250: Singularitarians and UFOlogists
http://crealm.libsyn.com/250-singularitarians-and-uf-ologists
Larry Lowe talks with Nikki Olson, a Singularitarian blogger who attended the 20th Anniversary International UFO Congress. She noted a lack of tech-savvy young people at the event, and she took the audience to be overly credulous. Even so, both Nikki and Larry think that the usually insular UFO and Singularity communities each have something useful to offer one another. Larry does double duty as he admirably represents both the community of rational UFOlogists and the usual contingent of C-Realm concerns. The episode also features clips from Terence McKenna (taken from Psychedelic Salon episode 258) and James Burke as well as commentary from Eric Boyd.
Music by Kyrstyn Pixton
Why the future doesn't need us: Our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans an endangered species. By Bill Joy
Larry's Show Notes: Singularity Weblog http://tinyurl.com/6zlv2fn The Singularity and UFOs: Can ET Teach Us Anything about the Singularity? by Nikki Olson on March 4, 2011 The connections between extraterrestrial life and future technology are numerous, and have been widely discussed in science fiction literature and by physicists such as Michio Kaku. There is basic logic to the connection: if life in other galaxies is able to travel to our galaxy, it is thought, then we should assume their technology is more advanced than our own and that they have already reached their ‘Singularity.’ Travis Walton http://www.travis-walton.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Walton On Monday, November 10, all of Rogers' remaining crew took polygraph examinations administered by Cy Gilson, an Arizona Department of Public Safety employee. His questions asked if any of the men caused harm to Travis (or knew who had caused Travis harm), if they knew where Travis's body was buried, and if they told the truth about seeing a UFO. The men all denied harming Travis (or knowing who had harmed him), denied knowing where his body was, and insisted they had indeed seen a UFO. Excepting Dallis (who had not completed his exam, thus rendering it invalid), Gilson concluded that all the men were truthful, and the exam results were conclusive. Clark quotes from Gilson's official report: "These polygraph examinations prove that these five men did see some object they believed to be a UFO, and that Travis Walton was not injured or murdered by any of these men on that Wednesday". If the UFO was fake, Gilson thought, "five of these men had no prior knowledge of it". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRAZm40_KAc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIrxegLNGd0 Fire in the Sky http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LhshgLJuuM In 1993, Walton's book was adapted into a film, Fire in the Sky, directed by Robert Lieberman and starring D. B. Sweeney as Travis Walton, Robert Patrick as Mike Rogers and Scott MacDonald as Travis's Brother Dan Walton. Clark writes that the film found "Moderate success, mixed reviews, and ufologists' complaints about its inaccuracies and exaggerations." (Clark, 650) Especially inaccurate was the portion of the film detailing his time on the UFO; it bears almost no resemblance to the original narrative. In the renewed publicity generated by the motion picture, Walton, Mike Rogers and Allen Dallis agreed to take polygraph examinations at the behest of "a skeptical ufologist, Jerry Black". (Clark, 650) Again, the tests were conducted by Cy Gilson, and the men all asserted that the events as they related them were true. Gilson concluded that all three men were truthful in regard to their responses about the events of November 5, 1975. Lloyd Pye http://www.starchildproject.com/dna2010.htm In Brief: A modified "shotgun" DNA recovery technique has been successfully used to recover coherent segments of the Starchild Skull's nuclear DNA. Of the (approx.) 3 billion base pairs in the skull's genome, several thousand have been recovered. These nuclear DNA fragments have been analyzed by the National Institutes of Health BLAST program, and a substantial percentage of that DNA has "no significant similarity" to any DNA previously found on Earth. These results have been verified and repeated; however, more DNA needs to be recovered and analyzed before a formal report can be completed. Law of Accelerating Returns http://tinyurl.com/29e82vw An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense “intuitive linear” view. So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century - it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate). The "returns," such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There’s even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity - technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light. Phoenix Lights plus 14: Still no answers http://tinyurl.com/4kkb83a If you assume it is a very large universe and realize that, given the exponential rate of technological progress just beginning to take firm hold of human civilization, a civilization that was at our state of development a mere one hundred years ago would appear to us to have advanced 20,000 years in the last century and if you take the thousands of reports from credible citizens at face value it is reasonable to conclude that the Phoenix Lights observations is what it seemed to be: a gentle but deliberate display of advanced technology intended to provide enough eye-witness testimony and personal experience to spark the recognition that humanity is not the only intelligent life form capable of operating on earth. The original Battle of Los Angeles