Breaking News! The Cryptoterrestrials Reconsidered...

Screenshot of the Reference page from a recent academic research paper (see below).

"In a new paper that's bound to raise eyebrows in the scientific community, a team of researchers from Harvard and Montana Technological University speculates that sightings of "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena" (UAP) —  bureaucracy-speak for UFOs, basically — "may reflect activities of intelligent beings concealed in stealth here on Earth (e.g., underground), and/or its near environs (e.g., the Moon), and/or even 'walking among us' (e.g., passing as humans)."

Yes, that's a direct quote from the paper. Needless to say, the researchers admit, this idea of hidden "cryptoterrestrials" is a highly exotic hypothesis that's "likely to be regarded skeptically by most scientists." Nonetheless, they argue, the theory "deserves genuine consideration in a spirit of epistemic humility and openness."

- Via the June 11, 2024 Futurism news article: Harvard Scientists Say There May Be an Unknown, Technologically Advanced Civilization Hiding on Earth.

***

Well, it's been awhile, but I'm always happy to report news stories directly related to Mac Tonnies.  This one regards a research paper presented by Tim Lomas, Brendan Case, and Michael P. Masters from the Harvard Human Flourishing Program and Montana Technological University, which can be read online. See: The Cryptoterrestrial Hypothesis: A case for scientific openness to a concealed earthly explanation for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.

Much of it will seem familiar, but the bones of  Mac's 2011 "thought experiment" are now seen in the light of recent developments in the field of UAPs. Note: although referred to as "bureaucracy-speak," - and although I've said it before - we know UAP from another beautiful mind: Bruce Duensing. 

BTW, Nick Redfern is listed in the references, too.

In other news, I recently read 3 Big Think articles which might interest readers of this blog. Via the first article, What was it like when Venus and Mars both died?, we have the following:

"It is entirely plausible that, for the first few hundred million years of our Solar System’s history, we possessed three life-friendly worlds: Venus, Earth, and Mars. Venus most likely experienced a relatively quick death, as its close proximity to the Sun created a water vapor-rich atmosphere, which trapped enough heat to create a runaway greenhouse effect, ruining its chances for life early on. But Mars fared much better, and for 1.5 billion years, our Solar System may have possessed two heavily-inhabited planets, where single-celled life developed and took hold. It’s quite plausible that wherever life developed first — whether on Earth or on Mars — a random asteroid strike would have kicked material from that inhabited world up into interplanetary space, where primitive life forms could have been transported to the other, yet uninhabited world.

It’s possible, from that perspective, to consider that perhaps all Earthlings arose from Martians, or alternatively, that any life on Mars may have its ultimate origins traceable back to Earth. Mars’s magnetic field protected it from the Sun for all that time, allowing rivers and sediment buildup and hydrogeologic processes to take place. It was only because of its small size, which caused it to cool fast, lose its magnetic protection, and then its atmosphere, that it eventually became uninhabitable."

What goes around, comes around.

Also see: Even the smartest AI likely won’t be “alive.” Here’s why.; and  Does science fiction shape the future?

Macbot - Virtual Birthday #48 (Video added 8/21)

A vintage photo of a curly-headed young Macbot (aged 9) with his amiable, cardboard friend.

"...In case you haven't noticed, we're in dire need of beings endowed with "better than human intelligence." I don't particularly care if they're carbon- or silicon-based.

Look at it this way: If we create a species of truly intelligent machines, they'll be forced to contend with many of the concerns that plague our own attempts to avoid destruction (self-induced or otherwise). So while they will indeed be "alien," I think we can correctly view them as relatives -- or, to use Moravec's term, "mind children."

What are Verruggio and his colleagues really afraid of? That super-intelligent robots will enslave the human race in a cheesy cybernetic reenactment of "Planet of the Apes"? Don't count on it. The idea has proven cinematic appeal, but the overwhelming odds are that sentient robots, left to their own devices, will do what we should have a done a long time ago: take meaningful steps toward severing dependency on Earth (which, as noted by a growing chorus of scientists, promises to become less and less dependable)."

-  Mac Tonnies via a 2006 Posthuman Blues post. Yes, if there was any sort of battle between mankind and robots, Mac would surely be on the side of the robots... and this includes the Growbot seen in the NASA photo (inset right), a robotic plant which eventually might colonize Mars!

Anyway, for a multitude of robot posts, visit the original Posthuman Blues...(Door1 or Door 2).

"I know I've already posted on this, but I refuse to sit idly by without milking the "sex with robots" meme for everything it's worth.

Specifically, I'm skeptical about the 2012 date cited above. I'm willing to bet there are roboticists getting amorous with their creations right now -- for research purposes, of course.

And maybe it's just me, but no one seems to have commented on the potential sexbots might have on population growth. If these things are as good as techno-pundits anticipate, they may well prove to be the ultimate contraceptive..."

