I am suggesting that the Great Filter concept also might have a benign interpretation, where advanced civilisations dissapear from view because they become invisible on purpose. This invisibility could be explained by the Zoo hypothesis, or by civilisations which hide inside terrestrial planets, stars, neutron stars or black holes; it could be explained by civilisations patterened into the quantum foam, or into the strings that make up matter, or decanted into baby universes.
All these invisible states may be possible, and would represent a Filter in our future which prevents the existence of an observable, galaxy wide civilisation. But instead of being a negative filter, destroying all civilisations, this presumed transogrification merely makes them invisible, and perhaps intangible as well.
But it stil is a filter which removes observable civilisations; and for some unknown reason it removes all of them, which to me is the intriguing part. The option to become invisible may exist - but why, among all the physically and psychologically diverse species of intelligent aliens that may be out there, why do they all follw this path? Why are there no civlisations which chose to take the option of an expansive, visible,comprehensive empire?
Do the invisible civilisations stop them?
That too would be a filter of sorts, one which explains the absence of archaeological remains on our planet. If civilisations are a common phenomenon, and some are expansive and visible, we might expect to find tangible evidence of their presence on our planet in the past. Not just a few traces of metal or glass technology, but whole cities. They are not there. So something seems to prevent expansive and visible civiilisations from occuring.
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