http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhjkMoWLE_Y http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Los_Angeles The Battle of Los Angeles, also known as The Great Los Angeles Air Raid, is the name given by contemporary sources to the rumored enemy attack and subsequent anti-aircraft artillery barrage which took place from late February 24 to early February 25, 1942 over Los Angeles, California. The incident occurred less than three months after the United States entered World War II as a result of the Japanese Imperial Navy's attack on Pearl Harbor, and one day after the Bombardment of Ellwood on February 23. Initially, the target of the aerial barrage was thought to be an attacking force from Japan, but speaking at a press conference shortly afterward, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox called the incident a "false alarm." Newspapers of the time published a number of sensational reports and speculations of a cover-up. A small number of modern-day UFOlogists have suggested the targets were extraterrestrial spacecraft.[3] When documenting the incident in 1983, the U.S. Office of Air Force History attributed the event to a case of "war nerves" likely triggered by a lost weather balloon and exacerbated by stray flares and shell bursts from adjoining batteries. [Host note: The USAF History does not explain why 1400 rounds of high-caliber anti-aircraft fire could not take down a 'lost weather baloon.'] Battle:LA http://www.battlela.com/ http://www.reportthreats.org/ [Viral marketing website - some confabulation] What are they? Richard Dolan http://tinyurl.com/4odw34c I have come to a different conclusion. I concede that my position is provisional, and may change in time. But the more I reflect on it, the more persuasive I find it. It is that the UFO phenomenon is the product of an artificial intelligence. Advanced machine intelligence, vastly outstripping our own, biological, intelligence. Now, many people believe that machine intelligence is involved somehow in the phenomenon of UFOs. What I am suggesting is that it is the driving force. I assume that I am not the only proponent of this idea, but I am not aware of any other UFO researcher who has expressed it in this way. Back in the 1960s, there was one writer whose thoughts moved in this direction, or who at least entertained the possibility. That was Ivan Sanderson, surely one of the most original thinkers ever to write about UFOs. It is a shame that Sanderson, a biologist by profession, wrote only two books on UFOs. It is a greater shame that he is all but forgotten today. His first book, Uninvited Visitors (1967) remains among the most sophisticated analyses yet done on the possible nature of UFOs (Sanderson called them Unexplained Aerial Objects, or UAOs). Too long to summarize here, Sanderson methodically asked, not what UAOs were, but what they could be. He developed a six page outline of the possibilities. Thus, they could be inanimate or animate. If inanimate, they might be natural, or artificial, each possibility with several subsets. If animate, they could also be natural or artificial. Natural forms might include life-forms indigenous to space, or to atmospheres, or to solid bodies. Artificial forms might be domesticated natural life-forms, genetically created life forms, or biochemically created life forms. And so on. Sanderson at several points suggested the possibility that the "occupants" of UFOs might be artificial life forms. He was not dogmatic about this, and also entertained the idea that they might be an as-yet unknown life-form indigenous to Earth. Still, the concept of UFOs as a form of artificial intelligence is fertile enough that we might have expected some follow-up. Another Tenant in the Building http://tinyurl.com/4kdaoqv KMO talks with rational UFO researcher Larry Lowe about the possibility of a co-indigenous terrestrial intelligence as the source of at least some reported encounters with "aliens." KMO and Larry wrestle with the problem of "high stangeness" in experiencer accounts that renders them completely incredible regardless of the credibility of the witness. They also listen and respond to audio clips from George Knapp and Terrence McKenna and consider the possibility that the aim of the mysterious Other is to goad humans in the direction of a holistic, ecological style of consciousness. Music by Jungle Physicians. Exponential growth http://tinyurl.com/46tsj9t Time to act on humankind's big favorites of "Exponential Growth" - the new (excessive comfort) and also the old (many children) "growth factors" call for new ways. Their ethical and governance dimensions are breaking beyond today's very basics of politics, economy, society and self. No one dares touch them, but negligence is not an option. Dan Chay explains in a few minutes why exponential growth must lead to collapse. he shows examples from the world of bacteria and asks "Are Humans Smarter Than Yeast?". Dan hopes so, and urges us to become aware of taking a turn on the growth issue in our rapidly growing societies. Especially, because the obvious effects of exceeded growth appear very sudden and when it is already too late - to sustain the "good times" Singularity University http://singularityu.org/ Singularity University is an interdisciplinary university whose mission is to assemble, educate and inspire leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies in order to address humanity’s grand challenges. With the support of a broad range of leaders in academia, business and government, Singularity University hopes to stimulate groundbreaking, disruptive thinking and solutions aimed at solving some of the planet’s most pressing challenges. Singularity University is based at the NASA Ames campus in Silicon Valley. Singularity Summit http://tinyurl.com/5cmtl5 The Singularity Summit is an annual conference focused on the Singularity and related converging technologies such as robotics, nanotechnology, brain-computer interfaces, and artificial intelligence. Founded in 2006 by the Singularity Institute, Ray Kurzweil, and Peter Thiel, the inaugural summit was held at Stanford, the first academic symposium focused on Singularity dialogue. Past speakers have included Doug Hofstadter (author of Gödel, Escher, Bach), Peter Norvig (Google Director of Research), Sebastian Thrun (Stanford AI Lab Director), Rodney Brooks (MIT Professor of Robotics), Justin Rattner (CTO of Intel), and Stephen Wolfram (CEO and Founder of Wolfram Research). 