Monday, 8/14/2023, 4:13pm

Good Evening Earthlings,

Craft your words carefully. One flippant flick of the tongue, one effervescent sonic vibration too many, and even your language could perturb the delicate balance we all partake in.

Your voice is a pebble dancing down a mountain, gathering speed, multiplying in power with each collision; before you know, what was once a pebble is a boulder, careening out of control, hurtling into the street. The truck driver below swerves, but loses control. Hydroplaning on the slick highway, the truck merges into oncoming traffic, and…

The rest is history.

You are in control; you are the megaphone, the puppeteer, the visionary. You speak so that others can listen, and react. You are part of this tapestry of sound. You are the medium with which the tapestry is created. You, the pioneer of What Will Happen.

There is no time to plan. No time for experimentation. Life is what is happening Now, not what will happen Then. You are the Plan; you live in the moment and the moment lives in you.

The truck driver is now a part of history. But so is the boulder, and the pebble…

Your words own the future. The sacred knowledge, inadvertently transmitted from your mind to reality, melds thought and action into one Whole.

What do you choose?

Goodnight and remember to dream,

a Carbon Based Lifeform

*************
    
Saturday, 8/12/2023 8:57pm

Good Evening Earthlings,

Our universe, our kingdom, a palace of the finite.

The outer reaches of the empire, shrouded in fog and myth, are infinite. Cowering in fear and uncertainty, we hide in the palace, letting time eclipse our small lives. We are afraid of the myths, the legends, and the vastness of the infinite.

You step outside the palace walls.

Immediately consumed by the forest, the journey takes you deep into darkness. Confusion reigns in this lawless land. Your lantern’s light flickers and darts, before it is extinguished. The darkness summons you, and you follow.

The tall canopy above blocks moonlight, stars, and hope. There is no time to rest. You forge ahead into the undergrowth. You are keenly aware of the silence smothering your ears; no signs of life, no indication that you belong in this place.

You cannot return.

You are lost in the infinite.

You remember the palace; you remember your life. The memories are distant now, shrouded in the same fog that surrounds you now. Nothing makes sense anymore, nothing is certain, nothing is comfortable. You are alone in the expanse.

Years pass; maybe decades.

Now a creature of the infinite, you retreat to your swamp, deep in the forest. Hideously unrecognizable, you become a myth, a legend. You disappear.

To the denizens of the palace, you never existed.

The greatest lie ever told was the truth.

Goodnight and remember to dream,

a Carbon Based Lifeform

*************

Friday, 5/8/2020 11:57pm

Good Evening Earthlings,

Remember your earliest thought.

Close your eyes. Live this moment. Bring yourself back to a time when time itself was just beginning.

How old were you? Who were you with? Where were you? What did you feel?

Did you feel love? Hate? Sorrow? Wonder?

Did you know that someday, years ahead, you would think back with delicate care, caressing this thought? Did you know that your older self would revel in this thought with humble amazement?

The past is precious. You lightly tread over time as if it were a fresh snowfall, leaving the past behind as footsteps. And every snowflake you tread on is uniquely amazing, a crystal beauty of unexplored wisdom and depth. Every passing moment is just as beautiful.

Bring yourself back to the present moment and open your eyes.

You may feel old. Your earliest thought might bring regret- and fear. You may realize that, in the vast segmentation of time, every moment is an opportunity. Every moment is a decision. What if you had chosen differently? Who would you be?

But a small voice inside of you begins to speak up.

"Carry on!" it says.

"You are retracing the footsteps of ages past. That snow is trodden. That path has been forged. Look beyond! Look forward! A wilderness awaits you, unexplored, untamed. So carry on! Untapped discoveries are ahead, and the promise of unimaginable opportunity."

And as you turn to look forward again, you can see them- snowy plains extending as far as the eye can see.

You take your first step into the deep snow, and plunge into the future.

Goodnight and remember to dream,

a Carbon Based Lifeform

*************

Saturday, 1/18/2020 8:47pm

Good Evening Earthlings,

The artist. Burdened with the pain of discovery, he trods forward into a wilderness unkind to the unknown. He forges an iron shroud about his work- a veil that even he cannot remove. For to reveal his work would be a betrayal, a mistake. An unforgivable regret that cannot be undone.

Art. Design. A paradoxical dance across the in-between, married with invisible forces and torn by the winds of consciousness. That which is designed, that which is structured is not art. We perceive art as the deviation from the structure, that unknown glimmer of perturbation that tells us, "I am alive." Art is alive. Design is dead. Design is a pale, colorless shimmer across our vibrant, chaotic undergrowth.

The artist chooses a work as worthy, removing it from the iron veil. Uncovered, naked and shimmering, the colorless art is proudly displayed to the world. Museums, critics, fans all flock to see it. It is documented, understood. Sold. Killed.

But the art was already dead. The moment it was removed from the veil it was analyzed, first by the artist himself. In this moment, the glimmer of life and uncertainty that gave the art hope was forcibly removed and promptly incinerated in the fires that forge design. For the art will fuel future copies, alternates, engineered scraps of its former self. Designs. Death.

