Follows close on mysterious discovery regarding fast radio bursts

by Tara MacIsaac, Epoch Times (August 29, 2016)

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) institute announced Monday that it considers a radio signal detected by Russian astronomers a potential sign of intelligent inhabitants in a star system 94 light-years away.

“There are many other plausible explanations for this claimed transmission—including terrestrial interference. Without a confirmation of this signal, we can only say that it’s ‘interesting,’” wrote Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer for SETI, in a technical analysis.

Nonetheless, Shostak considered the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrial origin. Analyzing the strength of the signal, he said it would have to have been sent by a civilization capable of generating at least a trillion watts in one shot. That’s comparable to the total energy consumption of humankind.

The signal seems to be coming from the star system HD 164595, which centers on a star of comparable size and brightness to our sun. It is known to have a Neptune-sized planet, though its tight orbit makes it unlikely to host life. But, Shostak noted, more habitable planets may yet be found in HD 164595.

The signal was picked up by the RATAN-600 radio telescope in Zelenchukskaya, at the northern foot of the Caucasus Mountains. SETI will continue to monitor the star system with its Allen Telescope Array to see if there is any repeat of the signal.

It lasted longer than so-called “fast radio bursts” (FRBs), which last mere milliseconds. A total of 17 FRBs have been detected in the past eight years, though their origin also remains unknown.

A study published in the journal Nature in March by an international team of scientists revealed that FRBs are more mysterious than previously thought.

Previously, the bursts had been detected as single, non-repeating events coming from outside our galaxy. This led to the hypothesis that they originate in cataclysmic events, such as the collision of neutron stars, which would send shock-waves through space.

The researchers found, however, that 10 additional bursts followed FRB 121102 from the same location. The study states: “This unambiguously identifies FRB 121102 as repeating and demonstrates that its source survives the energetic events that cause the bursts.”

The study speculates that the source may be a young neutron star, but Shami Chatterjee, a Cornell University senior researcher who contributed to the study,said in a news release: “It seems we’ve broken this enigmatic phenomenon wide open.”

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By Tara MacIsaac, Epoch Times

The founders of quantum physics contemplated the philosophical implications of their findings. They were astounded that the thoughts of the observer seemed to influence the matter being observed. Principles believed to stabilize physical reality didn’t seem to apply.

The power of the human mind to influence physical reality has been recognized in various fields. For example, the effectiveness of placebo treatments has brought the role of human consciousness to bear on conventional modern medicine.

Dr. Robert Jahn served as an engineering dean at Princeton University while studying for decades the impact of human thought on the functioning of mechanical devices. In his book “Margins of Reality,” he reopens the questions once raised by Max Planck, Erwin Schrödinger, and other influential scientists—questions of human consciousness, which Jahn says modern students seem to pay less attention to than the physical data collected by these science greats.

Jahn, Planck, and Schrödinger are not the only scientists to have contemplated the role of human consciousness in science. Many have suggested that scientists must face the enigma and challenges of understanding consciousness for science to make it’s next big leap. Here are the views of eight scientists.

1. Max Planck, Founding Father of Quantum Mechanics

German physicist Max Planck, c. 1930. (Wikimedia Commons)

Planck is regarded as one of the founders of quantum mechanics. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918 for “the services he rendered to the advancement of Physics by his discovery of energy quanta,” according to the Nobel Prize website.

In “A Survey of Physical Theory,” Planck wrote: “All ideas we form of the outer world are ultimately only reflections of our own perceptions. Can we logically set up against our self-consciousness a ‘Nature’ independent of it? Are not all so-called natural laws really nothing more or less than expedient rules with which we associate the run of our perceptions as exactly and conveniently as possible?”

2. Erwin Schrödinger, Nobel Prize Winning Physicist

Erwin Schrödinger, 1933. (Nobel Foundation)

Erwin Schrödinger was a physicist and theoretical biologist. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933 with Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac “for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory,” according to the Nobel Prize website.

Jahn quotes Schrödinger: “Consciousness is that by which this world first becomes manifest, by which indeed, we can quite calmly say, it first becomes present; that the world consists of the elements of consciousness.”

3. Robert G. Jahn, Princeton Engineering Dean

Professor of aerospace science and dean emeritus of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University Robert G. Jahn began studying psychic phenomena some 30 years ago.

Jahn suggested in “Margins of Reality” that the study of consciousness may start by quantifying consciousness in statistical form. He has conducted many experiments on the ability of the mind to influence machines. We will give a very simplified overview of his experiments to illustrate:

He used a random event generator (REG) that can produce bits representing either 0 or 1. Study participants would try to influence the REG either way, toward 0 or toward 1. If the events showed a significant favor in the direction of the person’s will above what chance would dictate, it suggested the person’s will influenced the machine. Human intent was thus boiled down to a measurable, binary form. With many tests, Jahn built up a mass of results that could then become reliable statistics.

