DARPA considers how finding E.T. could change Religion forever

Aliens with UFO CREDIT: Dreamstime

ORLANDO, Fla. — The discovery of intelligent aliens would be mind-blowing in many respects, but it could present a special dilemma for the world's religions, theologians pondering interstellar travel concepts said Saturday (Oct. 1).

Christians, in particular, might take the news hardest, because the Christian belief system does not easily allow for other intelligent beings in the universe, Christian thinkers said at the 100 Year Starship Symposium, a meeting sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to discuss issues surrounding traveling to other stars.

In other words, "Did Jesus die for Klingons too?" as philosophy professor Christian Weidemannof Germany's Ruhr-University Bochum titled his talk at a panel on the philosophical and religiousconsiderations of visiting other worlds.

"According to Christianity, an historic event some 2,000 years ago was supposed to save the whole of creation," Weidemann said. "You can grasp the conflict." [10 Alien Encounters Debunked]

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Here's how the debate goes: If the whole of creation includes 125 billion galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars in each, as astronomers think, then what if some of these stars have planets with advanced civilizations, too? Why would Jesus Christ have come to Earth, of all the inhabited planets in the universe, to save Earthlings and abandon the rest of God's creatures?

Aliens and religion can still coexist

Weidemann, a self-described protestant Christian, suggested some possible solutions. Perhaps extraterrestrials aren't sinners, like humans, and therefore aren't in need of saving. However, the principle of mediocrity — the idea that your own example is most likely typical unless you have evidence to the contrary — casts doubt on this, he pointed out. [10 Wildest Ways to Contact Aliens]

"If there are extraterrestrial intelligent beings at all, it is safe to assume that most of them are sinners too," Weidemann said. "If so, did Jesus save them too? My position is no. If so, our position among intelligent beings in the universe would be very exceptional."

Another possibility is that God incarnated multiple times, sending a version of himself down to save each inhabited planet separately.

However, based on the best guesses of how many civilizations we might expect to exist in the universe, and how long planets and civilizations are expected to survive, God's incarnations would have had to be in about 250 places simultaneously at any given time, assuming each incarnation took about 30 years, Weidemann calculated.

Religious food for thought

If God truly became corporeal and took human form when Jesus Christ was born, this wouldn't have been possible, Weidemann said. [How Astronomy and Religion Intersect]

Rev. Thomas Hoffmann, a protestant pastor in Tulsa, Okla., said that the issues Weidemann raised were "really on target."

"If life is discovered elsewhere, unfortunately we need to have more discussion about it," Hoffmann said. "I think this is a very robust conversation we need to have."

While the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence would likely spur profound soul-searching for people of all faiths, many of the world's religions might have an easier time accommodating the knowledge than Christianity, said theologist Michael Waltemathe, also of the Ruhr-University Bochum.

"It seems to be only a problem of Christianity," Waltemathe said.

In Islam, for example, Muhammad  was a prophet, or messenger of God, not God incarnate, so additional prophets could have simultaneously visited other planets to save extraterrestrial species, he said. And Hindus already believe in multiple deities, so accommodating more to guard over alien civilizations may not be difficult.

Ultimately, though, the discovery of intelligent aliens isn't likely to pose a serious crisis for Christianity, either, Hoffmann said. After all, the religion has survived challenging scientific revelations before.

"Religion is essentially conservative," Hoffmann told SPACE.com. "You can put almost anything in its face and it's going to shake out a little bit, and then it's going to drop right back down. We've seen this happen historically."

Nanotechnology: A New and Improved You

With today's advancements in technology, we can engineer virtually everything from animals to our children. Now, we can even engineer "better" versions of ourselves. Nanotechnology, the manipulation of matter on atomic and molecular levels, may transform the cars we drive to the medical treatments we receive.

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(Photo: Creative Commons)
Nanotechnology will be the up and coming science as the subject is being explored.

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Applied to the human body, nanotechnology augmentations have high potential to improve both our strength and smarts. In 2006, University of Texas at Dallas researchers developed a form of artificial muscles powered by alcohol and hydrogen. They were found to be 100 times stronger and more capable than the natural muscles found in our bodies. Their research findings pointed to further possibilities, like creating artificial limbs or giving robots smart sensors to react to changing environments.

Nanotechnology would allow for function as both muscle and fuel cells, and its applications in the brain are already being looked into. Although the research and facts are still inconclusive, biomedical engineers from the University of Michigan predict that the technology in the brain could assist in treating conditions like blindness, Parkinson's disease, or strokes, among others.

