THE 5th WAVE: THE ‘FLOW OF CHANGES’ - HUMANITY STUMBLES UP THE STEEP CURVE OF THE EXPONENTIAL AGE

The Perched Eye blog is 15 years old,  from 2009 with President Obama's election. Our focus has been eclectic ...  the styles and directions of American politics and culture, with an occasional comment on the impact of new technologies. Our observations sometimes attract a critical eye, but the 'pen' remains unblunted.

We are now experiencing an exponentially turbulent ‘FLOW OF CHANGES' that arguably began when human science entered the cusp of exponential technological evolution with the Quantum Science discussions and debates of Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg, Dirac...at 1927's Solvay Conference.) Classical Newtonian Rationalism began to blur and fade after this...supplanted by 'Uncertainty' and debate about what is real, or not, or both. 

And humanity began to understand that something 'more' was coming through that opened door... things unknown and unexpected, and things came rapidly after this, and increasingly more rapidly. 

We had entered a new world of CHANGE...Dynamic Change...Exponentially Dynamic Change. (Changes change, too.) 

But, our (unassisted) brains are not equipped with neuronic speeds fast enough to cope with exponential change. The result is damaging to the individual and our societies. Humanity will have to learn how to navigate the new Age of Exponential Change.

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We are exiting the linear, gentler progression of human development that began with the Enlightenment, led us through the Industrial Revolution, and are now even exiting the cusp that leads radically upward (change-wise, if not for the better) to a near-vertical exponential-change curve where 'change' will be so rapid as to seem a day-to-day mental crisis.

Humanity is finding the post-Cusp, upward climb too steep, too rapidly changing, and increasingly confusing. Our brains are not equipped with neuronic speeds fast enough to cope with exponential change. The result is damaging to the individual and our societies.

 We are now on a difficult path...in almost all aspects of human culture, ethnicity relations, physical health, personal and social mental stability,...and especially politics.  

‘Exponential’ change has become a perceptible determinant of our lives.

America currently leads in this too-rapidly-changing race to…where? And we seem lost and near-overwhelmed by it all - mass shootings in our schools, political shibboleths that operate against the Common Good (but are phrased in clever rhyme and meter to sound comforting, group inclusive, and other ego-appealing ways attractive to the uneducated and desperate...despite being factually against their best interests (a perception Perched Eye noted in 2009.)

CAN HUMANITY NAVIGATE THESE TIMES? (Can we gain control, or at least a working perspective on our Technology and our Future…as we think we want it to be? Or should we choose to continue in our self-driven state of chaos? Or should we try something new? 

Do we have Choices?  For the new? Are there any choices as the race gets faster to keep pace on the upward curve in this new Exponential Age?

The Age of Exponentialism is the 5th Wave that builds upon the shocks to the human psyche and society by modern change since the Industrial Revolution ... notably as written about in books such as Future Shock, Alvin Tofflfer, 1960), followed by Toffler’s “3rd Wave”(1980).  

The Third Wave was followed by the ‘4th Wave's’ writings and thouhts following along after Toffler, and characterized by literary musings in Sci-Fi (e.g., "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968, Philip K Dick), analyses of psychoses, and predictions based on perceived changes and expectations resulting from the 3rd wave. 

IMO, the Fourth Wave emphasized ...technologically resultant discontinuities (Futurism, Singularity and Transhumanism (Kurzweil)); existential angst (RD Laing); and reactions to technological dominance, e.g., Expanionist Sentientcy & ‘Uber-sentiency’ (Nick Bostrom, David Pearce)

The Exponential Age difference is that changes are coming too quick to muse about one, or even one phase in particular. 

We must quickly learn to disregard momentary analyses, and simply give ourselves over to the ‘Flow of Change”. 

There will come a time when humanity will have a moment to rest (or rely on ‘Advanced Integrative Ai) and gain a perspective on our ‘state of being.’ Then, we may be able to consolidate our experience into moralities and ethics for the next steps up the Exponential Curve.

‘Change’ is now more a mental acknowledgment than an understanding.  Close-focusing is useless. Our brains are not equipped with neuronic speeds fast enough to cope with exponential change. Attempting close-focusing one minute loses sight od what is unflolding a minute later. The result is mind-bending, socially dissociating disaffect on the individual...all of which is socially disruptive.

Accelerating change is what mathematicians call 2nd (and higher order) differential change…i.e., changes in heretofore steady (linear straight line) change…with some key interspersed discontinuities (Age Defining Historicies.) 

