Advanced Civilizations Elsewhere in the Universe
The Fermi paradox is the conflict between the expectation that intelligent life may be common in the universe with there being little firm scientific evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations (for example, \citealt{Webb_2002}; \citealt{Cirkovic_2018}). There is no clear support for any explanation of the paradox and thus it remains unresolved. There is however little scientific obstacle to the belief that we are not alone in the universe. This belief is also in accord with the Copernican principle, widely investigated in cosmology (for example, \citealt{Clarkson_2008}), that there is no clear justification for assuming that humans occupy a special, unique or privileged position as observers of the universe (\citealt{RowanRobinson_1996}).
\citet{Kardashev_1964} introduced a three-point scale which describes the technological development of civilizations according to their energy consumption. Points I, II, and III correspond to energy consumptions for a planet such as Earth, its own star, and its own galaxy, respectively. Many refinements and developments of the scale have been considered including upward extensions to advanced civilizations powerful enough to control multiple universes or to create new universes (\citealt{Galantai_2003}; \citealt{Cirkovic_2015}), and to scales involving criteria other than energy (\citealt{Zubrin_1999}). A well-known adage is that to humans any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic (\citealt{Clarke_1973}). This was reworded or paraphrased in the suggestion that any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God. Perhaps this entity need not be omnipotent and omniscient, but to us it would seem to be God (\citealt{Shermer_2002}). This idea was extended to suggest that interstellar extraterrestrials may be God based on their descriptors (\citealt{Richey_2019}). The purpose of this essay is to consider such ideas further, and discuss and develop the idea that God could have emerged by natural scientific forces rather than be a supernatural being.
The very existence of humans provides evidence of the power of evolution to create adaptations and intelligent life, and there is every reason to believe that natural selection would be effective elsewhere in the universe (\citealt{Levin_2019}). Similarly, there seems no reason to doubt that cultural and technological evolution would also be effective elsewhere in the universe. Thus, the hypothesis that natural forces could create very advanced intelligent entities as envisaged on the Kardashev scale cannot be rejected based on our current scientific knowledge. One aspect of cultural and technological evolution is the idea of the technological singularity which envisages a runaway process leading to a superintelligence far surpassing current human capabilities (\citealt{Vinge_1993}; \citealt{Kurzweil_2005}). In a theological context a related idea is that of Teilhard de Chardin who envisaged evolution leading humans and the universe towards a future final point of spiritual unification called the Omega Point (\citealt{Grummett_2007}). Although the concept of the technological singularity may be applied to events in past human evolution (\citealt{DaCosta_2019}), its main use is prospective and concerned with the future fate of humanity and the universe. It is thus less consistent with the notion of a God who acted in the distant past to create the universe and everything as we see it now.