Probability of aliens becoming Gods

[Jebus]

I find the idea of a 10 billion year old intelligent civilisation staggering. We are only a few hundred years behind the industrial revolution and have already made impressive advancements. Imagine if we are the median most intelligent species on a planet and imagine what those already more intelligent than we could accomplish after 1000 years, a million years, a billion years, and even 10 billion years. I'm guessing a civilisation that can survive a million years is quite likely to survive a billion years so the idea is not at all unlikely given the staggering numbers in our universe.

My point is that if an advanced alien wants to become Yahwei he probably could. Perhaps the alien can hear and respond to prayers, create a system of reincarnation or even a heaven and a hell. I know this all sounds a bit left field but the thought of what a world of 10 billion Isaac Newtons could accomplish after 10 billion years of continuous development is staggering.

[brimstoneSalad]

Well, the first main sequence stars and planets (with the abundant heavy elements) started showing up around nine billion years ago. We don't know really if life could exist with more basic elements on earlier planets around population II stars. And it seems to take about four billion years for land life to form.
I would find a civilization more than five billion years old very unlikely. Not that it would take ten billion years to reach a state of advanced technology; I think we'll reach a cap on technological development pretty soon.

Technological development is non-linear. It was really fast after the scientific revolutions, but now we're just chipping away at the edges more and more slowly. The rate of growth of knowledge is slowing down, and there's not much that throwing more people at it will help.

For example, with respect to computing we're quickly approaching quantum mechanical limits. We will soon have the fastest computers possible, and we'll hit a hard wall in informatics. This is based on very well established theories like uncertainty and relativity.
The best we could do is something like UV or X-ray based optical computing, with quantum computation for certain problems, and even that is going to have serious limits.
Software can still improve, but beyond the hard limits on hardware there are limits on software too; computation can only become so efficient.
And when a computer becomes larger or networked, it become self limiting due to data transfer speeds between different parallel computing regions.
And when it becomes very large, there are mass and structural limits as well as thermodynamic ones; a computer doesn't do you much good if it collapses into a black hole or melts itself.
A continent sized computer might work (without melting down or collapsing), but a sun sized one would not (it would do both of those things); it would have to be a distributed sort of Dyson cluster, and then you have even greater lag time for transmitting information for parallel processing.

There is a maximal intelligence, basically. It requires such substantial energy and physical presence that it would be hard to miss.

Biotechnology has a long way to come still, but we can already isolate and copy genes, scan DNA, digitize it, print it out, and insert it into whatever we want wherever we want. Some of these things can get faster.
Before very long we'll be able to create novel genes, and once we start doing that, there will be a brief explosion of research and innovation -- mostly patching up some mistakes in biology. But for the most part, we'll realize we can't do much better than nature already has, and genetic modification isn't going to achieve anything in essence that other technology can't.

The point is, I don't think we'll ever be able to reach a point so high we can't see it from here. Any advanced alien technology, particularly as complex as scanning brains and uploading them to heaven, would be something we would at least notice and would function on physical laws and informatics we have some basic grasp of, even if it were beyond our ability.
While such a deity might be able to slip under the noses of a primitive pre-industrial revolution society, I don't think it would have much chance of slipping under our current technology unless there's some aspect of physics that we haven't even touched yet. I can't speculate on the probability of that, but it becomes less and less likely every year we advance e.g. in quantum physics and toward UFT. There's not much room left for something that large to hide. Basically the god of the gaps applies to aliens too.

That said, if it were an imperfect technology where they were burrowing under graveyards and stealing the brains of the dead, it would seem more plausible (if not more goulish). Such a being would be more limited by its need to hide than by anything else.

[Jebus]

the first main sequence stars and planets (with the abundant heavy elements) started showing up around nine billion years ago.

This author of this article (https://www.space.com/17441-universe-heavy-metals-planet-formation.html) writes: "Regardless, one thing is becoming clear: that sufficient raw materials for building terrestrial planets were available very soon after the Big Bang"

And it seems to take about four billion years for land life to form.

You are basing that on a sample size of 1. The average could be much more or it could be much less. Even if the average is 4 billion years, there could be (using Drake's equation) billions of early outliers.

Technological development is non-linear. It was really fast after the scientific revolutions, but now we're just chipping away at the edges more and more slowly. The rate of growth of knowledge is slowing down, and there's not much that throwing more people at it will help.

I agree that many current fields may begin to stagnate, but I believe many new fields and subfields will emerge. Also, people are getting more intelligent and if we could sort out the problem of the least intelligent having the most children we will likely see many more scientists.

My biggest doubt is whether an advanced civilization can survive rapid technological advancement. However, even if only one percent survive it is likely that there are several million highly advanced civilizations left.

[PsYcHo]

The point is, I don't think we'll ever be able to reach a point so high we can't see it from here.

I don't recall specifics, but someone said something about any advanced enough science being indistinguishable from magic. (Not sure if it was a real person, or a character, but I think it was a real person.)

This also assumes society will continue as it is, with no massive plague or natural disasters. There are several "lost" technologies and civilizations that are verifiable,http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-lost-technologies.php( just a few simple ones) but "stuff" happened to eradicate the society and/or much of it's knowledge. The likelihood of nuclear annihilation is tangible, and would require survivors to try and piece together knowledge to rebuild society.