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Essentially, scientists are aiming to use nanotechnology to build sensors allowing us to send and receive information in the brain. Directly reading and writing information into the brain means that we would be able to manipulate our brain pathways and, if possible, transmit that same information through telecommunication pathways to someone or something else. Japanese telephone company Nippon Telegraph and Telephone presented their work on bionic brain sensors at the International Conference on Nanoscience in Sydney last year. Their team's ultimate goal was to tap into the human mind with nanotechnology in hopes of controlling brain activity to combat a number of diseases known to man.

The wonders of nanotechnology could even turn our bodies into power outlets. The U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and U.C. Berkeley have figured out how to use nanowires to recover thermal energy wasted in the body. If this could be converted into electrical power, we might become talking batteries for our electronic devices.

Surely, a technology like this doesn't come free of risks. Besides the health uncertainties and complexities nanotechnology can bring when applied in humans, there is also discussion over environmental issues. Nanotechnology is reaching more consumer products now, and this is raising concerns about nanoparticles possibly becoming their own class of non-biodegradable materials. More than anything, this further adds to our problem of overwhelming pollutants in the air. Whatever the benefits and risks may be, nanotechnology is a rapidly evolving science that will very soon transform the way we carry our lives-literally.

'Science and Tech' Advisor to the US President

By  HIDDENTRUTHNEWS 


John P. Holdren, author of Ecoscience, says the optimum world population is 1 billion people (we're at almost 7 billion), and in order to provide a higher quality of life for all there must be fewer people..... he says you could do this by putting chemicals in food and water, licences for birth, compulsary abortion, and that a planetary 'regime' should be given the responsibility for determining this... Ramblings of a mad-man? #Advisor to President Obama for Science and Tech

Professor: It's time for Humanity 2.0

The sociology professor says we are moving away from seeing ourselves as 'normal' humans as we increasingly embrace technological and medical advances – if we can afford them

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Professor Steve Fuller, author of Humanity 2.0, at the University of Warwick. Photograph: Andrew Fox for the Observer

Steve Fuller holds the Auguste Comte chair in social epistemology in Warwick University's Department of Sociology. His new book, Humanity 2.0: What it Means to be Human, Past, Present and Future, is published by Palgrave Macmillan.

1. Humanity 2.0: What it Means to be Human Past, Present and Future
2. by Steve Fuller
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What do you mean by Humanity 2.0?

Humanity 2.0 is an understanding of the human condition that no longer takes the "normal human body" as given. On the one hand, we're learning more about our continuity with the rest of nature – in terms of the ecology, genetic make-up, evolutionary history. On this basis, it's easy to conclude that being "human" is overrated. But on the other hand, we're also learning more about how to enhance the capacities that have traditionally marked us off from the rest of nature. Computers come to mind most readily in their capacity to amplify and extend ourselves. Humanity 2.0 is about dealing with this tension.

In what areas have we reached 2.0 already?

Let's put it this way: we've always been heading towards a pretty strong sense of Humanity 2.0. The history of science and technology, especially in the west, has been about remaking the world in our collective "image and likeness", to recall the biblical phrase. This means making the world more accessible and usable by us. Consider the history of agriculture, especially animal and plant breeding. Then move to prosthetic devices such as eyeglasses and telescopes.

More recently, and more mundanely, people are voting with their feet to enter Humanity 2.0 with the time they spend in front of computers, as opposed to having direct contact with physical human beings. In all this, it's not so much that we've been losing our humanity but that it's becoming projected or distributed across things that lack a human body. In any case, Humanity 2.0 is less about the power of new technologies than a state of mind in which we see our lives fulfilled in such things.

Wouldn't someone like Archimedes describe us as Humanity 3.0 compared to his era?

Yes, Archimedes would probably see us as pretty exotic creatures. He would already be impressed by what we take for granted as Humanity 1.0, since the Greeks generally believed that "humanity" was an elite prospect for ordinary Homo sapiens, requiring the right character and training. Moreover, he would be surprised – if not puzzled – that we appear to think of science and technology as some long-term collective project of self-improvement – "progress" in its strongest sense. While the Greeks gave us many of our fundamental scientific ideas, they did not think of them as a blueprint for upgrading the species. Rather, those ideas were meant either to relieve drudgery or provide high-brow entertainment.

Is it desirable or possible to put the brakes on the move to 2.0?

