KURZWEILLIAN SINGULARITY AND LIFE EXTENSION: IS A COPY OF YOU...YOU? (John Shirley)

Kurzweil and others anticipate a "singularity" event in which we achieve the ability to translate imagined reality, including immortality, into technological (and biotech) reality. He envisions immortality through copying of consciousness into semirobotic hardware. I objected to author Mac Tonnies, when we discussed this idea, that consciousness uploaded is not consciousness transferred. An entelechy or gestalt is missing.

Note: John's thoughtful post -- which I don't necessarily agree with, although I welcome his sense of philosophical caution -- was written is response to this essay.

"Les Quatre Saisons"

The idea couldn't be simpler. Choose an interesting landscape, compose an image of it, then take a photograph every day for an entire year, capturing the weather, the changing seasons, the ephemeral comings and goings of people, animals, and vehicles, and whatever secular changes might occur as the Earth traced its orbit around the Sun.

(Via Rudy Rucker's blog.)

Approval granted for Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers to attempt creation of disease-specific embryonic stem cell lines

After more than two years of intensive ethical and scientific review, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers at Harvard and Children's Hospital Boston have been cleared to begin experiments using Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) to create disease-specific stem cell lines in an effort to develop treatments for a wide range of now-incurable conditions afflicting tens of millions of people.

(Via Science Blog.)

Implanting a magnet in your fingertip adds a sixth sense

This morning's Wired News has a fascinating article on the practice of implanting small, strong rare-earth magnets in one's ring-finger. The result is a kind of "magnet sense" -- people who've had the implant report that they can tell when a wire is live and when they're going through a magnet security-scanner at a store, even when their laptops' hard drives are spinning up.

Quinn Norton of Wired News has had the operation and writes in detail about how it felt, what the problems were, and what she was able to do once it was in place. The most amazing part is that months after the magnet implant fragmented and Quinn lost her "sixth sense," it reassembled itself (magnets tend to draw towards one another) and the sense returned.

All this is suspiciously similar to "alien implant" lore, in which perceived "abductees" experience heightened electromagnetic sensitivity. A serious study of the parallels might yield some interesting (if probably down-to-earth) information. Alas, the "implant" crowd is among the most ideologically committed within the UFO "community."

I was listening to the podcast of my "Radio Misterioso" appearance earlier today. Much to their credit as researchers, Paul Kimball and Greg Bishop go to some length to emphasize that the prevailing Extraterrestrial Hypothesis for UFO visitation (if "visitation" it is) is simply that: a hypothesis (among many others).

But what do we know about the phenomenon? What can researchers agree on, if anything? I certainly don't expect them to hop on the "cryptoterrestrial" bandwagon (as wonderful as that might be from the perspective of whoever ultimately publishes my tome on the subject). Neither do I expect ufologists to agree on the ever-nebulous Interdimensional Hypothesis, which raises at least as many reality-altering questions as it purports to answer.

At the same time, the Null Hypothesis, maintaining that UFOs can be universally ascribed to misidentified natural phenomena and sightings of unconventional earthly aircraft, has grown decrepit and toothless. Fashionable debunking aside (up to and including the brittle posturing of self-styled "alien experts" such as the SETI Institute's Seth Shostak) something absolutely fascinating is happening.

Taking stock of the situation, I'm tempted to reduce the UFO riddle to a few guiding tenets which I think can be reasonably supported by the evidence provided since the "modern" era of sightings began 60 years ago. A list of pertinent characteristics might go like this:

1.) Regardless of their origin, UFOs are physically real.

2.) UFOs are sometimes observed engaged in behavior which can only be described as intelligently directed.

3.) The psychological and sociological impact of the phenomenon is especially enduring and should be a topic of paramount interest for scholars and researchers in fields as disparate as cultural anthropology, aeronautics and neurology.

4.) The sometimes theatrical behavior of unidentified flying objects suggests the possibility of some form of dialogue, whether directed by ourselves or orchestrated by the phenomenon itself. Likewise, certain military encounters in which weapons systems have been apparently manipulated in intelligent fashion invite the prospect that the UFO intelligence is at least partially amenable to understanding in terms of human psychology.