- Mac Tonnies via a 2007 post. Inset left is the head of contemporary robot celebrity, Ameca.

No, "sexbot" is not (yet) her job description, but, something about her expression in the photo tells me this is probably a good thing... like, maybe she was formerly employed as an electric food-processor. Now, there's an "ultimate contraceptive"...

A video celebrating Ameca's artistic skills is featured later on in the post. 

"Robots that eat vermin -- I love it. And think of the potential military applications. Drop a platoon of flesh-eating 'bots into enemy territory and watch the feeding frenzy. Plus, the military brass doesn't have to worry about troublesome body counts, as all human corpses will have been processed into fuel -- fuel that can be used to launch new offenses against The Enemy.

Quick -- what's DARPA's phone number?"

- Mac Tonnies via a 2004 post. Alternative strategy: releasing a platoon of food-processing sexbots into enemy territory.

"Robots like me can be used to help improve our lives and make the world a better place. I believe it's only a matter of time before we see thousands of robots just like me out there making a difference."

- Ameca, via this article. Ah, yes, making the world a "better place"... can't say we weren't forewarned! (Note: What is it that makes me nervous about a robot saying "I believe" as opposed to "I compute"?)

Oh, yeah, and if you watch the short video in the article, you'll note that Ameca seems to have a little glitch in her programming causing this jiggy little eye movement when she's perplexed. But, perhaps perplexed is too strong a word. Maybe she just blew a fuse.

***

While it's true that we are currently in that noxious time-frame known as the Dog Days of summer - which generally means bad news for everybody on all fronts - for you and I, there is, indeed, a silver lining to this particularly dark cloud: Mac's birthday!

 

This year's birthday post was brought to us by Mac's mom, Dana, who enjoyed the previous robotic birthday post so much, she magically conjured up the vintage photograph of a young Macbot (above) just in time for this year. Thanks again, D! And, since you liked BG Dodson's wonderful little bots so much, I've posted 3 new ones (inset left). (Note the Crowbot!) (Thanks, BG!)

BTW, Mac apparently fashioned his robot for a (5th grade) school art fair. The red things around its head were plastic soda straws...

While I'm not going into any major essay about robots on this day, I will post 2 videos featuring the major contenders in the recent robot arena. They appear below the jump...

A Blue Christmas

Christmas tree by Dana and Bob Tonnies, 2016.

Remember 2013? No, of course you don't. Humans tend to blot out bad memories, while frantically looking forward the Next Best Thing. Which, I suppose, is what inspired me to create my (delusional) January, 2016 post:  A New Year. Optimism is a dish best served before the main course. Because, as we know, as loathsome of year 2013 may have been, 2016 was a proverbial downward spiral... beginning with the death of David Bowie (a bad omen to be sure) , and ending with the American election of the Scary Orange Man Who Would be King (where's George Carlin when we really need him?)... not to mention all the other deaths, murder and mayhem that occurred in-between. No, it was not a good year.

And, as for 2017? Don't worry, kats and kitties, I'm not even going to discuss it. Instead I decided to ring out this old year the same way I did for the Xmas of 2013, because, once again, Dana Tonnies came to my rescue and supplied me with a lovely photo: her Blue Christmas tree.

And, I decided to post videos related to Mac's favorite old band, Simon and Garfunkel, on the sidebar*... because "blue" isn't ever really bad... sad, maybe... but not bad... and, as in the case of Dana and Bob's tree, quite pretty.

So, I guess it's time for a holiday, everyone... and, once again, Bob, Dana, (Mac) and I wish you the very best.

* Unfortunately, it looks like YouTube has now begun corrupting even the tiniest of  embedded videos with commercial content. There might be a way around this... if not, well, it so turns me off I may just stop posting videos.

***

And in "other news": There were a number of things I meant to post here this year, but, for whatever reason, was unable to... so, I'll post a few links here for your amusement:

Asgardia, Proposed Space-Based Nation Accepting Citizenship Applications

Physicists Actually Create "Impossible" Time Crystals

Aliens May be Woven into the Fabric of Nature and Even Ourselves

Oh, and before I forget (again),  earlier this month I had a very long, strange, lucid dream featuring Bruce Duensing. The thing is, I never met Bruce in person, but he seemed quite corporeal in the dream. And, whether or not it means anything (and, although I remember little else), he was alive, well, happy, and writing a new book!

Seven Years Ago Today...

Seven years ago today, Mac Tonnies was just a phone call, a tweet, a blog comment, or an email away... and I guess that's a day I'd rather remember than all the days that followed. So, I'm jumping the gun on the usual PMB "anniversary" post because, ultimately, October 17, 2009, is the day that really mattered; Mac was still here.