We’ll just call Exponential Change:

CONFLUENCES, INFLUENCES, CHANGING-CHANGE, & CHAOS: THE TIDES OF EXPONENTIAL CULTURAL EVOLUTION (The Global 5th Wave…)

The Age of Exponentialism is a non-linear, upward-accelerating curve of socio-technological change characterizing an increasingly more rapid evolution of human culture driven by technological advances that feed upon themselves (‘exponential change’)…resulting in such rapid changes that we humans have little time to learn new ‘stuff’and adjust.

Exponentialism originates from, is fed by, and supported with a mix of factors:

• ET CONTACT (& DISCLOSURE). This event (or DOD release), accompanied by potential, open-source technology transfer will blow away every expectation and prediction — further advancement upward along the now vertical exponential curve will potentially (!) be hyper-radical. Humanity’s public reaction will be either a ‘Hollywood 6-month fascination’, or a major, permanent shift in human ‘ways’ (religion especially, racism, ethics, Ai progress and codes, …)…or, will ET have it’s own xenophobic response to trusting humans, and then..either we will be resentful that treasures and secrets are withheld, or we will remain ignorant of what ET doesn’t reveal to us…until we discover things for ourselves (ET policy might be to ‘give humans just enought to advance them a bit, but…watch and monitor);
• ABSENT ET DISCLOSURE: Humanity will plot its own course up the Exponential curve.
• Accelerating Information exchange… speed and formats;
• Quantum Technologies (eg, the promise of quantum computing, (hyper-’parallelism’);
• the soon-to-come-on-the-exponential curve‘ of applied QuantumEntanglement with ‘instantaneous’ transmission of messages and physical objects (prototypes already reported);
• Artificial Intelligence — doing human ‘work’ faster and error free;
• Neuro-science & technology, Genetics and Physiology — e.g., organ and limb regeneration, brain enhancement, artificial eyes…;
• Virtual Living — as humans are freed from work, what do we do to occupy ourselves? Or, will this question become irrelevant…as we increasingly turn to virtual escapism?;
• Cultural Reductionism of ‘culture’ to the essentials, the ‘irreducibles’(e.g., food, water, sanitation, air (!)…?). BUt will even these eventually become irrelevant as humanity goes full virtual?;
• HUMANITY EXPANDS (by its own efforts): FTL space-time travel becomes a technical thing (warp drive, M-Drive, etc….and other DARPA projects currently underway, and soon to come, and completed but held secret for the ‘standard’ DARPA vault release (20–50 years).) ET Contact falls into this category.

But for humanity to survive, as it must (!), we humans have to adapt to accelerating change…hard…as we are stumblingly starting to do. (Afterall, we built this system and we can’t let it get away from us…at least not let it get away easily, without a battle (a battle for our survival.)

Humanity are like the ‘60s wave riders of North Shore’s Makaha in my second home, Hawaii, who over the years learned to surf its cross-currents, barrels and random waves…’hanging ten’ and looking good…despite it all.

The human brain, unassisted, seems inadequate for the Age of Exponentialism; and natural human evolution seems to slow to keep up. The answer seems inevitable that humanity must be assisted in the technological manner(s) listed above…which we are doing.

The big conundrum in this Age of Exponentialism is:

CAN HUMANITY HOLD ON! (To Itself, Its Technology, Its Future…as we think we know, or want it to be?)

Anticipating Our First Encounter with Advanced Extraterrestrial Life

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This blogger, Pericles21, let go of earth-focused restraints to muse on a recent web article on the subject of what we might expect when advanced extraterrestrial life is 'discovered': 'New Advances in the Search for Extraterrestrial Life --Will It Be Inconceivable to Us?, (DailyGalaxy, August 8, 2015).

First, 'when ET is discovered' is such an ego-centered frailty of humankind. For self-protection (i.e., to prevent arrogant, and dangerous, presumptions of our superiority), we should shift our frame from humans 'discovering' ET to a reality that, indeed, it is us humans that will be 'discovered'... by a far more advanced life-form. This reframing will be necessary since it is ET who will have the advanced technology to visit us while we will not have the technology to return the courtesy (as far as the public knows).

The Daily Galaxy begins by framing their article using earth as a reference point:

A thin layer near the surface of Earth is teeming with life of huge diversity: from micro-organisms to plants and animals, and even intelligent species. Up to now, this forms the only known sample of life in the Universe. We now readily accept that the laws and concepts of physics and chemistry apply throughout the cosmos. Is there a general biology as well: is there life beyond Earth?