He noted, however, “Since most established behavior in consciousness-related domains can only be quantitatively represented in statistical terms, and since all statistical formats are themselves constructions of consciousness, it follows that the validity and limitations of the statistical representations must themselves be well defined and well understood before an anomaly can be claimed.”

4. David Chalmers, Cognitive Scientist and Philosopher at NYU

Chalmers is a philosophy professor and head of consciousness studies at the Australian National University and at New York University.

In a TED Talk earlier this year, he said science is at a sort of impasse in its study of consciousness, and “radical ideas may be needed,” to move forward. “I think that we may need one or two ideas that may initially seem crazy.”

In the past, physics had to incorporate newly discovered fundamental building blocks, such as electromagnetism, that were unexplained by more basic principles. He wonders whether consciousness is another such building block.
“Physics is curiously abstract,” he said. “It describes the structure of reality using a bunch of equations, but it doesn’t tell us about the reality that underlies it.” He quoted a question posed by Stephen Hawking: “What puts the fire into the equations?”

Maybe consciousness puts the fire into the equations, Chalmers said. The equations stay as they are, but we see them as means for describing the flux of consciousness.

“Consciousness doesn’t dangle outside the physical world as some kind of extra, it’s there right at its heart,” he said.

5. Imants Barušs, Psychologist, Member of Society for Consciousness Studies

Dr. Imants Barušs is a psychology professor at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, who teaches courses on consciousness. He studied engineering as an undergraduate student and completed a masters degree in mathematics before receiving his Ph.D. in psychology. 

At the inaugural meeting of the Society for Consciousness Studies at The California Institute of Integral Studies on May 31, Barušs presented a paper outlining his vision for consciousness studies and his reasons for supporting it.

He highlighted the importance of such research, and even a paradigm shift, by arguing that strictly materialist science is contributing to mental health problems among youth. Many depressed teens who hurt themselves don’t possess the “hallmarks of a psychiatric disorder,” wrote Baruss, quoting a Toronto Star article titled “Psychiatrists see rise in suicidal teenagers.” “Instead they seem to be suffering an existential crisis that is sort of ‘I’m empty, I don’t know who I am, I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t have any grounding and I don’t know how to manage my negative feelings.’”

Barušs wrote: “Scientific materialism assures us that reality is a meaningless, incidental, mechanistic, collocation of improbable events.”

He summarized some of the ways in which the materialist interpretation of reality has already broken down: quantum events are seen to be non-deterministic; time is no longer linear, as effects have been shown to precede their causes; particles change position depending on where one looks or what one decides to measure.

Finally, he said, “Materialism cannot explain … the sense of existence that people have for themselves.”

He hopes the Society for Consciousness Studies can promote open inquiry. Collectively, scientists interested in this line of inquiry could work to find funding or support those who are censured by their colleagues or employers.

6. William Tiller, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University

Tiller is a fellow at the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, and professor emeritus of materials science at Stanford University.

Tiller has discovered a new level of substance in the empty space between the fundamental electric particles that make up our normal electric atoms and molecules, in the vacuum. This kind of substance is usually invisible to us, and to our measurement devices.

But, he has discovered that human intention can affect this substance in such a way that it interacts with the substances we can see or that we are able to measure.

“Consciousness lifts the higher thermodynamic free energy state [of the vacuum level], then we can access the physics of the vacuum,” Tiller says. “Accessing that new physics allows intention to bring forth effects you wouldn’t imagine.”

The consciousness can, in a way, affect or interact with a power greater than anything conventional instruments have been able to measure thus far.

7. Bernard Beitman, Psychiatrist, University of Virginia

Dr. Bernard Beitman (Courtesy of Dr. Beitman)

Beitman is a psychiatrist forging the emerging discipline of Coincidence Studies. He is a graduate of Yale and Stanford and is the former chair of psychiatry at the University of Missouri–Columbia.

In a 2011 paper, Beitman wrote: “One of the biggest challenges in the development of the new discipline of Coincidence Studies is providing a systematic place in scientific research for subjectivity and for human consciousness. Meaningful coincidences depend upon the mind of the observer. The question of how to develop methods and an accompanying technical language that includes and respects the subjective element built into the fabric of coincidence needs to be answered.”

8. Henry P. Stapp, Physicist Specializing in Quantum Mechanics, University of California–Berkeley

Stapp is a theoretical physicist at the University of California–Berkeley who worked with some of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics.

In a paper titled “Compatibility of Contemporary Physical Theory With Personality Survival,” Stapp looked at how the mind may exist separately from the brain.

A scientist physically affects quantum systems by choosing which properties to study. Similarly, an observer can hold in place a chosen brain activity that would otherwise be fleeting. This shows, said Stapp, that the mind and brain may not be one and the same.

He said scientists should regard “the physical effects of consciousness as a physical problem that needs to be answered in dynamical terms.”

*Image of human consciousness via Shutterstock

Translation is a 5-step process using syllogistic reasoning to transform man and the universe back into Being. Being is the perfect, essential nature of all, and through the process of Translation, Reality is uncovered and thus revealed. Through word tracking, getting to the essence of the words we use to express our current view of reality, we are uncovering Essence, which is the only true reality.