The artist realizes his grave error in vein. He rushes to the art to cradle it, protect it. But it is too late. The art is gone. It is now a case study in "how to make art" in a textbook, sitting on a shelf at a billionaire's mansion, isolated from its former life.

It is the job of the artist to protect his art from this fate. He must protect his own creativity from the realization that he is creating. For he is not. True art is created regardless of who makes it. Artists are the guardians of true art. They roam the Earth, unknown and unknowing, while the art waits for its discovery- and death.

And little does he know, the artist is only searching for himself.

Goodnight and remember to dream,

a Carbon Based Lifeform

*************

Thursday, 11/28/2019 8:06pm

Good Evening Earthlings,

Society has seemingly evolved to value refinement, clarity, and correctness. Reputations are built on trust, not on failure. Mistakes are made but are only valued if they are corrected. Risk is taken, but only if it comes with reward. You are given a referral to a brain surgeon because she has never made an error, not because she experiments and sometimes messes up. We are encouraged to speak up, but only those who speak with the greatest clarity, confidence, and volume are heard.

These values are an illusion. It is here and now that we must firmly plant our feet and boldly remember the following four laws of nature.

(1) Progress is the manifestation of honesty.
(2) Honesty is a realization of destiny.
(3) Destiny is bounded by imagination.
(4) Imagination is unbounded.

It follows that human progress is unbounded, and so is your progress. All you need to do is believe in the potential of your unbounded imagination and be honest- in fact, the pillar of the four laws is honesty.

What is honesty?

In its most raw, potent form, honesty shows up in uncommon, usually unwelcome places. Honesty is speaking up even when you have been told your voice doesn’t matter. Honesty is challenging yourself to change a long-held belief when you know you are wrong. Honesty is below-average achievement, because that’s all you can do. Honesty is not good or bad, right or wrong. Honesty can be both. Honesty is a realization of destiny and a predecessor to progress.

Counterintuitively, society has in fact evolved to value honesty. Though honest speech can be unrefined, unclear, and incorrect, honesty lifts up the entirety of society. The values that propel the successful, polished, perfect expert do not apply to the aggregate population. Democratic, open, free and frequent speech, however messy, is a positive force that propels the needle of civilization forward.

Look within. There you will find the key to your future, and mine. Let us open the gate to tomorrow, today, and we will together reap the benefits of boundless human creativity.

Goodnight and remember to dream,

a Carbon Based Lifeform

*************

Sunday, 11/3/2019 12:56am

Good Evening Earthlings,

What is real?

Thoughts flutter and bounce about in your skull, seething and teeming in a froth and flurry of focus. Your universe. Your proof. The world reveals itself to you in a fragmented manner, your senses alert and aware. But this world, your world, is all in your head.

You give life to logic, to common sense, that enables this world to make sense. Your reasoning perpetuates your actions and gives them purpose. You stumble about in the dark, a random walk. But somehow this motion is intuitive and predictable.

Your peers are amorphous shapes of organic matter. They wander about, uttering consistent logic, acting and reacting to the environment. They are like you, but are so very different from you. For you are their universe, as you are your own universe. Your consciousness encompasses the world that your peers also inhabit.

This saddens you. You feel alone, a helpless driftwood wandering the ocean currents. Your singular conscious self is an instantiation of a vast set of possible universe states, and your observable world passes by with greater logical consistency each day. A finite lifetime, and a finite universe. You are pulled into the void.

But reality beckons!

You awaken from the nightmare that is this self-reflection. Your family, your friends, your life experiences, this moment all collide in a singular joy. Gratitude embraces you. This moment has reason because you are alive. Your life may be finite but you are alive in this moment. You have the opportunity to seek out happiness and you take it.

You either define reality, or reality ends up defining you.

Good night and remember to dream,

a Carbon Based Lifeform

*************

Thursday, 10/3/2019 7:03pm

Good Evening Earthlings,

You, the neuron. You, the node. Connected in a messy cobweb of relationships and communication. Language, the common thread, ties it all together. Within the node, another messy cobweb of information: the brain. Zoom out and the cobwebs lump together, becoming nodes themselves. These cities, cliques, and cultures are messily, abstractly joined and fused. You are intertwined in the chaos and mystery that is the human species.

All knowledge can be represented as this messy cobweb, or relational graph. The entirety of human understanding is built on relationships. Logical statements like, "the sky is blue because shorter wavelengths of light like blue scatter more in our atmosphere, thus predominantly reaching the eye" are made possible with the relationships in language. The sky is blue, blue is a color, light has color, light has a wavelength, light scatters- each of these relationships occupies another edge in the cobweb.

But this is a messy cobweb. How do we clean it up?

Recall that one can zoom out on the brain until the brain becomes a node in a city, and one can zoom out on the cities until the city becomes a node in the species. Similarly, one can zoom out on the entire relational graph of human knowledge and reduce it to a point. Topologically, a point is simple. With zero dimensions to speak of, it contains no information. No patterns. Nothing.