With the Sun just about half-way through its life-time, humankind as we know it is likely to constitute a rather short transient episode, and advanced extra-terrestrial life might be inconceivable to us in its complexity, just as human life is to amoebae.

As the article points out, the wide range of biodiversity here on earth that produces new species 'discoveries' every year suggests we should be prepared for a surprise when we 'find' ET because ET will have had many-fold more time-cycles of their evolution to produce a hugely wider variation of ET life forms than we have on earth.

But to be balanced in perspective, there is the contra-diversity theory of "convergent evolution" championed by Simon Morris (The Runes Of Evolution)(2015) that posits ET will probably look like us at least in basic morphology (number of limbs, eyes, etc). Professor Morris makes the case for a:

ubiquitous "map of life" that governs the way in which all living things develop.
It builds on the established principle of convergent evolution, a widely-supported theory -- although one still disputed by some biologists -- that different species will independently evolve similar features.

Pericles21 partially, but significantly, disagrees with the 'convergent' view of evolution and posits an 'interpreted diversity of life' point of view that:

although advanced extraterrestrial life may evolve towards a similar morphology (shape), advanced ET life will likely show us an immense diversity of function and internal life-chemistry that will not necessarily be 'bio-organic' ... nor human in appearance.

This will be addressed later.

To help us prepare to meet diversity in ET life, we must adapt our understanding of what is life. This definition has to be 'Reductionist':

how do/can we identify the most simple, basic features that might describe what is 'life'.

Pericles21 posits that first, there should be 'containment', then 'form', an 'energy gathering-utilization mechanism' (e.g., bio-ingestion, radiation absorption, temperature/density gradient, etc), a charge transfer-based sensory network serving to operate a potential energy machine, an information/sentience system analogous in function to DNA, and a mechanism to assure longevity or survival of the sentient unit or community.

From these proposed principles of life, one hypothetical example of ET "life" might derive from the recently announced (DARPA project) nanoscale, Nernst-reversible, metallic-dendritic growth-retraction mechanism that looks to be a solid state analogy to bio-neuronic network components (axions). This suggests a model of low temperature, quasi-solid, metallic-based ET 'life' with cognitive reflexes thousands of times faster than the human brain.

Pericles21 champions a personal, entropic theory of shape that:

evolution is driven to minimize entropy, i.e., to take a shape that is the most streamlined (least entropy)

This least entropic state, this evolutionary 'end-point', may take the appearance of shapelessness, where the highest evolved morphology will appear to be a 'spherical or globular form. But so far, we can only muse about ET since we have only one publicly known data point of life in the universe, our own planet Earth. We will have to wait to expand on evolution until a second data point is discovered or revealed. Then our knowledge, and science, of life will take a 'quantum leap'.

Posted by: Resonanz | August 11, 2015 at 08:58 AM

How Would Humans Appear to an Alien Visitor: A Manual for Investigating the Human Species

this comment was posted in response to the above question, 'How Would Humans Appear to an Alien Visitor'.

"Biologically, humans are still in a primitive, furred stage with constant emission through their dermal encasement sac (aka 'skin') of gaseous and liquid wastes that are toxic to self and to other humans unless proper space is available - a very messy and unsanitary species to be around. Note: a significant human social effort and giving up of possessions is involved in the often intricate cultural ritual and apparatus of dermal cleansing humans call, 'bathing', which is essentially immersing themselves in a terrible hydride chemical fluid they call 'water' which however is the same fluid environment that nurtured them in their early biological history before they adopted their current shape. Also, though they describe themselves as 'civilized' and 'evolved', humans still give top priority to energy-draining designs for their space exploration by insisting on biological support systems primarily involved with provision and management of bio-input ('food) and output (waste treatment and recycling). Humans have not progressed to accepting the limits to bio-bodies and moving towards cyber existence.

Humans suffer extreme protective anxiety over food and food symbols such as personally 'owned' trinkets (material objects of value), opposite sex (reward symbolism) or trinkets of others. Humans can ingest almost any other bio-species on their planet to obtain energy for movement and thought. Additionally, Humans are primitive to the point of even engaging in cannibalism when normative 'food' is scarce.