10 Questions for Ray Kurzweil http://tinyurl.com/37n8lne Q: You predict we'll reach a point with artificial intelligence that you call the singularity. How will that affect us? A: By the time we get to the 2040s, we'll be able to multiply human intelligence a billionfold. That will be a profound change that's singular in nature. Computers are going to keep getting smaller and smaller. Ultimately, they will go inside our bodies and brains and make us healthier, make us smarter. We'll be online all the time. Search engines won't wait to be asked. Q: Do you think we'll find intelligent life elsewhere in the universe? A: The consensus in the field is that there's somewhere between a thousand and a million technologically advanced civilizations just in our own galaxy. But once you get to a point where we are, within a few centuries at most, these civilizations would be doing galaxy-wide engineering. It's impossible we wouldn't be noticing that. So my conclusion is that we may be the first. [Host note: Mainstream academia, Kurzweil included, persists in proceeding from the fallacy that there is no evidence of advanced intelligence in the universe. It seems that they either have not read the credible literature or have failed to comprehend it. UFOs and the National Security State: Chronology of a Coverup, 1941-1973 Dolan, Vallee http://tinyurl.com/4lsecqj The Cover-Up Exposed, 1973-1991 (UFOs and the National Security State, Vol. 2) Dolan http://tinyurl.com/4bv25m9 UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record Kean http://tinyurl.com/4f69nap I Know What I Saw Fox http://tinyurl.com/45cxk6d] Betty Andreasson's alien abduction and NDE http://tinyurl.com/3pesvk Now the Elder touched Betty's shoulder. There was a little explosion of white light, and then they were in a different place: a hospital room, where a very old man lay in a bed, with a nurse keeping vigil beside him. And there was more: two small entities which seemed to be made of darkness where tugging at the man, as if trying to pull his soul out of his body - this was Betty's impression. But there was also present a light-being; this was a type of entity Betty had encountered before in her experiences - it had no visible human features, but appeared as a bodily form made of white light. This being was also tugging at the dying man; it was clearly a battle for his soul between these opposing entities. The Elder resolved the conflict: he threw two tiny balls of light at the black entities, and they flew away. Alien Abduction Experience http://tinyurl.com/4nnn3rl It appears that some experiences of UFO-abductees and mind control victims may be explained by an advanced virtual reality technology. The late Dr. Karla Turner called these experiences Virtual Reality Scenarios (VRS) [19, 20]. There are alleged mind control victims who claim that someone implants pictures in their brain [32]. If someone has been implanted with an intracerebral device, then the implant operators may be able to implant electronically pictures and memories into the brain of the abductee. The New World Vistas was a major undertaking for the USAF Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) [33]. This military publication was published in June 1996 and is a forecast of possible military developments over the next 50 years. In this publication military scientists suggest that the development of electromagnetic energy sources, the output of which can be pulsed, shaped, and focused, coupled with the human body in a fashion that will allow one to prevent voluntary muscular movements, control emotions and actions, produce sleep, transmit suggestions, interfere with both short-term and long-term memory, produce an experience set and delete an experience set. Highest Strangeness - Body Containers http://tinyurl.com/4dv79za “I got the impression that the aliens do not like to do this soul transfer (to cloned body containers) very often.” - Linda Porter, California Abductee I put Linda Porter's audiocassette in my tape player and heard the following about an encounter she had when she was 17-years-old in 1963 in Porterville, California: “I was shown a room with very tall, clear, tube-like containers or cylinders on a raised platform, which seemed to be at the center of the room. Inside these tubes - standing upright, naked, and appearing to be asleep - were humans, or at least they looked human to me. They looked like they were in some kind of suspended animation. “I don't think they were dead because their color was too good. They were floating in what appeared to be a purple gas. It was very thick and hard to see through, but it swirled around so much that you could see the people as it moved.” Linda Porter said she was taken by a “grey scientist” to a room where three people were in tubes. She felt the people were alive, but in a state of suspended animation