Are We Real?

Are We Real? This is the central question in the Simulation Hypothesis - this is Nick Bostrom's hypothesis that we are living in a computer simulated universe similar to how artificial life operates within a computer. Now, this does kind of stamps all over notions of 'the human spirit' - yet in a strange way it still allows for ideas of 'spiritual' and 'conscious evolution' growth. Perhaps this represents the ultimate in Free Will - a simulation experiment that self-evolves into Intelligence. Whilst there is a deep part of my inner self that cannot accept the Simulation Hypothesis, I still enjoy the wrangles it produces, and like to dip my toes into these debates.

So below are extracts from YouTube that show, in total, a one hour program of the “What We Still Don’t Know” series from the UK’s Channel Four. In this one - Are We Real? - astronomer Martin Rees explains Nick Bostrom’s Simulation Hypothesis with interviews with cosmologists and philosophers. Let your simulation enjoy!

Thinking Blogging, Thinking Future

And it is a welcome return to the 'grid' - albeit in a ambiguous way. Good to both be away from Internet and mobile phones for a while, and back into natural 'human' social networking. Yet necessary - for me - to return into information immersion so that I keep aware of spiraling events. And lovely to return to a 'Thinking Blogger' nomination from my friend A.V. over at Surfing the Tao - thanks A.V.!

This helped to remind me that I began this blog over 4 years ago - in March 2003 when blogging was a relatively new phenomenon - and when Blogger only provided the very basics for free... I began by wishing to talk about 'ideas of our conscious evolution' - with discussions based mainly around spiritual matters, delving into DNA vibrations, shamanism, transcendentalism, etc - since then I have shifted 'careers' into a sociological direction and now have interests in emerging technologies, military technologies, electromagnetism, mind control, alternative history, and non-terrestrial Intelligences. What a transformation it has been!

The 'learning curve' just never stops. And for my part, I shall now nominate 5 Thinking Bloggers of my own, in no particular order (or perhaps alphabetical!). May the meme continue...

1. Accelerating Future - Michael Anissimov has a great blog on transhumanism and emerging technologies which always produces well-written, informed, and highly lucid accounts - both supportive and critical - that keeps the reader up-to-date on the latest news and debates. Great posts here.

2. Open the Future - Jamais Cascio was one of the co-founders of the ground-breaking site Worldchanging, which was one of the first blogsites to really utilise the blogosphere for collective thinking and action. He has since moved on to futurist matters and as a freelance futurist consultant offers some wonderful insights into our rapidly emerging future possibilities.

3. Sentient Developments - another great transhumanist blog from writer/thinker/speaker George Dvorsky. Again, this blog keeps the reader up-to-date with the very latest debates in this tech-humanist realm.

4. Spy Blog - subtitled as 'Watching Them, Watching Us' this great informative blogsite does a terrific job in keeping people informed about state surveillance and the latest ironies in this devious arena. Lots of good news snippets here that are timely and right on the ball.

5. Subtopia - Bryan Finoki's site has always been an inspirational site to follow. Finoki, who self-confesses to be 'just obsessed with architecture', tracks the world of military urbanism - an emerging world of borders, barricades, underground facilities, urban hideaways, and architectures of constraint and restriction. Always full of thought-provoking pictures. Thanks Bryan!


So thats my 5 nominations done. Should you choose to participate in this meme, please make sure you pass this list of rules to the blogs you are tagging.

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to five blogs that make you think.

2. Link to this post [the Thinking Blogger] so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

3. Optional: Proudly display the Thinking Blogger Award with a link to the post that you wrote (available in silver or gold version).

It only leaves me to say - the future is always worth living for. Out of all the moments/epochs in our recorded history I have to say that I am very glad to be a witness in this one as for me it will turn out to be the most significant: there is a great transformation underway, and all history has been leading up to this point. Let Us Be Witness - With Heart.

Wanderings

A quick note to say that I am 'off the grid' for the next 2 weeks as I lie quiet in retreat away from communications...

