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General Epistemology        Chapter VIII-6       


VIII-6 Civilization: The spiritual factor

The probability of the appearance of intelligent beings able of a civilization was evaluated in the previous chapters, about astronomy and biology factors. Time is now to see how many time a civilisation can last, and how it evolves.

However with civilisation we enter in the domain of the spiritual factors of the Drake equation, which are, for us, in the future. So that we are now bound, not even to extrapolate, but to make assumptions which are supported by no observation until now... save us! Only the actual discovery of civilisations much older than Earth will allow us to find how long they can really last, and especially how they evolved. Indeed we shall see scenarios where civilizations last eternally, but quickly disappear of the physical world. A simple and neat explanation of the Fermi Paradox!

I call these factors «spiritual», because they involve a mastery and direction of the primitive neural thinking, called psychoeducation, which is the only way for people to escape the idiot conditioning which make them act against their very own survival.

The traditional Drake equation considers two such factors:


fc, the fraction of the previous able of emitting radio signals (or laser signals)

I classify this one in the spiritual factors, because it involves an understanding of physics, called science. However the affair is not so simple, because a specie may be civilized, but yet physically unable to build technical devices, such as for instance dolphins. On the contrary, psychoeducation quickly allows for other forms of psychical communication, which may quickly make radio obsolete. This will be discussed with more details in this chapter.


L, the average duration of a civilisation, in years.

This also strongly depends on science: for instance on Earth the ability to build a sun shader to our planet allows us for three billions years of existence, instead of only one without technology.


Today very pessimistic views are widespread among sadomasochist dark suited politicians, and even among scientists: all the civilizations would blow up themselves, with war, pollution and overpopulation. And the scary suicidal people holding these views are precisely the ones who steadfastly work for this outcome, while handing us the rope to hang ourselves. After this idea, even if fc is 1, then L would have so low a value that SETI is not likely to find more than some in the whole galaxy.

A much more popular view describes instead numerous extraterrestrial civilisations, but as mere extrapolation on our technological progress, with no spiritual progress. Such civilisations would escape doom with an eternal technology race (or Ponzi scheme), such as colonizing new planets each time they destroyed the previous with pollution (admitting that this is even possible, as discussed in chapter VIII-7). But this view does not hold much firmer than the previous: if such civilisations existed, they would have invaded or destroyed Earth billions of years ago, or at least left deep and clearly identifiable scars in the geological records.


What I would say is that both hypothesis are wrong, the pessimistic and the naive as well, as they do not account with spirituality.

The role of spirituality

Many, even among scientists, still confuse spirituality with useless/unfounded beliefs. Today, with all the information available, this confusion is ninny and ridiculous. Spirituality is the study and mastery of our human mind and our psychology, to put them at the service of our consciousness. Spirituality may use the same methods as psychology. However it fundamentally differs from psychology, as it aims at fulfilling the basic purposes of our consciousness (studied in chapter V-5) instead of stupidly serving some «interest» picked at random. Until now, spirituality is mostly dealt with by religions. I do not see any fundamental problem with this, as long as these religions propose effective means to become better persons. But if some are allergic to religions, the purpose of this whole book is precisely to offer methods for a scientific study and application of spirituality, free of any belief system.

You have no excuses, lol


How spirituality enters in the Drake equation is very simple: spirituality allows people for psychoeducation: the mastery of their ego and neurosis. And such a faculty is precisely what will allow for a civilisation to last, by allowing to master and eradicate dangerous or irresponsible behaviours.

So that, with psychoeducation, the L factor can be billions years, limited only by the lifespan of the system's star. And the galaxy is teeming with brilliant and wonderful civilisations.

But without psychoeducation, the L factor can be as low as some tens of years, and the galaxy is strewn with sad ruins weathering in the insensitive cold of space.


But there is yet another consequence: spiritual civilisations may choose to take very different directions than expected in the above naive scenario. So that they may abandon technology, or even not pass through this step (see further in this chapter). If so, L could be very high, but fc very low. And SETI may be just not searching in the right direction.

Especially, spiritual civilisations may try to make contact using spiritual means, and we could receive their message with the SPIRITUAL SETI© or PSI SETI©.

So, the main question is to assess the value of L. About fc, there may even be several values, depending on the way of contact: travel, radio, laser, psi. This in turn determines several different SETI approaches: astronomy SETI, radio/laser SETI, UFO SETI or psi SETI, all discussed in chapter VIII-9.


