Vale to an Extraordinary Scientist, Jane Goodall

The cover of Jane Goodall's The Book of Hope.

"Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to free them."

- In Tibetan Buddhism, the first vow of the enlightened Bodhisattva.

"Sometimes people would ask her, which do you like better, chimps or people? She'd say well, it depends.

'Chimps are so like us," Goodall said, "that I like some people much more than some chimps and some chimps much more than some people.'"

- Via the NPR's tribute to Jane Goodall who passed away October 1st.

"Instead, let's assume for adventure's sake that we're sharing the planet with a flesh-and-blood offshoot of the human species. As I've tried to demonstrate, the prospect isn't as absurd as it initially seems; indeed, I expect it will seem much less so when we've learned more about our world and our relatively brief tenure here. (It bears mention that eminent primatologist Jane Goodall has defended the scientific search for "Bigfoot," a cryptohominid commonly described as enormous. Assuming a gigantic and purportedly foul-smelling primate can successfully lay low, it may be substantially easier for an intelligent technical society, with a tested capacity for stealth and a full repertoire of disinformation tricks, to dodge our radar.)"

- Mac Tonnies, from a Posthuman Blues post from March 31, 2006. In it, he begins to describe his Cryptoterrestrial Hypothesis in its infancy, citing Jane Goodall as one of his influences.

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I was saddened when I came upon the news that Jane Goodall had slipped the mortal coil yesterday. If anyone was influential in establishing the truth regarding the sentience of animals in the 20th Century, surely it was she. At a time when many scientists were still on the fence about the true nature of animal cognizance, Goodall proved that primates could invent and use simple tools... a game-changer that totally blew away all preexisting theories regarding animal behavior, and opened the door for new definitions of the word "sentience." Interestingly, the "new" definitions mirrored observations of philosophers from an earlier century:

"In the 17th century Thomas Tryon, a self-identified Pythagorean, raised the issue of non-human suffering. Soon thereafter, many philosophers used the anatomical discoveries of the Enlightenment as a reason to include animals in what philosophers call "sympatheia," the principle of who or what deserves sympathy."

When I study Jane Goodall's uniquely beautiful face, it really appears to me as if she was illuminated from within, with the unspoiled grace of a true Bodhisattva. I don't think I'm imagining things.

Midnight Update!

I spent some time tonight trying to find the perfect video of Dame Goodall to post here, and I finally found it. Sadly, it's too long to view here, but, Jane Goodall's First Time on the Subway is must-see, in part or whole.

No, she doesn't come across as a Bodhisattva as much as she does a charmer; an artist's scientist with a child's curious nature, a cat's amazing ability to always land on its feet, and a mind like a steel trap! Then again, maybe that does describe the nature of a Bodhisattva. 🏵️

More AI Eye-Candy: Alien Realms

 

When Alice (that is, moi) jumped down the Safe Haven portal she inevitably, but delightfully, discovered Alien Realms, the YouTube channel from which the video shown (above), Floraxis, emerged. (Also: Floraxis 2)

Well, there's absolutely no way I can resist organically designed structures so I was hooked from the very first frame. And, there's a mysterious (and lovely) alien, too... all quite delectable.

What's more, other potential worlds are also explored. Try Xylos or Vexillia. Gorgeous, gorgeous!

While Floraxis, Xylos, and Vexillia might not qualify as authentic "Safe Havens" - and I've yet to qualify the meme - they surely are worthy of a visit or two!

Cloud Cities on Venus

Clouds seem to be an ongoing topic over at Trans-D these days. But, oddly enough, Cloud Cities have appeared on this blog before: in 2011, in a post introducing the work of Venezuelan artist, Tomás Saraceno. (But, the video (above) about cloud cities - which may or not be scientifically feasible (although NASA is allegedly involved)* - is of a different persuasion. However, art and science are conjoined in both examples... which leads us to a third Cloud City... which began as iCloud, a data storage service, but morphed into a digital real estate market. From the article:

"Indeed, the urban populace is now utterly reliant on cloud-based platforms, accessed via their cloud-connected devices, for everything from remote working to navigating transit systems, ordering groceries to finding a life partner. As these activities continue to feed into analytics and prediction platforms – in the cloud, naturally – the ultimate shape of these emergent, integrated urban systems is yet to be decided."

