Posthuman Blues

A few years ago Whitley Strieber wrote an interesting speculative article on the reason for and nature of UFO secrecy, hitting on the very "physics of perception" I've come to think dictate our understanding of the issue.





In The Reason for the Secrecy, he comments:

"But why would we be limited in our ability to see and communicate with them? The explanation lies in an obscure byway of physics known as Fisher Information. It has to do with the fact that there are basic forms underlying reality-- the information that is the foundation of the world. The mind is constantly assembling this information. Because of the way the mind assembles it, the world appears as it does.

"Back in the late forties, a number of very intelligent men, among them Dr. John von Neumann, the father of cybernetics, were exposed to the question, 'what if aliens were present?' Dr. von Neumann, in particular, reacted with some very innovative thinking. He first conceived of a way that they might get here. This device became known as the Von Neumann Machine.

[. . .]

"Von Neumann also worked on what is known as the Quantum Perception Problem. The problem is that particles do not enter a measurable state until they are perceived. The process of measurement, in a sense, assembles them into the appearance they present to the observer.

"This means that perception is fundamental to the nature of what is seen. The mind assembles the information upon which rests the structure of reality. To an extent, the way the universe actually works depends upon the way it is perceived. For example, we have recently achieved wave- fronts that transmit information at many times the speed of light, something that was until very recently thought to be impossible to create as a physical effect. We will soon go even beyond this, and discover that we can transmit information so quickly that it arrives at its destination before it leaves its point of origin.

"The human mind, will, in other words find the key to establishing perception outside of the space-time continunum [sic]. It is when this happens--and remember, that it is in the nature of such an event to culminate before it begins--that we will begin to experience full contact with 'it.'

"Indeed, the process began when the first UFO was seen. It has proceeded until now, when people are not only observing crop circles, but actually watching the process of creation itself, perceiving the 'balls of light' that do the work. As time passes, these effects will become more and more focused, and the strange, seemingly perceptive but quite anonymous apparitions will explode with the meaning and energy of the consciousness that they represent. At that point, we will begin to be in full and intimate contact."

I don't agree with everything Strieber says -- particularly his views on crop circles. But his inclusion of von Neumann's contribution is most interesting, if only because von Neumann was identified by Robert Sarbacher as a member of a classified UFO working group. In short, von Neumann's ideas underscore the probability that the UFO problem is vastly stranger than "mere" visitors from other planets; I think we're dealing with a process that promises to redefine our understanding of consciousness as well as challenge our sense of cosmic isolation.