and that the man on far right was a younger clone activated by a “soul transfer” from his previous older body that Linda watched die in a rectangular container. Linda Porter: “My sketches relate to the following - I was taken into ‘the room of light’ and shown a man about forty-six-years-old, who was very close to death. He was lying in a clear, rectangular container. I do not remember the mechanics of how this was done, but his soul was then lifted up out of his dying body! It left the body in the area of the solar plexus (behind stomach organ). It was about 2.5-feet-long, five inches wide and was a breathtakingly beautiful, soft, iridescent yellow with a white, glowing inner core that radiated a very gentle heat. There was a pastel orange layer around the yellow. Hologram Universe Reality http://tinyurl.com/6bx6v42 They use their very advanced telepathic abilities and their technology to create manipulated artificial dreamscapes within a sleeping abductee's mind. They also use astral abduction where the abductee is placed in virtual reality scenarios. Some of these scenarios are used in combination with their telepathic abilities and mind control technology to make the abductee resort to self destructive behaviors such as drug abuse or sexual promiscuity. I guess they can even turn someone into a serial killer. They also use implants that are designed for the sole purpose of mind control. They use their telepathic abilities to influence and mind control the abductee. They also have technology to remotely mind control the abductee. They also have chambers in the form of transparent rectangular boxes. The abductee is placed in the chamber. Then some kind of electronic equipment and machinery are activated. The abductee's life force is then extracted and transferred into storage containers. They also extract biological tissues and fluids. Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness: A Causal Correspondence Theory http://tinyurl.com/cku3z4 The problem of the relation between mind and body is well known as a difficult `world knot'. Over the centuries various monistic and dualistic theories have been proposed, and the subject has had renewed interest as we try to assimilate the implications of quantum physics. These implications may make us reexamine our views of brains and bodies, but it is still not clear what consequences they have for our understanding of minds. Another proposal by Marshall (1989) is that the mental and bodily realms derive directly from a quantum realm, as separate appearances of an underlying structure given by quantum mechanics. Since the unity of mental experience is one of its outstanding features, the proposal is that consciousness arises from a quantum mechanical structure which shows remarkably unity, namely Bose-Einstein condensates. This therefore requires not only that the brain amplifies quantum indeterminism, but also that long-range and long-time correlations of quantum phases are set up in the brain, by means for example of a structure proposed by Fröhlich. Both these proposals go some way toward connecting the apparently disparate realms of mind and brain. From the physics side, both have quantum mechanics holding virtually unchanged. They furthermore then both require that neuro-physiological processes are in some essential way `quantum processes'. They require then that the peculiarly quantum features of matter become much more spatially spread out in the brain than is usually admitted. In the language of physi cs Marshall requires that non-local correlations (of the kind described by Bell's Inequalities) are set up between parts of the brain that are very far apart on the atomic scale, and hence that the brain exhibits some of the characteristics of `quantum computers' as described by Deutsch (1985). There is a difficulty that this implies much larger quantum effects than have ever been observed in materials at room temperature. There is evidence of unusual microwave absorption, but it is not clear whether this really demonstrates quantum correlations as distinct from sets of coupled classical (non-quantum) oscillations. Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics http://tinyurl.com/dt59g As we explore further into the quantum realm, things only get stranger. With the evaporation of matter, determinism, and finally separability, our hero Schrödinger began to get a bit worried, for as he looked further into the unexplored territory, he saw some very odd things, indeed. What was most disturbing to Schrödinger was the fact that when an atom was not observed it could be in a potential state and then-just by merely measuring it- we somehow trigger the projection of the potential to the actual. To illustrate just how odd this situation is, Schrödinger imagined performing the following experiment with a cat. Supernatural Fingerprints of the Gods Graham Hancock http://tinyurl.com/662fdtl As part of his research for Supernatural, Graham Hancock traveled to the Peruvian Amazon to drink the powerful plant hallucinogen Ayahuasca with indigenous shamans. Such visionary experiences, Hancock argues, were fundamental to the unprecedented and astonishing evolutionary leap forward achieved by our species during the past 40,000 years and provided the inspiration for the earliest art and religious ideas of mankind. It is difficult for those who have not experienced Ayahuasca, or other related shamanic hallucinogens, to visualise the strange parallel realities into which these substances bring us. Fortunately, however, a number of shamans in the Amazon are also gifted artists and have made paintings of their own visions. Through these paintings it is possible