Neither our Milky Way nor nearby galaxies contain highly developed civilizations.
This is the conclusion of the Dutch professor of astronomy at Leiden University Michael Garrett. This is indicated by the low level of heat emanating from our "neighbors". Indeed, in theory, the mind, ahead of us by millennia, should control the most powerful energies of the surrounding stars.
Is this really so and we are alone in the universe? Or do we simply do not understand something in the structure of the visible Metagalaxy? What if our neighbors are so efficient energy users that they do not litter space with thermal waste at all? Alas: from the point of view of modern physics, this is almost impossible to implement. It is much easier to admit that we completely do not understand the structure of alien communities …
BLACK CLOUD
In 1957, the British astronomer, writer and popularizer of science Fred Hoyle put forward in the science fiction novel "Black Cloud" the idea of the existence of an intelligent creature that occupies a space comparable to the distance from the Earth to the Sun in the form of an organized nebula of "living" black gas.
According to the plot, such a space alien invaded the solar system and, approaching the sun, brought innumerable calamities to earthlings. Fortunately, he realized in time that there are intelligent inhabitants on the surface of the third planet, and hastily retired into space.
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Hoyle's black cloud had a very strange structure of dust particles and organic molecules that acted as a kind of biological cells. The incredible organism fed on streams of electromagnetic radiation and for this it constantly traveled from star to star.
Representing a kind of organosilicon life form, the Black Cloud was resistant to cosmic radiation, ultra-low temperatures and the products of stellar thermonuclear reactions. In principle, such a quasi-biological-logical entity should be practically immortal.
It's just that it is very difficult to assume its reasonableness - even in a science fiction novel.
GALAXY SIZE BRAIN
Today, similar ideas are being developed by Fred Adams, an American astrophysicist from the University of Michigan.
He believes that some intelligent structures like Hoyle's Black Cloud are hiding inside dark streams of gas and dust, permeated by the radiation of dying stars such as red giants.
What can such forms of quasi-life represent?
Imagine that our brain has grown to the size of the solar system, and inside it information travels at the speed of light. Then it would take hundreds of millions of years just to transmit the thoughts wandering in our head every minute! Naturally, there would be absolutely no time left for the evolution of such a slow-thinking brain.
It is even more difficult to imagine the work of a brain the size of our Galaxy. For all the time of its existence, there would only be enough time for the transmission of tens of thousands of messages that could travel from one edge of the Milky Way to the other.
Therefore, it is difficult to imagine intelligent stellar creatures comparable in complexity to the human brain. If they did exist, then they would hardly have enough time for creative activity.
FANTASTIC WORLDS AND EARTH REALITIES
The flora and fauna of our planet are limited in size by its gravity. For example, the tallest tree cannot exceed a hundred meters, otherwise moisture will not enter its crown. After all, life requires not only heat, but also cooling.
This fact was established back in the 30s of the last century by the scientist Max Kleiber. A Swiss physiologist noted that for the vast majority of animals, the basal metabolic rate (the minimum amount of energy consumed by the body to maintain vital activity at rest) is proportional to their body weight to the 3/4 power.
In a word, if the mass of a cat is 100 times that of a mouse, then the basal metabolism in a cat is only 32 times greater than that in a mouse. Elementary calculations show that a creature weighing no more than a thousand tons can withstand a safe temperature regime on our planet, which is even more than the weight of the Earth's absolute record holder - the blue whale.
In principle, you can imagine a creature much larger in size. To do this, it must be assumed that the energy sources of a supermassive, superinert organism are engaged only in the slow reproduction of their cells.
Then we will find that the weight of this "multicellular amoeba" will reach several thousand tons. However, she will also have a mechanical factor of limiting growth. Moreover, it is completely unclear how such a creature will exist and how it will feed and develop with complete immobility.
Or maybe it will be some kind of intelligent ocean, similar to the ocean that covers the planet Solaris in the novel by Stanislav Lem? This boundless thinking abyss appears before us as a result of dialectical development from a solution of weakly reacting chemicals to the final stage of the "homeostatic ocean".
Under the influence of external conditions that threaten its existence, Solaris passed all stages of the formation of single and multicellular organisms, the evolution of flora and fauna. In other words, he did not adapt for hundreds of millions of years, like terrestrial organisms, to their habitat in order to crown evolution with reason, but became the master of nature immediately and forever. Why not?
THE THINKING UNIVERSE Cahill
Australian physicist Reginald Cahill of the University of Adelaide believes that the universe works the same way as the human brain. Consciousness is inherent in it and it develops because it realizes itself. All its structures, from microparticles to the universal network of galaxies, are similar to the neurons that make up the gray matter of our brain.
In Cahill's hypothesis, the world is an infinite network with nodes of primary elements, or monads. The Cahill monads, in the first moments of the Big Bang that gave birth to our world, formed an ever-evolving ramified network. Such formations of mathematics are called fractals.
However, not all Cahill fractal structures fill the entire space, stretching this endless network. Many, as it were, close on themselves in the form of distortions, forming "defects" of space. It is these “defective” fractals that form what we call matter. If we compare a fractal network with an endless ocean, then “defects” are islands.
According to Cahill's theory, the Universe is born and develops according to the canons of Darwinian evolution. Monads in it are born, grow, age and die off. Space, of course, has a mind (gray matter), for which the Australian dreamer suggests a slightly strange term - "noise". But, as they say, even if you call it a pot, just don't put it in the stove. The main thing is that this noise is a product of the evolution of the Universe and is filled with consciousness in the same way as our brain.
Cahill's fantastic universe is an infinite universe, gradually emerging from nothing. At the same time, individual monads, like neurons, influence each other, become imbued with "sympathy" and form more and more complex structures …
Oleg ARSENOV
The Steps. Secrets and Mysteries №13 2016