***New Blog!!! (Quantum Psychonautics)***

I have a new blog at Quantum Psychonautics. I have transferred almost all of this blog's entries into the new blog- in the order that they were posted (minus CERN updates and press releases.) Please enjoy my new blog and the soon-to-come website also titled Quantum Psychonautics.

I Sing The Universe Electric!

Yes, I'm a card-carrying Ray Bradbury fan! I thought I'd take a moment to plug one of my favorite SF authors while propounding the profound. Classical Newtonian physics as well as the "modern" physics being taught in millions of classrooms today has got about as many holes in its logic as the night sky has stars. The particular "hole," I would like to discuss in this blog concerns the four basic forces of physics. Physics accepts the four forces: gravity, electricity, and the "strong" and "weak" nuclear forces. Modern physics has spent the last 100 years believing (and I mean believing, just like church doctrine) that the predominant force in the universe is that of gravity. Gravity along with its two "nuclear" children, have all but stolen the stage for the past century. The Electric Universe Theory holds another view, and its definitely one worth considering. It goes something like this. Gravity is many times weaker than the electric force, and its job is to help create order by pulling the universe together (pulling everything together.) Electricity is responsible for repelling and stretching the universe apart. These two forces as well as the nuclear forces, act to create a net balance (a zero-sum state of equilibrium.) Nikola Tesla (1846-1943) understood this simple concept and did his best to explain it and its effects to everyone that would listen. Its also worth noting that without the works of Nikola Tesla, you would not be able to read this blog, or even have electricity in your home. Tesla has proven to be the single greatest scientist and inventor that the world has ever seen! As we set forth on our quest to understand life, the universe, and everything around us, we must understand that it is sometimes necessary to throw away incorrect theories, suppositions or superstitions. The idea of an mindbogglingly complex universe, being run by nuclear and gravitational forces (with the electric force simply applying to the microcosm) is one such idea, IT NEEDS TO GO! When you plug this new theory into the current data and related fields what remains is a new fresh science that no longer suffers from being peppered by rationalizations and ridiculous guesses. I might be willing to take a few stabs into the ether about large-scale cosmological order quantum theory and MWI effects, but I'm not willing to go blindly into the universe believing that "up" is "down" and "black" is "white", after all, the lines have to be drawn somewhere, don't they? For more on this subject may I suggest the book "The Electric Universe" and for further reading, the works of Nikola Tesla. Above in the text, the first time I mention Tesla, there is a link in his name to Tesla.org this is a wonderful resource for all things Tesla.

"Have the courage to open your mind and to see the world through new eyes, and what will unfurl before you will surely change your life!"

Artificial You

The potential for robotic and even cyborg versions of our self, as well as variations on those themes may soon be possible. Advancements in A.I. (artificial intelligence) as well as nanotechnology, robotics, and genetics will make artificial life just another spectrum of our everyday reality. But something that has not even been whispered is the possibility of beings which are artificially created as chemical and biological variants based on our very own DNA. This would make it possible for us to create a version of ourself out of Silicon, or Boron or some other inorganic chemical base. Genetic engineers will eventually be able to take the subtle information patterns within your DNA and translate it into another kind of physical living being. Imagine talking a walk across the face of a barren planet, breathing poisonous gases, in a thin wisp of an atmosphere, at temperatures nearing that of space itself. The famous techno-prophet Ray Kurzweil, quoted in the RollingStone article "When Man & Machine Merge," that what we would call a "person" can be eventually reduced to a computer file, a beautifully complex pattern of intelligent software that just so happens to be self aware. If Kurzweil is correct than the transition from carbon based life to that of silicon and other comparable elements may be even easier. DNA is not much more than a computer file arranged in an electrochemical pattern using A,C,G, and T[*1] instead of 1 and 0, with the exception that DNA functions as both software and hardware. [For all you naysayers out there thinking that translation of DNA into an alternate chemical compound structure would never be possible, consider the following: we convert computer files all the time, it would simply a matter of chemical translation, instead of electronic.] I will admit, we currently know next to nothing about inorganic life,[*2] but you can bet that it will be a challenge that we will see within the next 50 to 100 years. And even if we don't remake ourselves out of some exotic chemical stew, you can be sure that we will uploading the contents of our digital memory chip into 23rd century carbon nanocircuit brains. If our bodies fail us we will simply grow new ones in labs, or manufacture them with the use of bacteria driven nano-machinery. If that prospect bothers you, then there will always be androids, which will pass in almost every way for natural biological humans, which could be infused with an artificial brain containing all your memories and your thought patterns, the very essence of your life. Need I point out (for those who wish to opt out of this whole venture) that the time is quickly running out, there will soon be the technology and the need for humanity to begin its catalog of genetic variance. It can only be so long before each man, woman and child are cataloged by genetic sequence as part of a standard protocol at birth. A small sample of blood, taken at birth, could be sequenced and stored on a secure server for future use. Once that sample is taken, sequenced and the data stored, one would not be able to "opt" out of this kind of world. A sample taken tomorrow could yield a being that would live 10,000,000 years from now in a galaxy at the other end of the known universe. So it is that the future begins.... silently, with a single drop of blood.

[*1] [A,C,G, and T are the four nucleic-acid bases that make up our DNA. The A stands for Adenine and pairs with the T, which stands for Thymine. The C stands for Cytosine and pairs with the G, Guanine. These four nucleic acids are the building blocks of our genetic code, or DNA. ACGU are the four amino acids that make up our RNA. RNA pairs up like DNA, except Thymine is replaced by the nucleic acid Uracil.]

[*2] [We do know that there is the possibility for inorganic life. Consider the strange but true case of The Gold Bug, 'no not the story by Edgar Alan Poe' but the gold eating microbial space-worm found by a NASA engineer known to eat thermal sensors on space-station equipment. There have been countless wires and components replaced because of this strange microscopic metal eater, that lives in the vacuum of space.]