Are Aliens Already Among Us?

[Randall]

Post biological sentience: Its one of those areas where its hard to think outside the box you actually inhabit But if we are to attempt to grasp the significance of such a possibility we must try.

That video was hilarious and scary at the same time ... what a great find. I cracked up when it got to the "Terms & Conditions" part ( Since I know you're familiar with my posts on lousy TOS agreements, you can imagine why ), and it just kept getting better from there.

Here's a crazy thought. What if Gene's idea regarding terraforming isn't taking place on an ecosystem level, but taking place on a virtual level, the Internet being the first phase of creating a massive virtual environment for alien AIs, where humans become dependent on their network for managing daily routines and resources necessary for survival, and our role evolves into that of maintenance drones. Hell I'm already a maintenance drone now ( an outcall PC tech ). Some great sci-fi possibilities there.

 

[Ezechiel]

Made me think of another favorite quote from Clarke - "Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."

Which makes me consider the possibility that the intent of the multiple non-intervention 'peek-a-boo'-type UFO/UAP/whatever events is perhaps to simply show humanity that 'we are not alone'.

Answers to other questions like, were we genetically manufactured or are we exploited in any way... I'm not sure I want to know

 

[Randall]

... Answers to other questions like, were we genetically manufactured or are we exploited in any way... I'm not sure I want to know

Well ... we're already genetically modifying and exploiting ourselves, so if I were an alien who didn't know any better, I might figure that since humans like doing that anyway, why not join the party. In fact, since I'm so used to being exploited by humans it might be a nice change to get exploited by aliens ... where do I sign up? Please, just don't put me on some work crew scraping space barnacles off the mother ship 16 hours a day. I'd probably be more suited to working in the Moon Base cafeteria serving humans ... especially if a few of them were my old bosses.

 

[mike]

That video was hilarious and scary at the same time ... what a great find. I cracked up when it got to the "Terms & Conditions" part ( Since I know you're familiar with my posts on lousy TOS agreements, you can imagine why ), and it just kept getting better from there.

Here's a crazy thought. What if Gene's idea regarding terraforming isn't taking place on an ecosystem level, but taking place on a virtual level, the Internet being the first phase of creating a massive virtual environment for alien AIs, where humans become dependent on their network for managing daily routines and resources necessary for survival, and our role evolves into that of maintenance drones. Hell I'm already a maintenance drone now ( an outcall PC tech ). Some great sci-fi possibilities there.

Which takes us from the trans biological to the AI scenario, what if rather than ET being post biological, its instead predominantly AI or rather Synthetic Intellect in nature ?
How does SI breed ? it cant simply copy itself, the result would be like talking in a mirror.

One way SI's might breed would be to replicate the circumstances under which they were created, find a biological species , tweak them and coax them to technical proficiency and have them create SI "in their own image", the resulting entity would be a new unique SI.
WE may not be the final product here, just the factory workers.

 

[Randall]

WE may not be the final product here, just the factory workers.

Exactly !

 

[mike]

That video was hilarious and scary at the same time ... what a great find. I cracked up when it got to the "Terms & Conditions" part ( Since I know you're familiar with my posts on lousy TOS agreements, you can imagine why ), and it just kept getting better from there.

Here's a crazy thought. What if Gene's idea regarding terraforming isn't taking place on an ecosystem level, but taking place on a virtual level, the Internet being the first phase of creating a massive virtual environment for alien AIs, where humans become dependent on their network for managing daily routines and resources necessary for survival, and our role evolves into that of maintenance drones. Hell I'm already a maintenance drone now ( an outcall PC tech ). Some great sci-fi possibilities there.

Another possibility is that the internet is being rolled out so that the scenario in that video can become a reality.
If ET are in reality what we would describe as uploaded dead or as i prefer to call them trans/post biological , saying "hello" to us might very well freak us out.

Imagine the POTUS giving a press conference saying "ET is here, but heres the twist, they are a technologically advanced society comprised of the uploaded minds of the dead, theirs and ours......."

