While reading this post I suggest you consider each idea presented on its own, and also consider how these ideas could be melded or blended together to form a slightly different model of reality. I will first briefly explain ‘the multiverse’ or ‘parallel universe’ theory and move on to explain what a ‘reality tunnel’ is. In the last portion of this article I will attempt to explain what ’subjective reality’ is.

THE MULTIVERSE

The multiverse theory says that there are up to an infinite number of universes or alternate dimensions that exist and run parallel to our own. Think of every possibility having a universe of its own. In ‘the multiverse’ there may be a separate universe for every single possible choice. In a typical day there could be an incredible number of parallel universes, (approaching infinity?) Imagine that on Monday you took 5 minutes to brush your teeth before leaving for work and you arrived to work right on time, but there is a parallel universe where you decided not to brush your teeth and left 5 minutes earlier to get to work. On the way to work in that ‘timeline’ or ‘reality’ you were involved in a traffic accident. The 5 minute head start put you in front of a driver who wasn’t paying attention and rear-ended you. In the other reality you may have been behind this driver, and in another reality that driver wasn’t even there at all! Every single possibility could potentially have its own reality or universe in this ‘the multiverse’. Some people may think of the ‘butterfly effect’ while considering this idea.

The video below is called “Imagining the Tenth Dimension”. This is a great place to start if you want to grasp the idea of the multiverse. Please take 11 minutes to watch it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ca4miMMaCE

Now, if your mind hasn’t been blown enough, continue to read these thoughts on “reality tunnels”.

REALITY TUNNELS

A reality tunnel is an individuals frame of reference, or their own personal reality that they are consciously experiencing. Each human being has a slightly different reality tunnel although some tunnels may contain similar elements. A basic example of this is if two people are standing in the same room together looking at a painting on the wall. Although their separate reality tunnels would share some commonalities, they would still be two very different reality tunnels. For starters, person A is standing two feet to the left of person B, so they are observing the same painting from a different angle because of the 2 foot distance between them. This is only one slight difference in the two reality tunnels. Each of these people would have completely different emotional reactions or thoughts at the same time, making their reality tunnels quite different in another aspect.

The term “reality tunnel” was coined by Timothy Leary and popularized by Robert Anton Wilson. Below is a video of Robert Anton Wilson explaining “reality tunnels”. It is 6 minutes long:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hxWy-3WjDE

SUBJECTIVE REALITY

Personally I find the idea of Subjective Reality (SR) to be most suiting, and I like it as a model of reality. It truly explains what is meant when people say “we are all one” or “oneness”, because in the subjective model of reality there is only one consciousness. One reality tunnel, and it’s yours. In a subjective model of reality, everything is “contained” within consciousness, or awareness. There is nothing that exists outside of our awareness, and quantum physicists have found the idea somewhat scientifically provable. They have discovered that at the smallest levels of physical reality, what seems solid is really not solid at all. It only appears to be solid when it is observed. To explain this in further detail could take a whole seperate article or set of articles, so I might go deeper into the quantum physics discoveries in a future article. For a quicker explanation of this, watch the video below, Quantum Knowledge, 10 minutes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGFbqmUqP0E

A good way to begin to understand Subjective Reality is to think about what it’s like to be dreaming and compare it with what it’s like being awake. You’ve probably had dreams that you were truly convinced were ‘real’ until you ‘woke up’. When you woke up you realized that you had been dreaming, but until then you were completely convinced that what you were experiencing was ‘real’. Other times you will be dreaming and you will become aware that you are dreaming without a waking up. This is usually called becoming ‘lucid’, or ‘lucid dreaming’. In either type of dream, the entire reality is contained inside of you, all of the characters, events, and places, including any representations of yourself in the dream were all thought up and contained in your mind. Even if you are a person who prefers an objective map of reality, these dreams are a taste of subjective reality within your objective reality.

In subjective reality everything moves around inside of you, your awareness, your consciousness, while in objective reality you move around inside of the universe. In objective reality all things are external and separate from you. Most people who have an objective worldview will probably consider this article nonsense because this information doesn’t fit very well into their reality tunnel. People with a subjective model of reality usually see objective reality sort of like a different or lower level of reality that exists within the subjective whole that is you. A good way to think about this is to remember The Matrix movie and imagine when Neo is inside ‘the matrix’ as objective reality. When he is plugged into the matrix the laws of the matrix apply to him. Things like gravity, etc. In the movie, Neo ‘wakes up’ to how reality is actually nothing like he thought, and he is eventually ‘unplugged’ from the matrix. This could be similar to waking up to subjective reality and realizing that your waking life is just another ‘denser’ type of dream.

If there is only one consciousness and it is yours, then that means there is only one source of intention and one source of thought in the universe and that source is you. This is a heavy idea to most people because it means that you alone are responsible for, well, absolutely everything. These things include the good and the bad, all wars and the poverty of the world rest on your shoulders, but so does all of the good things and the entire contents of all awareness are created by your own consciousness in a subjective reality. With subjective reality, one has to accept that all experiences are manifestations of their own thoughts and intentions, and must assume responsibility for the experience. The subjective reality model can explain all sorts of things, including the law of attraction, or intention manifestation.

A great source for more information on subjective reality is Steve Pavlina’s Subjective Reality Q&A.

Multiverse aka parallel universes is no longer a model?
Read at:
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/11/do-parallel-universes-exist-a-galaxy-insight-video.html ]]> http://telescoper.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/the-monkey-complex/ Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:50:28 +0000 telescoper http://telescoper.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/the-monkey-complex/

There’s an old story that if you leave a set of monkeys hammering on typewriters for a sufficiently long time then they will eventually reproduce the entire text of Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. It comes up in a variety of contexts, but the particular generalisation of this parable in cosmology is to argue that if we live in an enormously big universe (or “multiverse“), in which the laws of nature (as specified by the relevant fundamental constants) vary “sort of randomly” from place to place, then there will be a domain in which they have the right properties for life to evolve. This is one way of explaining away the apparent fine-tuning of the laws of physics: they’re not finely tuned, but we just live in a place where they allowed us to evolve. Although it may seem an easy step from monkeys to the multiverse, it always seemed to me a very shaky one.