Problem is, until we find actual extraterrestrial civilisations, we have no answer to the value of L, even not a speculation. Save one: we can DETERMINE the value of L for Earth, right now. This even is the stake of the today social evolution and spiritual unfolding. If we develop psychoeducation, we are going to a fantastic future. If we don't, we disappear, or we remain forever in some prehistory of the spirit, like some parasitic worms gnawing our planet until it dies.


This is why I warned from the beginning of this study: developing psychoeducation is THE crucial question. And precisely the main and only significant stake of our epoch. And it may also be also the key for understanding the whole problem of the Fermi Paradox: If civilisations are so numerous, why... aren't we one of them?

Why is psychoeducation the key of a long lasting civilisation

Psychoeducation, as studied in chapter V-12, is what allows us to master our dangerous delusions like neurosis and the ego (chapter V-10). I show here a simple example of neurosis, that I solved alone: racism. When we see a person of another race behaving bad, then our resentment spreads to all the other persons of this race. This is a neurosis of racism: the maladapted and amoral operation of the material neurones of our chimpanzee brain (I even spoke of «oyster neurones»), as it was created by the Darwinian evolution. Left unchecked, this operation leads to inappropriate behaviour, like harming innocents, discrimination, wars, etc. However simple spiritual methods, like positive visualisations of persons of the concerned race, can easily cancel any resentment, and then lead to a more tolerant society. Society which, in turn, can last forever, and not ruin itself like a war-prone society can do at any time.

Same goes with things like ecology: if media with oyster neurones speak against ecology, the persons and the governments will not like it, and they will not take the necessary survival measures. Which can more effectively than war lead to an end of the Human race. But if responsible media give a positive vision and positive solutions, then people will love to implement these solutions, and they will avoid the ecology problems which may prevent our civilization to last.

We studied in chapter VI-15 the diverse scenario by which mankind may disappear. It appears more resilient than feared, but doom scenarios are still possible. Or minimal survival, where mankind still exists, but in an unhappy and powerless state, unable to evolve spiritually, or to develop any large industry.

This is how spirituality enters in the Drake Equation: by allowing the L factor to have an arbitrarily high value.


And this has nothing to do with religious beliefs or colourful rituals. Indeed, the religiosity of a culture is not a warrant of an efficient psychoeducation. But it is not an obstacle either. While the refusal or denigration of spirituality, as seen today, that is the denigration of our own mind and our own will, is a serious obstacle, and probably the most dangerous and destructive idea which ever entered any human brain.

Probability of developing psychoeducation

So, the L term of the Drake equation can be brought exactly to the probability of developing psychoeducation. But is this happening for real?


To start with, a thing like psychoeducation is not something which «happens», but something that we do. Just as wars, conflicts, etc. are things that we do. And people who say that war «will» ruin mankind, or that pollution «will» destroy it, are in reality sadomasochist suicidal people who want war and destruction . And we see them eagerly providing the rope for us to suicide: racism, war, climate denial, idiotic media...


So that technically, engaging in psychoeducation is as much possible as not engaging in. Personally, you can start right now. This is true on Earth, and this is true on any other planet as well. There is no «impossibility» to do so. I can even say that it is easy: I found myself alone, without any help or even any suggestion, so that anybody else in the galaxy can find it too. That some people don't do it is the deepest conceivable enigma, and the only one to which I found no clue at all.


So that at last the L term decomposes in two:

L = Ls x P

Where Ls is the time span of a star, between the appearance of a civilisation and the death of this star. For Earth, it is between one and three billions years, depending on the technology we put into compensating for the warming of the Sun.

P is the probability to actually develop psychoeducation.

This makes three possible values of L for Earth: zero, one billion years or three billions years, depending only on our choice.


Yes, but how to evaluate P? We still cannot do this with the only example we have at hand! Indeed despite the recent progress, Earth is still parasitized with dangerous sadomasochist ideologies, hateful and anti-ecology psychopaths, so that the outcome is still in the balance.


I would be relatively optimistic, though: on Earth, the appearance of democracy and science are a clear sign that an efficient psychoeducation level is developing fast, in a century time scale. More recent signs even show an acceleration. This is studied more in details in the sixth part on society, chapter VI-12 and the following ones.

