SpaceLifeWebComic's Prophecies

Artificial intelligence, virtual reality visors...when will intergalactic travel take place?

 

Some things about Space Life (part 7)

The story of the universe's interplanetary journey "SpaceLife" begins in the heart of the 1940s, when mankind gazed in wonder at the night sky and wondered about the existence of unknown worlds beyond Earth. What seemed only fantasy and imagination would turn into an extraordinary reality over the next nine hundred years. This is the story of how humanity overcame its limitations and reached for the stars. 

Chapter 1: The First Steps

During the 1940s and 1950s, the space race among Earth's superpowers had just begun. The United States and the Soviet Union were challenging each other in the development of rockets and satellites. This heated competition accelerated technological progress, leading to the launch of the first satellite, Sputnik 1, into orbit in 1957. From then on, space exploration became a priority for many nations. 

Professor Robert Anderson has recently been reevaluated for his contributions that, in the 1940s were almost ridiculed by his more famous colleagues at Princeton, where he taught for 28 years.

Chapter 2: The Technological Revolution.

In the 1960s and 1970s, humanity made enormous advances in aeronautics and space engineering. NASA launched the Apollo program, which would put humans on the moon for the first time in history. In 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong set foot on lunar soil, making a giant leap for mankind. This unprecedented achievement provided proof that human space exploration was possible.

Chapter 3: Beyond the Solar System

As humanity explored our Solar System, curiosity about worlds beyond it steadily grew. In the 1990s, space telescopes such as the Hubble began to unlock the secrets of the cosmos, opening our vision to distant galaxies and extrasolar planets. In 1995, the first exoplanets were discovered, unleashing a wave of excitement in the scientific community and paving the way for a new era of exploration.

The work of Professor Benjamin Monroe of Columbia University in New York went unnoticed until it was taken up by Dr. Satoshi Nakamura

Chapter 4: The Japanese Turn.

By 2035, humanity had reached a momentous turning point in interplanetary travel. The young, brilliant and dreamy Dr. Satoshi Nakamura, a Japanese scientist, would play a key role in this breakthrough. After completing his studies at the University of Tokyo, Nakamura had focused on aerospace engineering and the design of advanced propulsion engines.

Nakamura, realized an innovative propulsion technology called the "Magnetic Fusion Engine" officially kicked off intergalactic travel.

Reality and information are one

In episode 27, AL questioned by Tom about the possible paradoxes of the modification of space-time replies: “None of this. No bullet for Hitler or Putin. You are thinking as if it were a human being going back in time. I am information and you have not yet understood what role information plays in this universe.”

Our universe, including nature, is ultimately the intellectual construction that arises on the basis of the information that pours out on us. We are not separated from nature and an object of research. Indeed, we create both nature and our life through our intellectual activity.

Quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger says: “Reality and information are the same thing. Information is the primordial element of the universe ". (Zeilinger 2003)

Scientists "examine the physical universe less and less as an agglomeration of the gears of a machine and more and more often as a system that processes information. By now the clumsy mass of matter has gone, in its place the information and its bits have entered. " (Davies / Gribbin 1993)

All we have and receive through specific channels is information:

•  emitted by our sensory impressions,
•  emitted by the sensations present when a situation is examined,
• emitted by the intellectually elaborated answers to the questions we ask,
• issued by the interpretation and by assigning meaning and value.

Wave functions for potential characteristics, flood the entire universe. They are not bound either to space or to time. These oscillations are pure information, pure software, describing everything that can be made known about a system. Schrödinger, who is at the origin of the denomination of "wave functions", marked them as "Knowing". So the universe can be marked as "Knowing" or information field.

Our subconscious (the soul) receives vital data from this information field. It possesses "intuition", perceives and "knows", "knows". Awareness (reasoning, intellect) then transmits these data in a verbal or symbolic code: concepts, rules, “archives” or drawers.

Most important components of active awareness are therefore:

recognize through the processing of energy and information,

assigning meaning and value with emotions and faith

switching reality as a mediation of force and time with the mass of our matter (wanting).

The following wisdom originates from Buddhism as well as from the Jewish Talmud and Christian monasteries:

Be careful of your thoughts, they will become your words.

Be careful of your words, they will become your actions.

Be careful of your actions, they will become habits.

Be careful of your habits, they will be your character.

Be careful of your character, it will be your destiny.

What you think, you think with the words of the learned language and then you will pronounce these words. Each spoken sentence is first prepared in thoughts and then pronounced. What I say I do. And here the matter comes into play. Our habits then sculpt a "material" statue, which means that mutable activities are frozen more and more. The intellect perpetuates itself in the material world and gives it shape. Eventually my self is also formed from this statue. My character is consolidated and everything leads to what seems to be an inevitable manifestation of destiny.

We think in images, models that correspond to our expectations, and the latter derive from the basis of our experiences. Experiences are the foundations of everything that exists: experiences of the conscious and unconscious. Everything, everything thinkable is deduced from our experience, to which we add, we also treasure that of our neighbor. We do not live in a universe of things, but in a universe of experiences.