For a start, let’s go back to the monkeys. The supposition that given an infinite time the monkeys must produce everything that’s possible in a finite sequence, is not necessarily true even if one does allow an infinite time. It depends on how they type. If the monkeys were always to hit two adjoining keys at the same time then they would never produce a script for Hamlet, no matter how long they typed for, as the combinations QW or ZX do not appear anywhere in that play. To guarantee what we need the kind their typing has to be ergodic, a very specific requirement not possessed by all “random” sequences.

A more fundamental problem is what is meant by randomness in the first place. I’ve actually commented on this before, in a post that still seems to be collecting readers so I thought I’d develop one or two of the ideas a little.

 It is surprisingly easy to generate perfectly deterministic mathematical sequences that behave in the way we usually take to characterize indeterministic processes. As a very simple example, consider the following “iteration” scheme:

If you are not familiar with the notation, the term mod(1) just means “drop the integer part”.  To illustrate how this works, let us start with a (positive) number, say 0.37. To calculate the next value I double it (getting 0.74) and drop the integer part. Well, 0.74 does not have an integer part so that’s fine. This value (0.74) becomes my first iterate. The next one is obtained by putting 0.74 in the formula, i.e. doubling it (1.48) and dropping  the integer part: result 0.48. Next one is 0.96, and so on. You can carry on this process as long as you like, using each output number as the input state for the following step of the iteration.

Now to simplify things a little bit, notice that, because we drop the integer part each time, all iterates must lie in the range between 0 and 1. Suppose I divide this range into two bins, labelled “heads” for X less than ½ and “tails” for X greater than or equal to ½. In my example above the first value of X is 0.37 which is “heads”. Next is 0.74 (tails); then 0.48 (heads), 0.96(heads), and so on.

This sequence now mimics quite accurately the tossing of a fair coin. It produces a pattern of heads and tails with roughly 50% frequency in a long run. It is also difficult to predict the next term in the series given only the classification as “heads” or “tails”.

However, given the seed number which starts off the process, and of course the algorithm, one could reproduce the entire sequence. It is not random, but in some respects  looks like it is.

One can think of “heads” or “tails” in more general terms, as indicating the “0” or “1” states in the binary representation of a number. This method can therefore be used to generate the any sequence of digits. In fact algorithms like this one are used in computers for generating what are called pseudorandom numbers. They are not precisely random because computers can only do arithmetic to a finite number of decimal places. This means that only a finite number of possible sequences can be computed, so some repetition is inevitable, but these limitations are not always important in practice.

The ability to generate  random numbers accurately and rapidly in a computer has led to an entirely new way of doing science. Instead of doing real experiments with measuring equipment and the inevitable errors, one can now do numerical experiments with pseudorandom numbers in order to investigate how an experiment might work if we could do it. If we think we know what the result would be, and what kind of noise might arise, we can do a random simulation to discover the likelihood of success with a particular measurement strategy. This is called the “Monte Carlo” approach, and it is extraordinarily powerful. Observational astronomers and particle physicists use it a great deal in order to plan complex observing programmes and convince the powers that be that their proposal is sufficiently feasible to be allocated time on expensive facilities. In the end there is no substitute for real experiments, but in the meantime the Monte Carlo method can help avoid wasting time on flawed projects:

…in real life mistakes are likely to be irrevocable. Computer simulation, however, makes it economically practical to make mistakes on purpose.

(John McLeod and John Osborne, in Natural Automata and Useful Simulations).

So is there a way to tell whether a set of numbers is really random? Consider the following sequence:

1415926535897932384626433832795028841971

Is this a random string of numbers? There doesn’t seem to be a discernible pattern, and each possible digit seems to occur with roughly the same frequency. It doesn’t look like anyone’s phone number or bank account. Is that enough to make you think it is random?

Actually this is not at all random. If I had started it with a three and a decimal place you might have cottoned on straight away. “3.1415926..” is the first few digits in the decimal representation of p. The full representation goes on forever without repeating. This is a sequence that satisfies most naïve definitions of randomness. It does, however, provide something of a hint as to how we might construct an operational definition, i.e. one that we can apply in practice to a finite set of numbers.

The key idea originates from the Russian mathematician Andrei Kolmogorov, who wrote the first truly rigorous mathematical work on probability theory in 1933. Kolmogorov’s approach was considerably ahead of its time, because it used many concepts that belong to the era of computers. In essence, what he did was to provide a definition of the complexity of an N-digit sequence in terms of the smallest amount of computer memory it would take to store a program capable of generating the sequence. Obviously one can always store the sequence itself, which means that there is always a program that occupies about as many bytes of memory as the sequence itself, but some numbers can be generated by codes much shorter than the numbers themselves. For example the sequence

111111111111111111111111111111111111

can be generated by the instruction to “print 1 35 times”, which can be stored in much less memory than the original string of digits. Such a sequence is therefore said to be algorithmically compressible.

There are many ways of calculating the digits of π numerically also, so although it may look superficially like a random string it is most definitely not random. It is algorithmically compressible.

I’m not sure how compressible Hamlet is, but it’s certainly not entirely random. When I studied it at school I certainly wished it were a little shorter…

The complexity of a sequence can be defined to be the length of the shortest program capable of generating it. If no algorithm can be found that compresses the sequence into a program shorter than itself then it is maximally complex and can suitably be defined as random. This is a very elegant description, and has good intuitive appeal.  

I’m not sure how compressible Hamlet is, but it’s certainly not entirely random. At any rate, when I studied it at school, I certainly wished it were a little shorter…

However, this still does not provide us with a way of testing rigorously whether a given finite sequence has been produced ”randomly” or not.

If an algorithmic compression can be found then that means we declare the given sequence not to be  random. However we can never be sure if the next term in the sequence would fit with what our algorithm would predict. We have to argue, inferentially, that if we have fit a long sequence with a simple algorithm then it is improbable that the sequence was generated randomly.

On the other hand, if we fail to find a suitable compression that doesn’t mean it is random either. It may just mean we didn’t look hard enough or weren’t clever enough.

Human brains are good at finding patterns. When we can’t see one we usually take the easy way out and declare that none exists. We often model a complicated system as a random process because it is  too difficult to predict its behaviour accurately even if we know the relevant laws and have  powerful computers at our disposal. That’s a very reasonable thing to do when there is no practical alternative. 

It’s quite another matter, however,  to embrace randomness as a first principle to avoid looking for an explanation in the first place. For one thing, it’s lazy, taking the easy way out like that. And for another it’s a bit arrogant. Just because we can’t find an explanation within the framework of our current theories doesn’t mean more intelligent creatures than us won’t do so. We’re only monkeys, after all.