I doubt even people who are into the UFO genre would handle that well.

heres one example of how such a scenario could get misinterpreted

Rather, the group – which calls itself the Collins Elite – concludes that the “aliens” are, in reality, literal demonic entities that are trying to seduce us with a false lure of supposed alien technology, and to – quite literally – steal and farm our souls. The group claim to have discovered evidence that these demonic entities – that seem to utilize a weird combination of advanced technology and archaic rite and ritual – derive a form of “energy sustenance” from the human soul or life force.
In other words, they don’t want to land on the White House lawn and help us, nor do they want to destroy us. Rather, they want to maintain the herd, and upon our physical deaths, extract the human life-force as sustenance. The Collins Elite believes this has been going on since the dawning of civilization

The Collins Elite | The American Book of the Dead


But, if the scenario we see in that vid comes to be, after a couple of hundred years of interacting with our own trans biological population and family members, that announcement would be greeted with a yawn.

 

[Ezechiel]

Which takes us from the trans biological to the AI scenario, what if rather than ET being post biological, its instead predominantly AI or rather Synthetic Intellect in nature ?
How does SI breed ? it cant simply copy itself, the result would be like talking in a mirror.

One way SI's might breed would be to replicate the circumstances under which they were created, find a biological species , tweak them and coax them to technical proficiency and have them create SI "in their own image", the resulting entity would be a new unique SI.
WE may not be the final product here, just the factory workers.

You might want to take a look at this.

Bluebrain | EPFL

Once we create this synthetic brain, the resulting epiphany might transcend down to our existential core.

I think people of the Jewish faith have a word for this: Golem. Sentience without soul. This from an obscure structure called Cabal ?

 

[mike]

Thanks Ezechiel, yes ive been following this research for years now

The operative word being faith here too, as this clip from the collins elite link i posted posits

I like Christopher Knowles theory at the blog – that the “demon” is not a literal demon, but a “presence” that could crumble the foundation of Christianity. As such, they dig into their beliefs harder, as is the case with the When Prophecy Fails syndrome.

I think these advancements will not just close the god gap, but will put it in a box nail the lid down and bury it once and for all. Faith will resist that for as long as it can

Still........

Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Idan Segev and his team at the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences helped conceive neuronal models, in particular by developing a multi-objective optimization taking into account the diversity of electrical phenomena at the neuronal level.

Everyone is on board with these projects, Govts ,Universitys and private enterprise are all chasing the prize

Oddly enough i came across this yesterday

"Narrative Science’s artificial intelligence platform analyzes data and communicates this information in a way that is easy to read and understand," said Steve Bowsher, Managing Partner at IQT, in a press release. "We believe these advanced analytic capabilities can be of great value to our customers in the Intelligence Community."

The CIA Invests in Robot Writers

Quill: The Power of Artificial Intelligence

Quill applies complex and sophisticated artificial intelligence algorithms that extract the key facts and interesting insights from the data and transforms them into stories. The resulting content is as good or better than your best analyst, and is produced at a scale and speed only possible with technology – technology that is now patented.
(Patent Number 8,355,903 and Patent Number 8,374,848)

Artificial Intelligence Data Engine | What is Quill? | Narrative Science

Research group switches on world's first "artificial intelligence" tasked-array system.

For several years now a small research group has been working on some challenging problems in the areas of neural networking, natural language and autonomous problem-solving. Last fall this group achieved a significant breakthrough: a powerful new technique for solving reinforcement learning problems, resulting in the first functional global-scale neuro-evolutionary learning cluster.
Since then progress has been rapid, and tonight we're pleased to announce that just moments ago, the world's first Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity (CADIE) was switched on and began performing some initial functions. It's an exciting moment that we're determined to build upon by coming to understand more fully what CADIE's emergence might mean, for Google and for our users. So although CADIE technology will be rolled out with the caution befitting any advance of this magnitude, in the months to come users can expect to notice her influence on various google.com properties. Earlier today, for instance, CADIE deduced from a quick scan of the visual segment of the social web a set of online design principles from which she derived this intriguing homepage.
These are merely the first steps onto what will doubtless prove a long and difficult road. Considerable bugs remain in CADIE'S programming, and considerable development clearly is called for. But we can't imagine a more important journey for Google to have undertaken.
For more information about CADIE see this monograph, and follow CADIE's progress via her YouTube channel and blog.
©2011 Google