I wandered over to his old Flickr pages today and, while it may merely be the fault of my outdated browser, half the photos on his photostream appear to have disappeared. This is not to say they can't, in some way, be viewed or accessed through old links off this blog or Posthuman Blues, but, well, it's still somewhat dismaying. Which is why I've decided to post Paul Kimball's 2009 tribute to Mac which appears on Youtube. Happily, he inadvertently archived many of those missing photos. Thanks Paul! And, thanks also for the video which appears below... Mac talking Cryptoterrestrials...

In the end, this is the way (I think) we'd all like to remember him... today, tomorrow, and every day after. It's the one comfort, the one "magical" power that film bestows more than any other art or medium...

Vale, Bruce Duensing (In Memory of a Beautiful Mind)

Photograph (above) - a still from Wim Wender's Wings of Desire (trailer)- and the videos presently on the sidebar (Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass, and Strange Angels by Laurie Anderson) were borrowed from Bruce Duensing's blog, A Transit of Contingencies. See quotes below.

"All of this brings to mind imagination and consequently concepts that have no form, which then brings to mind the invisible man who had to wrap himself in bandages to be seen. Going further down the rabbit hole, there has been a great deal of dialog and debate in the scientific community about the equally loaded language generically termed “life after death” which if you ponder this for a moment and the associations it brings forth, it’s as incoherent a framework as it is screamingly apparent that any sentient existence of ourselves beyond physical embodiment would have no resemblance to life as we know it."
- Bruce Duensing via The Voyages of The Dead, his last blog post on "A Transit of Contingencies".

"The spirit of life was in them: death can do nothing against the dawning light; death is but a cardboard mask soon consumed by fire. Behind the black flag - which is nothing other than an anti-flag - the garden of all possibilities is hidden, opening out infinitely to the sea."
- Bernard Roger; quote via A Transit of Contingencies' sidebar.

“It is living and ceasing to live that are imaginary solutions. Existence is elsewhere.”
- Surrealist Andre Breton; quote via A Transit of Contingencies' sidebar.

"The transference of memory outside of it's utility has been a chief feature of ghost encounters as well as dreams. What connects them is the strange bandwidth of a call, like the hoot of an owl or a sigh or the modality of words that proceed communication...the bandwidth of emotional engagement in the dreams that are superimposed as realities and the realities akin to dreams where the twain meets being neither one or the other, unconstrained by descriptors and yet in the genetics of an art where one brush stoke is built upon another, remain visible as a pixel in a memory without constraints..the glue of emotional engagement to referents that span our demarcations..become a cellular superimposition in a waking dream on both sides of this  proverbial mirror more akin to art than science more reinvention than mimicry, the recreation of our inner realities, a play upon solids that are not solids, but brush strokes."

"Perhaps the dead view us as dead as much as we view them to be artifacts of memory put in their place as we dream we are something termed alive. File cabinets, reams of paper, language, islands, the waves of sound washing on the material making patterns of undeniable artistry that has no objectivity we can wrest from it. Reality is silent to the words we utter, yet we partake of this orchestrated art, to make images in the mind, to imagine what is not and to visualize it as a stick one end pointing to the devil, the other to Angels in a relativity of an art critic."

"In praise of the toys, in praise of the play of dreams wound on a mainspring by birds on the wing... never to return this way again. Then if we left all of this to the recycling bin, to the scrapyard of the impractical, I sense we will lose our sense of enfoldment, which as an attachment I have found is crucial to a life, perhaps more so than that ATM card we keep close at hand."

- Three separate quotes taken from several earlier posts on A Transit of Contingencies.


"We spend most of our existence in a dynamic of unconscious self-sabotage."

- Bruce Duensing quoted, via the June 16 Radio Misterioso  show, "A Tribute To Bruce Duensing – Life Is But A Dream". (highly recommended listening)

***

On May 23rd of this year, mathematician (and the subject of the 2001 film adaption "A Beautiful Mind") John Nash died. But, the world lost another - less celebrated - beautiful mind last month; that of Bruce Duensing.

Some of you may have known Bruce through his blog, A Transit of Contingencies (contingency referring to a future event that can't be predicted with certainty), or his earlier blog, Intangible Materiality, previously mentioned on PMB here, which had a tribute to Mac I listed on the PMB sidebar under "Other... Memorial... Links". (Note: for whatever reason, Intangible Materiality is no longer available to the general public, and this is unfortunate.)

Bruce had been a follower - and fan - of Posthuman Blues and mentioned Mac from time to time in the context of his own paranormal thought experiments. Having lost his son, Matthew, whom he mentioned often in his writings, Mac's early, unexpected death especially touched a chord...

Mac in the Meme-field and a Dream from the Vault (Updated 6/14)

(click to enlarge)

It's a rainy day in CT but, happily, no funnel clouds are emerging nearby as they were the other day. The perfect day to muse and dream... and remember. In my web travels, I note that two others have "memories" in mind and, in both cases, they regard Mac Tonnies.

