How powerful can the top civilization in the universe be? Einstein: The end of science is theology

Einstein once said, "The end of science is theology."

Why did the greatest physicist of the 20th century say that the end of science is theology?

Asimov has a science fiction novel called "The Last Question", in which a machine is constructed. Put our knowledge into it, and the machine becomes a question and answer machine. You ask it a question, and it can accurately give you the answer.

In Asimov's mind, this represented a high level of machine intelligence, and even an answer to civilization.

I remember the general meaning of the question asked about the machine in the book is, according to the second law of thermodynamics, the universe will dissipate, and what will happen after the world is dead? The machine says I don't know the answer yet. But human beings put the machine in an extra-dimensional space and ensure that it still has energy, and the machine suddenly said that I know the answer: there must be light.

You see, this goes back to theology.

In the end, we can only imagine this thing.

There is a book called "The Structure of Scientific Revolution", which tells that we always first discover a scientific paradigm, and then explain the world. paradigms to solve problems.

And this thing is endless. I don’t think we have the chance to understand the things of the universe at all. This is a matter of gradual approximation.

What is cognition?

In my opinion, cognition is based on our existing experience. Without this, we simply cannot imagine the top civilization of the universe. Isn't there an experiment called "brain in a vat"? In fact, it is to cultivate a person's brain in a container, and give the brain various data and information, then the brain will feel that it lives in the earth, and goes to work, sleep, eat, etc. every day.

In other words, apart from the earth and our historical background, it is difficult for us to imagine what the top civilization in the universe is like, let alone how powerful it is.

But whether aliens exist, I personally still tend to be sure. The number of stars in the universe alone is horrendous. Some scientists have a very vivid analogy and believe that the number of stars in the universe is more than the number of sand on the earth.

The earth is only 4.5 billion years old, and the Milky Way has a history of 13.6 billion years. Humans have only started to create civilizations in tens of thousands of years, developed science in only a few hundred years, and explored aerospace technology in only a few decades. Compared with the vast universe, Human civilization is really just a drop in the ocean.

So how powerful can the top civilization in the universe be?

In 1964, Soviet astrophysicist Nikolai Semenovich Kadashev proposed the Kadashev scale, which measures the technological level of a civilization with the power that a civilization can use to communicate.

According to this scale, a first-level civilization can mobilize the energy of an entire planet for communication; a second-level civilization can mobilize the energy of a star; and a third-level civilization can mobilize the energy of a galaxy.

This point is probably similar to the power of Toriyama Akira's "Dragon Ball" to kill a planet with one punch. Of course, based on the current human cognition, it is impossible to predict whether the alien civilization is the same life form as us.

And the biggest problem that restricts the connection between civilization and civilization in the universe is distance. As far as our science and technology are concerned, we all agree that the speed of light is the first speed in the universe.

Even the speed of light is much slower than the vast and boundless universe. Even the wormholes, interstellar travel, superluminal speed, etc. that have appeared in many science fiction works in recent years are still frontier unproven theories in real physics.

Therefore, if the top civilization in the universe wants to be powerful to a certain extent, then this civilization must break the rules we now know in physics, and these rules now seem to be undoubtedly the "ceiling" that restricts human development.

such as the speed of light.

Among the physical laws and properties known to human beings, the speed of light is the first speed, gravity exists, gravity exists, and energy is necessary.

When these hard power conditions come together, it naturally restricts our imagination of the top civilization in the universe.

Of course, I also believe that for the top civilizations in the universe, limitations such as the speed of light and lifespan are no longer a problem. But this also fails to explain another paradox, that is, if the speed of light and lifespan are really not constraints, why have we still not found signs of alien life?

If the lifespan is not a limit, an alien race will inevitably choose to colonize the interstellar space to obtain energy in order to continue, but we still have no signs of discovering this.

Or, human beings themselves are the "brain in a vat", the "back garden" of aliens, and a huge "sociological" experiment.

Of course, I am also curious that life can be born under such harsh conditions, and the establishment of civilization takes billions of years of evolution, and the earth has such a "coincidence".

The position from the sun, the moon, the rotation speed, the tilt, etc., I have to say, all this is like God throwing dice.

Einstein said that God never rolls dice, but quantum mechanics tells us that "God" actually rolls dice. I think, can the top cosmic civilization really use the earth as the cultivation soil, and then create the civilization of "human" step by step?

Seriously terrified.