Hill-Wilson Star Map Fails too.

I spent a half hour compiling a list of the "important" stars as listed on Steve Pearse's web site which he claimed is a "better fit" to the Betty Hill sketch.. I then I spent another hour running queries with SINBAD for each of the 11 stars which are on the "lines" Betty Hill sketched. Pearse seems to think that quantity is more important than quality and filled in a whole host of other stars. I only looked at the stars that are on the Hill sketch as follows:

Name	Star Spec	HD	HIP	Note1	Note2	Note3
20 Leo Mi	G3VaHdel	86728	49081	Multi-star	Hi Motion	Variable?
11 Leo Mi	G8V	82885	47080
36 UMaj	F8V	90839	51459		Hi Motion
G146-60	G9V	92786	52470
GJ3627	G5V	93811	53008			Variable
HR4767	F9V	108954	61053		Hi Motion
10 CVn	F9V_Fe-0.3	110897	62207		Hi Motion
GJ511.1	G6V	117043	65530		Hi Motion
61 UMaj	G8V	101501	56997			Variable
8 Boo	G0IV	121370	67927	Spec. Binary
44(i) Boo	G0Vn	133640	73695	Eclip. Binary

Five out of eleven stars "fail" the same criteria that Marjorie Fish set for herself in her selection of stars. In addition another four are noted as being "high proper motion" which is to say they are moving rapidly and might only appear to fit Betty Hill's sketch for only a brief period of time.

While Pearse deserves some credit for seeing the weakness in Fish's presentation, he unfortunately failed to have done his homework and has stars that are not likely to be stops on a trade route nor be places that life might evolve. The rest of the stars that he fills the sketch with are irrelevant if the main stars do not meet the criteria of actually being stars that could host habitable planets. It was a nice try but as science it is a failure.

I won't bother trying to map these stars as it would be an obvious waste of time.

Conclusion:

As science the Hill-Wilson Map fails.

Marjorie Fish's Map Fails

For the last several days I've spent a few hours doing a cursory look at the Marjorie Fish map created from the sketch by Betty Hill. I( decided to take Fish's table of stars at the end of her 1974 presentation as posted on the NICAP.org web site and update it and verify it using the latest most accurate star catalog information.

This required I take the Gliese Numbers as listed in her table then look of their HD entries in the HD Catalog then finally use the HD catalog numbers to get the current data from the Hipparcos catalog. I used Gliese (Gl) numbers, Henry Draper (HD) numbers, the Boss General Catalog (GC) and in one case the Yale Bright Star Catalog  (BSC) to verify I had found the proper entry in the Hipparcos catalog created by the ESA's Hipparcos satellite..

As I was doing this I discovered a major discrepancy. One of the stars listed in the old catalog data was not the same type of star.as Ms. Fish had thought. Her boundary parameters for stellar types were what is generally believed to be "habitable stars"-- stars which can possibly host planets where life can exist: F8V, F9V, G0V through G9V, and K0V through K2V. Then I found other flaws.

Here is my revised list with the catalog numbers based on Marjorie Fish's table:

Name	HIP	HD	Gleise	SpType	Notes
Zeta Tucanae	1599	1581	17	F9V
54 Piscium	3093	3651	27	K0V
GC 1883	7235	9540	59A	K0V	“A” indicates double star
BSC 2050	7918	10307	67	G2V
107 Piscium	7981	10476	68	K1V
Tau Ceti	8201	10700	71	K0
GC 2610	10138	13445	86	K0V
HD13435	10164	13435	86.1	K1III	Red Giant star-- Not Habitable
GC2794	10798	14412	95	G8V
Kappa Fornacis	11072	14802	97	G2V
Tau 1 Eridani	12843	17206	111	F5/F6V	Too Hot - Not Habitable
Zeta1 Reticuli	15330	20766	136	G2V
Zeta2 Reticuli	15371	20807	138	G1V
82 Eridani	15510	20794	139	G8V
Alpha Mensae	29271	43834	231	G5V

Note: the Sun is excluded from the table as it is not listed in most star catalogs.

Unfortunately as you can see there are at least three glaring errors in her selections. 