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Sense testimony:  Aging causes deterioration and weight gain.

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The Prophet Muhammad

Abu al-Fida (1273 – 1331 AD) was a Muslim geographer and historian. He relates that Muhammad suffered from a death erection. From Edward Gibbon’s “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”:

In English, Ali had exclaimed, “O prophet, thy penis is erect unto the sky!”

(from WikiIslam.net)

Charles Perrault (12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was a French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from pre-existing folk tales. The best known of his tales include Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (Little Red Riding Hood), Cendrillon (Cinderella), Le Chat Botté (Puss in Boots), La Belle au bois Dormant (The Sleeping Beauty), and Barbe Bleue (Bluebeard). Some of Perrault’s versions of old stories may have influenced the German versions published by the Brothers Grimm more than 100 years later. The stories continue to be printed and have been adapted to opera, ballet (such asTchaikovsky‘s The Sleeping Beauty), theatre, and film. Perrault was an influential figure in the 17th-century French literary scene, and was the leader of the Modern faction during the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns.

August 28, 2016 (TheIntercept.com)

Before a Preseason game on Friday, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” When he explained why, he only spoke about the present: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. … There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Twitter then went predictably nuts, with at least one 49ers fan burning Kaepernick’s jersey.

Almost no one seems to be aware that even if the U.S. were a perfect country today, it would be bizarre to expect African-American players to stand for “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Why? Because it literally celebrates the murder of African-Americans.

Few people know this because we only ever sing the first verse. But read the end of the third verse and you’ll see why “The Star-Spangled Banner” is not just a musical atrocity, it’s an intellectual and moral one, too:

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

“The Star-Spangled Banner,” Americans hazily remember, was written by Francis Scott Key about the Battle of Fort McHenry in Baltimore during the War of 1812. But we don’t ever talk about how the War of 1812 was a war of aggression that began with an attempt by the U.S. to grab Canada from the British Empire.

However, we’d wildly overestimated the strength of the U.S. military. By the time of the Battle of Fort McHenry in 1814, the British had counterattacked and overrun Washington, D.C., setting fire to the White House.

And one of the key tactics behind the British military’s success was its active recruitment of American slaves. As a detailed 2014 article in Harper’s explains, the orders given to the Royal Navy’s Admiral Sir George Cockburn read:

Let the landings you make be more for the protection of the desertion of the Black Population than with a view to any other advantage. … The great point to be attained is the cordial Support of the Black population. With them properly armed & backed with 20,000 British Troops, Mr. Madison will be hurled from his throne.

Whole families found their way to the ships of the British, who accepted everyone and pledged no one would be given back to their “owners.” Adult men were trained to create a regiment called the Colonial Marines, who participated in many of the most important battles, including the August 1814 raid on Washington.

Then on the night of September 13, 1814, the British bombarded Fort McHenry. Key, seeing the fort’s flag the next morning, was inspired to write the lyrics for “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

So when Key penned “No refuge could save the hireling and slave / From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,” he was taking great satisfaction in the death of slaves who’d freed themselves. His perspective may have been affected by the fact he owned several slaves himself.

With that in mind, think again about the next two lines: “And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave / O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

The reality is that there were human beings fighting for freedom with incredible bravery during the War of 1812. However, “The Star-Spangled Banner” glorifies America’s “triumph” over them — and then turns that reality completely upside down, transforming their killers into the courageous freedom fighters.

After the U.S. and the British signed a peace treaty at the end of 1814, the U.S. government demanded the return of American “property,” which by that point numbered about 6,000 people. The British refused. Most of the 6,000 eventually settled in Canada, with some going to Trinidad, where their descendants are still known as “Merikins.”

Furthermore, if those leading the backlash against Kaepernick need more inspiration, they can get it from Francis Scott Key’s later life.

By 1833, Key was a district attorney for Washington, D.C. As described in a book called Snowstorm in August by formerWashington Post reporter Jefferson Morley, the police were notorious thieves, frequently stealing free blacks’ possessions with impunity. One night, one of the constables tried to attack a woman who escaped and ran away — until she fell off a bridge across the Potomac and drowned.

“There is neither mercy nor justice for colored people in this district,” an abolitionist paper wrote. “No fuss or stir was made about it. She was got out of the river, and was buried, and there the matter ended.”

Key was furious and indicted the newspaper for intending “to injure, oppress, aggrieve & vilify the good name, fame, credit & reputation of the Magistrates & constables of Washington County.”

You can decide for yourself whether there’s some connection between what happened 200 years ago and what Colin Kaepernick is angry about today. Maybe it’s all ancient, meaningless history. Or maybe it’s not, and Kaepernick is right, and we really need a new national anthem.

The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s music director Bramwell Tovey does double duty as conductor and narrator in this delightfully entertaining performance. It’s the final work on a program that introduces listeners young and old to the various instruments and sections of the orchestra.