Psychic Sterling Sinclair Reflects On The Universal White Blanket, November 10, 2009

After the first day that I met God / The One, my concept of the universe was different for it seemed that two things had changed about me:

1/ I saw the world as being made up of vibrating pieces all in a relationship with each other;

2/ I saw the world as being one of many worlds all in the same place simultaneously existing.

At the age of 10 years old, I recall not understanding “solid,” nor understanding limited forms of travel.  I just could not figure out why people’s views were so limited.

The strange thing is, I cannot remember my perception prior to being sucked into that fluxing blue– purple orb called God.  It is like my memory of past perceptions was erased.  No need to see a falsehood and fall back into old paradigms.  But what happened was, I still had to live in this world where people believed in solids, gravity, and time, etc.  In order to live in this world, I had to learn to live it the way everyone (or so I thought) lived their life with certain perceptions that I no longer had, assuming that I had them before my experience.

When at the age of 18, I stood before God one more time and it was then that I received my mission and my ability to navigate the white blanket.

What is the Universal White Blanket?

The universal white blanket is the entirety of existence.

The white blanket has every universe held within it.

Multiple dimensions all laying on top of each other.

There are a few images that may help:

The white blanket is like layers of pastry that are distinct but cannot be separated;

The white blanket is like a snow white blizzard whereby the flakes cannot be seen and the white never ends but you know that you are moving through it;

The white blanket is like thin layers of woven fabric all laying on top of each other, yet each layer is slightly shifted or rotated so that a linear passage through the layers is impossible.

However, where these images fall apart are:

The layers are not disconnected;

The layers do not exist without the other layers;

What affects one layer, affects them all;

Just as the woven blankets lay on top of each other they also stand next to each other;

The white blanket is infinitely thick, long, wide and…;

The white blanket has no end.

Although I write about it in a 3 dimensional illustration, the consistency of the white blanket is actually simultaneously both 0 dimensional and infinitely dimensional.

Think about it this way, if you were born in and stood in the centre of an infinitely large glob of an opaque vanilla pudding, your view and concepts of dimensions, space and time would be what?  Both, all and nothing.

In order to navigate the white blanket, you must allow yourself to be the blanket, for only the blanket and the One know the blanket.  Travel (for a lack of a better word) through the blanket is only possible by knowing the blanket rather than understanding the blanket.

Although traveling through the blanket appears to be your choice and your direction, when one with the blanket, it is actually the blanket that is guiding you to the place you need to be.

I visualize moving through the blanket as —by first knowing the motivation of my diving in and the longed for response/outcome, I am drawn through the blanket as though I am a fluid needle that never breaks a strand within the blanket.

In order to return from the blanket, one must have a place of origin, that is the person’s faith.  The gift given to the individual by Godself/the Oneself.  Without intention and motivation one cannot find the proper location within the blanket.  Without faith, one cannot find oneself out of the blanket.

Faith is not belief.  It is one’s relationship with the One, not one’s concept of the One.

If ever lost in the blanket, which can happen if you are suddenly shifted off track, a loved one who shares your faith can retrieve you.

That is why, I will not take a student, unless he or she or ? can tell me truthfully what his, her, or ?’s faith is and who shares that faith with them.

How do I consciously make use of the blanket?  I must consciously make a decision that the white blanket can be trusted and allow myself to take the journey without fear and without doubt, for what you see in the white blanket is often what cannot be understood or welcomed.

After a while, slipping in and out of the white blanket is spontaneous and seamless.

I did not realize I was doing that until about 5 years ago.  A gentleman asked me why I was answering his questions before he asked them.

I naturally described diving through  the white blanket and existing in often 5 existences simultaneously having the almost the same discussion.  In some instances, he had already asked the questions and the answers were being spoken, therefore  I was answering his questions before he thought he asked them. 

When working as a healer, I find other places where I am working with the client in the white blanket and when one of those places have a cure or a treatment method, I allow one or both of two things happen:

1/ The treatment is replicated here in this place;

2/ the cells and structure of the client receive information from the healed or healing client and the program for illness is overwritten with a program for healing.

It appears that the information from within the White Blanket to another place in the White Blanket can be blocked by a program virus which sets off course the health of an existence.

If we return to the initial concept of dimensions and multiple universes incorporated with time and space travel, the white blanket dictates that we not leave our current position or time but become one with the blanket and let intent, motivation, and faith guide the way in and out.

When looking at travel at speeds greater than the speed of light, instant cures for disease, and information gathering, science in general has gone wrong by looking outside the self rather than looking at the relationship of the self with the self, the One, and the White Blanket.

An object in motion stays in motion until and opposite equal or greater force is applied to the object.  This makes sense as long as one perceives motion as that which one can document as movement and energy.  What this law overlooks and counters is the thought that movement is faster the more still the object becomes.  Physical motion is the very thing that slows down or even prevents motion in the White Blanket.

I hypothesize that if science can look within the life of the intentional, motivational, and faith related nucleus of any cell, the white blanket will be found.  When this happens, the travel at the speed of light will become a mediocre dream of the past which will seem slow in comparison to the perceived speed of movement in and out of the White Blanket.

Just imagine, stillness being the fastest form or movement.

Just imagine, by standing perfectly still, one would be able to travel to any end of the universe without collision.

Spontaneous travel.

Unlimited knowledge.

Immediate cures.

I imagine travel agents selling tickets to people, not to go to far off lands or planets but rather, to themselves in another dimension or existence.

The White Blanket holds the answers.

The world and our existence can still be saved as long as the viral program is written to allow for our existence to commune with the whole of the White Blanket.

Blessings,

Sterling

(DISCOVER Magazine) – … An asteroid impact would be small potatoes compared with this kind of event: a catastrophic encounter with an entire other universe. …

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/oct/04-will-our-universe-collide-with-neighboring-one

O sa prezint pe scurt niste proiecte / competitii legate de lumi virtuale si 3d games (la doua din ele am participat / paticip personal si sper sa va pot oferi mai multe detalii daca sunteti interesati):

Imagine Cup – Game Design : Un concurs in care o echipa de pana la 4 studenti (+1 mentor), are ca scop realizarea unui joc folosind tehnologii Mircrosoft (XNA 3.0 , Microsoft Visual Studio) pe o tema data. Tema propusa de cei de la Microsoft este de obicei legata de realizarea unui joc cu scopul de a trata cel putin una dintre problemele majore cu care se confrunta lumea : pollution, starvation, etc. Competitia se desfasoara pe parcursul unui an universitar avand 2 sau 3 deadlineuri (unul in sesiunea de iarna , unul in vacanta de primavara si ultimul la terminarea anului universitar).