Kingsley

Electromagnetic Warfare

This History Channel documentary has been around for a while, yet I thought I should at least make a link to it as its still worth 45 minutes of a viewer's time... or I could be wrong? Enjoy, yet do not let these issues detract from the greater weapon we have inside of us all...

THE INVISIBLE MACHINE - ELECTROMAGNETIC WARFARE

The Latest Musings from the Posthuman World

It seems like alot is being said at this year's TransVision 2007 conference - the leading annual get-together for posthumanist thinkers. For example:

Marvin Minsky suggested that 'we' could solve any population problem by uploading the minds of 10 billion people and running them on a computer that occupies a few cubic meters and costs only a few hundred dollars to run. Sounds like a familiar, ongoing argument.

Then there is the avatar and transhumanist guru Ray Kurzweil who again claimed that longevity trends are accelerating so fast that the life expectancy will increase more than one year for each year that passes in about 15 years. In other words, if you can hang on another 15 years, your life expectancy could be indefinitely long. He projects that by 2030, AI will be ubiquitous, and most humans will be physically melded to information and other technologies.

This online article is a good brief overview of some speakers - 'Would you give up your immortality to ensure the success of a posthuman world?'

Again, so much emphasis upon re-designing the body of the human, and virtually little or no conception of the evolutionary growth of Spirit and the nervous system... typical of the scientific materialistic, atomistic mindset...

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Future Hideaway?

Another issue that keeps me watchful is the continual covert development (especially on/under US soil) of deep underground/mountain bases... what is the agenda behind this?

Much has been said on this issue, whether its on Area 51 or Cheyenne Mountain and NORAD bases, in relation to alien activity. Whilst this is something that can only be speculated, there is also a more pragmatic agenda here: future earth catastrophe.

It is reasonable to suggest that major government powers have considered emergency procedures in the light of natural climate catastrophe or human-induced destruction - especially as we now live in such high-risk times. Indeed, even the UK astronomer Royal - Sir Martin Rees - gave out a 50-50 chance of the human race surviving into the next century - see Our Final Century: Will the Human Race Survive the Twenty-first Century?

Given the future of such stark odds, a Plan B may well include powerful elites going 'underground' within self-sustainable cities for a long period of time until the surface is once again habitable...

An article I came across from 1991 which appeared in Time magazine called 'Civil Defense Doomsday Hideaway' is noteworthy on this account:

But buried deep inside a Virginia mountain, a vast, top-secret installation -- one of the great artifacts of the cold war -- remains at the ready. Known as Mount Weather, it is a Strangelovian relic of yesteryear intended to shelter the President and other top U.S. officials in case of nuclear war. The 33-year-old facility is manned by a second generation of doomsday planners, men and women who are reassessing their mission and that of the massive bunker they have maintained through more than three decades of nuclear threat.

Designed to survive the unthinkable and completed in 1958, the year after the Soviets launched the Sputnik satellite, Mount Weather stands as a monument to a potential nightmare. Few in the U.S. government will speak of it, though it is assumed that all along the Soviets have known both its precise location and its mission; defense experts take it as a given that the site is on the Kremlin's targeting maps. Yet Mount Weather remains an integral part of the U.S.'s "Continuity of Government" plan, under which senior officials are to be whisked away in case of an imminent nuclear strike so that they can set up a kind of Administration-in-exile, directing every order of business from retaliation to recovery.

Mount Weather is operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which for years has fended off inquiries about the installation with a firm "no comment." Jokes Bob Blair, a FEMA spokesman: "I'll be glad to tell you all about it, but I'd have to kill you afterward." Officially, the Mount Weather bunker does not exist; it is not mentioned in FEMA's published budget. "Even I don't know much about it, and I'm head of FEMA's congressional affairs," says David Cole. "A lot of it is in the black ((secret)) program."

Yet this is - literally - only the tip of the iceberg!

Let the unaware ones plan for the soil - and lets allow the Hearts to prepare for the Stars...

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A Future of Eco-Terrorism?

Here is a statement made in 1997 by Dr. William Cohen, then Secretary of Defense:

"Others [terrorists] are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves… So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations…It's real, and that's the reason why we have to intensify our [counterterrorism] efforts."

