Could an advanced civilization change the laws of physics?

If you are going to look for evidence of technologically advanced civilizations in the Universe, you must start by considering what, exactly, you might be looking for. My colleagues and I in the NASA-sponsored Categorizing Atmospheric Technosignatures program spend a lot of time thinking about this. But there is a question that haunts me as much as it challenges the project: How far can a civilization go as it advances?

This question relates directly to the Kardashev scale, a topic we have covered before. The Kardashev scale is all about energy harvesting. A Type I civilization in Kardashev’s scheme can capture all of the energy falling on its home planet. A Type II civilization can capture all of the energy generated by a star, and a Type III can do the same for an entire galaxy. Harvesting the energy output of a whole galaxy seems pretty advanced indeed, yet we could take the idea further. Might there be Type IV civilization, or a Type V? Are there any limits at all to the advance of a technological species — and if so, where are those limits found?

Any attempt to think along these lines is speculation of the purest kind. Today, however, I am going to do just that. Why? First of all, because it is fun. But also because this is a route that some of the world’s best science fiction has traveled before, in books such as Stanislaw Lem’s His Master’s Voice, and in the movie Interstellar.

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