Dream Build Play : O competitie organizata tot de cei de la Microsoft (si deci folosind aceleasi tehnologii), mult mai scurta ca durata (dureaza aproximativ o luna) in care o echipa formata tot din 4 oameni are ca scop realizarea unui joc pe o tema precum: reazlizarea unui joc in care sa se foloseasca inteligenta artificiala.

3D UPB :  Un proiect organizat de Facultatea de Automatica si Calculatoare ce isi propune realizarea unei lumi virtuale care va fi situata in cadrul facultatii noastre. Daca doriti sa luati parte la acest proiect, sesiunea de inscriere este deschisa pana pe 15 Nov.  Acest filmulet arata in ce stadiu se afla proiectul la momentul actual. Pentru integrarea lumii intr-un MMO se vor folosi tehnologiile puse la dispozitie de catre Multiverse.

O sa revin cu un post in care o sa prezint succint niste jocuri care au participat la competitiile mai sus mentionate.

Enough of the economics, my interest lies in writing fiction. However I expect I will use some contrarian economics in an alternate world scenario some time. Keep reading for the promise below of some free plot suggestions.

I see a lot of alternate history that starts with an event not happening, or turning out in an a-historical way, but what about impulses that try to go against the stream of history?

What about a successful class war in Medieval times? Watt Tyler tried to overthrow a cruel feudal society in 1381, as did many others, so how might their revolutions have turned out?

What if slavery was outlawed by the church in the early 16th Century? (Religious integrity overcoming economic interest.) Would Spain’s empire have foundered? What about all the later plantations in the New World?

What about the technical advances in the 1700s, that could have led to the Industrial Revolution taking off then – steam pumping engines, canal building, dyeing, cotton spinners, and knitting frames, etc? What they lacked in order to start the industrial ball rolling were the social conditions. These, if I recall correctly, were the agricultural advances that enclosed the common farmland and created a large dispossessed workforce, the colonies that supplied cheap raw materials, and the captive markets in those colonies for cheap manufactured goods – especially cotton products.

In my novels I wanted to bring together the ideas of starting an Industrial Revolution in a society not otherwise prepared for it, and that of the interactions between people with outlooks like our own and those of an earlier age. Like Samuel Clements (Mark Twain), who was so fascinated with the idea of juxtaposing our common sense with attitudes frozen in backward societies that he wrote “A Connecticut Yankee in the Court of King Arthur”, I wanted to explore the interactions between moderns and people of an earlier time.

How would one create a scenario where a static society could be pushed enough to start it moving in a new direction? First, you have to pick a society – and select something that readers are already fascinated with. In our history, between 1650 and 1720, we have all the elements of swashbuckling adventurers (although strictly speaking, the buckler went out in Shakespeare’s time), sailing ships and cannon (seafights and pirates), revolutions and wars (Marlborough and Prince Eugene against Louis XIV’s marshals), and some good diarists (Pepys) to provide the day to day life as background.

This gives rise to my Iskander scenario.

My group of people with modern ideas and knowledge have to be brought into this earlier society, and they have to be persistent enough to overcome the inertia of ideas inimical to the developments they want to introduce. I didn’t see any alternative but to have them arrive together by some vehicle (a starship), and have no means of avoiding the task I set them (they are in an alternate Earth and cannot get back). The starship is just a taxi and becomes a geosynchronous satellite and communications base – I wanted to keep the focus on the realistic aspects. (No whizzing around the stars in space opera, and no funny-face aliens.)

There is a choice between bringing them into our own 17th – 18th Century world or a completely different one. If I chose ours, I need to have them act within already known parameters and events. I felt that limited me to another very English or American colonies what-if, since only a selected few foreign sources have been translated into a language I read. By picking a markedly different alternative world, I could use the culture of the period but set it in other parts of Europe, or even the world.

Early drafts were criticized as having too weak a story tension. These poor local inhabitants with their gunpowder weapons presented no danger to my modern whizz kids. This was before the Iraqis and Afghans demonstrated that the perseverance, doggedness, and outright cussedness of a less technically proficient society could outweigh all that modern technology could bring against them. (One more proof of the old military dictum that the spirit of the soldier is worth more than all the secret weapons imaginable.) Before 2006 I had to counter the impression of technological invincibility by introducing earlier stray starship invaders who arrived 200 years before and conquered the largest empire in the alternate Earth. (The Carthaginian). By the time my people arrive, these other strangers have clamped down an interdict on any technical advance which could upset the status quo of their empire. They thus provide a second and larger obstacle to my group’s success.

Ideas about the Multiverse hold there has to be a historical bifurcation to get into an alternate timeline, and I chose to have the Carthaginians win the Punic Wars. There was no Roman Empire on Gaia, the name of this alternate Earth.

I know there could be some weaknesses in my scenario, but throughout my emphasis has been on creating publishable character driven novels – and their requirement is different than a wargame or sim-type scenario. I propose to suggest possible openings and scenarios for a number of alternate history plots over the next few weeks (just think, some FR** novel plots that I’d like to see but don’t have the time to work on).

Reality has changed for me.  Not my personal reality –  my understanding of reality.

Formal education and the mainstream media were all I had to base things on for most of my life.  I don’t mention family and friends because they were shaped by their formal education and mainstream media as well.

Through the internet, I have discovered a whole new version of reality.  Although it seems strange compared to what I was brought up to believe to be true, it makes sense and rings true because it helps to explain the evil I see in the world.

I’ve learned that the universe is actually a multiverse and it is teeming with life.  Some of this life is programmed to dominate.  Humanity has been dominated and fooled for eons.  Now it’s our job to wise up.  We need to change our outlook.  We don’t have to allow ourselves to be dominated, and we can learn to understand our potential in this life.

I’ve learned this from Stewart Swerdlow’s work, which is in the public domain on video, in his books, in audio interviews, and on his website.  A Google search should bring up quite a bit.

Gosta de Dragon Ball Z?

Gosta de fanzines?

De saco cheio de besteiras como Dragon Ball AF, JH, ND, SJ, LS, JDL???