Somewhere there seems to be a meme developing here. However, for a different cloud experience see my corresponding post Growing Roses in the Clouds - A Safe Haven.

Also see the BBC's: The Amazing Cloud Cities We Could Build on Venus, and this Tomás Saraceno page.

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* (See comment section.)

AI Eye-Candy

When it comes to AI art many artists are still on the fence. But, one argument in its favor would have to be the amazingly beautiful Surrealism found in the AI videos of Kelly Boesch.

The video featured above is just the tip of the iceberg... many more treats can be found at Kelly Boesch Ai Art.

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Helicoid with two handles: Image credit Ulrich Pinkall.

IMAGINARY - Open Mathematics (source for the image above)

2nd CERN Art and Science Summit

The Nexus Between Art and Science: Growing a New Naturalism

Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang - "To the Moon"

 

"In “To the Moon,” Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang employs virtual reality technology to transport us to a place beyond the physical world. Here you are sent on a dreamlike exploratory journey across the moon’s enigmatic surface."

- From an announcement regarding the video above, found here.

***

No, business is not really "back to usual," and there's a good chance it may never be again. But, before we cash in our (proverbial) chips, it's time to look at some art... specifically, Laurie Anderson's and Taiwanese artist Hsin-Chien Huang's VR installment, To the Moon, created in 2018.

Mac had a great deal of respect for Laurie Anderson... and he had a great deal of respect for art... also, his birthday is coming up... and lastly, so are the Dog Days of Summer. It only seem fitting to attend to this blog.

For more information about this post, try: "Looking into a Mirror Sideways".

Peace out.

Welcome to the ABYSS - (May 26, 2019 Update)

A tiny region of space in the Fornax constellation
via an imaging technique known as ABYSS.
(Click to  enlarge.)

"A few years ago, the Hubble Space Telescope did something amazing: over the course of 841 orbits and hundreds of exposures, it imaged a tiny region of space in the constellation of Fornax, peeling back the layers of time by 13 billion years, to just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.

It's called the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field 2014 (HUDF), and it's one of the most breathtaking mosaics the telescope has produced. In it, around 10,000 galaxies gleam - a feast for astronomers exploring the early Universe.

Now a team of astronomers has made the image even better. Over the course of three years, scientists at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) developed and applied an image processing technique designed to draw out the unseen light in the HUDF.

They called this complex technique ABYSS, and with it they have recovered the dim light from the outer edges of the largest galaxies in the image."

- Image and quote from the January 25th, 2019  Science Alert article by Michelle Starr: Astronomers Have Made a Breathtaking Image Staring Deeper Into Space Than Ever Before. (Hat-tip to Graham Hancock.)

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(Update, May 26, 2019)

Oddly enough, I never did make this a formal posting... as if I was unconsciously waiting for the precise moment to finish it. And, I guess that moment is now.

As it worked out, I was recently looking through an old stargazing book when I found that the constellation of Fornax was originally named (by the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille) le Fourneau Chymique (the Chemical Furnace), and graphically described as an alembic - an alchemical still - in his early catalogue. Of course, had I had the time to really read the Wiki entry, I would have known this... in other words I didn't do my homework! Below is an illustration of the original constellation, a portion of a graphic found in the Wiki article.

le Fourneau Chymique (the Chemical Furnace)

Cool! A tribute to alchemy... high up in the starry, starry sky.

The article also tells us that Chinese astronomers located Fornax in the area of the firmament they referred to as the White Tiger of the West. They referred to the constellation itself as the "heaven furnace" constellation.

And, this is all very interesting... especially as modern astronomers have located 6 star-systems which have planets in Fornax... and it makes this blogger wonder what Lacaille and his predecessors may have intuited was cooking up there in the Heavenly Alembic they both created and described.