The minds and thinking of Humans are 'Unlinked' so they have, so far, had to rely on external devices to communicate with each other via various biological (facial expressions, sounds, pheronomes) and artificial (technical) contrivances such as books, electromagnetic radiative contraptions visual signaling. In the last respect, human technology has become more and more intricate for their species though they don't realize that their stubborn insistence on retaining their bio-shells is an obsession that leads to a dead-end and merely prolongs the inevitable progress to cyber-state existence. However, the tragic lack of a bio-interlink with other humans causes them great pain and tragedy as the result of individual isolation and the need to achieve 'certainty' and clarity about their world by employing consensus and trading back and forth vocal and non-vocal signals, aka spoken languages, writing, and body (facial mostly) exertions.

As a result of their being Unlinked', humans suffer from a constant sense of being isolated. Consequently, humans must be treated with caution as their lack of true connectedness coupled with their still-primitive reliance on fear-fight-or fight bio-coded instincts makes them dangerously suspicious, afraid and psychologically inconsistent (unstable). In fact, another intricate cultural pre-occupation has developed to try to bridge the communication gap - this is known as 'therapy'...and some 'therapies' are quite touching and inventive and are also known as 'philosophical systems'. Furthermore, humans have a special kind of need and brain structure that makes them search for true and pure communication which they feel must be possessed by a perfected breed of human they call, symbolically, 'gods'. Humans have created often elaborate and admittedly appealing mind structures to help them in the matter of 'religion' and their gods who they often attach with human weaknesses and personalities. Human religions should be regarded carefully and respected by the explorer and exo-scientist as much for care and respect for human subjects as much as for avoiding dangerous emotional collapse in humans by taking away the mental stability structure of the human subjects. Religions are for many humans, sometimes like a blind person finding his way with a special cane...take away the cane and the result is predictable, or not which is the danger with humans.

Special Note: human lack of bio-connectedness, creates constant opportunities for deception (facial 'lies' and spoken words) in pursuit of material trinkets and perceived 'gain'. 'Gain' is a human trait of desiring more than an individual's fair share of needed energy or even trinkets. Humans have an interesting way of treating their 'more than fair share' - they hide the excess share(s) away and protected from other humans. This trait has also led to the development of a significant human cultural phenomenon called 'banking systems and investments' - which are again often elaborate systems of lies, deceptions and visual tricks (misleading advertising) to persuade some humans to give up some of their excess in hopes (or false promises) of multiplying their 'investment'.

Humans have other undesirable traits and features. They are burdened by their need to manage personal bio-wastes or else suffer disease and death. They are ridden with bio-parasites that result in early demise. Again, significant cultural structures and time occupations have been developed to address the constancy of human disease - an activity-set humans call 'doctoring' with elabroarate infrastructures for training principals and support staff. Humans give up much of their surplus nation and individual wealth to the 'doctoring' sector of human social organization.

Lastly, but not least, humans recognize their great species 'lack' from not having #BioConnectedness creates both good and bad.

On the good side, humans acknowledge that being unlinked, along with a seemingly innate drive to trickery, can with practice (following prescribed cerebral formulae) lead to artful expressions known as 'comedy'. 'Comedy' is a human behavior with apparent rules that creates a sort of substance-free addiction marked by positive, elevated emotional states usually accompanied by uncontrollable throat expulsions humans call 'laughter'.

On the bad side, humans also acknowledge their non-connectedness has and will continue to offer opprotunities, or requirements, for deceptions and trickery to extort from others their possessions and rights. Humans allocate a significant portion of their waking lives to combat and control this human physiological loophole (regulate) and results by developing an elaborate systems of regulation and formalisms of communication among individuals and groups. The generic territory of these systems is 'Law'. The conducting and acting out of these systems and their rituals are done by individuals and groups specially trained - lawyers, juries and courts. All of currently encountered human study subjects involve some form of their 'Law' apparatus. It is wise for the exo-scientist to remember this feature of human behavior and social organization.

But, humans being what they are, even acting out the rituals of 'Law' some humans are not able to wean themselves completely away from their species inclination to indulge in trickery and deception.

Consequently, much of current human 'comedy' has to do with (to humans) the antics of those in the Law sector. The exo-scientist will constantly hear references to these tales ('lawyer-jokes'), accompanied by even more vigorous throat explosions. These recitations (jokes) are sometimes very elaborate in complexity or are so linked to basic human physiology and physiological activities as to be either difficult to interpret or difficult to witness in their mental imaging.

