WatchMojo Unveiled: Advanced civilizations and the Kardashev scale

Looking at how much technology has progressed over the last century, we have a strong argument toward greater advancement over shorter timescales for the foreseeable future.

This begs the question, is there an upper limit to human civilization? I mean, how far can we go?

My latest script for WatchMojo Unveiled tackled these questions in an exploration of the Kardashev scale.

The scale is named after Russian astrophysicist Nikolai S. Kardashev, who in 1963, proposed it to outline and categorize the advancement of a civilization via technological achievements. The Kardashev scale is quite a popular topic within the scientific community. Carl Sagan would directly reference the Kardashev scale in his book Cosmos to discuss humanity’s potential for evolving into a more advanced civilization. Incidentally, it was by reading Cosmos that I had my first acquaintance with the topic.

The scale’s metric focused on how much energy a civilization could consume. The original Kardashev scale defined three levels of civilization: Type 1 (can harness all the energy that falls on a planet from its parent star), Type 2 (can harness the energy of its own star), and Type 3 (can harness the energy of its home galaxy). Kardashev believed that anything beyond a Type 3 civilization was impossible.

This didn’t stop others from expanding the scale to include Type 4 to Type 7 civilizations. In doing so, the scale’s metric gradually changed from a measure of energy usage to the measure of control a civilization can exercise upon its reality. Type 4 civilizations could harness the energy of their home universe. Type 5 civilizations could go one step beyond to access the energy of multiple universes or the multiverse. Type 6 civilizations could exist outside of reality as we know it.  Type 7 civilizations would essentially be gods.

At this point, you may think we have reached the upper limit to the Kardashev scale but there are arguments for an even greater level of control, beyond a Type 7 civilization.

An Omega civilization.

A civilization that not only transcends reality but also becomes part of reality. Essentially, they are everywhere and nowhere. For an omega civilization, reality is a malleable entity, and individuality, a primitive concept.

It sounds quite absurd, and wildly impossible, doesn’t it? But, that’s why it is so much fun to contemplate on the possibilities.

Check out our video below and enjoy traversing the hyper-dimensional, multiversal, and crazily awesome reality of an Omega civilization.