If these types of societies/their knowledge hadn't been lost, imagine how much further we may have achieved hundreds of years ago, and how far we could be along now.

Now if a society on an "alien" world were to have a similar development, and have billions of years to advance without any major setbacks, I'd imagine they could appear to a group of primitive sentient self aware beings and convince them they were "GODS!". (Seriously, give a typical Youtube commenter the ability to "mess with" a group of primitive humans, see what happens. )

[brimstoneSalad]

This author of this article (https://www.space.com/17441-universe-heavy-metals-planet-formation.html) writes: "Regardless, one thing is becoming clear: that sufficient raw materials for building terrestrial planets were available very soon after the Big Bang"

There are certainly older planets, but I'm concerned with the necessary elemental abundance for life.
Water is common, as is silicon and carbon (there are probably diamond planets out there), but there are some other trace elements that are very important too.

https://chem.libretexts.org/Textbook_Maps/General_Chemistry_Textbook_Maps/Map%3A_Chemistry_%28Averill_and_Eldredge%29/01%3A_Introduction_to_Chemistry/1.8_Essential_Elements_for_Life
http://www.dummies.com/education/science/biology/chemical-requirements-for-microbial-growth/

You might be able to draw an earlier line with trace elemental abundance adequate for development of complex life... or maybe a clever enough biologist could find a more minimal list. I'm skeptical, though. In my understanding most earlier planets are very high in silicon and poor in other products of later generations of stars.

It's just one more thing that limits the probability.

And it seems to take about four billion years for land life to form.

You are basing that on a sample size of 1. The average could be much more or it could be much less. Even if the average is 4 billion years, there could be (using Drake's equation) billions of early outliers.

Sure, but you asked about probability. Given that's all we have, that's what we have to assume is likely. A faster or slower development is less probable.

I agree that many current fields may begin to stagnate, but I believe many new fields and subfields will emerge.

On what basis?
Maybe we'll discover some as of yet unknown laws pf physics, but it's unlikely at this point that we would discover anything very radical.

Also, people are getting more intelligent and if we could sort out the problem of the least intelligent having the most children we will likely see many more scientists.

I don't think throwing more scientists at the issue is helpful.
We're dealing with fundamental laws of physics like relativity that we should not expect to overcome; not with one scientist in a year, or billions over billions of years.

I'm just skeptical that there's that much more advancement to be made in terms of physics that we wouldn't comprehend the technology being employed.

[brimstoneSalad]

The point is, I don't think we'll ever be able to reach a point so high we can't see it from here.

I don't recall specifics, but someone said something about any advanced enough science being indistinguishable from magic. (Not sure if it was a real person, or a character, but I think it was a real person.)

Arthur C. Clarke
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Maybe to a primitive people. That presumes there's enough distance to accomplish that from the position of modern scientists. I don't think there is anymore.

Radio would have been magical long before it was invented, but now we understand light and electromagnetism... so all you'd be doing is creating a more advanced radio. You're still using particles/waves to carry information, and those have inherent quantum mechanical limitations.

Now if a society on an "alien" world were to have a similar development, and have billions of years to advance without any major setbacks, I'd imagine they could appear to a group of primitive sentient self aware beings and convince them they were "GODS!". (Seriously, give a typical Youtube commenter the ability to "mess with" a group of primitive humans, see what happens. )

Sure, I just don't think it would fly today. Maybe a couple hundred years ago.

[PsYcHo]

Sure, I just don't think it would fly today. Maybe a couple hundred years ago.

Are you sure about that?

I mean, vaccines cause autism, fluoride in the water is used for mind control, the government was behind 9-11 and covered up the aliens landing at Area 51, contrails are really chem-trails (side note, auto correct recognizes chem-trails) sprayed by governments to reduce population/make population docile/thwart global warming, and global warming/ climate change is a hoax, and they're putting freaking chemicals in the water that are turning the frogs gay! Also, the Kardashians exist and are watched by millions.

I'm convinced if an alien like ALF (dating myself, I know) landed, he/she/xe would instantly have hundreds of thousands of followers. L Ron Hubbard was bat-shit insane, and he's basically worshiped as a deity.

[brimstoneSalad]

Sure, I just don't think it would fly today. Maybe a couple hundred years ago.

Are you sure about that?
[...]
I'm convinced if an alien like ALF (dating myself, I know) landed, he/she/xe would instantly have hundreds of thousands of followers. L Ron Hubbard was bat-shit insane, and he's basically worshiped as a deity.

Oh, if aliens landed and made themselves known, I could believe they'd be worshiped as gods by large numbers of people.
I thought Jebus was asking about the probability of what people think of as gods today are actually real aliens with advanced technology (and undetected by science) and do things like upload minds into a heaven or hell matrix.

[BernieBro420]

In my fantasy alien invasion, the aliens are actually "Artificial Intelligence" that was developed by now extinct creatures.

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

the government ... covered up the aliens landing at Area 51

Regardless of whether or not you believe this, it is certainly nowhere near as insane a conspiracy theory as the other ones you mentioned.