For a primitive and coarse species, humans can be unfathomable in their preoccupation with their base functions. And why humans so frequently associate in their 'comedy', practioners of 'Law' with human waste and acts of reproduction is a subject of serious study as it seems to represent the surfacing of as yet unknown human traits.

In summary, the exo-scientist is cautioned when investigating the human species. Humans are inherently inconsistent and lack the rationality of post-biological species. They tend to compensate for their Great Lacking (of wireless Bio-linkaging) with over-aggressiveness, suspicion and a knack to somewhat readily drift away on tangential courses to follow exceptionally 'de-ranged' human indivuals or individual interpretations of reality (supersitition). Humans show exceptional inventiveness concerning the imaging and implementing of these mental abberrations in the form of physical tools devoted to perpetrating physiological mayhem on other humans. These traits, along with being principally omnivorous, inquisitive, and focused on species reproduction, render humans often dangerous or at least embarrassing to be around. Treat humans with care for the sake of investigator safety and sanity.

Perusal on Our Search for Life: Questioning and Suggesting

Why are Earth’s scientific agencies and minds, or at least most that are popularly heard about/from, so focused on limiting our official searches for extraterrestrial life to “sweet zones” and “metal abundances” and such life-limiting scenarios? Do they know something they are not telling us? Are they that caught in such a deep human-centric paradigm trap? And why are uber-world class minds such as Mr. Hawking sounding the flight alarm that a super advanced life species might use their esoteric technologies to look throughout the universe to feed themselves, as if in their super-advancement of physics and space travel they had forgotten all about solving the food and waste disposal problem and we would be the prime roast, sushi, Tabuli or Muktuk on their ideal dinner menu? What is happening, or has happened, to promote such limited perspectives?

Has any one or body called for a scientific/common sense interdisciplinary team to hash out a set of prerequisites for ET life in any form? And how shall or do we define "life", exactly or broadly. A personal perspective is that our scientific communities should greatly expand the definition of life and consequently the physico-chemical settings for the creation and evolution of life. Likewise, as Feynman pointed the great range of magnitudes spanning the nano-to-galactic scales, advanced life could be several orders of magnitude different in scale from humans and still have enough manipulative distance in scale to develop technologies - and why exactly are thumbs needed when on earth we have such outstanding natural nano-scale engineering forms such as the the exuded, lacy exosceletal forms in the seas and soil, and even the many magnitudes smaller viruses?

What does seem universally required is a source of some kind of POTENTIAL (in the physico-mechanico-chemical sense, or in some other sense we are not yet advanced to be aware of), to drive the ORGANIZATION of life, i.e. to combat the natural drift of entropy which means a mechanism to counteract the normal, disruptive drift of ENTROPY, i.e. decay. This requirement does not self-define Goldilockian “sweet zones”, earth-chemistry or even species large enough for us to see (or a species might be too large to for us to notice its “organization”). Supra-large organization of SENTIENCE (life?) could exist with scaled up densities that might look to us at our scales to be mist, fog, dust, near-vcuum but actually might be equivalent to flesh and blood in function - which perhaps represents another requisite of life, a MEDIUM to support functions such as signal (INFORMATION) TRANSPORT? And what about maintaining a state of negative entropy (SURVIVABILITY and REPLICATION). These capitalized words seem part of the descriptive matrix representing life and are not limited to earth-like settings.

In retrospect, such a possible life form would not be interested in us and probably would not notice us as pertinent to its interests of survival, enjoyment of life or whatever other activities dwell in the realm of its activities. Perhaps we would be viewed as we view Nematodes in our soil.

With such an expanded view, the issues we seem terribly concerned about such as “ethics” or predation have little or no meaning. Finally the Drake expression which is in danger of becoming a sacred cow: the observed frequency of supernovas which are galaxy-wide scourings (life-ending) by immense gamma ray explosions seem to reset the time-for-evolution every 4.5 billion years or so, and perhaps the Drake expression needs to be reviewed with this thought.

Epic Discovery: China's National Radio-Astronomy Observatory Announces Monitoring of 'Dark' Satellite in Orbit Around Saturn -"Transmitting ..."

Epic Discovery: China's National Radio-Astronomy Observatory Announces Monitoring of 'Dark' Satellite in Orbit Around Saturn -"Transmitting the Universal Genetic Code"

Well, it remains to be seen if anything comes of this "announcement" on Daily Galaxy, April 1, 2011.

Hmm, April 1!