[Secretary of Defense William Cohen at an April 1997 counterterrorism conference sponsored by former Senator Sam Nunn. Quoted from DoD News Briefing, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, Q&A at the Conference on Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and U.S. Strategy, University of Georgia, Athens, Apr. 28, 1997.].

HUMAN BODY VERSION 2.0

In the past I have talked on the 'future human' in terms of the homo gestalt or homo noeticus which I feel are more spiritually aware understandings of how the human species may evolve into a next stage, in terms of awareness, synergy, collective consciousness, and higher vibrational nervous systems.

Now, from the Tech-pack comes a future model that is more in keeping with the Technological Singularity model - in this recent article by tech-pioneer Ray Kurzweil titled 'HUMAN BODY VERSION 2.0' he writes that:

In the coming decades, a radical upgrading of our body's physical and mental systems, already underway, will use nanobots to augment and ultimately replace our organs. We already know how to prevent most degenerative disease through nutrition and supplementation; this will be a bridge to the emerging biotechnology revolution, which in turn will be a bridge to the nanotechnology revolution. By 2030, reverse-engineering of the human brain will have been completed and nonbiological intelligence will merge with our biological brains.

Overview
Sex has already been largely separated from its biological function. For the most part, we engage in sexual activity for intimate communication and sensual pleasure, not reproduction. Conversely, we have multiple methodologies for creating babies without physical sex, albeit most reproduction still does derive from the sex act. Although not condoned by all sectors of society, this disentanglement of sex from its biological function has been readily, even eagerly, adopted by the mainstream.

So why don’t we provide the same extrication of purpose from biology for another activity that also provides both social intimacy and sensual pleasure, namely eating? We have crude ways of doing this today. Starch blockers, such as Bayer’s Precose, partially prevent absorption of complex carbohydrates; fat blockers, such as Chitosan, bind to fat molecules, causing them to pass through the digestive tract; and sugar substitutes, such as Sucralose and Stevia, provide sweetness without calories. There are limitations and problems with each of these contemporary technologies, but a more effective generation of drugs is being developed that will block excess caloric absorption on the cellular level.

Let us consider, however, a more fundamental reengineering of the digestive process to disconnect the sensual aspects of eating from its original biological purpose: to provide nutrients into the bloodstream that are then delivered to each of our trillions of cells. These nutrients include caloric (energy-bearing) substances such as glucose (from carbohydrates), proteins, fats, and a myriad of trace molecules, such as vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals, that provide building blocks and facilitating enzymes for diverse metabolic processes.

Kurzweil, as always, is a charismatic and persuasive writer, and even if you feel that his arguments are far too materialistic (as I do), they are nonetheless well worth the read..

Electromagnetism and the Environment

The uses of electromagnetic low frequency (ELF) waves are still a concern and interest to me. And now that the HAARP project has been officially completed by BAE systems (see press release - also here)this may be more of a concern - and especially so for the global environment.

In 2000 a remarkable book was published - with no fanfare. It was written by Rosalie Bertell (President of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health (IICPH), and Editor in Chief of International Perspectives in Public Health) - the book was called 'Planet Earth: The Latest Weapon of War: The Newest Weapon of War' which examines in detail the military experiments with EM (HAARP), ionosphere, and other radiative pulse technologies, including weather modification, and how these might have been linked with catastrophic changes in global environmental phenomena:

She exposes how the military have, for decades, been secretly conducting experiments, including high-level nuclear explosions, which may disrupt the vital layers of the atmosphere which protect us from the sun's lethal radiation. She says these experiments are often conducted without even discussing with non-military experts the hazards of damaging these life-preserving earth-veils. And she believes that such experiments may already have accelerated global warming and contributed to earthquakes and freak weather conditions.

For an excellent review of the book, see this one written by Anne Baring (review No 1). This book somehow disappeared quietly and quickly from circulation, and can now only be found in a few 2nd hand places (generally as ex-library cast outs). However, it is worth securing a copy...