Communicating with the Grays (Whitley Strieber)

In August, I will publish a work of fiction about the grays, which is intended to bring them to life as people, and to reveal what it is like to be with them. It is also my hope that the methods of communication that I demonstrate in the novel will prove useful to people who are in contact and having difficulty experiencing a rich and consistent relationship with them.

Some of the observations in Strieber's latest essay are tantalizingly in keeping with my "Indigenous Hypothesis," which asserts that the so-called "Grays" are members of a perfectly terrestrial civilization.

My new book, "The Cryptoterrestrials," may or may not be picked up by a bigger publisher (I should know within a couple weeks), but one thing's for sure: I'll read Strieber's upcoming novel with the utmost interest.

I've rearranged the sidebar a bit, but otherwise the blog is restored to its former self (with the notable exception of the masthead, which I'll insert shortly). I'd forgotten how barren and dull Blogger's templates look without customization.

Drinking coffee makes you more open-minded

Moderate doses of caffeine can also make you more easily convinced by arguments that go against your beliefs, say Pearl Martin of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and her colleagues.

In 2005, her team published a paper suggesting that the compound primes people to agree with statements that go against their typical views because it improves their ability to understand the reasoning behind the statements.

(Via KurzweilAI.net.)

Can world peace be that far away?

OK, I think I have things (almost) back to normal. Please let me know if you have any difficulty posting comments, deleting comments or making sense of the layout.

Technical difficulty :-(

I somehow lost the template information for the PB front-page and was forced to begin from scratch. Fortunately, I still have the sidebar data. Things will be back to normal in a day or two.

Thanks!

Podcast!




Collage courtesy The Other Side of Truth.


Paul and I chat it up on Greg Bishop's "Radio Misterioso."

Program listing:

Ufological commentator Paul Kimball and Cyberpunk guru Mac Tonnies talk about problems with Ufology and how the field might be headed (or guided) into a new phase. Topics: Believers vs. non-believers, Cryptoterrestrials, the Face on Mars (more in notes)

"Cyberpunk guru"? Hey, I'll take it!

K. Eric Drexler's seminal "Engines of Creation" (1992) is now available online as a free e-book. I read "Engines" in high-school and its promises for the future -- both surreal and imminently plausible -- have lingered with me ever since.

In a way, Drexler's book is like Gerard K. O'Neill's "The High Frontier"; both share the same infectious future-is-now quality. But while O'Neill's plans for colonizing the solar system have been put on hold, Drexler's vision has aged remarkably well. At this point, given nanotech's near-unimaginable potential for life extension, industry and autonomous weapons systems, there's no going back.

(Thanks to Boing Boing.)

Documentary film-maker Paul Kimball keeps counting down the 21st century's most compelling (in his opinion) ufologists. (If you haven't been keeping an eye on his picks, I recommend taking a look.) Nick Redfern weighs in at #2, which leaves me waiting for #1 with bated breath.

Anyway, I couldn't help but enjoy the opening paragraph:

Ufology's Generation NOW - #2, Nick Redfern

If Mac Tonnies is the Morrissey of the UFO world - i.e. smooth, melodic, a bit angsty, philosophical - then Nick Redfern is ufology's Johnny Ramone, brash, three chords and a guitar, take-no-prisoners, and in your face. He's not afraid to take pot shots at ufology's sacred cows (even the mutilated ones), to challenge dogma and the "establishment", and to encourage people to think for themselves, even if that means picking apart his own theories.

Morrissey and I. Yeah, there's some commonality there. I'm probably more of the Franz Kafka of the UFO world, but the Moz will do in a pinch.

The only thing more fun that watching climate chaos unfold here on Earth is watching it unfold on Jupiter.

Huge storms converge

Storm #1 is the Great Red Spot, twice as wide as Earth itself, with winds blowing 350 mph. The behemoth has been spinning around Jupiter for hundreds of years.

Storm #2 is Oval BA, also known as "Red Jr.," a youngster of a storm only six years old. Compared to the Great Red Spot, Red Jr. is half-sized, able to swallow Earth merely once, but it blows just as hard as its older cousin.

The two are converging. Closest approach: the 4th of July, according to Amy Simon-Miller of the Goddard Space Flight Center who has been monitoring the storms using the Hubble Space Telescope.

Good thing Jupiter isn't in FEMA's jurisdiction.

Please welcome the following blogs to the sidebar:

Centauri Dreams

Cyberpunkreview.com

Rational Geek

ThothWeb

Velcro City Tourist Board

Net neutrality -- or else!