But here is an introduction to the "announcement" the DailyGalaxy cites:

China's Xinhua News Agency, the official press agency of the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) announced Thursday that the National Radio Astronomy Observatory has been monitoring signals from a previously unknown "dark" satellite in orbit around Saturn for the past 90 days. According to government officials, the signals appear to be the first verified transmission from an alien civilization.

China's leading astrobiologist, Dr. Xi Chang, a graduate of MIT, told Xinhua that "the sigal repeats itself continuosly in 2 minute long sequences and appeahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifrs to be the four bases of the genetic code A,G, U and C that ribosomes must convert mRNA sequences into proteins and the twenty different amino acids that proteins are comprised of. Dr. Rosie Redfield, the newly appointed director of the Astrobiology Program at NASA Headquarters, Washington, confirmed China's dicovery this morning. In a press release Redfield said that "China's discovery is monumental consequences and has been shared with the world's premier sciemtific instituions for vetting and peer review."

If this alleged announcement proves to be real and the "discovery" verified, the significance of this discovery is something this blogger had previously deduced from NASA's December 13, 2010 NASA "Mono Lake" press conference - that NASA is suggesting the DNA bioinformation coding is universal in the true sense, i.e., DNA is to be found throughout the universe as a basic format for life. From the "announcement:

"if confirmed this will be the first proof of extraterrestrial life in the universe and confirmation that our DNA basis for life may be universal throughout the known universe."

A joke? Real? TO be continued.

More About NASA's Mono Lake Press Conference on Arsenic-containing DNA

The NASA Mono Lake press release conference has heated up to a higher intensity. Here is follow up post this blogger contributed to The Daily Galaxy web site on December 13, 2010, that updates this blog's post of December 2, 2010.

Although I also feel NASA's Mono Lake research, per se, might be flawed in design, I believe NASA had a larger purpose for the press release conference: through suggestion and implication, I feel NASA has begun to prep the public to accept expanded definitions of life so to eventually introduce the public to their reality.

Also, the Mono Lake release seems to send some signals about NASA's internal positions on the "life problem" [at this time]. First, that DNA itself is robust, hence adaptive to many environments. Second, that NASA favors the DNA morphology as a venue of bioinformation. And third, that DNA is probably to be found throughout this solar system and perhaps beyond, although perhaps restricted to the "Goldilocks" zones of far systems (?).

Personally, I find it difficult to accept that DNA, in all its complexity, is a commonly occurring, and preferred, chemical structure found throughout the planets and solar systems. Why? Because it is hard to imagine that jiggling a planet-or-moon-sized boxful of many-ported Lego chemical blocks, mainly from the first 3 rows of the periodic table with some transition and higher elements thrown in, will generally produce the DNA morphology more often than many, many other possible chemical assemblages. (But, since I am not a computer which can easily generate and compare thermodynamic advantages of different complex morphologies, maybe DNA is a preferred structure! Who knows, maybe NASA?)

So, I feel NASA's implied emphasis on DNA is either naive or founded on specific evidence. But, as I don't feel NASA is naive, it is my expectation there will be more "releases" building up to hard evidence for extra-earth life based on DNA. The corollary to this evidence is that earth life is not spontaneous in origin but might equally have been seeded, since one could expect DNA to be also transported by passenger microbes on asteroids, meteorites, etc.. In this last respect, NASA seems to have been excited about the piggy-back transport scenario for a long time - just a thought.

NASA's December 2, 2010, Web Conference on Astrobiology - Tantalizing, Wasn't It?

The December 2, 2010, NASA-TV streaming conference was for this blogger a kind of chilling experience in a Christmas morning sense ... but not for the science. I believe today's NASA panel, conducted in a familiar, entertaining, enthusiastic (and fetching) manner, was part of a public education seminar series that is designed to "prep" the general public for Disclosure -a Disclosure that "we" (NASA, global governments, leaders, military police at landing sites, ordinary citizens experiencing encounters, etc) have already experienced contact with ET and most probably that ET has been with us for a long time. This is a personal intuitive sense that the blogger does not equate to belief in, or declaring obeisance to, the popularized web and TV-based sensationalist (some say also "paranoid") voices. This blogger's personal belief is that ET is a real phenomenon and when publically "exposed" will very likely prove to be "mundane" (non-superpowered) in purpose, intelligence and general capabilities.