Of similar material, there is the work of Thomas Bearden - according to Wikipedia:

Tom Bearden has unconventional views on other subjects, some of which could be regarded as conspiracy theories. He believes that Russia developed a weapon in the 1960s which uses "time-polarized EM waves" to disrupt the normal flow of time, and used this in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Bearden has also claimed that Russia used various other technologies in the 1980s to cause the destruction of the Challenger space shuttle and induce "several large earthquakes".

Bearden has written extensively on EM warfare and weaponry, and as yet I am undecided about his credibility, although his material is worth looking at in terms of possibilities...

The question has to be asked - have todays abrupt weather disruptions been a result of intentional technological military intervention as well as the more orthodox human-pollution climate effects?

New Science Scares

NewScientist usually is a good read for the latest forays, adventures, and mis-adventures into the boffin developments in science. Two recent stories that made me pause, wonder, and frown are these below, which I feel are worth the time to read:

Humanity gobbles a quarter of nature's resources:

Almost a quarter of nature’s resources are now being gobbled up by a single species – humans.

People appropriate 24% of the Earth’s production capacity that would otherwise have gone to nature, according to figures for the year 2000, the most recent available.

The result is a gradual depletion of species and habitats as we take more of their resources for ourselves. And things could get even worse, they say, if we grow more plants like palm oil and rapeseed for biofuels to ease our reliance on fossil fuels.

Plague of bioweapons accidents afflicts the US:

Deadly germs may be more likely to be spread due to a biodefence lab accident than a biological attack by terrorists.

Plague, anthrax, Rocky Mountain spotted fever - these are among the bioweapons some experts fear could be used in a germ warfare attack against the US. But the public has had near-misses with those diseases and others over the past five years, ironically because of accidents in labs that were working to defend against bioterrorists. Even worse, they may be only the tip of an iceberg.

The revelations come from Ed Hammond of the Sunshine Project, a biosafety pressure group based in Austin, Texas, US, who after persistent requests got the minutes of university biosafety committees using the US Freedom of Information Act. The minutes are accessible to the public by law. There are now 20,000 people at 400 sites around the US working with putative bioweapons germs, says Hammond, 10 times more than before the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Some scientists have warned for years that more people handling dangerous germs are a recipe for accidents.

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Self-transformation is the essence of humanity

Philosopher Ray Tallis recently wrote an article called 'Enhancing Humanity' that discusses how many of the high-tech changes have not so far come about as change takes a slower pace rather than sudden cyborgian transformations:

Of course, people are worried about more invasive innovations; in particular, the direct transformation of the human body. And this is where the gradualness of change is important, because as individuals we have a track record of coping with such changes without falling apart or losing our sense of self entirely. After all, we have all been engaged all our lives in creating a stable sense of our identity out of whatever is thrown at us. This idea is worth dwelling on.

And that the evolution of the human species is about continual change and working upon our self-redefinitions...

We assimilate these changes into an evolving and continuous sense of our own identity…
Yes, we shall change; but the essence of human identity lies in this continuing self-redefinition. And if we remember that our identity and our freedom lie in the intersection between our impersonal but unique bodies and our personal individual memories and shared cultural awareness, it is difficult to worry about the erosion of either our identity or our freedom by technological advance.

Tallis is more sober on this acccount, yet ultimately does believe that 'the distinctive genius of humanity is to establish an identity which lies at an ever-increasing distance from our organic nature...in the expression of human possibility in ever-advancing technology'.

The question that concerns us is indeed the 'Time' factor, as the long-term 'organic' evolution may no longer be an option if technological advance out-strips our evolutionary mindfulness of how to control such advances for our betterment... now the age-old argument...

CoExistence

Yes, it has been a little while since words/images last graced this e-page: my physical self has been engaged in a little roaming... then coming back to my physical abode I encountered this lovely little video space: it's called 'Co-Existence', and well-worth 2 minutes of your time. To celebrate the beauty of our world amidst the barbarity.

It is so easy to focus on the disruptions, the chaotic occurances and breakdowns, rather than the small yet moving moments where the human Spirit can shine through.

How we manage our moments is our testing time...

