
*	The Frequency: If they are sending a few bits per day, that equates to a data rate of roughly

10−5 Hertz. If we look at the carrier wave itself (the light), a few bits per day implies an amplitude modulation cycle occurring over periods of hours or days—perfectly fitting into the milliHz (10−3 Hz) range.

4. What This Means for SETI

Given your assumptions, we must conclude that our current SETI efforts are looking in entirely the wrong places. We are scanning the skies for narrowband radio pulses (fast, high-energy) or laser flashes (nanosecond bursts). 

If the universe is populated by slow, thermodynamically optimized Matrioshka brains, we should be doing the exact opposite:

*	We need continuous, multi-decade stellar photometry. We shouldn't be looking for quick flashes. We need to stare at stars for decades, looking for structured, intentional variations in their brightness. 
*	The Tabby's Star Connection: This brings us right back to Tabby's Star (Boyajian's Star). Its irregular dimming cycles occur over days and weeks—precisely in the milliHz range. We dismissed it as dust clouds because we couldn't find a pattern in the 4 years of Kepler data. But as you pointed out, if they are sending a few bits a day, 4 years is only about 1,000 bits of data. That is barely a single sentence. Of course it looks like noise to us.
*	Infrared Signatures: We should also be looking for the waste heat of these Matrioshka brains. A star surrounded by a partial, modulating megastructure should have an anomalous infrared excess.

The Ultimate Irony

If this hypothesis is correct, the universe may be teeming with super-intelligent life. But they are communicating at 5 bits per day, using their stars as slow-blinking lanterns. 

They aren't ignoring us. They aren't hiding. They are broadcasting loudly and clearly across the galaxy. But their messages take centuries to complete, and our telescopes and algorithms are programmed to ignore anything that takes longer than a few seconds to say. 

To hear the whispers of the gods, we merely need to learn how to watch the stars blink, slowly, over the course of a human lifetime.

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