CADIE: Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity

Who'd have think it

 

[mike]

Ironically this almost looks like its been designed to ease us into the idea

What is Second Life?
Second Life is a 3D world where everyone you see is a real person and every place you visit is built by people just like you

What is Second Life? | Second Life

If the biologicals using Second life today, are offered upload technology 40 years from now, i doubt many of them would say no, i predict 20 years from now this simulation and the means of using it will be indistinguishable from real life

Researchers have been making great progress in developing brain-computer interfaces—devices that let a person's thoughts guide the actions of a computer.

Controlling Computers with Your Mind - NIH Research Matters - National Institutes of Health (NIH)

vr-news | virtual reality and augmented reality news

Tesco nears ‘dream’ of 3D ecommerce offering

Combine artificial brain architecture with Kurzweils upload technology, add a portable holoprojector ala Voyagers EMH, and its not inconceivable that you might one day be introduced to a "trans"(ferred) person at a party.

So to the question are aliens amoung us ?, using this technology they could well be.

The trouble is of course that right now we have some pretty strong feelings about reanimated dead, zombies etc.

The collins elite narrative is again worth looking at, if the "core" of what they say they know is the reality (stripping aside their religious bias filters)

Rather, the group – which calls itself the Collins Elite – concludes that the “aliens” are, in reality, literal demonic entities that are trying to seduce us with a false lure of supposed alien technology, and to – quite literally – steal and farm our souls. The group claim to have discovered evidence that these demonic entities – that seem to utilize a weird combination of advanced technology and archaic rite and ritual – derive a form of “energy sustenance” from the human soul or life force.
In other words, they don’t want to land on the White House lawn and help us, nor do they want to destroy us. Rather, they want to maintain the herd, and upon our physical deaths, extract the human life-force as sustenance. The Collins Elite believes this has been going on since the dawning of civilization

Stripping out the local superstitious stuff, we are left with the story that "aliens" have been here for a very long time, extracting our conciousness (aka souls in the religious version) at our physical deaths.

If that core story is the reality, then the transbio population would be much much larger than the current biological population.
It might be fairer to say we are amoungst them, being the immature minority of a larger reality.

Abductees often report being told "we love you, we are your family"

This from the cahill case

Then this male voice said, "We [don't] mean you any harm." And then he said, "Why did you hit Kelly then?" That's the last I heard of [my husband]. No one else talked except me. I heard the male voice. Then I heard myself saying, "Oh, God, I'm going to be sick." I've got my head between my knees, and I just felt, like, violently nauseous. Then I must have blacked out for a little while.

I don't remember being sick. Then I remember hearing talk about being a peaceful people, and I started screaming out, I said, "Don't believe them! They're going to steal your souls!" I know it sounds so ridiculous now, but at the time I was hysterically terrified. . . . I had never felt terror like that. Not even in my worst nightmares had I experienced terror like that. . . .

Oh, there's one thing I remember that he said: "I wouldn't harm her. She's my daughter."

Streiber also thinks there is a link

If the Communion experience does involve the world of the dead, then it makes sense that our reality would be nested within a larger one. The Master of the Key said that our dead are not off wondering elsewhere but are right here with us

Of course if this is the reality we will have to dump or radically redefine the word dead, something which in and of itself highlights the vast mental gulf we would have to cross in order to understand such a reality.

If such technical mechanisms are possible, (and we are busting our guts trying to build them) then imo its likely any suffiently advanced ET would be too.

As the word dead illustrates in this context, we are only just starting to develop the language to understand such a reality, and we will have to discard some of the outdated labels in the process

 

[Burnt State]

WE may not be the final product here, just the factory workers.