Well here's my proviso: these developments do have the potential to create whole new deep class divisions, maybe not along the lines of the old industrial class divisions, but just as deep. Sometimes, people talk about this as the "knows" versus the "know-nots". Divisions open up along the lines of who has access to all of these potential enhancements. At the moment, the problem is that the state is dwindling away and it is becoming less of regulator of any kind of activity, so market forces are basically determining the development of all these things I'm talking about. And what that means is that the rich get access to them more quickly and the poor get left behind.

For example, in terms of the NHS, we don't deprive people of prosthetic enhancements such as hearing aids and eyeglasses along the lines of income, so we should be thinking about what other future enhancements we want people to have access to as part of being human 2.0.

Such as?

A good example would be cosmetic neurology, which is essentially plastic surgery for the brain. Where you go in every so often and you get a tune-up of your synapses. This is done at the University of Pennsylvania medical school.

What does this have to do with my daily life?

I think a lot. You already see the problem of smart drugs – people taking drugs to do well in exams or job interviews. The use of these substances is much more widespread than the official records indicate. People are taking the stuff and pretty soon people are going to feel they can't be left behind.

People who work within the disability sector talk about "able-ism" – the idea that we're going to be living in a world in the future where everyone will take having a disability as the normal state because you will never be doped up enough, you will always be worried about the next enhancement, about whether you have enough enhancement for your next job interview, or whether someone else has a smarter drug that you don't have access to. So people will feel that they have to somehow keep up. And that's a real issue, especially in an unregulated market environment.

So our ideas of what is normal change?

Yes, there does need to be wide-ranging discussion about what is means to be normal. To be in normal health – how does your brain or body have to function in order to be "normal"? We've had a fairly constant view of what normalcy is for quite a long time but I think we need to reopen this debate and then define the minimal requirements for medical care.

So you foresee an enhanced generation emerging because of their ability to take advantage of various drugs and treatments?

It's going to happen through individuals taking choices about getting treatments or not and then, within a generation or two, you'll start seeing interesting effects on society at large. What I can imagine is that life expectancy won't uniformly go up, it'll start to be bimodal distribution – some people will live beyond 100 and there'll be a large number of people who die under the age of 70. And that won't be because of some government mandate, that will be because people will definitely take advantage of the enhancements on offer, but others won't have those choices open to them.

Are you optimistic about Humanity 2.0?

We need to be always reminding ourselves that we have always been enhancing ourselves, that science has always been enhancing the human condition, that we have been trusting machines over our own bodies for at least 300-400 years now. We've already broken through that barrier – we do live in a very artificial world. Even though the stuff on the horizon may amplify our powers tremendously, it is nevertheless part of the same process. It is a step change but it's the same story, the story of scientific progress.

Humanity 2.0 is published by Palgrave Macmillan, £19.99. To buy it for £15.99 with free UK p&p, go to guardianbookshop.co.uk or call 0330 333 6847

Dead Sea Scrolls put Online

The Great Isaiah Scroll

Click to examine the scroll.

The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa^a) • Qumran Cave 1 • 1st century BCE • Parchment • H: 22-25, L: 734 cm • Government of Israel • Accession number: HU 95.57/27

The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa^a) is one of the original seven Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in Qumran in 1947. It is the largest (734 cm) and best preserved of all the biblical scrolls, and the only one that is almost complete. The 54 columns contain all 66 chapters of the Hebrew version of the biblical Book of Isaiah. Dating from ca. 125 BCE, it is also one of the oldest of the Dead Sea Scrolls, some one thousand years older than the oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible known to us before the scrolls' discovery.

The version of the text is generally in agreement with the Masoretic or traditional version codified in medieval codices, such as the Aleppo Codex, but it contains many variant readings, alternative spellings, scribal errors, and corrections. Unlike most of the biblical scrolls from Qumran, it exhibits a very full orthography (spelling), revealing how Hebrew was pronounced in the Second Temple Period. Around twenty additional copies of the Book of Isaiah were also found at Qumran (one more copy was discovered further south at Wadi Muraba'at), as well as six pesharim (commentaries) based on the book; Isaiah is also frequently quoted in other scrolls (a literary and religious phenomenon also present in New Testament writings). The authoritative and scriptural status of the Book of Isaiah is consistent with the messianic beliefs of the community living at Qumran, since Isaiah is known for his prophecies of judgment and consolation, and his visions of the End of Days and the coming of the Kingdom of God.

