Aestivation hypothesis
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The aestivation hypothesis is a hypothesized solution to the Fermi paradox conceived in 2017 by
Anders Sandberg Anders Sandberg (born 11 July 1972) is a Swedish researcher, futurist and transhumanist. He holds a PhD in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, and is currently a senior research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at the ...
,
Stuart Armstrong Stuart Armstrong (born 30 March 1992) is a Scottish professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for club Southampton and the Scotland national team. Armstrong began his professional career with Dundee United, making his debut in 2010 and ...
and Milan M. Ćirković. The hypothesis, published on 27 April 2017, suggests advanced alien civilizations may be storing energy and aestivating (hibernating in times of heat instead of cold), until the universe cools to better make use of the stored energy to perform tasks. As the universe cools, the potential work producible by stored energy can increase by a multiplier of 1030 per
Landauer's principle Landauer's principle is a physical principle pertaining to the lower theoretical limit of energy consumption of computation. It holds that "any logically irreversible manipulation of information, such as the erasure of a bit or the merging of two ...
. If the goal of an advanced civilization is to maximize the number of calculations done, to generate information processing for tasks like mass-producing simulations, then aestivation would be purposeful to achieve this end.


Fermi paradox

There is no reliable or reproducible evidence that Extraterrestrial life">aliens Alien primarily refers to: * Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country ** Enemy alien, the above in times of war * Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth ** Specifically, intelligent extrate ...
have visited
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
. No transmissions or evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life have been detected or observed anywhere other than
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
in the
Universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. Acc ...
. This runs counter to the knowledge that the Universe is filled with a very large number of planets, some of which likely hold the conditions hospitable for life. Life typically expands until it fills all available niches."Are We All Alone, or could They be in the Asteroid Belt" by Michael D. Papagiannis, ''Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society'', Vol. 19, p.277
/ref> These contradictory facts form the basis for the Fermi paradox, of which the aestivation hypothesis is one proposed solution.


Intentions of alien civilizations

Advanced alien civilizations may have intentions that differ considerably from one another and from humanity. If the intent is creating large amounts of "happiness", then energy resources may be used to generate perfect computer simulations of "the maximal number of maximally happy minds". If the intent is knowledge, resources may be focused on information storage. Such civilizations may go through a time of exploration and then remain dormant until the conditions of the universe are more energetically favorable to best achieve their objectives. While this may not achieve infinite value in terms of their intentions, the upper limit may still be extremely large.


Dispute

The theory has been disputed by a subsequent paper by Charles H. Bennett, Robin Hanson">Charles H. Bennett (computer scientist)">Charles H. Bennett, Robin Hanson and Jess Riedel, who claim the notion that more computations could be performed later in the universe's history is based on a misunderstanding of the physics of computation.


References

{{Interstellar messages Extraterrestrial life Hypotheses Fermi paradox 2017 introductions