The Nightshirt Sightings, Portents, Forebodings, Suspicions
Category “Science”
Ambassadors from Flatland: UFOs and Anamorphosis
It is frequently suggested that UFOs originate in or at least travel through other, higher dimensions. The examples of interdimensional interaction in E.A. Abbott’s classic fable Flatland are often cited to illustrate how such an intrusion into lower dimensions from higher ones might appear. A sphere passing through Flatland (a world with two spatial dimensions […]
Psychic Astronauts: Remote Viewing, Space Exploration, and UFOs
The emptiness of Fermi’s Paradox as an argument against ETs rests, I think, on the unlikelihood that advanced technological civilizations would ever explore or colonize their universe in the flesh. I’ve suggested here that the “reach” of ETs through space, and that of our own human or machine descendents, will be via Von Neumann probes […]
Mysterianism and the Question of Machine Sentience
We are within perhaps a decade of creating computers that match and perhaps even dwarf the human brain in computing power, and that are capable of complex computations that may include something like reasoning and even a notion of self—what many would therefore consider to be autonomous, conscious machines. When we contemplate this, most of […]
The Noömass Hypothesis: Is Dark Matter Made of Knowledge?
. . . In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire […]
Existential Futurology (A Few Thoughts on the Unlikelihood of Interstellar Colonization)
According to various estimates, including a mathematical model published a couple years ago by Thomas W. Hair and Andrew D. Hedman, the galaxy (let’s limit ourselves to our galaxy for purposes of discussion) should already have long been colonized by a spacefaring civilization. That our solar system appears to be untouched can only mean (according […]
Anti-Anti-ETH: Big Data, Deep Anthropology, and Von Neumann Probes
The recent NSA domestic spying scandal that shocked everyone is not really so shocking if you are the sort of person who likes to think about the possibilities (and pitfalls) of knowledge. We are now in the era of “big data,” which is changing the landscape not only of state surveillance but also science and […]
Hermetic Astronomy
In Fortean Times there is a new, excellent article on the hermetic context of Renaissance astronomy and Galileo’s famous trial. The rediscovery of ancient hermetic philosophy during the Renaissance was the most important influence on intellectuals of the period–from Copernicus to Shakespeare–yet few people nowadays are aware of it. As the authors Lynn Picknett and […]
The Immensity of Things
Speaking of films that attempt to show the bigness of the universe, a new, anatomically accurate (that is, from actual star mapping) video by the American Museum of Natural History is truly sublime: ***
Ebert on the Universe
One day last week Roger Ebert turned is mind from film to contemplate the immensity of things: … The universe is too large for me to comprehend how large that really might be. I’ve seen those animations where Earth shrinks to a pin point, and then the sun shrinks to a pin point, and then […]
Saganism
Carl Sagan was a hero to most of us who in one way or another like to watch the skies. The mellifluous-voiced, turtleneck-and-corduroy-wearing astronomer inspired my generation to care about space, about our planet, and about our future as a spacefaring civilization. He was not only a fashion plate but also a prophet of what […]