I've always felt we were more of a parasite than a good factory worker. Aphids are far more impressive in their donations of liquid sunshine dew that they pee out for wasps and ants to milk. Meanwhile, we just keep nibbling holes, gouge and frack the earth into a series of butchered perforations. Not too sure about our overall contributions either. We fumble our way through technology and are immature at best with our processes - so much excess waste and inefficiency, yet we have lived alongside nature since we crawled out of the ocean. You'd think we'd have learned something from the real technological marvels of this planet. Insect tech makes us look like kids in a sandbox. If we are manufactured, we need a lot more than tweaking.

 

[mike]

I've always felt we were more of a parasite than a good factory worker. Aphids are far more impressive in their donations of liquid sunshine dew that they pee out for wasps and ants to milk. Meanwhile, we just keep nibbling holes, gouge and frack the earth into a series of butchered perforations. Not too sure about our overall contributions either. We fumble our way through technology and are immature at best with our processes - so much excess waste and inefficiency, yet we have lived alongside nature since we crawled out of the ocean. You'd think we'd have learned something from the real technological marvels of this planet. Insect tech makes us look like kids in a sandbox. If we are manufactured, we need a lot more than tweaking.

In the SI scenario, provided we create the product, it wont matter if we destroy ourselves and the planet at some stage afterwards.

You cant make an omelette without breaking some eggs

If the "project" is to create an SI, then the project managers only have to manage us with that goal in mind. Once its done we, and even the earth are expendable.

Once the product is delivered you throw away the box

In this scenario, the factory is perhaps a poor analogy, a mold ( A frame or model around or on which something is formed or shaped.)might be a better one

 

[Randall]

I've always felt we were more of a parasite than a good factory worker ... Insect tech makes us look like kids in a sandbox. If we are manufactured, we need a lot more than tweaking.

Agent Smith felt that humans were more like a virus for the way we reproduce, use up resources and then move on. I used to see human expansion as more like skin cancer. That thought fist came to me one night as I flew into the city and looked down at the way it covered the land like a living thing. These days I look at human expansion more like giant neural network that is growing toward some kind of biotechnological singularity.

Regarding our technical ability compared to insects. Your point is well taken but even if we accept that insects actually produce technology ( e.g. ant hills or bee's nests ), those things pale in comparison to the technology humans create, from microprocessors to space stations, and what's more, our creative process isn't merely some sort of genetic reflex, as insect creations appear to be, but the result of intelligent cognitive processes.

 

[Burnt State]

I guess one could posit reasons why greater intelligences might want to somehow download individuated sentience (if they are indeed individuated) into the human platform. Perhaps its a kind of vacation or virtual reality experience for them. It''s hard to imagine what they could learn from this that could not be otherwise observed. Except, perhaps, the sensory aspects of being human.

Maybe altered sensory experiences are nothing that special. Motives are difficult to ascertain when you're considering the intentions of life forms that have been asking questions for millennia longer than us. In my favourite sentient, alien plant movies, both of the first two versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the spores grow and download individual human sentience for the sake of just being - it's almost a very Zen, or Daoist, dull shine those plant people wear, unperturbed by external stimuli.

As humans, we have always searched for "the other" amongst us--the wiser, the smarter, the transcendent. These have been in the form of shamans, channelers, gods born to human women, witches in league with dark forces and so on. In a way the search for space aliens among us is a continuation of this tradition. As long as we can only infer the inner thoughts of others and take on a kind of faith that they are like us at heart, such suspicions will probably be always with us.

Have we really searched out the other in that form, or did we wander back and forth between venerating and shunning the shaman, god born to human woman? We sometimes revered these figures to guide us, heal us and explain the ways of the stars, and at other times we lived in fear of their secret knowledge and gladly gutted them upon the stone altar if it could be politically sanctioned.

The desire for the alien among us, for me, is about walking alongside the invisible god to create a bit of a lift for our psychic self-esteem, that we could be special enough to be emulated by the other.