Ai vai uma dica…

Os fãs Salagir e Gogeta Jr. com a ajuda de outros fãs já fizeram mais de 160 páginas de um mangá com enredo próprio… Em português de “putugal” mas entendível e você pode ler as páginas sem precisar baixar nada…Vale o clique…

Hi guys! This is Metsfan21 posting. I am pleased to welcome Trusty Hawk to The PIB. Next, I’d like to post some stuff from the Multiverse Party I was hanging out in.

I edited it with Photobucket. I’d like to give a big welcome to Trusty Hawk, once again. You Rock!!!!!!!! Another quick update: PopNews! is almost done. Come back in Early November to see it! You can advertise your blog/site in PopNews! Those who want one, will have to wait until the Issue in December, but you can reserve a spot by commenting! Thats all for now.

-Metsfan21

Update: PT is back on the blog. That means we will not hire any more people for now. I did have one of you guys in mind, so I’ll keep an eye on you.

When we sleep, do we ‘go’ anywhere?

Many have asked that question, including a recent band, ALLSTAR in the song, Journey to the End of My Life. I am here to tell you we do in fact take a trip, and it could be scientifically proven, but sorry folks, no snow globes from this trip. There are issues with our current scientific understanding, which stems from two assumptions, and they need to be altered a bit.

The first assumption, which needs adjustment is Time, a relative variable in the universe, and we need to add a bit more in the sense of perspective. Perspective does weigh heavily in our understanding of time being relative; however, we need introduce another dimension to this theory: perspective of time is limited or enhanced based on our input functions. Animals have a varying degree of sensory capabilities, which can alter perception or comprehension of events.

In order to understand this concept, you’ll view the issue from two additional perspectives: a single celled organism, and a spider. All biological creatures are intelligent enough to comprehend time from their perspectives. All biological entities a) do interact with objects, and b) have inputs to observe that interaction in the dimension we label as ’space-time’, such as 4 pairs of eyes, with the spider, or cell walls, and the transfer of proteins, or chemicals through those permeable cell walls.

Imagine a creature’s perception of space-time, empathize with the biological entity. In our first example, in the case of a single cell organism, how do we interpret events within time? We currently believe the only way to communicate, or comprehend and observe objects as a ’single cell’ is through the exchange of proteins. We know miscommunication in people can lead to deadly consequences on the individual and global level. On the biological, cellular level, it could be deadly to the parent organism if several biological cell collectives interact, and miscommunicate. On the cellular level, an exchange of fluids is required to exchange information, such as through the permeable walls of a cell, and then sometimes cell multiplication, transformation, or destruction occurs. We humans are born, communicate, multiply, transform and destroy slightly different. Sometimes we interact with others violently, sometimes we pair as mates, and eventually through our own children, we may evolve. From the human perception, a ’single cell’ interaction is simple, and we equate it with non, or simple intelligence; however, if you think about it, the singular cell life, from a generation perspective, is a much more rapid, evolutionary progression then humans. Yes, they don’t drive cars, but the cellular perspective gives us a) the correlation to our own life cycle, which implies that macro and micro cosmic events are connected, and b) an initial proof that our perceptions of time vary, and the more simple an organism may have an alternate perception of events in space-time, and that perception of space-time, although simple, and limiting, may be more enlightening to our very existence because of the rapid progression of events. Remember, excuse the pun, humans are bad with history, we easily forget the generational mistakes, and repeat them. On the cellular level, evolution occurs much more rapidly, either into an overall termination of the collective of cells, or a rapid growth of the collective, and in many cases an evolution, such as we ’see’ each year with the progression of things like a flu strain.

A spider analogy, to space time, can’t just factor in their 4 pairs of eyes, but also their other input and outputs, and their very interaction with the objects within space time. Spiders do not have ears, and they feel vibrations with the hairs on their legs. Spiders may be the creatures that are the most callous when it comes to killing other creatures, and the most calculated killer of other creatures. As humans, we kill other animals, but hearing screams of pain can deter us. Does that inhibiting factor exist within spiders? So, what other advantages and disadvantages do spiders have? Feeling vibrations, can be a significant perception tool of ’space-time’ and alternate dimensions. As we mentioned in previous articles, if we are all just biochemical, neurological, energy, and we know energy can traverse through many mediums, and energy can also be inhibited from traveling through other mediums. We all learned in HS Science how rubber is an inhibitor to electrical energy, but metals are conductive materials. Now ask yourself, what are other materials that are conductive, and inhibitors? Is gold an conductive metal? What other properties does it contain? Better yet, why do people wear jewelry consisting of certain materials? Sometimes we poke and prod our own bodies, our own energy conductive bodies? Does the piercing of our skin inhibit energy transfer, and/or alter that translation of energy? How about the hair on our bodies? Isn’t hair a conductive material? Did you every see the way static electricity effects the hair on our bodies. Now, what if that hair on our heads was actually conductive material, which is very close to our brains, our central nervous system, which is the part of the body which effects our consciousness, and our perception of space-time. Does the hair on our head, the longer, the more conductive, the more creative, because in fact, this is the part which enables us to connect to the larger human collective.

What if those who have long hair, have the ability to be creative, because they are the ones that can consciously, unconsciously, or subconsciously leverage the larger collective, in some cases the human being collective as a form of cloud computing, and not just analogously, but literally, leverage others thoughts, and processing power to correlate all different types of thoughts to come up with a single message. Why are long haired musicians so in touch with the generational message, or thoughts of the day? Now, let’ go to a condition has been labeled, night terror, by the scientific community, symptomatic of fever, or elevated body temperature, as well hallucianations, specifically the perception of ‘time’ either slowing down, or speeding up, and maybe this condition is virus induced, like a catalyst. Our neurological cells speed up, and when cells speed up, we get elevated temperatures. This causes us to perceive space-time, and or events at variable degrees from our ‘normal perception’. What if musicians use the smoking of some unnamed illegal plant, as the catalyst to on some conscious level, leverage this ‘cloud computing’ model, as well as an alternate interpretation of events within space-time, its empathy, but not just imaging the empathy, really empathize, put yourself into their perspectives, literally.

Now we’ve come full circle. What if the patterns within our brains, like the way our cells fire, actually develop these long term connections, or empathetic links with other biological creatures, and maybe even collectives of creatures? How does an ant army, or a bee hive act so much in unison. Have these biological collectives actually mastered this collective conscious, or in computers what we may call cloud computing, and the one Queen Bee, is like the hive controller, or connector, or in computer terms, a bus between the CPU and Memory, and other parts of the collective.