DEAD ZONES GOOD NEWS FOR LIFE

So within my lifetime, I expect to hear news that at least one complex biosphere has been discovered outside our solar system. I'm curious to see what the reaction will be. I'm not expecting it to be good. We don't have a history of responding well to cosmic demotions.

I managed to recall a dream I had last night -- a rambling adventure in a subterranean world of endless clutter, dark hallways and discarded cultural ephemera. A strange circus-like atmosphere pervaded despite the almost total lack of characters; I felt as if I had entered a world that had quietly succumbed to its own history, content to while away its final years in a state of seedy, uncompromised entropy.

This milieu seems to have taken the place of the vast, vaguely futuristic shopping malls that I've dreamed about for years. The density of information is actually startling, like going from a dial-up Net connection to broadband. It's like I've suddenly tapped into the Sargasso of the collective unconscious, free to peruse the sodden exhibits.

Ufology's Generation NOW - #3, Mac Tonnies





I've made the #3 spot on Paul Kimball's top-ten list of next-generation ufologists:

Mac is a healthy agnostic with an open mind, an inquisitive nature, and a willingness to consider all of the possibilities (including some that he cooks up himself) - in short, just the kind of person ufology needs, and someone who should be making regular appearances on shows like Coast to Coast, at UFO conferences, and in the mainstream media. He has the potential to be ufology's great popularizer in the 21st century.

Amazing what a little blackmail can do! ;-)

Novamente aiming for human-level AI in six years

According to Novamente's project plan, with proper funding they will have human-level AI in six years. Their goal is to create a learning system that can ultimately be self-improving. By this year or next, they aim to have an autonomous intelligent infant interacting in a simulated world. By 2009 at the latest, they're aiming for the equivalent of a young child. By 2014, at the far end of the spectrum, they aim to have an AI that can reason abstractly and communicate in complex English. As early as 2010, they may have a "strongly self-modifying AI."

States starry-eyed over spaceports

Traditional launch ranges are often spartan mixes of lonely launch pad towers, concrete runways and aircraft hangars. Many are located in remote coastal areas -- Florida's Cape Canaveral being the best known -- so that debris won't hit populated areas.

The current spaceport boom promises futuristic complexes that evoke the Jetsons.

(Via Cyborg Democracy.)

Just a quick reminder that I'll be on "Speaking of Strange" tonight at 9:00 (Central). The show lasts one hour.

Alien Skulls: The Great Debate (with illustrations)

Without doubt one of the most famous of these anomalous skulls is the so-called Star Child skull, which was given to researcher Lloyd Pye by a couple from Texas in 2001. According to many legends in Central America, 'Star People' would sometimes visit the earth and mate with certain women, who would subsequently give birth to a hybrid child; a 'Star Child'. Such a child would be considered a great blessing and was raised and nurtured by the whole community. When the child reached between five and eight years of age the Star People would return to collect it and take it to their own world.

(Via The Anomalist.)

More evidence of cryptoterrestrial intervention?

One of the high points of my California trip was Newport Beach. There's nothing like seeing the ocean after enduring the monochrome flatness of the Midwest. I actually considered dropping off the map and becoming a beach bum, then remembered I hadn't brought any sun-screen.





I like cheap souvenirs, so I tried to win this cat. Alas, the machine's limp metal fingers didn't cooperate.





That stuffed cat threatens to become a metaphor for my life.

Have you heard? Blade Runner Final Cut Coming in 2007!

Say what you will about Project Serpo, but they sure have a spiffy website.

Why Hurricane Season is Here to Stay

Ker Than writes in LiveScience.com that climatologist Kerry Emanuel will soon publish a paper that shows how global warming is responsible for the increasingly stronger Atlantic Ocean hurricanes we've experienced in the past few decades, but he's made an even more courageous statement in this paper, where he says that the key to global warming is human pollution, in the form of greenhouse gases.

Amazing "Mad Max" vehicles in Iraq

Todd Lappin says: "There's a soldier in Iraq who's been posting some crazy pictures of American SUVs and pickup trucks that have been modified by civilian security contractors for use as gun trucks. They're insane, in a 'Mad Max at the Wal-Mart parking lot' kind of way."

He's not kidding, either.

This is great . . .