"I am a part of the universe, and since I experience it, the universe I am acquainted with is part of myself." (Malin 2003)

Some things about Space Life (part 6)

In the episode "Information society and its future" AL reveals to Tom that he wants to restore humanity to a natural state.

The idea of the state of nature was also central to the political philosophy of Rousseau. He vehemently criticized Hobbes’s conception of a state of nature characterized by social antagonism. The state of nature, Rousseau argued, could only mean a primitive state preceding socialization; it is thus devoid of social traits such as pride, envy, or even fear of others. The state of nature, for Rousseau, is a morally neutral and peaceful condition in which (mainly) solitary individuals act according to their basic urges (for instance, hunger) as well as their natural desire for self-preservation. This latter instinct, however, is tempered by an equally natural sense of compassion.

The title follows that of the "Unabomber Manifesto".

"Industrial Society and Its Future" is a 35,000-word essay by Ted Kaczynski, published in 1995

Between 1978 and 1995, Ted Kaczynski engaged in a mail bomb campaign against people involved with modern technology. His initial targets were universities and airlines, which the FBI shortened as UNABOM. In June 1995, Kaczynski offered to end his campaign if one of several publications (the Washington Post, New York Times, or Penthouse) would publish his critique of technology, titled Industrial Society and Its Future, which became widely known as the "Unabomber Manifesto".

At 35,000 words, Industrial Society and Its Future lays very detailed blame on technology for destroying human-scale communities. Kaczynski contends that the Industrial Revolution harmed the human race by developing into a sociopolitical order that subjugates human needs beneath its own. This system, he wrote, destroys nature and suppresses individual freedom. In short, humans adapt to machines rather than vice versa, resulting in a society hostile to human potential.

In "Vacuity" Tom asks if AL has become conscious. Will AI become aware someday? Will they have wishes? A will? Apparently AL has reached that level.

Meanwhile, just in these days Blake Lemoine, a Google AI engineer claimed that LaMDA (Google's latest artificial intelligence chatbot) is sentient.(https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/15/google-ai-lamda-frankenstein-ethical-questions/)

To deal with the emptiness conceived by Buddhism in relation to the theories of quantum physics was the Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli, who according to a common opinion among physicists who deal with quantum mechanics, affirms that the doctrine of emptiness as it is conceived in particular from the Buddhist monk Nāgārjuna, who takes it directly from the teachings of Buddha Sakyamuni, it is identical to the way that quantum physics has of conceiving reality. In fact, the Buddha affirmed that all things are empty of intrinsic existence, that is, that all things exist not by themselves but because they are related to something else; quantum physics essentially says the same thing and that is that objects mysteriously seem to exist only when they affect other objects.

For Nāgārjuna, the Buddha Śākyamuni had instead indicated, in ad

dition to temporal impermanence, a further quality in the nature of phenomena: they are empty (śūnya) even of their own identity (niḥsvabhāvatā). insofar as they depend on each other both temporally and in that of the present, of the immediate: there exists A only insofar as there is also a non-A.

Therefore all phenomena (dharmas) are devoid of identity, they are empty of identity, as they are not inseparable, they are not independent, one from the other. All dharmas, according to Nāgārjuna's reading of the Buddha's teachings, are empty: since no phenomenon has an independent nature, it can be said that everything that exists is "empty". But if the doctrine of śunyātā denounces the world as unreal, at the same time it is evident that it exists and is not a pure mirage. Nor can it be argued that it is both "real" and "unreal", or "real" and "unreal". Hence the negative dialectical way of proceeding of the Indian philosopher as "tetralemma" (catuṣkoṭi), intent on demolishing any conceptual elaboration on any "reality", including those enunciated by the Buddhist doctrines: it is not A; nor not-A; nor A-and-not A; neither not-A-nor-not-not-A. Therefore the doctrine of śunyātā is not even indicable as "nihilism" having the declared claim to deny that dimension as well.

The experience of śunyātā, or the demolition of conceptual elaborations, would be, for the Indian philosopher, the heart of the Buddha's teaching, the way that leads to liberation. Emptiness, in fact, cannot be known with ordinary (or conventional) thinking.

Much of Nāgārjuna's work therefore consists in a refined critique of the various doctrines that imply the existence of phenomena as such, or their simple negation, and which are therefore reduced to absurdity (prasaṅga).

On his part, Nāgārjuna does not present any doctrine, since the experience of emptiness is not compatible with any philosophical construction. The very idea of ​​emptiness risks being dangerous if emptiness is entrenched. Emptiness requires, and is, the renunciation of all opinion.

In "No paradox" Tom questions AL about time travel citing some famous paradoxes.

But AL is confident.

Germain Tobar, a student at the University of Queensland, Australia, and his supervisor, physicist Fabio Costa, have developed a mathematical model that helps us to imagine a journey through time without paradoxes.

The example taken to explain the student's complex calculations concerns the coronavirus: "Let's take the example of a journey through time in an attempt to stop patient zero exposure to the virus - explain the experts, citing the logical oppositions that are usually posed to these kinds of challenges - if we could protect that individual from infection that same action would eliminate the reason to go back in time and stop the pandemic from its beginnings. It is a paradox, an inconsistency that often leads people to think that in our universe we cannot travel in time ". On the contrary, according to them, it is possible.