for all of us to get some glimpse of the Ayahuasca Otherworld - which, mysteriously, is not a different place for each different individual who drinks Ayahuasca. On the contrary, whether experienced by an Amazonian shaman, or an American lawyer, or a European businessman, or a Japanese fashion designer, the Ayahuasca realm is always recognizably the same place, inhabited by the same intelligent beings with the same mission to teach us important truths about ourselves and the nature of the universe. http://tinyurl.com/6zyubrv I operate on the assumption that our education system, media and indeed our entire society today combine to give massive support and unquestioned acceptance to the orthodox side of the argument. Until I and a few of my colleagues like John Anthony West and Robert Bauval began to speak out there was really no counterbalancing view at all! And even now, although we've managed to get some people's attention - and some television time - we're still in every sense outnumbered and outgunned. So the way I see it it's not my job to be "balanced" or "objective". On the contrary, by providing a powerful, persuasive single-minded case for the existence of a lost civilisation, I believe that I am merely restoring a little balance and objectivity to a previously unbalanced situation. There exists a vast array of academic "experts", on comfortable and secure salaries, with the resources of full university departments behind them, whose life's work is to churn out endless refinements and confirmations of the orthodox theory of prehistory. These scholars, and their many fans and chums in the quality media, do not hesitate to mount Doberman-like attacks on any who try to argue in favour of a lost civilisation. The Dobermans also systematically ignore all forms of evidence that cast doubt on the established view (for example the implications of the astronomical alignments of the Pyramids of Giza) while at the same time accusing us "alternative historians" of being "pseudo-scientists" who dishonestly "select" only evidence that supports our case and who ignore or even misrepresent contradictory data. http://tinyurl.com/6gnr37a Less than 50,000 years ago mankind had no art, no religion, no sophisticated symbolism, no innovative thinking. Then, in a dramatic and electrifying change, described by scientists as 'the greatest riddle in human history,' all the skills and qualities that we value most highly in ourselves appeared already fully formed, as though bestowed on us by hidden powers. His quest takes him on a journey of adventure and detection from the stunningly beautiful painted caves of prehistoric France, Spain and Italy to remote rock shelters in the mountains of South Africa where he finds a treasure trove of extraordinary Stone Age art. He uncovers clues that lead him to travel to the depths of the Amazon rainforest to drink the powerful plant hallucinogen Ayahuasca with Indian shamans, whose paintings contain images of ‘supernatural beings’ identical to the animal-human hybrids depicted in prehistoric caves and rock shelters. And Western laboratory volunteers placed experimentally under the influence of hallucinogens such as mescaline also report visionary encounters with exactly the same beings. Scientists at the cutting edge of consciousness research have begun to consider the possibility that such hallucinations may be real perceptions of other 'dimensions.' Could the ‘supernaturals’ first depicted in the painted caves and rock shelters be the ancient teachers of mankind? Could it be that human evolution is not just the ‘blind’, ‘meaningless’ process that Darwin identified, but something else, more purposive and intelligent, that we have barely even begun to understand? http://tinyurl.com/2wjvpr On 6th July 1960 Lt Colonel Harold Ohlmeyer, a United States Airforce Commander, sent a reply to a letter from one Professor Charles Hapgood who had requested his opinion on a feature found on a map of 1513 AD called the Piri Reis Map. Lt Colonel Ohlmeyer's reply was a bombshell. The map, showing the coastline of the east coast of the Americas and the west coast of Africa, the Colonel remarked, also seemed to show the coastline of Queen Maud Land in Antarctica free of ice - a condition it had not been in for some 9000 years! In fact, it is only in recent times that modern man has been able to map this coastline using sub-surface surveying techniques that can penetrate the ice sheet that lies on top of it. Ohlmeyer had no idea how a map existing in the 16th century could have got hold of such knowledge. Could the Piri Reis maps be evidence for a previously unknown complex maritime civilisation, capable of mapping the globe? A global culture, cataclysmically destroyed at the end of the ice age, remnants of which survived the devastation to pass on their knowledge to the shaken world? Were the figures of Osiris and Quetzalcoatl survivors of this lost race - passing down not only advanced geographical knowledge, but a secret astronomical code veiled in myth that pointed to the devastation in the past, and warned of that which is to come? From the mysterious sites of Tiahuanaco and Teotihuacan, to the enduring enigmatic Sphinx and pyramids of Egypt, the grandiose Nazca lines of Peru to the stark primal beauty of the Osireion at Abydos, this is a journey both around the globe and into the heart of the true prehistoric origins of man. Part adventure, part detective story, this book will force you to revaluate your beliefs of the past. James Penniston on the Joiner report Audio Library http://tinyurl.com/47c67kg Scroll down page to: Joiner Report Guest Jim Penniston - Inception Radio [1/13/2011 | 44.3MB]