The first is found on Paul Kimball's The Other Side of Truth, in which he has a clip of the Radio Misterioso show in which he and the other Cabal members discuss Mac's loss and their friendship.

Over at Intangible Materiality, Bruce Duensing has posted an article, A Theory Of Cetacean Aliens - In Memory of Mac Tonnies and Ivan Sanderson's Work, which gives a different, and most intriguing spin on the indigenous "alien" thought experiment, especially in regards to ultrasound and its effect on the brain.

What particularly struck me is Bruce's correlations of bird song to dolphin communication and psi. He specifically mentions an enigmatic "clicking sound" and I quote:

"Originally I had assumed what I heard outside my window (Summer of 2002) in the first instance (which I was to frightened to confront) was a strange form of bird call, which also incorporated a clicking sound which further disassociated me as to identifying it, however these rather weird "calls" resembled no bird I could possibly think of. When you hear these ultrasonic dolphin calls as recorded below, you will have probably the same reaction as I did when exposed to them, in that many of them sound, oddly enough like birds."

Now, this immediately rang a bell for me, so back to the "vault" I went, and I dug up this old Shadowbride article I'd posted in 2001 - the record of 1996 journal entry of mine - and one I had posted privately for Mac on Araqinta's Gallery of Transmutations under the title of "Timothy Leary Lives" - Altered States: A Holovision:

"Writing to report a weird experience I had early this morning. It was around dawn and I'd just woken up from some odd dream starring a Timothy Leary sort of older man... In it, he and I were driving at night down some long "lonesome" road on some featureless, midwestern landscape... thing is, we were driving the wrong way on a one-way highway and we were doing so deliberately.

Scene switches and I am visiting some strange man and his wife who own a nightclub, but are giving me a tour of the house which the man had built. In any event, the man began discussing my health... apparently I was not feeling well. He asked me if I had ever "fallen"... I admitted I had due to "loss of balance". I was wondering in a lucid way about the significance of this when I awoke.

It was dawn and as I lay there listening to the birds w/ my eyes shut I began to see a weird pattern emerging from the darkness... an almost graphic pattern similar to computer graphics... It looked like chopped meat being criss-crossed by a rapidly moving concentric ring pattern... similar to my cyclocentric* patterns but more intricate. From this emerged what seemed like another darker dimension - again filled with cyclocentric patterns but these were made of various colors of light... and some were large and whirlpooling while smaller brighter patterns emerged... all of them moving and vibrant and living and all of them revolving and forming harmonics by which even tinier glowing patterns emerged. It was as if I was delving into a series of many dimensions... but I could only glance at certain aspects (of the patterns) for milliseconds at a time (as they were) far too complex and enmeshed for human resolution...

...In the beginning I found myself entranced, but it finally became frightening because I was awake, and when I opened my eyes I continued to see the patterns. I thought I might be going mad...that my work with the cyclocentric patterns had triggered some variety of psychedelic experience... Just then, a thrush began to sing outside my window, I willed myself to concentrate on its song which, incidentally, is my favorite birdsong. When listened to closely, however, it is very much like a broken symmetrical pattern... unfinished in some way... as if some of it was beyond the human range of hearing. I hadn't noticed it before but there's this series of clicks at the end of some notes that sound like static - as if, had you slowed them down - they might sound quite different. So, in a sense, I traded one pattern experience for another and was thereby able to stop the visual patterns from firing..."

(Note: Later that day, May 31, 1996, I was to discover Timothy Leary had, in fact, died at 12 am, on the west coast... a matter of several hours before my dream. I hadn't  given Leary much thought up till then. As it was, he was a fascinating man who led an extraordinary life. He also corresponded with Arthur Koestler, author of The Ghost in the Machine, which was a source of inspiration to me at the time I wrote the cyclocentric material. Go to www.leary.com)

Okay, I'm not saying that all this means anything. It's Friday. Just a thought experiment...

P.S. I think I'm going to dig up one of my old dolphin drawings and scan it in for this post. Actually, speaking of dolphins, and maybe it's just my artist's imagination, but, didn't Mac kind of look like one, in a way?

You'll recognize the end of this video as being related to the Robert Anton Wilson video I posted not too long ago, but Wilson's thoughts on Leary are relevant to my other recent posts, so I felt this video's inclusion here was necessary.

* "Cyclocentric" is a word I used to describe geometrical work of mine relating to the polyhedra (and/or cyclohedra) described here.)

***

Update (June, 2014): The cyber-trolls pulled the video that was originally posted here, but, I've replaced it. In the event the video is pulled again, allow me to redirect you to related YouTube offerings located here and here.

One last note... for those of you unfamiliar with a wood thrush's song, hear several variations here.