Modern scholarship considers the Book of Isaiah to be an anthology, the two principal compositions of which are the Book of Isaiah proper (chapters 1-39, with some exceptions), containing the words of the prophet Isaiah himself, dating from the time of the First Temple, around 700 BCE, and Second Isaiah (Deutero-Isaiah, chapters 40-66), comprising the words of an anonymous prophet, who lived some one hundred and fifty years later, around the time of the Babylonian exile and the restoration of the Temple in the Persian Period. By the time our Isaiah Scroll was copied (the last third of the second century BCE), the book was already regarded as a single composition.

Several prophesies appearing in the Book of Isaiah have become cornerstones of Judeo-Christian civilization. Perhaps the most renowned of these is Isaiah's vision of universal peace at the End of Days: "And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks: Nation shall not take up sword against nation; they shall never again know war" (2:4).

Versions and Translations of the Book of Isaiah

As you use the translator tool in the scroll viewer, we would like to call your attention to the complexities of translating the words of the Prophet Isaiah of around 2,800 years ago, as reflected in the different Hebrew variants and subsequent English translations. The museum's mission here is to provide you the background information required to reach your own objective perspective when reading this English translation of the biblical text.

Basic Concepts:

1. Masoretic Version of the Hebrew Bible
   The evidence emerging from the Qumran scrolls is that there were several concurrent versions of the biblical text, though one - now referred to as the proto-Rabbinic or proto-Masoretic - enjoyed a special status by the Greco-Roman period (3rd century BCE - 1st century CE). That apparently became the authoritative text for mainstream Judaism toward the end of the Second Temple, as evidenced by ancient parchment fragments of several biblical books (1st-2nd century CE) discovered in other parts of the Judean Desert (Masada, Wadi Murabba'at, Nahal Hever, and Nahal Tze'elim).
   Through the activity of generations of sages (known as "Masoretes"), who faithfully preserved and transmitted the sacred words across centuries, an authoritative or Masoretic version of the Hebrew Bible gradually evolved, containing its definitive correct text, proper vocalization, and accentuation marks. The Aleppo Codex, transcribed by the scribe Solomon son of Buya'a and annotated by the scholar Aaron ben Asher in the 10th century CE in the Galilean city of Tiberias, is considered the finest extant example of this version.
   Since then, the Masoretic version has become the standard authoritative text of the Hebrew Bible, from which modern translations were and still are being made. While there are numerous English online translations of this traditional text, the version you see here is the authoritative version of the biblical Book of Isaiah, as rendered by the Jewish Publication Society in 1917 and published by the American Israeli Cooperative Enterprise.
2. Great Isaiah Scroll Version
   The text of the Great Isaiah Scroll generally conforms to the Masoretic or traditional version codified in medieval codices (all 66 chapters of the Hebrew version, in the same conventional order). At the same time, however, the two thousand year old scroll contains alternative spellings, scribal errors, corrections, and most fundamentally, many variant readings. Strictly speaking, the number of textual variants is well over 2,600, ranging from a single letter, sometimes one or more words, to complete variant verse or verses.
   For example, the second half of Verse 9 and all of Verse 10 in the present Masoretic version of Chapter 2 are absent from the Great Isaiah Scroll in the Israel Museum's full manuscript that you see here online. The same verses, however, have been included in other versions of the Book of Isaiah in the scrolls found near the Dead Sea (4QIsaa, 4QIsab), and the Hebrew text from which the ancient Greek version or Septuagint (3rd-1st century BCE) was translated. This confirms that these verses, although early enough, were a late addition to the ancient and more original version reflected in the Great Isaiah Scroll.
3. Recommendations:
   Keeping these basic concepts in mind, we recommend that you use the tools at your disposal in the following ways:
   1. If you are a Hebrew reader, choose any passage of the Great Isaiah Scroll, and compare it to the Masoretic version of the same passage in the Aleppo Codex (http://www.aleppocodex.org/links/10.html). You may then assess the agreements and disagreements between both versions.
   2. If you do not read Hebrew, please take the following suggested steps:
      1. Choose a specific passage from the Great Isaiah Scroll version, and click on the online JPS English translation of the Book of Isaiah in the online viewer. Note that this translation reflects only the Masoretic version of the biblical book, and does not specifically reflect the present text of the Great Isaiah Scroll version.
      2. If you wish to compare both versions, please click here, and you will see the first five chapters of the Book of Isaiah in parallel columns: On the left, the English translation of the Great Isaiah Scroll by Professor Peter Flint (Western Trinity University, Canada), and on the right, the JPS English translation of the Masoretic version. Thus you will be able to evaluate on your own the intricate issue of variant readings, which have obvious literary, historical and theological implications for the correct understanding of Isaiah's original words.