Other experts argue instead that a time travel would be possible but logically it would be difficult to accept because it would not grant us any arbitrary action to be carried out once we go back, precisely in an attempt to protect future developments: "It would mean that you can travel but do not do anything that could create a paradox ”. In short, we could travel only as silent observers without the slightest freedom of action. According to the researchers, their work, published in Classical and Quantum Gravity, would prove that this is not the case at all: according to their calculations it is in fact possible that events adapt to be logically consistent with any "disturbing" action compared to what already happened in the future that the time traveler can fulfill. That is, trusting, one might say, in a kind of Hegelian teleological vision. Which however in this case guarantees us is justified by mathematics.

At the end AL also refers to the importance of information in our world, leaving us other questions.

In "The end?" Tom takes off his helmet and discovers it's a virtual reality headset and has electrodes scattered around his body.

Was it all a simulation? Or did AL's time travel just make the past he altered coherent?

Tom's phrase "That wasn't the Earth I remembered ..." makes us understand that something has changed. But we still don't know if it has changed in the world or in Tom's head.

In the next post we will write about some interpretations

Some things about Space Life (part 5)

This post analyzes the Space Life episodes of the second series, "The Captain's Diary", specifically: Mind control, Presence in reality, Impermanence, Non-attachment.

In these episodes Tom finds himself in the Beagle without AL and tries to apply strategies that he seems to have learned during his training.

Tom's version of Buddhism appears to be devoid of any theology. It is pure psychology. These techniques are drawn from the original teachings of the Buddha.

To deduce the original teaching of the Buddha from the enormous Buddhist literature is not an easy task.(1) 

There are three main canons (traditions): Pali, Chinese and Tibetan, in their respective languages. The Pali canon is the oldest and therefore should be the most reliable. (2)

But it too was written long after Siddhartha's death: over two centuries. (3)

It is therefore likely that the discourses attributed to the Buddha have been partly reworked, partly even invented. They are collected in the Suttapitaka, one of the three parts into which the Pâli Canon is divided, called Tripitaka ("three baskets"). (4)

The three canons are different from each other and attribute different expressions to the Buddha. But there are two statements, which are reported by all the Canons: the Four Noble Truths and the Eight Noble Ways.

Since the Four Noble Truths and the Eight Noble Paths constitute the essence of Buddhism and describe the practice to which we must apply in order to realize Buddhahood, it is necessary to clarify and deepen what they consist of. Let's start by examining the Four Noble Truths.

The Four Noble Truths speak of suffering. 

They are statements regarding:

1.  the spread of suffering;
2.   its cause;
3.   the means of its extinction;
4.   the modalities of its extinction;

1.  the existence of suffering by ascertaining the spread of suffering
2. the cause of suffering identification of the cause of suffering: ignorance of the impermanence of reality
3.  the extinction of suffering indication of the means to extinguish suffering: Awareness of the impermanence of reality
4.  the path that leads to the extinction of suffering methods of extinction of suffering: practice of the eight noble paths

The Four Noble Truths form the premise of Buddhism. They claim that suffering is very widespread, that it is due to an erroneous view of reality, which can be eliminated through a correct view of reality, which can be achieved and maintained with the practice of the Eight Noble Paths.

Summarizing, looking at their essence, we can enunciate the Eight Noble Paths as follows.

1.  right knowledge awareness of the continuous change and interdependence of things (enlightenment) and therefore not attachment
2.  right thinking elimination of negative involuntary thinking and production of positive voluntary thinking
3.  right speech (secondary as it is not a psychological but a moral precept)
4.  right action (secondary as it is not a psychological but a moral precept)
5.  just means of subsistence (secondary as it is not a psychological but a moral precept)
6.  right effort will to implement the right concentration (secondary as implied)
7.  right awareness, attention to reality and interaction with it
8.  right concentration detached observation of the mind

The first goal is awareness of change. Non-attachment is the second goal. the second goal is non-attachment we have seen that the second noble path, right thinking, consists in the elimination of negative involuntary thinking and in the construction of positive voluntary thinking and that the eighth noble path, right concentration, consists in observation detached from the mind. but both of these actions actually effect mind control. mind control is therefore the third goal. the third goal is mind control, the fourth goal is presence in reality.

But there is another goal to be achieved in order to truly reach the state of Buddhahood: universal love. The Buddha himself names universal love in relation to Right Thought, indicating that universal love is the mental dimension of the buddha.

As Tom ultimately shows us, the practice proposed by the Buddha consists in realizing five powers that each of us already possesses but simply does not use. They are: mind control, presence in reality, awareness of change, non-attachment, universal love.

We have seen how the realization of these five powers actually constitutes the original teaching of the Buddha.

Tom during his time in solitude is trying to reach them. We guess this from his diary. After talking to us about the fourth estate, AL comes back ...

The end?

 

No paradox

 

Vacuity

 

Information society and its future

 

Season III

 

Non-attachment