The Complete Global Information Grid

Our future is uncertain - that is our good news. It should remain open to possibilities, triumphs, and our evolution Forward.

Yet there are 'those' who don't seem to like it that way; they prefer to make certain these uncertainties - in other words, to contain the unknowable. 'Their' answer is a complete 'Global Information Grid' that offers real-time surveillance and movement-monitoring. I don't wish to present too much of such agendas here, yet I thought this video was well-worth watching - see how some 'envision' the militarised future. This video below uses only those words and extracts taken directly from published material - I know, I've read some of the reports featured. It's similar to a bad video-game...

DARPA’s iXo Artificial Intelligence Control Grid:

In the year 2014....

I know I'm probably a little behind here in these videos yet I recommend the EPIC 2014 (and updated EPIC 2015) videos that look at the future of the online media, especially in terms of Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, with references to increased citizen participation and personalised services - visit the EPIC 2014 site.

Also - on top of this! - another highly recommended video along similar lines: the newly released 'Prometeus - The Media Revolution' - watch below.



What a treat!

Space is the place for the next race...

Space is heating up - literally... so much so that there is just too much to say on this subject. As technology pushes for greater networking capacity for sensoring the environment, Space is the 'high ground' from which to monitor and control terrestrial movements. The containment of the physical body - as a way to manipulate biological-neural messages to the mind/thoughts - is a future scenario being played out with military forecasts. Of course, this is only the material side of events, yet the increased acceleration in many of these projects seems to suggest that disruptive shifts are on the horizon that need to be handled - each in our Way.

Here's a brief piece called The Missile Shield and the Race for Space Awareness that mentions:

Terrestrial radars need to be complemented by satellites to keep track of missile launches across the planet (so called “boost phase interceptors”, see “Missile defense, satellites and politics“, The Space Review) to ensure complete space awareness. The Chinese Space Agency tested an anti-satellite missile earlier this year (See “Pentagon says China’s anti-satellite test posed a threat to nations”, AP). The move towards a hot space war could be imminent. The official press release was the only information given from Chinese authorities. The secrecy surrounding space capabilities was recently challenged by French authorities when they discovered 20-30 unregistered US surveillance satellites. (See “French says ‘non’ to U.S. Disclosure of Secret Satellites”, Space.com).

Yet we should also consider the environmental monitoring benefits from the 'high ground' - BBCNews reports that The European Space Agency (Esa) has ordered the first bespoke spacecraft in its new global monitoring programme:

Sentinel 1 is the first Earth observation satellite to be built for the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) project. Esa plans to launch five Sentinel spacecraft to track changes in the land, oceans, weather and climate. A 229m euro (£155m) contract for the design and development of Sentinel 1 was signed at the Paris Air Show....

...The satellite's capability for rapid mapping will be vital after natural disasters, when emergency services need to identify quickly whether roads still exist and villages are still intact. It will also watch over the marine environment, mapping oil spills and changes in sea ice.

Read the full story at 'Contract signed on Earth observer'

On the Future of Civilizations

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku talks about the future of intelligent life in this YouTube video:



Some of what he has to say is quite interesting, despite what I feel to be his erroneous understanding of the manifestation of highly advanced intelligences. Yet well worth the few minutes it takes to listen.

Thanks to the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies

Existential Risks

Part of the evolutionary process concerns development with risk; both human-created risks and more cosmic risks that are beyond the bounds of human hands. AI commentator Eliezer Yudkowsky has written quite extensively on these, and two pdf essays - “Cognitive Biases Potentially Affecting Judgment of Global Risks” and “Artificial Intelligence as a Positive and Negative Factor in Global Risk“ - can be found on The Singularity Institute Blog post titled 'Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Biases, and Global Risk'.

In this post there is an extract from his conclusion of 'Cognitive Biases Potentially Affecting Judgment of Global Risks':

In addition to standard biases, I have personally observed what look like harmful modes of thinking specific to existential risks. The Spanish flu of 1918 killed 25-50 million people. World War II killed 60 million people. 10^7 is the order of the largest catastrophes in humanity’s written history. Substantially larger numbers, such as 500 million deaths, and especially qualitatively different scenarios such as the extinction of the entire human species, seem to trigger a different mode of thinking - enter into a “separate magisterium”. People who would never dream of hurting a child hear of an existential risk, and say, “Well, maybe the human species doesn’t really deserve to survive.