These chapters studied in details how the psychoeducated powers are slowly taking steps over the oyster neurones of the old sadomasochist powers. The conclusion is relatively optimistic: in the worse scenario, where Mankind destroys itself totally, the Darwinian Evolution of life can create another intelligent specie in some millions years. And if it fails again, another one can appear again, and this until the Sun becomes too hot, in one billions years, allowing for dozens of such attempts until then. And if we fail today, only us will have to shed tears. Only a strata of rubbish in the geology records will remain of us, above which pure grass will grow again as if we never existed.


So that psychoeducation would be just like another of the steps of the Evolution of life, bound to happen naturally in a relatively fixed duration of time, from simple statistical reasons, as explained in chapter VIII-5. Then, we just have to add another 0.2 billions years to the evolution of life, and it becomes a certainty.

Save that psychoeducation is not just another Darwinian evolution of the genome, but a consciously led evolution. So expect things to happen much faster than 0.2 billion years.


In more, things like genetic engineering, or 3D brain printing, or spiritual methods as well, will quickly lead to the birth of natively psychoeducated persons, not depending on a long, expensive and aleatory education process. Even people taking birth in the bush without any education would be natively psychoeducated.

Beyond that, many vertiginous gates open, and the evolution of mankind, or any other specie, can diverge in many fantastic ways. That is, depending in some basic choices, the civilizations can evolve in many different ways, not just the Star Wars way. And any of these paths are much more interesting than the dark and violent world of Star Wars, hyper-technological but psychoprimitive, the only future that our ninny capitalism was able to put in movies.

Various kinds of civilisations: Animal civilizations

The usual definition of a civilisation is technology. This is an extremely speciocentric way of thinking. Civilization also includes an organized society, harmonious social relations, arts, spirituality, ways of life, problems solving methods, and probably other things we cannot imagine yet. But none of these things need technology.

Animals can do all this, save technology. And, without segregating between body shapes, the only relevant criteria for distinguishing animals from Humans is the lack of a pair of hands (or similar prehensile appendages), which causes the lack of technology.

We are not far of having an animal civilization on Earth: the dolphins. And probably other cetaceans. Save hands and technology, they are near of qualifying as civilized, with their complex language and social organization.

But of course they will never send radio waves: fc is zero for them, precluding the technological SETI from finding any of these animal civilizations. Who could be more numerous than the Human civilizations, on planets where food and shelter can be obtained without work.

Various kinds of civilisations: Technological civilisations

This is the one most people are thinking, about the future of Mankind. Indeed, once we developed technology, it has so numerous advantages that we need a serious positive reason to abandon it, such as superior survival methods, or psi powers.

Technology allows for a lot of things. It cannot provide directly with psychoeducation, which is a matter of spirituality. But it can secure it, with genetically engineered brains, or natively psychoeducated 3D printed brains.

Technology also allows for a better adaptation to varying astronomical conditions, like changing the received sun luminosity (chapter VIII-10), allowing for higher values of L. On Earth, this would extent the lifespan of civilization L from one billions years to three or more.

And of course civilisations with technology will at once discover radio and laser communication. This makes fc equal to one with technological civilisations. SETI is especially designed to find them.


A little counter-argument is that people may have motives to refusing sending intentional messages (laser SETI) and even avoid being detected (radio SETI). However, contrarily to the world of Star Wars, people in a planet have various motives, so that sooner or later some group will do this. Especially a SETI emitting laser can operate privately, or even in secret from the main power. On Earth today this is within reach of small countries, or even of large companies or rich people, and nobody could really forbid it. My only wonder is that seemingly nobody tried yet. Probably because we do not yet know precise targets. See chapter VIII-9 on interstellar communication.

Various kinds of civilisations: robot civilisations

Robots civilisations is what would happen if conscious persons disappear while leaving intelligent machines. This case must not be confused with conscious persons incarnating in robotic bodies: robots are not conscious, even if they can be much smarter than people.

Robots having no consciousness, they cannot have free will (chapter V-3 and chapter V-4). As a consequence, what they do depends only on how they were programmed (which may not lead to what the programmers expected. For instance war robots may end up killing everybody, including their owners). So this case is not really different of the previous, when we come to SETI detection or to the L and fc factors: the robots may be programmed to attempt contact.