Let’s bring it home. Now let’s say, as discussed in other articles, we do live in a multiverse, of an infinite number of alternate universes, and some people can actually connect to other alternate universes, and not ever realize it. What if our dreams are not just aspects of our day life that we focus on, but actual experiences within alternate universes. The current theory of Dr. Brain Greene, the cosmologist, says the math points to an infinite universe, and in an infinite universe, there are multiple copies of yourself, and there could be X number of copies in fact, and they may be slight variations of yourself. In some universes, you may not exist at all. The easiest analogy is if you flip a coin 500 times, is it possible that all 500 times ‘heads’ appear? YES! Because of our perception of time, we say, its a very low probability, but yes, it would occur. Its the same thing in an infinite universe, if there are no boundaries, if you ‘travel’ far enough, you could potentially ’see’ an alternate copy of this exact universe, and there may be some variations, but his theory does not allow for interaction of these alternate universes. For some reason, he says that on the perspective of one specific [alternate] universe, it could appear boundless, but at the macro, or multiverse perspective, each alternate universe has boundaries, and can never intersect. The logic in this argument is clearly flawed, and we have progressed thus far from being logical creatures.

There are alternate universes, and in our dreams, we can ‘travel’ to these alternate universes, and empathize our alternate existences, through the eyes of these other beings. If the dreams seem crazy, its OK, because remember the variations aspect of the multiverse theory, alternate universes, with varying degrees, or permutations, such as I am wearing a green tee-shirt, instead of the white one I have on now, or I choose an alternate path, or paths throughout this other existence, and so did many others, so the perception of these alternate universes may actually appear in our dreams.

Now, Dr. Brian Greene, a respected Columbia University professor, said that it is more probable that we live in a simulated universe that what we may consider, a real one. Don’t believe me? Check out the podcast, Giants of Science, WNPR, RadioLab, and Dr. Greene and this guy who he is talking to brakes down the understanding of the multiverse theory into simple terms. I don’t agree with him on one point. I believe alternate universes do intersect, or overlap in some way, and our biological, neurological cells can ‘translate’ to those alternate perspectives of existence, just like musicians can connect to the larger collective collective consciousness through the use of ‘accelerants’ or catalysts to this process. It’s cloud computing, but on a larger, more infinite scale. Now, what if we all ‘came out of the closet” so to speak? Let’s say some of us already know this is true, what I am writing in the article. Maybe there would be a panic, and maybe this universe is the kindest of all universes, in comparison. Maybe some of us are in simulated universe, and where people understand this reality, bodies are treated more like vessels to travel, and are used for entertainment, pleasure, and are to some extent abused.

In some form, this could almost lead to slavery. Ok, you science fiction folks, writers of Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Stargate Universe, maybe some people within our ’society’ already know this and are gradually introducing these concepts into popular culture so every generation can slowly come to understand and cope with this ‘truth of existence’.

Now, where are we going, where have we been? What if, it’s all been done, and time, in a sense, does not exist. What if we, in the end are all One, and are just continually repeating the cycle to help cope, and comprehend meaning to our existence.

Well folks, what if we are all connected, and lets say one of us, or several of us gravitate toward one individual, like a Queen Bee in a hive? Look at the swings in the stock market. Wow. What if that’s all because some Queen Bees’ are having an bad day? Good days are high notes, and bad days, are filled with fear and skepticism, and people gravitate toward ’so called’ safe commodities, like Gold, and I wonder, why that is? Why do some of us ‘gravitate’ toward gold? Collective conditioning, or is it much deeper than that? I think you will find that the conductivity of metals may have a deeper meaning, in relation to this cloud computing of collective conscious models.

And what about the heart, I mean the physical heart. Excuse the pun, but it does play a central role. The blood flow to the brain, the central nervous system, and what about those Astec’s and their Sun god, and the ritual sacrifice with the tearing out of the heart, and pointing it toward the Sun? Believe you me, what if some hearts of leaders would direct alternate Astec tribes to alternate universes, and hey what about our local Sun, or Star, who actually does ‘manage’ the local life force, to some extent, and is in constant struggle with the Earth, as heat is also derived from the molten core of the planet. What if both the Sun, molten core of the earth, and the stars in the heavens are actually collective consciousness, beyond empathy, to the single celled organisms we first discussed. Now correlate that to the Ori of the Stargate Atlantis show, and what do you have? A crazy level of awareness, that most of us are not even consciously aware of. Oops. Did I spill the beans again?

So what now? Those of us who know, and can, become day traders, and leverage the swings of the market to profit off of other peoples lack of consciousness to existence? Some may say its the way of the jungle, some may say if the fly in the spiders web becomes like a whale, the spider may become the bottom feeder fish that live off the whale as he swims around the ocean of existence. Enjoy the ride, or feed like the spider, and eventually get eaten by another creature, or die from the cold, the heat, or even be consumed by your own young. The spider at its strongest is powerful, in its prime, in its youth, however, it is still limited by its own advantages. Or, we an do something else. What if the Aztecs knew a bit more then us about calculable possibilities of this universe, alternate universes, and the multiverse. Also, its the end of the world, as we know it, does that also mean it needs to be the end of the world? Did Colombus swim off the edge of the ocean of the earth?

And if it is the end, is there the ability within each one of us to ‘travel’ to an alternate universe, and if we have the ability, can we also travel to an alternate universe, of our own choosing? Are we what inhabits the recently born, as the baby’s butt is slapped in the delivery room? Are we the life force traveling from a previous body in this universe, or even from an alternate universe?

The following link has come to my attention:

http://poursomegravyonme.co.uk/2009/10/22/meet-team-extreme-part-1/

In it, we learn of a covert government black ops team, called Team Extreme.  This article contains the disturbing quote:

You should not confuse Goot with his evil counterpart, Goot The Crow.   The twins, like yin and yang, have fought their good vs. evil battle for countless millennia.

This marks a stunning change in the history of Crow Industries, as, until recently, this universe did not contain a ‘Good Goot’.  I have some of the top scientists in Sherby57 Towers working on this and we hope to provide more substantial answers for you soon.

While you’re waiting, I suggest that you don’t make any plans.  The multiverse might just decide to undo them.

