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Chapter 1

Type 1, 2, 3, 4 Civilizations


- Jesus Christ, John 8:23

I open this book with a current classification system for so-called "advanced civilizations", of which ours is NOT one. Our current 21st century civilization is classified as a "Type 0" civilization. That is, we are still relatively primitive by continuing to use and burn hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) as our primary means of energy. We have not yet evolved to the point where we could even conceivably be labeled as an "advanced civilization", although the potential is there.

Dr Michio Kaku, a highly renowned physicist, author and Professor of Theoretical Physics in the City College of New York City, has come up with a crude, yet relevant, civilizational classification system for any advanced civilizations that, in all probability, are spread far and wide throughout the Cosmos. A Type 0 civilization has already been briefly enumerated upon. Type 1, Type 2 and Type 3 civilizations are thousands, millions or even billions of years more advanced than ours today. A Type 4 civilization will also be analyzed in this chapter, although it is not recognized in Dr Kaku's hierarchy of advanced civilization classification system.

According to Dr Kaku, Type 1, Type 2 and Type 3 civilizations have mastered planetary, stellar and interstellar forms of energy, respectively. Originally, though, this classification system originated with Russian Astrophysicist Nicolai Kardashev who calculated that the energy consumption of the these three types of cosmic civilizations would be separated by a factor of many billions.

UC Berkeley physicist Dan Goldsmith noted that the Earth receives about one billionth of the Sun's energy, and that human civilization to date only utilizes about one millionth of that energy. So we consume only one millionth of one billionth of the Sun's total energy. This figure has the potential to be vastly increased once human civilization evolves beyond the current and highly antiquated hydrocarbon economy and moves into the projected solar economy. If we make this transition rapidly and efficiently, it may be 200 years before we evolve into Type 1 status, according to physicist Freeman Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University. Projecting further into time, considering that human civilization has not been destroyed by nuclear war, genetic armageddon or the ravages of global climate change, Kardashev has estimated that it would take only 3,200 more years for human civilization to reach a Type 2 status and another 5,800 years for us to reach Type 3 status.

A Type 1 civilization is truly a planetary one. It is an advanced civilization that has achieved world government status and an end to all ethnic, racial and religious strife. A Type 1 civilization can also be characterized by its ability to provide all of its planetary citizens with free housing, food, education, health care, transportation and leisure needs. It is a civilization that has achieved complete international sustainable development, unlimited supplies of free non-polluting energy (solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, hydrogen fuel cell, anti-gravity etc...) and complete ecological balance with the biosphere from which all life depends.

Therefore, the projected evolution of our current Type 0 to Type 1 civilization will depend on our ability and success as a species to achieve advanced civilizational goals. In regards to energy use, a Type 1 civilization will have mastered and harnessed all forms of free planetary energy. That energy output may be thousands, millions or billions of times that of our current energy use. A Type 1 civilization will also have gained the knowledge and ability to control, modify and/or alter weather, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and oncoming Ice Ages to the benefit of civilizational continuity and need. Other critical hallmarks of transiting from Type 0 to Type 1 civilization will be the establishment of a common planetary language (English), a planetary communications system (the Internet) and a central world administrative capital (European Union). Obviously too, there will be a complete and utter end to poverty, suffering and/or neglect of any sentient life form on Earth, plant and animal kingdom included.

The transition from a Type 1 to a Type 2 civilization, in terms of energy requirements and use, will mean that any Type 1 civilization will have exhausted or exceeded its supply of planetary energy and will begin to harness the solar output of its primary star. Having mastered all terrestrial threats to its existence (Ice Ages, Incoming Comets or Asteroids and/or periodic Polar Shifts), perhaps the only REAL threat to any Type 1 civilization would be any incoming galactic bands of high energy photon radiation moving through the solar system as well as periodic supernova explosions from nearby stars whose sudden eruption could scorch their planet with blasts of life-killing X-rays.

A Type 3 civilization will have exhausted the power/energy requirements of its primary star and will have reached to other star systems and habitable planets, perhaps terra-forming a nearby planetary system. The primary barrier in establishing a Type 3 civilization will be the means of interstellar travel which may delay the transition for millions or even billions of years. However, life forms by this time may have evolved beyond physical bodies and into astral/spiritual type bodies, allowing them to transcend space and time and transverse great interstellar distances previously prohibited by the physics and physical constraints of physical matter.

Although the current scientific civilizational classification system as enumerated by Kardashev and Kaku is analyzed and modeled after current terrestrial concepts of energy use and consumption, it nonetheless provides some primitive level of stratification for understanding how advanced civilizations may be perceived and come into being in the Universe. Along these lines, perhaps we can extrapolate what a Type 4 civilization might look like.

As Type 1, Type 2 and Type 3 civilizations draw their energy needs from planetary, star and star system energy sources, perhaps a Type 4 civilization will draw its energy from galactic or universal energy sources. What this entail is anyone's guess, yet it may lead into realms of consciousness, light, frequency, vibration, color and strata of cosmic intelligence, knowledge and being... areas traditionally reserved to the domains of contemporary religion and spirituality. It is at this juncture where science and religion meet and can have the greatest impact on understanding our true place, nature and purpose in the Universe.

Obviously, contact with any Type 1, Type 2, Type 3 or Type 4 civilization in the Universe would be an extraordinary event and milestone for the human species on Earth. The existence of extraterrestrial life and intelligence in the Universe is more than just a probability in my opinion, it is an absolute certainty recognizing the fact there are literally trillions of planets, stars and galaxies that occupy the known visible Cosmos. Thanks to the Hubble Telescope, for example, we are beginning to get a grasp on how large and infinitely expansive the heavens truly are. There must be levels of intelligence, life and being ('out there' or 'interdimensionally- living amongst us') that are so highly advanced and evolved that they would seem to us as "gods" or "God" to our current primitive levels of understanding and being.

Thus said, I believe "contact" with extraterrestrial life and intelligence has ALREADY occurred. The GOD of the Torah, Gospel and Koran (Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah) has been interacting with humanity since the beginning of time, in my opinion, and record of his creation and intervention can be found throughout the world in the form of Holy Scripture. By any account in scientific terms, there seems to be ample evidence that humanity as a whole has, is and will continue to interface with what can only be labeled and referred to as a highly advanced Type 4 civilization- euphemistically referred to in religious terminology as the 'Kingdom of Heaven'.