A special case of robots are self-replicating robots (automatons as I heard then named, but this name is not specific). Of course they do not use uterus, but they build factories able to build other exemplars of themselves. The interesting point about such machines is that there is no limit to their power, which increases exponentially at each replication step. They can even easily attempt the interstellar travel without the problem of survival. So that, as long as they find raw materials and energy, they can duplicate and work, to fulfil any goal they were given. So that ultimately, with time, they can dismember whole planets, build Dyson spheres, influence the trajectory of stars, and even shape whole galaxies to their purposes. A fantastic, but also scary prospect. Actually, some astronomers searched for modified galaxies. They found nothing such, so that (I would say happily) these things are either impossible, or nobody ever was fool enough to try them.

Various kinds of civilisations: Spiritual civilisations

Spiritual civilisations happen when the mastery of high spirituality allows for magical powers. This kind of things was studied in chapter V-10 and chapter VII-4. They appear possible, although still rare or diffuse today on Earth. But in the longer run, this possibility becomes a statistical certainty too (chapter VIII-5). They even are a mandatory consequences of psychoeducation, and they would appear very soon after. Remember here that in the domain of the consciousness, the evolution steps are not 0.2 billions years, but probably on the millennium time scale.

A civilisation mastering such means can live in much more comfortable ways, without technology (and without its burden or work, servitude and other inconveniences). In the extreme, they no more need the material world at all, enjoying instead the building of wonderful spiritual universes (chapter III-8). They would still need their native planet, though, for one precise reason: reproduction. Indeed we found no other way to create a new consciousness than the awakening of a new material brain. Which is, paradoxically, a fully material process. For these reasons, these people would maintain «children farms» on their native planet, but not seek to protect them at all cost of disease and death, since the interesting part is, for them, after death. And they are aware of it, so that these civilisations would appear as some religion with a strong acceptance of death, a bit like Buddhism on Earth.

Precisely Buddhist master say that they create paradises beyond death. So this thing is already real, and our planet is already engaged in this direction! At least, this looks like a much better deal than to board space coffins for Mars.

Probably such civilizations kind of cultivate and maintain their planet too. But at their timescale, the Darwinian evolution can continue and produce new species and other unexpected things, besides the specie of the creators. All kind of very varied and interesting experiences certainly, such as to see the appearance of a new form of intelligence in a world already inhabited since tens of millions years by angel-like creatures.

And a high value for L, the full lifespan of their star!!

But a low value for fc, for the technological SETI. Not null, though, as technology can still be maintained in repositories, or in Orders, and even be used for precise purposes.

But a nearby one value for the psi SETI!

Various kinds of civilisations: immaterial civilisations

Immaterial civilisations are the same as previous, but having abandoned their native planet, or this planet died naturally. But having severed all links with the material world, they are hard to catch, even for the psi SETI. This makes a zero fc for the technological SETI, and a low one even for the psi SETI: the huge difference of ways of life and way of thinking makes communication very difficult or even pointless.

But such civilisations have an infinite value for L.

An infinite value for L make that if only one appeared, then it is still here today. It is even likely that many accumulated since the birth of our universe.

Or even sooner, from more ancient universes! Indeed, if these civilisations are no longer linked to their birth physical universe, they can on the contrary meet in spiritual universes, including with civilisations which appeared in other physical universes.

Various kinds of civilisations: speculative physics

Such civilisations would master speculative forms physics, that is physics which would exist while being unknown today (as for instance electricity was unknown in the Antiquity, while already existing). There is no hint today at if such physics would exist or not. But if yes, we can conceive that such civilisations stopped using our known technological means, and thus have a low value for fc. But an infinite value for L.

However such civilisations could be at the origin of unexplained phenomena such as UFOs. Hence the interest of studying them seriously, instead of stupidly denigrating this field of science.

Various kinds of civilisations: Interstellar civilizations

Interstellar civilisations are technological civilizations having colonized several planets, using interstellar travel (spiritual civilisations may do this too, but it is less likely, as they cannot seed other planets with material bodies. But they may direct the evolution of other worlds, a thing that I imagined as soon as 1989, with the wonderful world of the Eolis).

Such civilisations have a nearby one fc value for the technological SETI, and an infinite value for L.

This prospect leads us to the detailed study of interstellar travel, in the next chapter VIII-7.







General Epistemology        Chapter VIII-6       







Ideas, texts, drawings and realization: Richard Trigaux.