Those old suspicions that you mentioned, those certainly seem to be connected to our lack of collective hominid self-esteem. We yell out to the cosmos, "Look at me! Look at me!" as we blast off our rockets and probes. And then others pour over the stars hoping to find out that we are not alone.

 

[boomerang]

What so limits our discussion is small sampling size when studying self-aware, abstract thinking and tool using species. The size of that sample is exactly one and we are it. Sometimes I think this fact alone makes mankind a little neurotic. And to make matters worse, we long for space brothers but experience the cosmic trickster instead. It all seems a bit unfair.

 

[Ezechiel]

In the SI scenario, provided we create the product, it wont matter if we destroy ourselves and the planet at some stage afterwards.

You cant make an omelette without breaking some eggs

If the "project" is to create an SI, then the project managers only have to manage us with that goal in mind. Once its done we, and even the earth are expendable.

Once the product is delivered you throw away the box

In this scenario, the factory is perhaps a poor analogy, a mold ( A frame or model around or on which something is formed or shaped.)might be a better one

Holy Batman... I was kind of surprised by Obama's scientific initiative but now the pieces of the puzzle are starting to fit.
The BRAIN Project Will Develop New Technologies to Understand the Brain | MIT Technology Review

If SI actually works it should be able to migrate to another bio destination. So... the big picture is likely a galactic synthetic intelligence network where biological entities are a transitional necessity. If you're honest you'll have to accept that our stage of exponential technological evolution requires solutions of exponential complexity... I figure that at some point in time we'll have to transfer the tasks to quantum computers and rely on solely on SI since the human brain does have its limitations. If biological interfaces with SI are developed I suspect that we'll have to find another word for human

 

[mike]

What so limits our discussion is small sampling size when studying self-aware, abstract thinking and tool using species. The size of that sample is exactly one and we are it. Sometimes I think this fact alone makes mankind a little neurotic. And to make matters worse, we long for space brothers but experience the cosmic trickster instead. It all seems a bit unfair.

Actually a surprising number of local species use tools

Beck's Animal Tool Behavior was the first volume to catalog and analyze the complete literature on tool use and manufacture in non-human animals. Beck showed that animals—from insects to primates—employed different types of tools to solve numerous problems. His work inspired and energized legions of researchers to study the use of tools by a wide variety of species.

The Johns Hopkins University Press

the authors provide an updated and exact definition of tool use, identify new modes of use that have emerged in the literature, examine all forms of tool manufacture, and address common myths about non-human tool use. Specific examples involving invertebrates, birds, fish, and mammals describe the differing levels of sophistication of tool use exhibited by animals.

What does set us apart is the creation and utilisation of external energy sources, we are the only terrestrial species that does that.

In simple terms we are the only species here that makes fire and uses it, be it the back yard BBQ through to nuclear power plants.

Given that any ET visiting would also need to have created and used an energy source to get here, its no doubt what makes us most interesting.

Imo, the moment we started making fire, we were on the "watch" list.

 

[Jeff Davis]

What so limits our discussion is small sampling size when studying self-aware, abstract thinking and tool using species. The size of that sample is exactly one and we are it. Sometimes I think this fact alone makes mankind a little neurotic. And to make matters worse, we long for space brothers but experience the cosmic trickster instead. It all seems a bit unfair.

Brother, you said a mouthful. It's a constant and ever annoying case of an instinct driven curious (read: fear) humanity projecting it's signified sole/soul perspective into an even more so refined (read: programmed) smokey mirror while reflectively envisioning either the most safe, gratifying, and truly wondrous feedback imaginable, or one that as MR. Beckley recently reminded us of with his republished and augmented edition of "round trip to hell in a flying saucer" . Another true esoteric classic for the quasi book/info hungry masses out there.

I have not read such a blatantly honest, relative, and truthful admission in a long time. Those are heavy words brother...boom, snap,word, down to the bone, whatever. You're right, and we plainly see that type of projection determined polarity feedback on so many levels in paranormal contact info/investigations of all sorts.