Scientifically, this blogger heard little news from what physical inorganic and organic chemists, and forward looking biologists and research physicians (and general forward-thinking citizens who are carpenters, plumbers, bookkeepers, etc) haven't already predicted or suspected for decades - the polling indicates that well over 50% of Americans believe in or accept the possibility of ET. Certainly, there have been many less mind-chained technologists, and lay persons, writing science fiction over the last century who have been visualizing life formsw based on non-water and non-phosphorous homologs. Michael Crichton's books are notable examples.

Almost 40 years ago, ths blogger personally developed and taught an advanced course in non-water based chemistry and electrochemistry, with biological implications and applications such as biosensors and replacement of carbon with other, homologous, elements. The most popular near-water model for HOMOLOGOUS chemical systems was even then believed to be based on Arsenic and its close neighbors in the periodic table (e.g., Germanium, Silicon, etc). The point being made is there are a host of elements just as likely as Arsenic to show up in exotic life systems.

So what else sent shivers thru this brain? It was the coincidence-that-is-non-coincidental timing of a clean and simple, public panel being held on this particular subject, exotic life chemistry, at this time of near-critical-mass-point of ufo sightings along with an increasing rate of "disclosures" by military guards, government officials, statesmen, nurses, and just ordinary citizens from all parts of the globe who are now telling, near the end of their time on this orb their stories about past and current ET encounters. These encounters number in the thousands - and even tens of thousands if one also includes alleged events in the abduction arena.(And notice how presentable, entertaining and down-to-earth the panelists conducted themselves while disclosing some striking implications.)

I expect there will be one or two more publically televised "education" events before the "good" news is let out that ET, our bio-chemical brothers, exist. Even the Vatican has moved to anticipate that eventuality with its announcement in 2008 that the good Patria feel it is "OK" for Catholics to believe in ET because they are our "brothers" though perhaps being different in their lack of original sin (a stateement with profound implications and whose exact meaning is still to be explained). But how our new family thinks, spiritualizes, behaves,now it's ethos is structured, etc. is another question. However, one imagines that if ET has revealed themselves, and we are still alive and the globe is not in ashes, then ET is not a threat from the perspective of our programmed, instinctive, naked-ape attack-or-flee reaction base. There might of course be bio-hazard dangers (and we have also heard in the more expansive (speculative?)ufo-ET network about quarantine sites for ET's in various areas of the US and elsewhere (Dulce, New Mexico, etc).

How ET might smell to us, how and what ET eats for energy (certainly not eating us, but think of ET as terrifically strong radishes, hmm), eliminates as waste (our earth's deep ocean, super hot thermal vents have led to the evolution/adaptation, of life to live on a sulfur-based biochemistry where thir waste products are allomorphs of pure sulfur), and what ET drinks are questions whose answers are delightfully up for grabs and yet to be answered. However, these points bring up articles in the speculative UFO web world that have presented alleged personal accounts of ET encounters and "weird" or unsettling smells and "awareness" that evince sometimes severe psychological stress - which are expected reactions from our human biology base.

For instance, Arsenic-based chemistry, though perhaps "operating" along similar (homologous) chemical paths as phosphate systems, most likely leads to metabolic wastes that incorporates Arsenic hydrides which tend to smell strongly of a garlic essence instead of the familiar rotten egg smell of human waste. Or think of Arseno-proteinaceous breakdown sludge instead of human-like coproplytes, or and think of really bad breath, perspiration, etc.

The ufo-ET web network has long reported first hand witness "accounts" (claims?) of the very terrifying effect of just the smell of ET - an immediate recognition by the human brain smell centers that the wafting odors don't fit into our 3-D stereo-configured smell receptacles which are evolved to accept and recognize not only differently shaped molecules but those within specific ranges of elecro-charge-density, etc. (Human sensing organs are very comprehensive and sensitive instrument arrays especially when combined with such our complex, "intuitive" central computing center, the human brain.)

The Nasa panel today, also very nicely explained, in an easily understood show and tell manner, that we humans are not biologically unique. Further, the NASA panelists implied that in the vast, chemically complex universe we should not be surpised to meet "life forms" (at least chemical-based life) that are sentient and perhaps more advanced than us: this technically trained blogger believes Life is a term that deserves deeper analyses than has been done at present and has broader meaning than our usually understood bio-organic definition ... and conceivably might occur as non-physical formats.

I believe, further, that NASA has more cards hidden in their hand but are waiting for the right near-time to show them ... now that the public, through the mainstream media (CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc) is being educated to wider and higher expectations.