That's one small step . . . on Mars?

"I would like to know if anyone at MSNBC can explain why there is a footprint in the photo called 'Ripples on the Road' on the slide show?" one reader asked. "The caption states that the picture is from NASA's Opportunity rover on Mars. Last I checked, humans haven't been to Mars yet."

(Via The Anomalist.)

I'm almost finished posting travel photos. Honest!

I liked my hotel in Santa Ana. Refreshingly un-Midwestern.





I enjoy the anonymity of hotel rooms. It's like inhabiting a VR construct and not giving a damn what happens in the "real" world.





I always experience a strange voyeuristic compulsion to imagine the room's previous occupants, as if they can be somehow deciphered and brought to life by the inevitable stains on the furniture and other signs of habitation.





There was a suspiciously murky pool on the premises. I sort of regret not taking advantage of it.





One thing I don't regret is failing to blog while away; getting "unwired" was a novel experience in its own right (although my cellphone served as a handy umbilicus to cyberspace).

What do you know? I was just talking about Meme Therapy; now I discover that I'm featured.

Brain Parade Stranded in Science Fiction

Meme Therapy asks: "We've teleported you to your favorite Science Fiction setting (you'll thank us later). You've just gotten over your initial shock. What do you do now?"

Me:

I get myself a cellphone -- or its equivalent -- pronto. If it's anything like what I have now, I'll be able to access maps, surf the Web, seek shelter . . . in short, learn the territory while still engaged in the doubtlessly input-jamming process of navigating the territory.

(I suppose I had William Gibson's Sprawl in mind when I answered this, but upon a second's reflection I realized there *were* no cellphones in "Neuromancer." But my answer stands anyway.)

"Follow up: Did you have to think of an answer or had you already dreamed this one up?"

I'm always living in a genre universe of some sort. Sterling, Gibson, Dick, you name it. Lately I've been inhabiting the world of Terry Gilliam's "Brazil," with occasional forays into Wim Wenders' "Until the End of the World." I know you're not supposed to mix drugs, but . . .

Tiny Tools

Steve Connor writes in the Independent that these people, who have been nicknamed "Hobbits" by the scientific community, were about 3 feet tall and became extinct over 10,000 years ago. Despite having small brains (the skulls that have been found can fit into the palm of a hand), they created fairly sophisticated tools.

I'm fighting off a pretty nasty cold. My voice is back -- mostly -- but I'm sneezing and sort of light-headed. I took yesterday off from work and got sent home today, much to my relief.

There's something especially demeaning about catching a bug. I mean, to know that my body has been casually appropriated by some string of virulent code that biologists hesitate to even consider "alive."

Anyway, nothing some raspberry tea can't help.

The Discovery Channel might have axed me from their alien documentary, but they're keeping my pal Peter Gersten. He'll appear Saturday, June 3rd at 1:00 pm EST/PST alongside such, um, "luminaries" as David Icke and Derrel Sims. Should be fun.

More travel photos

Videographer Findlay Muir watches the skies above Agoura Hills. Some of the houses below were quite nice.





I took me a minute to realize I could actually see the ocean from here. It's only barely visible in the photo as a sliver of blue between the mountains.





Paul conducted an interview in Ojai, a Sedona-like community nestled among some impressive peaks. Besides serving as a mecca for celebrities, Ojai is the hometown of the Bionic Woman (the character, not the actress). Leave it to Paul to know these things.





Mac on the rocks:





I guess I was trying to look contemplative. Instead, I look like some sort of gargoyle. That's the last time I try striking a pose.

Underrated Science Fiction Writers: Like the crew at Meme Therapy (a damned good blog, by the way), I can't recommend Peter Watts' Rifters novels highly enough. I picked up "Starfish" more or less at random and couldn't put it down; likewise with the sequel, "Maelstrom," one of the darkest, most distressing cyberpunk novels ever written.

I'm also glad to discover a fellow fan of Philip K. Dick protege K.W. Jeter, whose "The Glass Hammer," "Farewell Horizontal," and "Noir" stand as overlooked classics.

Why is it so hard to see beyond our current existence?

The inference is an Ultimate Observer, who has immediate and simultaneous awareness of every point of perception and is able to bring all those points of awareness into one single cohesive reality. Mathematically speaking, the last observation of this Ultimate Observer determines which probability occurs, which points of view are valid and what actually happens.