I’ll write a more interesting post soon, but for now, I present Lawrence Krauss. Here he gives, what I’ve decided to be, the best one hour overview of cosmology I’ve ever seen. (via richarddawkins.net)

What do you all think about his suggestion that getting a universe from nothing is natural?

The topic of this post is something I’ve been wondering about for quite a while. This afternoon I had half an hour spare after a quick lunch so I thought I’d look it up and see what I could find.

The word ergodic is one you will come across very frequently in the literature of statistical physics, and in cosmology it also appears in discussions of the analysis of the large-scale structure of the Universe. I’ve long been puzzled as to where it comes from and what it actually means. Turning to the excellent Oxford English Dictionary Online, I found the answer to the first of these questions. Well, sort of. Under etymology we have

ad. G. ergoden (L. Boltzmann 1887, in Jrnl. f. d. reine und angewandte Math. C. 208), f. Gr.

I say “sort of” because it does attribute the origin of the word to Ludwig Boltzmann, but the greek roots (εργον and οδοσ) appear to suggest it means “workway” or something like that. I don’t think I follow an ergodic path on my way to work so it remains a little mysterious.

The actual definitions of ergodic given by the OED are

Of a trajectory in a confined portion of space: having the property that in the limit all points of the space will be included in the trajectory with equal frequency. Of a stochastic process: having the property that the probability of any state can be estimated from a single sufficiently extensive realization, independently of initial conditions; statistically stationary.

As I had expected, it has two  meanings which are related, but which apply in different contexts. The first is to do with paths or orbits, although in physics this is usually taken to meantrajectories in phase space (including both positions and velocities) rather than just three-dimensional position space. However, I don’t think the OED has got it right in saying that the system visits all positions with equal frequency. I think an ergodic path is one that must visit all positions within a given volume of phase space rather than being confined to a lower-dimensional piece of that space. For example, the path of a planet under the inverse-square law of gravity around the Sun is confined to a one-dimensional ellipse. If the force law is modified by external perturbations then the path need not be as regular as this, in extreme cases wandering around in such a way that it never joins back on itself but eventually visits all accessible locations. As far as my understanding goes, however, it doesn’t have to visit them all with equal frequency. The ergodic property of orbits is  intimately associated with the presence of chaotic dynamical behaviour.

The other definition relates to stochastic processes, i.e processes involving some sort of random component. These could either consist of a discrete collection of random variables {X₁…X_n} (which may or may not be correlated with each other) or a continuously fluctuating function of some parameter such as time t, i.e. X(t) or spatial position (or perhaps both).

Stochastic processes are quite complicated measure-valued mathematical entities because they are specified by probability distributions. What the ergodic hypothesis means in the second sense is that measurements extracted from a single realization of such a process have a definition relationship to analagous quantities defined by the probability distribution.

I always think of a stochastic process being like a kind of algorithm (whose workings we don’t know). Put it on a computer, press “go” and it spits out a sequence of numbers. The ergodic hypothesis means that by examining a sufficiently long run of the output we could learn something about the properties of the algorithm.

An alternative way of thinking about this for those of you of a frequentist disposition is that the probability average is taken over some sort of statistical ensemble of possible realizations produced by the algorithm, and this must match the appropriate long-term average taken over one realization.

This is actually quite a deep concept and it can apply (or not) in various degrees.  A simple example is to do with properties of the mean value. Given a single run of the program over some long time T we can compute the sample average

the probability average is defined differently over the probability distribution, which we can call p(x)

If these two are equal for sufficiently long runs, i.e. as T goes to infinity, then the process is said to be ergodic in the mean. A process could, however, be ergodic in the mean but not ergodic with respect to some other property of the distribution, such as the variance. Strict ergodicity would require that the entire frequency distribution defined from a long run should match the probability distribution to some accuracy.

Now  we have a problem with the OED again. According to the defining quotation given above, ergodic can be taken to mean statistically stationary. Actually that’s not true. ..

In the one-parameter case, “statistically stationary” means that the probability distribution controlling the process is independent of time, i.e. that p(x,t)=p(x,t+Δt) . It’s fairly straightforward to see that the ergodic property requires that a process X(t) be stationary, but the converse is not the case. Not every stationary process is necessarily ergodic. Ned Wright gives an example here. For a higher-dimensional process, such as a spatially-fluctuating random field the analogous property is statistical homogeneity, rather than stationarity, but otherwise everything carries over.

Ergodic theorems are very tricky to prove in general, but there are well-known results that rigorously establish the ergodic properties of Gaussian processes (which is another reason why theorists like myself like them so much). However, it should be mentioned that even if the ergodic assumption applies its usefulness depends critically on the rate of convergence. In the time-dependent example I gave above, it’s no good if the averaging period required is much longer than the age of the Universe; in that case even ergodicity makes it difficult to make inferences from your sample. Likewise the ergodic hypothesis doesn’t help you analyse your galaxy redshift survey if the averaging scale needed is larger than the depth of the sample.

Moreover, it seems to me that many physicists resort to ergodicity when there isn’t any compelling mathematical grounds reason to think that it is true. In some versions of the multiverse scenario, it is hypothesized that the fundamental constants of nature describing our low-energy turn out “randomly” to take on different values in different domains owing to some sort of spontaneous symmetry breaking perhaps associated a phase transition generating  cosmic inflation. We happen to live in a patch within this structure where the constants are such as to make human life possible. There’s no need to assert that the laws of physics have been designed to make us possible if this is the case, as most of the multiverse doesn’t have the fine tuning that appears to be required to allow our existence.

As an application of the Weak Anthropic Principle, I have no objection to this argument. However, behind this idea lies the assertion that all possible vacuum configurations (and all related physical constants) do arise ergodically. I’ve never seen anything resembling a proof that this is the case. Moreover, there are many examples of physical phase transitions for which the ergodic hypothesis is known not to apply.  If there is a rigorous proof that this works out, I’d love to hear about it. In the meantime, I remain sceptical.

Over the past few decades, the idea that our universe could be one of many alternate universes within a giant multiverse has grown from a sci-fi fantasy into a legitimate theoretical possibility. Several theories of physics and astronomy have hypothesized the existence of a multiverse made of many parallel universes.

In a new study, Stanford physicists Andrei Linde and Vitaly Vanchurin have calculated the number of all possible universes, coming up with an answer of 10^10^16. If that number sounds large, the scientists explain that it would have been even more humongous, except that we observers are limited in our ability to distinguish more universes; otherwise, there could be as many as 10^10^10^7 universes.