With large numbers it's easy to think of survival as meaning death to many - yet the future is about much, much more: what's at stake is the conscious part of a very cosmic experiment...

Our Material Flesh may become our Cyborg-Prison

Last week I gave a talk at the SensorNet 2007 conference - an event that dealt with Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) which are "key emerging technologies with a broad range of applications in various fields, including chemical processing, environmental monitoring, healthcare, robotics, military and emergency services". My talk was called 'Sensoring Social Futures: Technologies of Social Communications, Cognition & Securities' and dealt with the social aspects of the sensor technologies as appropriated for consumer and civil use. The keynotes address was given by Kevin Warwick and was ttiled 'Thought Communication – Networks for the Future'.

On the 14th of March 2002 a one hundred electrode array was surgically implanted into the median nerve fibres of Kevin Warwick's left arm in order to use his neural system as an interface. This is all 'cyborgian stuff' - yet the point I wanted to make...

During his talk Kevin said, quite casually, that ever since the 'Madeline' case had come high profile, he's been receiving at least 100 emails every day from mothers who are asking him to tell them how to get their young children/babies implanted with a chip so they can be continually tracked. And that's just the mothers who know of his research...

...Further, Kevin said that the issue of 'children chipping' was already high on the agenda with those who are responsible for these things. Kevin is supportive of the idea - I disagree on this. I am no Luddite, yet high-profile public cases have nearly always been hijacked for public policy agendas by manipulating 'fear-creep'.

Each step is only a small step, yet many steps together make a bridge. A bridge to where - a next generation of chipped children? I've listened to, observed, read, been in the same room as, etc, so many of these hardware 'tech' scientists; and all too often I see a person fascinated with overcoming a technical problem; with delivering solutions, struggling with a concept to make it realisable - this is the 'job' of such scientific-minded individuals. In many cases this posturing can be applauded for it often leads to beneficial innovations. Yet the other side is that many such interesting minds shut out 'the wider picture' - the humanity, the evolving Spirit, the evolution of our 'human' consciousness.

This is not about achieving a technical breakthrough - it is about learning how to accomodate the evolving Spirit in its journey through the material world. Our material flesh may become our cyborg-prison if our wider heritage is not brought into the picture...

Moon-based observatories

Following on from recent 'space themes' and news - there has been a recent call for an international effort to develop and deploy monitoring stations on the moon for the study of terrestrial climate change:

Global climate change is driven by an imbalance between incoming energy from the sun and outgoing energy from Earth. Without understanding the climate system's inputs and outputs—its so-called energy budget—it is impossible to tease out the relative contributions of natural and human-induced influences and to predict future climate, Huang said...

...Huang's study demonstrated that signals from the energy budget of Earth's climate system are detectable on the moon and can be useful in monitoring and predicting climate change.

So bases on the moon: not a new idea yet at least this is supposedly for good intentions - monitoring climate change - rather than species colonisation, or others...

Read more here

THE GUARDIANS

Chapter 8 of The Survival Imperative: Using Space to Protect Earth discusses the need to use space to protect civilization and the planet. In this extract science scholar and historian William E. Burrows writes that:

The issue is about increasing planetary protection to ensure that no matter what happens, gradually or suddenly, civilization has the means to evade annihilation and survive. The overwhelming majority of boats do not run into emergencies and sink, but no boat owner in his or her right mind would put to sea without a fire extinguisher, a lifeboat, and insurance. Similarly, most homes do not burn down, but those who live in them safeguard precious papers and other things in safe deposit boxes.

That being the case, it is time for responsible individuals and groups everywhere to take Earth for the ship it is and begin a fundamental, evolutionary, strategy to maximize its chances for survival. It is time to come up with a very long term plan because the multiple dangers and the means of salvation are coinciding.

This chapter - available online - is worth a read...

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