Quantum Physics, therefore, appears to be saying that there is some entity out there that sees everything, knows everything and does everything, and at some level decides what reality should look like. Sound familiar?

(Via PAG E-News.)

I'm don't think the "Ultimate Observer" theory is "proof" of a god-like intelligence, but it may be the closest thing we have to scientific evidence that the universe may be home to an omniscient being.

Outward Bound for Robots

A computer navigation system based on a part of the brain called the hippocampus has been tested on an autonomous robotic car. By enabling the robot to take what its creators call "cognitive fingerprints" of its surroundings, the software allows the vehicle to explore and remember places in much the same way mammals do.

(Via KurzweilAI.net.)

My mercifully unpublished turn-of-the-millennium novel "Wave State" features taxis piloted by disembodied rodent brains. I toyed with the idea of some cars going rogue and ditching their transportation duties, driven by obsolete biological imperatives.

Left Behind Christian sf novels turned into bigoted video-game

The people behind the kooky Christian "Left-Behind" science fiction novels (about the futuristic battles on earth after the Rapture takes all the good Bible-bashers to heaven) have produced a violent, bigoted video-game version of their stories.

Perversely enough, I'd love to play it.

Mystery cave in Israel reveals bizarre ecosystem

The cave, which has been dubbed the Ayalon Cave, is "unique in the world," said Prof. Amos Frumkin of the Hebrew University Department of Geography. This is due mainly to its isolation from the outside world, since the cave's surface is situated under a layer of chalk that is impenetrable to water. The cave, with its branches, extends over some 2½ kilometers, making it Israel's second largest limestone cave. It is to remain closed to the public to permit further scientific research.

3D printed Google Earth Buildings

When you mash this software up with Google Earth, planners or architects (or anyone for that matter) gain the ability to create 3D printouts of chunks of land or clusters of buildings. Their NYC 3D prints have generated models of Ground Zero and Columbus Circle, and could do any other area, with great precision. The software is free and open, produced by EyeBeam, a R&D lab which "is focused entirely on incubating experimental technologies and media that directly enrich the public domain."

Has anyone thought to apply this technique to Mars?

Paul Kimball replies to my post on mind-uploading:

Borg . . . or Highlanders?

What is the "soul" anyway (or, for the non-religiously inclined, "consciousness")? Beond this plane of existence, who knows, for sure? In the here and now, however, isn't it the sum of our experiences that matters? What harm in transferring that to another body, i.e. a clone, or perhaps a cyborg, should our technology someday allow it? I don't think we're defined by the outer shell - indeed, any religion that I know of views the body as a mere vessel. It's what's inside that counts, and I see no reason why that couldn't be transferred, whole, to another vessel (well, no non-technological reason, at any rate).

Will Wise responds to Paul Kimball's response to my post on mind-uploading:

Response to Paul Kimball's Ruminations on Mac Tonnies Thoughts (Borg . . . or Highlanders?)

It should also be pointed out that Kurzweil's logic also has implications for Ufology. For one, if Kurzweil is correct and humans are only 50 years away from creating the Singularity it stands to reason that any advanced ET life traveling between stars to visit our planet will have already passed through the "singularity" phase of their evolution. As a result, they will probably NOT be biological organisms (humanoid or otherwise) but technological beings. It’s quite hard to say what this might look like although it is quite possible that they could instantiate bodies appropriate to the audience with which they are trying to communicate if they were so inclined.

I just dashed out a modified proposal for my cryptoterrestrial book. (Apparently I have the same agent as Whitley Strieber, which is heartening as "Communion" garnered a seven-figure advance.) Of course, things are up in the air right now. I see no way, for example, that my ruminations on indigenous humanoids are going to make me a millionaire. But I do think I have something worth saying, if for no other reason than the interest the subject's provoked here at Posthuman Blues.

It also looks like I'll be moving into a new place soon. Nothing fancy, but at least I'll have a proper office. And my cats, who my former girlfriend has been gracious enough to take care of.

I've all but lost my voice, which doesn't bode particularly well for my radio appearance on the 3rd. So I'm drinking hot tea and sucking lozenges like there's no tomorrow -- and since I work tomorrow, I suppose there really isn't.

My first street-level view of LA:





On the way home and not looking especially happy about it:





Mystery woman at LAX: