Life can survive some staggeringly extreme conditions. Even just on Earth,
extremophiles can cope with massive amounts of pressure, temperature,
radiation, and energy. So when we consider where alien life could be hiding in the universe,
should we also be looking into seemingly impossible locations?
This is Unveiled, and today we’re taking a closer
look at the strange theory that aliens are living in black holes.
Do you need the big questions answered? Are you constantly curious? Then why not subscribe to
Unveiled for more clips like this one? And ring the bell for more thought-provoking content!
There are many possible reasons for the so-called Fermi Paradox,
the apparent discrepancy between the number of aliens predicted in the universe, which is
lots…. and the number we’ve actually encountered, which is none. For example, the Dark Forest Theory
suggests that all beings that are intelligent enough might also be hiding from each other,
out of a kind of abundance of cosmic caution. As to how intelligent any of these potentially
hidden groups could be? It depends on the scales and measures you choose to follow.
As per the popular Kardashev Scale, the most intelligent civilizations rule over whole
galaxies, so you might think that it would be hard for them to hide anywhere, and therefore
that perhaps the Dark Forest wouldn’t apply. Going by one of the best known alternative models,
however - the physicist John Barrow’s scale of Micro Dimensional Mastery - it might actually
be that advancement comes as civilizations learn to master not the largest but the smallest forms
of matter. Instead of taking up more and more space, the cleverest aliens just become more
efficient with the space they have. And the Dark Forest becomes more of a possibility, again.
One theory especially fuses this idea of aliens hiding from us through their mastery of smaller
domains. The Transcension Hypothesis was formulated by the futurist John M. Smart.
It argues that the reason we don’t see aliens is because they’ve transcended our physical
universe. They exist on another plane entirely, known as Inner Space. Inner Space is a far more
optimal and efficient dimension than our own, consisting of smaller forms of matter and energy.
It’s like Reality 2.0, from our perspective. A defining feature of the Transcension Hypothesis,
though, is that it also says that beings that advance enough to enter Inner Space
have no remaining incentive to go back and contact less intelligent life. On a natural,
fundamental level, they would never want or need to speak to us again.
There are some broader reasons why communication links would break down (or never appear) in this
model, though. For example, one idea is that if advanced civilizations began sending messages
or probes to relatively primitive life like ours from Inner Space… they would then risk
influencing and damaging our own technological progression. Instead, it’s proposed that it would
be better to allow life to evolve on its own and make its own unique discoveries… to avoid
the possibility of every civilization turning out the same, with the same science and achievements,
and with nothing by way of diversity. The Transcension Hypothesis suggests, then, that
we haven’t met alien life yet because a) we’re not intelligent enough to get to their level,
and b) because transcended groups have never (and will never) reach out. The underlying
argument of the hypothesis is always, though, that civilizations naturally progress to smaller and
smaller scales of space, time, energy, and matter. And so, there’s a clear path toward black holes,
with Smart himself referring to them as potentially a “developmental destiny”.
Black hole life isn’t only an offshoot of the Transcension Hypothesis, or even of modern
science in general. It’s an idea that dates back to at least the mid-twentieth century, when the
physicist Roger Penrose first proposed that black holes contain an enormous, nearly limitless,
supply of energy. We know that Black Holes have a region around them called the Ergosphere,
lying just outside the Event Horizon… and that any object that finds itself inside the ergosphere
will be dragged through space at faster than lightspeed. But Penrose suggested that this energy
could be used - via something now known as the Penrose Process - should an object be dropped into
the ergosphere but then ejected out of it, after it had harvested net energy from the black hole.
In this way, it’s as though black holes are unrivaled energy stores,
so it would make sense for the most advanced groups to live as close to them as possible.
Black holes might reasonably be considered prime real estate in the universe. In fact,
some physicists believe that black holes hold the potential to birth new universes entirely,
such is their immeasurable power. The suggestion here is that when a black hole forms (by a star
collapsing in on itself) it could be that the energy involved rebounds outward into
what’s effectively another Big Bang - producing another universe on the other
side of the singularity. So the theory goes. If aliens were living in black holes, then,
they’d have perfectly positioned themselves along effective bridges between here and there. Again,
although this time by slightly different means, they will have transcended this reality.
Of course, there’s some evidence to support all (or parts of) the hypothesis and some criticism
against it. There’s certainly reason to think that advanced enough beings would invest in
mastering smaller dimensions rather than larger. The Serbian astronomer Milan Cirkovic is another
who has taken a closer look at this. In one 2008 study, he used models to determine how
aliens would operate in two situations; one where they aimed to expand outward into space,
known as an “Empire-State” model… and one where they instead optimize the space they have,
in a “City-State” model. Cirkovic found that the Empire model rarely held together all that well,
mostly because it quickly became too stretched… while the City model grew stronger and stronger.
Zoom out, and City-State civilizations probably would be harder to spot, too,
and especially if they grew intelligent enough to set up inside black holes. Consider even just
humanity’s ambition toward nanotechnology that works at the atomic level… and there’s
no doubt that such groups could be missed, easily allowing the Fermi Paradox to set in.
More broadly, the Transcension Hypothesis divides opinion. Critics say that it makes a number of
assumptions in order to work. It assumes that life seemingly always develops towards the same
particular goal all over the universe… that working across smaller domains is always the
best strategy to reach that goal… and then that life can survive at such extremely small scales,
as well, with black holes being a kind of end game. There’s also that concept of “Inner Space”
to wrestle with. With something so seemingly fundamental to how an advanced group would work,
it might easily take such an extraordinary amount of energy that it should be something
that’s visible in space. But we have few candidates toward what
that might be… unless the evidence of transcension is black holes themselves.
So, what’s your verdict? Does the Transcension Hypothesis ring true for you? Could black holes
be an integral part of the theory… or do they remain just as mysterious as ever? For now,
perhaps the main takeaway is the suggestion that to advance we should be looking more
at the very small, and not the very big. Substitute the Kardashev Scale for Micro
Dimensional Mastery and the road ahead might quickly become clearer and more achievable.
If there is a universal strategy for developing civilizations,
we might currently be completely misaligned with it. And, were we to force ourselves back on track,
it could be that our future homes will one day be found in (and around) the
darkest and deadliest places in the universe, as we currently understand
it. Because that’s the strange theory that aliens are living in black holes.
What do you think? Is there anything we missed? Let us know in the comments, check out these other
clips from Unveiled, and make sure you subscribe and ring the bell for our latest content.