Lifeboat Foundation

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.” –John Locke.

This introductory article summarizes the tenets of the Cybernetic Theory of Mind (CTM) with the five foundational axioms. All of these starting assumptions for the new ontological framework are discussed in my recent book The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution. Here I try to keep this summary short and simple for the reader, maximally leaning towards a more literary, “bookish” style rather than the overly scholarly one. Also, The Cybernetic Theory of Mind is a working title for my upcoming book to be published sometime next year for the general audience. It may be followed by academic papers to clarify some thorny issues that I intend to publish on my own or in collaboration.

The CTM model, a proposed version of the theory of everything, I’m currently working on, is an integral multi-disciplinary ontological model that allows to draw a wide variety of predictions and deductions from the intersections of two or more foundational axioms therein. The CTM model also allows integration of further epistemic elements under its broad ontological umbrella as they come to be known. In this summary, the formulation of each foundational axiom is followed by five exemplary deductions per axiom.

Over 40,000 families in Silicon Valley are at risk of losing their homes. Could tech offices, vacated during the pandemic, offer some emergency relief?

Michigan State University researchers have created for the first time a miniature human heart model in the laboratory, complete with all primary heart cell types and a functioning structure of chambers and vascular tissue.

In the United States, heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death. “These minihearts constitute incredibly powerful models in which to study all kinds of cardiac disorders with a degree of precision unseen before,” said Aitor Aguirre, the study’s senior author and assistant professor of biomedical engineering at MSU’s Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering.

Continue reading “Scientists grow the first functioning mini human heart model” »

Corrinne Graham (Economic financial analyst, Space Renaissance USA) interviewed Gregg Maryniak, about his history, motivation and aims to inspire young generations to find their way to the outer space. Gregg is the co-founder, together with Peter Diamandis, of the X-Prize Foundation. The X-Prize is recognized, by the space community, as the initiative that triggered the New Space revolution, by demonstrating that the low cost access to space was feasible and mature. He was the Executive Director of the Space Studies Institute, founded by Gerard O’Neill in Chicago, US. He’s on the Board of Directors of the Singularity University and keeps on restlessly working to inspire and motivate youngs, students and public opinion at large, explaining why human expansion into space is needed and very urgent, in order not to miss our “launch window”. During the conversation, we acknowledged that we agree on many points, all of them primary relevant to the survival and continued progress of civilization. Namely the common appreciation for the O’Neill’s model, that gives priority and preference to artificial rotating structures – the “space colonies” – since they assure 1G artificial gravity. Also, we are 100% in tune about the extreme urgency of kicking-off civilian expansion into outer space, and the subsequent need to make people to understand it. The big risk – said Gregg — is to miss our launch window, the period in which social and economic conditions are favorable to begin really moving into space. When I asked him whether he thinks that humanity is doing everything that is to be done, and if we are in time, on our evolutionary road to space, his answer was a clear “NO”. So we understood that we also agree on the most urgent technology advances to be raised as priority: the enabling technologies, necessary to bring untrained civilians to travel, live and work in space. Namely low acceleration vehicles, protection against cosmic radiations, artificial gravity, green environments and artificial ecosystems in space habitats. Gregg is a great achievement indeed, in our SR Academy Mentorship Programme. After this first meeting, we’ll try to hold other ones, properly announced on social networks, with the target to bring the above discussion to large public opinion. Stay in tune! https://spacerenaissance.space/gregg-maryniak-interviewed-by…programme/

CHECK THE SPACE RENAISSANCE ACADEMY MENTORSHIP PROGRAM! https://spacerenaissance.space/the-space-renaissance-academy…programme/ Students: choose some theme(s) for your graduation theses or Ph.D https://spacerenaissance.space/themes-for-graduate-works/ Mentors: choose your favorite disciplines on which you can provide mentorship https://spacerenaissance.space/mentorship-disciplines/

China has developed a vision for an international lunar research station and is seeking international involvement in the project.

Objectives include construction and operation of human[ity]’s first sharing platform in the lunar south pole, supporting long-term, large-scale scientific exploration, technical experiments and development and utilization of lunar resources’, according to a presentation to the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) earlier this year.

The presentation also states an intended shift from independence to cooperation in space on the part of China. International involvement in Chinese lunar missions has so far been limited to a handful of contributed payloads, mainly to the Chang’e-4 lunar far side mission.

Continue reading “China is aiming to attract partners for an international lunar research station” »

Granted, we’re not very good at it. We’re only moving in one direction at a fixed rate — but we’re never in the same moment twice. And while time’s arrow seemingly puts spacetime second helpings out of reach, humans have a habit of breaking the rules.

What if we could do an about-face and discover what came before? Or push past our present pace to see what comes next? Astrophysicist Ron Mallett from the University of Connecticut says he’s got the theoretical receipts to take on time travel.

Wondering how to build a time machine? It takes just 4e²Q=X easy steps! Simple, right?

While axions are not currently a proposed direct explanation for dark matter, they could’ve set the stage for the creation of dark matter in the early stages of our universe.

Scientists are undeniably excited by this third possibility, though they’re also urging restraint due to the other potential explanations.

“I’m trying to be calm here, but it’s hard not to be hyperbolic,” Neal Weiner, a particle theorist at New York University, who was not involved in the research, told The New York Times. “If this is real, calling it a game changer would be an understatement.”

“In the 18th century and since, Newton came to be thought of as the first and greatest of the modern age of scientists, a rationalist, one who taught us to think along the lines of cold and untinctured reason. I do not see him in this light. I do not think anyone who has pored over the contents of the box he packed up when he finally left Cambridge in 1696 and which, though partly dispersed, have come down to us, can see him like that. Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and the Sumerians, the last great mind who looked out at the intellectual and visible world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than 10,000 years ago.”

Probably not very many people could identify the author of this passage. In fact it was John Maynard Keynes, writing in an essay from the late 1930s, “Newton the Man”, which was read as a lecture some months after Keynes had died in April 1946 by his brother Geoffrey Keynes. Based on a study of Newton’s papers, which Keynes was the first to see before some were sold in 1936, the 20th century’s greatest economist described the founder of modern science as a magician.

Here’s my latest video!

Maximal lifespan in calorie restricted (CR) mice can range from 45 — 55 months. In this video, I present data for 3 studies on rapamycin-can it beat CR for maximal lifespan?