By analyzing the mechanism (called “slow roll inflation”) that initially generated the quantum fluctuations, the scientists could estimate the number of resulting universes at 10^10^10^7 (a number which is dependent on the model they used). However, this number is limited by other factors, specifically by the limits of the human brain. Since the total amount of information that one individual can absorb in a lifetime is about 10^16 bits, which is equivalent to 10^10^16 configurations, this means that a human brain couldn’t distinguish more than 10^10^16 universes.

Requiring that the human brain must be able to count the number of parallel universes may seem inappropriate, if not arrogant, but Linde and Vanchurin explain that dealing with the quantum world is different than our everyday lives in which quantum effects can be safely ignored. A crucial part of their calculation here is an investigation of quantum effects on supergalactic scales. In this kind of scenario, the state of the multiverse and observations made by an observer are correlated (similar to the Schrodinger cat experiment, where the outcome can be determined only after it is registered by a classical observer).

Read the entire article, here.

So I finally got to this episode of Family Guy in my Hulu queue, and came across this joke that Stewie told in the universe where dogs have people for pets:

Stewie: “I swear to God, I hope the next universe we go to is all Koreans.”

Note to self: be good to dogs.

Theres a new Astro Boy ad all over Poptropica! Before I tell you about it, I’d like to tell you about Astro Boy, the movie and the anime, yes the anime! Astro Boy was an anime in Japan a long time ago, and was very Popular. It first started in 1952 and ended in 1968. There will be some multiverse codes, for those of you who are too old to get into it. Unlike most ads, This one is not an adventure. In fact, its like the ad from Open Season 2. There are costumizable coustumes, a movie trailer, and a quiz. I’d also like to announce (credit to Zonexus for the following information) that the multiverse codes that let you access ads can and will run out like regular multiverses. Anyway, Astro Boy is an old anime, back from the dead and currently roaming the streets of Poptropica! Also, the Halloween Bashes are canceled, but always check back on Saturdays at 7:00 EST, cause if we have multiverse codes, we’ll post them then. Now I’d like to announce I have my own personal blog! I’m pretty sure you guys know the link, I’ll be posting sneak peeks of future stuff coming to the PIB. This has been Metsfan21, hoping to complete my book report. Before I sign off, I’d like to show you guys a pic I made using photobucket;

Note: I don’t take ownership over da Astro Boy Poster Thingy.

Thats everything, Metsfan21

Don’t forget to check out the posts below

I’m not a scientist.  I like science and I like its approach to life, but my brain lacks the persistence needed to follow things through.  I enjoy the idea that science is always changing.  I like that it builds itself on an idea that it needs to build itself on an idea that it needs to build itself etc, etc. – that part always gives me hope strangely enough.  It’s as if I arrive at a point that stops me in my tracks but then simply backs me up and pushes me onto yet another set of tracks.  It’s always moving, science is …and without that, things would get rather rigid.  Inflexible.  Religious, you might say.

A link in a blog that I occasionally visit leads to an article/interview with Roger Penrose – one of the leading minds in physics today.  It’s a great article, and I get most of what it has to say …excluding some science parts that is.  I wish I could devote more time to learning/understanding classical and modern theories in physics, but I can only sit back and hope to get the general gist of things it seems.  And barely at that.  He mentions M.C. Escher (who I was turned on to in Douglas Hofstadter’s book: Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Briad …which I’m still struggling through) and he also talks about modern ideas such as multiverse and string theory among other things.

He neatly remarks …”You want a physical theory that describes the world that we see around us. That’s what physics has always been: Explain what the world that we see does, and why or how it does it.“  I like this.  The fact that his father physically demonstrated concepts (through his woodworking) was surely an influence.  He also separates certain fields in physics from those grounded in a testable reality, and this kinda reinforces my opinion on how certain ‘fantasy theories’ can at times be analogous to spirituality in many ways …which is why it’s so easy for spiritual groups to climb aboard abstract views in physics.

His hope is to ultimately find …”some structure that preserves coherence.“  Something that ties it all together …our physical world with that other ‘physical’ world beneath its surface.  I’m not certain I share that though.  It’d be nice, and I have fun with my own half-corked layman ideas on it as well (perhaps my own ‘fantasy’ posting at another time), but Science has always been a verb to me.  An action word.  A study that implies movement in its undertaking.  And I feel it’s only in our physical world that things come wrapped in neat and tidy packages.

And who are we to understand more than this?

Roger Penrose in 1882. Image is from Oberwolfach Photo Collection, Copyright: Dick Ferus, Berlin.

]]> http://disciforum.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/multiverse/ Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:28:01 +0000 David Waggoner http://disciforum.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/multiverse/

Rev. Brian Morse

Brian Morse is a hospital chaplain.  He is a member of DÎSCÎ and lives in Independence, Missouri.

Disclaimer: Growing up I “struggled” with math and science in school. Therefore I never really studied it. Recently I’ve been enjoying Science Channel and what-not. As an adult there is no stress of being judged as “getting it” or not.

I am most interested in this notion of a multiverse, or parallel universes. The ramifications for, well, everything is exciting. The part that really opens my mind to new ways of thinking is that every possibility already exists simultaneously.

However, since I’m getting this info on cable TV, I’m curious if the mainstream of the scientific community sees these theories as legit possibilities.

Yay! Here is another super list of book-related links for your perusing pleasure.

• I missed Banned Books Week this year. Apparently, a book about gay penguins was the most frequently challenged book. I think people who believe penguins are gay are pretty “challenged” myself. (BBC)
• Roger Ebert tells us in his typically engrossing way just why books are so darn wonderful. (Chicago Sun-Times)
• I didn’t even know they made book trailers, but apparently they do, and the A/V Club’s trailer for their book Inventory is apparently the finest example of the form. (A/V Club)
• One of my least favorite Stephen King books, The Colorado Kid, is being made into a TV series (of course). (Variety)
• Jo Walton discusses the appeal of the gothic novel. (Tor.com)
• And here is a reading guide for the alternate universe novel. (io9)
• Why can’t science fiction writers win? Here’s why. (SFF Media)
• Here’s a nice essay on writers and their day jobs. (The Millions)
• Finally, thank you, SF Signal, for mentioning my immortality book list in your SF Tidbits.