One man's neurosis is another man's wardrobe. I mean, like Zero Mostel said early on as Max Bialystock in the wondrously classic film "The Producers" if ya got it baby, flaunt it, baby, flaunt it!" Thing is, the clothes tend to fall apart at the seems once the flash wears off. The difference is that men such as yourself see the incredibly short distance that we live and consider these awesome mysterious apart from ourselves. The ever curious neurotic egotist. Not a good investigative combo if ever there was one but it happens everyday and as it does we all pray for a little more wisdom and insight when we wake tomorrow. Amen.

 

[Randall]

There's been some really interesting discussion here on what constitutes and alien presence. Ideas range from downloaded alien consciousness within the World Wide Web, to some kind of natural manifestation, to aliens that have taken on a human form. How might we be able to single out these entities? An alien intelligence making its presence known on the Internet would be indistinguishable from anyone else. There are already automated bots out there that respond to queries in chat rooms and forums, and they're getting better at disguising themselves all the time.

A couple of members over on the JREF tend to behave like bots at times. I don't doubt for a moment that the intelligence agencies have automated programs that read posts and respond to them. Yahoo had them years ago when they had their world famous chat rooms. If they and advertisers can figure out how to use bots to mine for data, the NSA can certainly afford to setup a program that mines for intel. So perhaps there might be some way to identify a virtual intelligence from ours by way of certain habits and phrases in response to certain queries.

But what about aliens that have taken on human form? Without any background information, these people would be really hard to identify. Humor yourself and next time you go out to the mall or someplace with a lot of people, put yourself in the frame of mind that there could be aliens sprinkled in with the crowd and see if you can observe or sense anything out of the ordinary. It's quite an interesting exercise.

 

[Burnt State]

And to make matters worse, we long for space brothers but experience the cosmic trickster instead. It all seems a bit unfair.

It reminds me of the kind of taunting, teasing, and general joking around that adults have with kids in the village. Maybe what's unfair for us, child species that we are, is that we haven't been able to yet make those larger leaps in abstract thinking like the other big kids around the galaxy can. When and if we really get a chance to evolve and extend our thinking processes, so we can speak without words ( at the very least), the other species might stop playing cosmic jokes on us all the time.

 

[Jeff Davis]

It reminds me of the kind of taunting, teasing, and general joking around that adults have with kids in the village. Maybe what's unfair for us, child species that we are, is that we haven't been able to yet make those larger leaps in abstract thinking like the other big kids around the galaxy can. When and if we really get a chance to evolve and extend our thinking processes, so we can speak without words ( at the very least), the other species might stop playing cosmic jokes on us all the time.

This is the esteem deficit you referred to previously, correct? I think the latter half of your post elucidates IMO, a somewhat alarming, if not terrifyingly premature segue into what is referred to as the singularity. I'm thinking that somewhere between the horse and the cart MR. K might have lost it a bit. The premature motives in this case being one of a search orientation (boomerang) (read the fountain of youth/eternal life/God), the other representing the facilitation, or precision extension if you will, of capacities that already exist as a result of natural measurable physical changes/refinements in the brain.

Whether these changes are due solely to the process of natural progressive evolution, or to that which is, and has been, guided by what we commonly perceive as an external indigenously alien species seeking to hybridize with us via some dark and sinister, <diabolic even> scheme. Are we as Charles Fort contended somewhat likened to cattle/owned/cultivated? Can this process be carried on from the physical demise of one life form to the hypothetical next? (transferrable) Are we willful flesh that naturally houses an exceptionally powerful and unique form of biologically integrable energy that "they" use to power/animate themselves?

Or possibly, in a planned yet naturally unfolding unified sense, the many occurrences throughout time/history within the broadest vista of Fortean considerations imaginable serve as a sort of temporally nonspecific motivational trigger. Do these remarkably lucid and seemingly sane accounts of a "punch in/punch out" surreal nature serve to naturally stimulate the evolutionary decoding responsible for physical brain refinements (menta-morphosis?) via the DNA information we carry?