Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis
>From David, > ... Further, they might conclude that finding this form of communications > is the simplest test of intelligence which would warrant further contact Careful what you wish for. Speciously Packaged Alien Messages, aka: SPAM Especially during the election season. Who represents us? Hopefully getting on the list won't drive certain elements within the Vort Collective into fits of apoplexy. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis
I was actually thinking of some other exotic form of communications instead of our current EM type. People had no way to detect radio waves with normal senses until they were mathematically uncovered by the scientists of the day. No one would have believed it was possible until it was actually done; sound familiar? Now, one might ask the question as to whether or not there are additional energies or forces waiting to be discovered as knowledge is improved. I fall into the category of one of those curious people that have a strong suspicion that we have more to learn in physics than we currently know. Imagine that a new method of communicating is discovered which relies upon one of these unknown techniques and that it can travel great distances at super light speeds. The aliens, and hopefully us, will sooner or later stumble upon the new method and radio is history. Further, they might conclude that finding this form of communications is the simplest test of intelligence which would warrant further contact. One might look upon entanglement of particles as a possible instantaneous method of sending information according to what I have seen. Would this system work over a distance of many light years? This is just one possibility out of who knows how many. We limit ourselves to the speed of light which is far to slow if it is truly possible to travel between the stars. If UFOs are indeed alien craft from far away then there must be another way to exceed this barrier. Most wondrous discoveries are a result of good fortune (luck) where an observant person notices things that do not quite add up or operate outside of the understood physics principles. Have you ever wondered why we virtually always find new and unique science as soon as an instrument is put into operation that looks deeper into nature? When does this sequence of discoveries cease? My suspicion is that we are babes in the woods with much too high of an opinion of ourselves. And as we all have seen, those who are assumed to be the most knowledgeable tend to be the very ones that prevent new knowledge from being discovered to conceal the appearance of not knowing. We must continue to ask questions of natural systems if we are to advance. That UFO that someone claims to have seen might actually be real. The apparitions that are reported widely by others could be a clue to some new science. Cold fusion might be prevalent in nature under some very demanding and precise conditions that are difficult to achieve. When it is eventually tamed we will look back and say "That is obvious!". Ok, I will vacate the soap box. Once in a while it is relaxing to think with an open mind toward the future. Dave -Original Message- From: Eric Walker To: vortex-l Sent: Tue, Jun 19, 2012 10:38 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 8:10 AM, David Roberson wrote: A thought just occurred to me. Maybe the fact that we have not discovered radio signals from any of these aliens is a strong suggestion that there is an alternate superior method of communication that we will discover within the next few years, assuming that we progress as others have. This is all the more reason for us to adequately fund new unknown energy sources. Dave I like that thought. To further flesh out the idea about the novel form of EM radiation communication, imagine a GIF image of the Mona Lisa. It looks just like any other such image, but some of the pixels have a slightly different color. The modification is subtle enough that the human eye won't be able to see the difference. And if the encoding is done very cleverly, even very good computer algorithms won't be able to pick it out. But if you have the public key, you can run the image through decompression software and get a message out. The encoding scheme could involve the colors in the image as they relate to other colors, for example. Now imagine doing this with radio communication across a spectrum. The "image" in this case is whatever is passing through the transceiver at that moment. Since we're using a lot of redundancy in the encoding of the information, we can afford to make the modifications to the incoming signal very slight. You might be able to get away with such a scheme with every little power consumed in relaying the modified signal -- I'm just guessing here, but perhaps it could be more energy efficient to transmit information this way. And there could be different "channels" -- low frequencies together with their harmonics, which you could use for things like error correction. This seems like something that might already be possible. I wonder if militaries already have something like it. The quantum entanglement idea is an interesting one. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis
I wrote: But if you have the public key, you can run the image through decompression > software and get a message out. > Obviously the private key is what is needed here. "Decompression" is being used broadly. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis
On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 8:10 AM, David Roberson wrote: A thought just occurred to me. Maybe the fact that we have not discovered > radio signals from any of these aliens is a strong suggestion that there is > an alternate superior method of communication that we will discover within > the next few years, assuming that we progress as others have. This is all > the more reason for us to adequately fund new unknown energy sources. > > Dave > I like that thought. To further flesh out the idea about the novel form of EM radiation communication, imagine a GIF image of the Mona Lisa. It looks just like any other such image, but some of the pixels have a slightly different color. The modification is subtle enough that the human eye won't be able to see the difference. And if the encoding is done very cleverly, even very good computer algorithms won't be able to pick it out. But if you have the public key, you can run the image through decompression software and get a message out. The encoding scheme could involve the colors in the image as they relate to other colors, for example. Now imagine doing this with radio communication across a spectrum. The "image" in this case is whatever is passing through the transceiver at that moment. Since we're using a lot of redundancy in the encoding of the information, we can afford to make the modifications to the incoming signal very slight. You might be able to get away with such a scheme with every little power consumed in relaying the modified signal -- I'm just guessing here, but perhaps it could be more energy efficient to transmit information this way. And there could be different "channels" -- low frequencies together with their harmonics, which you could use for things like error correction. This seems like something that might already be possible. I wonder if militaries already have something like it. The quantum entanglement idea is an interesting one. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis
On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 12:05 AM, MarkI-ZeroPoint wrote: > ** > > Sounds way too close to A.C.C’s third law which states: > > “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” > Sounds right. I'm sure I subconsciously picked up on that concept but didn't realize it. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis
Terry Blanton wrote: > > There are many who believe the hive mind is more of the rule than the > exception. It certainly appears to be the case in nature. The flight > of birds such as in the beginning of Take Shelter or this vid: > My guess is that there is some prosaic method of communication between the birds, if anything in biology can be described as "prosaic." I say that because there have been countless other astounding abilities discovered in biology yet in every case I know of so far, when they were explained, the explanation did not involve anything beyond the known set of senses such as vision, hearing, sense of touch or magnetism (used by migrating birds). The classic example is a bat's ability to navigate in semi-darkness from hearing (echolocation). It is astounding, but it ain't ESP. Before they discovered bat echolocation in 1938 it seemed like ESP. Even if the means of communication are prosaic and similar to our own senses, I think it is perfectly reasonable to say that a flock of birds does have a "hive mind." A hive of bees definitely does. A hive of bees is capable of advanced, organized behavior such as scouting and bringing back food, and building complex wax honeycomb shapes. A single bee could never do this. I doubt it would even have enough brain cells to store the information. Insects communicate by ordinary means such as movement and pheromones that have been partially decoded by people. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis
MarkI-ZeroPoint wrote: > Eric wrote: > > “With sufficiently advanced encryption, we could mistake the signal for > white noise.” > > ** ** > > Sounds way too close to A.C.C’s third law which states: > > “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” > I discussed this very issue with Clarke. I said that data compression is likely to make utilitarian interstellar communication invisible. He agreed. He had a lot professional knowledge of data, communication, radio, radar and so on, from WWII. (A lot more than me.) That is to say, an advanced civilization communicating with a colony on another star is likely to use a narrow beam that will not be intercepted in the first place, and it is likely to compress the data even more than we compress multichannel television broadcasts from satellites. It would end up looking like a white light; just noise. Years ago it was thought that TV and radio signals from the Earth would reach distant stars. That was one of the themes of the movie "Contact" (1997). Lately I have read that signals from Earth probably fade out completely at less than 1 light year, and cannot be read even in principle. I suppose that means planetary, satellite, and interplanetary communication on other stars cannot be read by us. I expect the only signals we could read with confidence would be ones that are intended to be read by any civilization with radio; i.e. the signal in "Contact." - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis
Perhaps we, or more specifically, our gene pool, is considered something akin to a game preserve by many species out yonder. Future "selves" (containers?) occasionally coming back to sample the indigenous DNA of their ancient ancestors. Such a hypothesis would certainly make more sense as compared to ET's that evolved completely independently from us trying to splice our genes into theirs. Personally, I suspect there has been "contamination" going on for millions of years. In the final analysis, we are all bastards, and we're probably related to everyone. Welcome to the family! Unfortunately, that includes the In Laws too. ;-) Regarding ACC's CE, (Indeed, a great novel). This, of course, goes to the heart of what comprises a unique identity - a soul if you will. I suspect older souls like ACC and Carl Jung inevitably become more attuned to the illusion of the "self" and all the baggage associated with it. Perhaps at first such revelations disturb them. They end up writing novels and turgid scientific journals on the matter as a way to confront their internal struggles. Later, I think most simply accept the inevitability of it all. Life & Consciousness... Even if it does transform to something else that is currently perceived as unknown, it still goes on. We go on. Do individual identities exist, or are "identities" nothing more than an evolutionary construct that seems to have certain advantages over the more instinctual "hive minded" approach. From an evolutionary POV, it would seem that both approaches of awareness have their advantages and disadvantages. Do "I" exist? (Personally: "I" think not... therefore "I" am not!) I am not "I". Perhaps I/we-all are observers who are playing with an infinite number of "I's" on the planar field of the Universe. I think a number of eastern approaches have got a much better handle on such vexing matters. Western philosophies and our quaint relig'ns are only now beginning to grasp the ramifications of what certain eastern POVs managed to grok thousands of years ago. My, oh my! Such a recent spat of OT discussions! ... about the nature of consciousness. Makes my wet ware quiver! ;-) Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis
Even if you are caged like zoo animal, or work in labour camp or struggle to "make ends meet", everyday you will have the "free will" to acquiesce. Harry On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 11:22 AM, David Roberson wrote: > It sounds like you should author a new book titled 'The Matrix'(joking of > course). I hope that we are of free will and have at least a small say as > to how our lives are to proceed. > > Dave > > > -Original Message- > From: Terry Blanton > To: vortex-l > Sent: Tue, Jun 19, 2012 9:43 am > Subject: Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis > > These theories are all well and good; but, there are much greater > possibilities regarding the evolution of sentience. If you are > unfamiliar with Childhood's End, I would highly recommend a reading. > > There are many who believe the hive mind is more of the rule than the > exception. It certainly appears to be the case in nature. The flight > of birds such as in the beginning of Take Shelter or this vid: > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH-groCeKbE > > implies an innate extrasensory form of communication. In Childhood's > End, it takes the tranquility created by the Overlords for the mankind > hatchling; but, in other scifi, the mind merge is created by such as > the internet. One could certainly expect that when our wet ware links > are installed as predicted by Gibson in Neuromancer. > > Indeed, Whitley Streiber (et. al. - no pun intended) has conjectured > that the hive-minded little abductors who walk in lockstep while > probing his nether regions are actually time travelling humans who > have returned to the past in hopes of retrieving those genes which > allowed individual thought. > > Maybe we are the exception using EM waves to communicate. Maybe most > nascent sentience uses quantum entanglement for communication. > > Indeed we are living in a fairly old universe. Maybe we are just pets > or a zoo for more mature species. > > It goes on. I won't. > > T >
Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis
It sounds like you should author a new book titled 'The Matrix'(joking of course). I hope that we are of free will and have at least a small say as to how our lives are to proceed. Dave -Original Message- From: Terry Blanton To: vortex-l Sent: Tue, Jun 19, 2012 9:43 am Subject: Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis These theories are all well and good; but, there are much greater ossibilities regarding the evolution of sentience. If you are nfamiliar with Childhood's End, I would highly recommend a reading. There are many who believe the hive mind is more of the rule than the xception. It certainly appears to be the case in nature. The flight f birds such as in the beginning of Take Shelter or this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH-groCeKbE implies an innate extrasensory form of communication. In Childhood's nd, it takes the tranquility created by the Overlords for the mankind atchling; but, in other scifi, the mind merge is created by such as he internet. One could certainly expect that when our wet ware links re installed as predicted by Gibson in Neuromancer. Indeed, Whitley Streiber (et. al. - no pun intended) has conjectured hat the hive-minded little abductors who walk in lockstep while robing his nether regions are actually time travelling humans who ave returned to the past in hopes of retrieving those genes which llowed individual thought. Maybe we are the exception using EM waves to communicate. Maybe most ascent sentience uses quantum entanglement for communication. Indeed we are living in a fairly old universe. Maybe we are just pets r a zoo for more mature species. It goes on. I won't. T
Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis
A thought just occurred to me. Maybe the fact that we have not discovered radio signals from any of these aliens is a strong suggestion that there is an alternate superior method of communication that we will discover within the next few years, assuming that we progress as others have. This is all the more reason for us to adequately fund new unknown energy sources. Dave -Original Message- From: Eric Walker To: vortex-l Sent: Tue, Jun 19, 2012 2:05 am Subject: Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 8:56 PM, Eric Walker wrote: Perhaps they're using quantum cryptography with an enormously large key strength. With sufficiently advanced encryption, we could mistake the signal for white noise. Just to elaborate -- you would need to do more than simply encrypt the contents of the signal to achieve some kind of cloaking, since the way we transmit radio these days lends itself to detection in various ways, even if the contents cannot be decrypted. You could look for sharp peaks of intensity across the radio spectrum, for example, and figure out that there are other people using radios. In order to have cloaking, you would need to get rid of all obvious trace of a signal, perhaps along these lines: Take a large sample of the background noise across the full range of the human-safe EMF spectrum detected in the vicinity of the antenna. Encrypt your message with very strong encryption. Using the background as the carrier signal, introduce small bits of your message here and there, amplifying and attenuating the background just a tiny bit across the full range of frequencies. Use incredibly massive redundancy to ensure that the encrypted signal survives errors in transmission so that it can be successfully decrypted. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis
2012/6/19 Terry Blanton : > > Maybe we are the exception using EM waves to communicate. Maybe most > nascent sentience uses quantum entanglement for communication. > > I agree. We are using EM to communicate since 200yrs only considering the telegraph. Could be that in 100 years EM will be obsoleted by new means of communication. Compared to Universe age 500 yrs are nothing so our own EM emission could remain undetected forever by any other form of life even on Earth. mic
Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis
These theories are all well and good; but, there are much greater possibilities regarding the evolution of sentience. If you are unfamiliar with Childhood's End, I would highly recommend a reading. There are many who believe the hive mind is more of the rule than the exception. It certainly appears to be the case in nature. The flight of birds such as in the beginning of Take Shelter or this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH-groCeKbE implies an innate extrasensory form of communication. In Childhood's End, it takes the tranquility created by the Overlords for the mankind hatchling; but, in other scifi, the mind merge is created by such as the internet. One could certainly expect that when our wet ware links are installed as predicted by Gibson in Neuromancer. Indeed, Whitley Streiber (et. al. - no pun intended) has conjectured that the hive-minded little abductors who walk in lockstep while probing his nether regions are actually time travelling humans who have returned to the past in hopes of retrieving those genes which allowed individual thought. Maybe we are the exception using EM waves to communicate. Maybe most nascent sentience uses quantum entanglement for communication. Indeed we are living in a fairly old universe. Maybe we are just pets or a zoo for more mature species. It goes on. I won't. T
RE: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis
Eric wrote: “With sufficiently advanced encryption, we could mistake the signal for white noise.” Sounds way too close to A.C.C’s third law which states: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke's_three_laws -mark From: Eric Walker [mailto:eric.wal...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, June 18, 2012 11:05 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 8:56 PM, Eric Walker wrote: Perhaps they're using quantum cryptography with an enormously large key strength. With sufficiently advanced encryption, we could mistake the signal for white noise. Just to elaborate -- you would need to do more than simply encrypt the contents of the signal to achieve some kind of cloaking, since the way we transmit radio these days lends itself to detection in various ways, even if the contents cannot be decrypted. You could look for sharp peaks of intensity across the radio spectrum, for example, and figure out that there are other people using radios. In order to have cloaking, you would need to get rid of all obvious trace of a signal, perhaps along these lines: * Take a large sample of the background noise across the full range of the human-safe EMF spectrum detected in the vicinity of the antenna. * Encrypt your message with very strong encryption. * Using the background as the carrier signal, introduce small bits of your message here and there, amplifying and attenuating the background just a tiny bit across the full range of frequencies. * Use incredibly massive redundancy to ensure that the encrypted signal survives errors in transmission so that it can be successfully decrypted. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis
On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 8:56 PM, Eric Walker wrote: Perhaps they're using quantum cryptography with an enormously large key > strength. With sufficiently advanced encryption, we could mistake the > signal for white noise. > Just to elaborate -- you would need to do more than simply encrypt the contents of the signal to achieve some kind of cloaking, since the way we transmit radio these days lends itself to detection in various ways, even if the contents cannot be decrypted. You could look for sharp peaks of intensity across the radio spectrum, for example, and figure out that there are other people using radios. In order to have cloaking, you would need to get rid of all obvious trace of a signal, perhaps along these lines: - Take a large sample of the background noise across the full range of the human-safe EMF spectrum detected in the vicinity of the antenna. - Encrypt your message with very strong encryption. - Using the background as the carrier signal, introduce small bits of your message here and there, amplifying and attenuating the background just a tiny bit across the full range of frequencies. - Use incredibly massive redundancy to ensure that the encrypted signal survives errors in transmission so that it can be successfully decrypted. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis
On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 12:43 PM, Terry Blanton wrote: Take that, Fermi: > > http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576511003304 > > T > Assume that the odds that there are sentient beings on other planets is nonzero, and that, further, this proposition understates things for a universe where we have every reason to believe that the number of planetary systems is large. A problem to be explained, then, is that we have not detected any sign of such beings. If they survive and advance technologically, one can presume that they will eventually discover electromagnetic radiation and its ability to carry information. If they had something analogous to television and radio stations for an extended period of time, wouldn't we pick up the signal at some point? If they made use of anything comparable to what we presently have, it should be straightforward to infer from such a signal that it is not background noise. So perhaps we have one of the following: (1) there are no sentient beings on other planets (this contradicts our hypothesis); or (2) all other sentient groups did not advance to the point of controlling EM radiation (unlikely, given the numbers we're talking about); or (3) such groups quickly move to a mode of communication that is difficult for us to pick up on with our present technology. Perhaps they're using quantum cryptography with an enormously large key strength. With sufficiently advanced encryption, we could mistake the signal for white noise. Possibility (3) could be for reasons unrelated to us; i.e., the other civilizations simply like the domestic privacy such technology affords. Or it could be for evolutionary reasons, as the article suggests; but even then, the alien civilizations could have made the evolutionarily dubious choice of sending out a probe over an extended period before they came to their senses, as we earthlings already have. Or there could be something along the lines of Star Trek's prime directive -- don't interfere with the development of alien societies, with a possible corollary of not permitting them to detect you until they're sufficiently advanced. So to detect alien civilizations in our third scenario, we will either need to crack the ciphers once we get quantum computers rolling or we will need to happen upon the brief period of time (200 years, say) before which they figured out how to super-encrypt things. Even if we assume a large number of alien civilizations, their number will be vanishingly small compared to the surrounding cosmos, so that window of 200 years or so will be a very fleeting thing to attempt to pick up on, and presumably, given the relative weakness of the signal, you will need to point the radio telescope in exactly the right direction. (Here I am going beyond my knowledge of radio telescopes.) One moral of this story is that we need not conclude anything about the existence of alien civilizations on the basis of the SETI results. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis
On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 3:54 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: > See: A. C. Clarke, "Childhood's End." You once asked ACC (for me) what was his inspiration for CE and he said to read 3010. I have, but, do not still find the answer. CE was one of my favorite works by ACC. I always sort of equated him with Chris Tinsley in a way. I miss them both. T
Re: [Vo]:Transcension Hypothesis
See: A. C. Clarke, "Childhood's End." - Jed