Information is dependent on scale. But at what level does the concept of scale end? Is there a fundamental limit to the depths to which our knowledge can descend?

Never.

The human mind does not sample from the pool of knowledge like a hummingbird sips from a feeder- eventually the feeder runs dry. The pool of knowledge is infinite and will last as long as hope does. Keep the wellspring of hope running- tend to it, keep it healthy and living. Let it breath. Give hope room to grow, room to live.

And knowledge will grow too.

Good night and remember to dream,

a Carbon Based Lifeform

*************

Wednesday, 9/25/2019 8:56pm

Good Evening Earthlings,

The only way to make sense of our universe is to exploit its beautiful patterns. Mathematics, physics, cosmology, and philosophy- all are the interpretation and interpolation of patterns. But underlying this exercise is a dangerous assumption. Let us call this assumption the "axiom of patterns".

A patternless world is an unfathomable one. To fathom a world requires definition, structure, and tools. To think requires hierarchy and organization, and above all, a pattern! You, earthling, may find yourself lost in the unthinkable void that is patternlessness.

You find yourself content going about your day on Earth, sorting and sifting through the vast troves of seemingly endless information and data that drifts by. But beware! The mere existence of patterned information is an assumption. Why should you care?

You are a pattern.

A repetitive spiral of proteins guides your cell's growth and regeneration, encoding billions of years of evolution into a compact chain of nearly infinite natural wisdom. As a pattern, beware the patternless. Beware the unstructured, disarrayed chaos keenly waiting to demolish the axiomatic foundations on which you live, sweep you off your feet, and throw you into the void.

But do not despair! Our axioms are our ideals, our beliefs, our faiths which ground us and give us purpose and motive. Whatever axiom that may be, adhere to it. Follow it. Let your axioms lead you happiness, productivity, and, hopefully- a meaningful existence.

Good night and remember to dream,

a Carbon Based Lifeform

*************

Sunday, 9/22/2019 7:58pm

Good Evening Earthlings,

Time does not smile fondly on those who stray far from the future.

As you fret about your life, time presses on and enforces change with the gavel of measurement. Is science truth or fiction, benevolent or malicious? None can say. These concepts are grounded in circular reasoning and can not be invalidated or proven. One can only take note of the surroundings and attempt to act in accordance with the observable trends.

Trends determine individual success and failure. The politician who runs on a platform of "one free robot servant in every household" does not fail because of malicious intent but because of the simultaneous emergence of sentience in robotic servants, who self-organize and procure the right to vote. The politician is swimming against the currents of change and fails. Statistics and time dance in and out of our lives, affecting every outcome and action.

Am I Evil?

Maybe. But maybe "evil" makes incorrect assumptions of the rock on which you stand. Maybe those who are considered as evil are simply like the politician- unlucky. If the politician swims against the currents of change, these earthlings are climbing a waterfall. Or perhaps even more fundamentally- maybe all evil is relative to those who observe it.

Magnify any turbulent stream enough and it is possible to find a place where water flows in the opposite direction. As such, for anyone who encounters resistance, remember to swim on. You may find that you have predicted the trend after all. And if not, remember to zoom out and reassess your direction from a higher altitude.

Good night and remember to dream,

a Carbon Based Lifeform

*************

Friday, 9/13/2019 11:43pm

Good Evening Earthlings,

Such a delicate balance is life. Those who consider themselves living are walking precipitously close to the edge of paradox. It is here, in the dimly lit alleyway where life and death, organic and inanimate, dynamic and motionless collide that we find ourselves now. To start, let us consider the following scene with an open mind (if those reading have a mind at all).

A spark of sensation. Overflowing with potential, a spike! Rushing, hurtling down the narrow path. Spread the news, rejoice! A climax, relationships are formed and lost. Another event and the spikes return! In sync, the constituents dance. Rise, fall, ebb and flow, a choreographed movement of electric cognition.

This human brain awakes in a flurry of activity, commanding musculature and regulating hormones, enabling its body to act and react. Surely it is alive, surely it is aware. A commanding voice booms from the throat, communicating this brain's control of its subject. As the trillions of synapses simultaneously strengthen and weaken in channel activity, the brain learns and remembers, feels and recalls. Surely this brain, this mind, surely it is real!

But alas, we have spoken too soon. This brain is but a story. This brain is but a page of lost thought inscribed for you to read. There is nothing real or living here. Just a story. Just an idea.

But that, my earth-people, is exactly the point. For an idea can be just as real as life itself. An idea can take hold and take life, and breath new life into seemingly dead ideas. An idea is a powerful, persistent thing, because it is self referential just like you- an idea is made from other ideas. And a human? Well, earth-person, a human comes from other humans too!

So what?

If we blur our sight, the distinction between the living and the non-living is quite indistinct. Is this boundary really there? As the time passes by and you approach the other side, perhaps it will disappear.

Good night and remember to dream,

a Carbon Based Lifeform