This time, we believe we have found the correct solution to the Fermi Paradox.
As promised, it directly affects human evolution:
When the time has come, at the apex of its development, each intelligent species blinks out of existence.
Actually, it escapes into an artificial cosmos of its own creation, with free energy, reconfigurable
dimensions, and unlimited degrees of freedom.
It's a one-way process. There's no reason for even a single member of the transcending species to remain in our arbitrarily limited universe.
But still . . .
Why didn't they leave at least one small self-replicating probe behind? After a few billion years the probe could have easily converted the rest of the universe to a higher state as well.
We should not exist!
Some type of non-interference principle may be in play, but that
seems unlikely, given our own history.
The best explanation is that the transcending Singularities use up all the free entropy in their regions. The
transformation 'absorbs' quantum action units, restricting the number of future changes that can occur in that area.
They must use up all their available energy to make the shift. A single wasted or improperly arranged atom could ruin their infinite future.
In fact, we believe no complex devices can survive within a hundred lightyears of a Transcendence.
Only thin gasses remain of the solar systems where they occur.
That's not all: our whole universe is changed by these transitions!
It's becoming . . . duller, less dynamic, more restricted.
When we look back far in time, we see star and galaxy types that could not exist today.
The emergent laws of physics were more 'open' in the past. With each escaping civilization, the possibilities are further narrowed.
The implications are stark: our own Singularity will be much harder to achieve than those of our predecessors.
In fact, in our universe, only one more such transition may be possible.
If humanity encounters any intelligent aliens before our own S-Day, our leaders may decide they must destroy them.
Let's hope they haven't found us already.
The best hard SF novel ever written: Infinite Thunder by Jack Arcalon.
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