First, GC1883 is Gl59A. That "A" means it is a double star. Without knowing the orbital elements for the second star it is unlikely to host planets. 

Second, HD13435 which is listed is listed in Fish's star table as Gl86.1 is no longer listed in the Gliese catalog. I had to do a search using the SINBAD and VizieR web portals to query the star catalogs hosted by the University of Strasbourg. Previously Gl86.1 had been identified as a K2V but the SINBAD search shows that it is a red giant. Red giants are stars are not likely to host habitable planets as they are stars which are on their "last legs" and have probably burned away any habitable planet they may have once hosted..

Finally Gl136 is listed as an F6V which is out of the bounds set by Fish. It is probably too young and too hot to host life bearing planets or if they do it is more likely to be microbial.

Given that then author's own selections fail her own stated criteria I would say the Fish map "fails" as scientific evidence of it being an actual "star map" of what Betty Hill said she saw and what she sketched..

I do acknowledge that some of the above has been found previously. Steve Pearse, another UFO author, published a book (several years ago) which mentions these flaws (which I did not discover until after I had completed my table and found the flaws). 

He has proposed another map that allegedly fits Betty Hill's sketch. Unfortunately, there are several problems with what he proposes. First, he wants to second guess a dead witness [in effect, saying the witness was "stupid" and here's what she really saw] and second, the provenance of that map is even more questionable than the original since it is based on what appears to be "My ETs are better than your ETs". From what I can tell the book appears to be written not to provide scientific proof of the what is claimed, but to sell books to those that already "believe".  

There is a point at which one should recognize they are wasting their time. At this point I think the Hill-Fish map should be written off as completely useless and probably the whole Hill encounter as well. Neither has provided any real "proof" of ETs or abductions... and that also includes Mr. Pearse's attempt to revive it with a "new map". I may look at Mr. Pearse's map but I doubt what I find will change my mind.

Unless of course a 5 foot five inch humanoid with yellowish / grey skin stops by for a beer and tells me all about what those maps are really about. For now I'll leave it to other people to spend time spinning their wheels with improbable maps.

In conclusion: 

The Fish map fails as science.  

Now go forth and do something useful.

A footnote: The color on other planets

I was doing further work on the Fish Map [more on that in another post] and in trying to organize my resources [a number of star catalogs from NASA and The VizieR site at the University of Strasbourg. In the process  I found an HTML file that had the title "Table of Features of the "Life Zones" of Main Sequence Stars" I had saved some time in the past into my collection of information of "Habitable Stars". While the original web site is defunct I was able to locate it with the Internet Archive Wayback machine HERE

The original page was written by Gregg Geist who among other things has a BS in astronomy from the University of Arizona. He noted on the table page: "Most of the data used to generate the table were gleaned from Kenneth R. Lang, Astrophysical Data: Planets and Stars (Springer-Verlag, 1992). Other information was derived directly from the H. R. diagrams produced by the Hipparcos Astrometry Mission and available at: http://astro.estec.esa.nl/Hipparcos/"

The page is fascinating because it shows what a "white sun" and a grey card would look like with normal human vision. I edited the table slightly and present a excerpt below:

Spectral Type	Example Star	Photo Color White Sun	Photo Color Gray Card
G2	Sun	a
M7	Proxima Centauri
K0	Alpha Centauri B
G9
G5
G4
G2	Mu Velae B
G0	Alpha Centauri A
F8
F6

Now you have some idea what sunlight and grey might look like on another planet orbiting another star.

More on Marjorie Fish's Star Map

After my last post I got ZERO comments but undaunted by that I became a bit more curious about what Fish had done so I went looking to see what could be found on the subject. I found many things. 90% of which was believers "singing to the choir" about how the map proves this or that; or "No, that is the wrong map because the grey that is telepathically talking to me says the map is wrong.". 

Most of the rest is commentary or ridicule from skeptics no more qualified to judge Marjorie Fish or the map she produced then they. After all what does a scientist working in an unrelated field know about star maps, coordinate rotations, or slicing a 3d object into a 2d plane and playing connect-the-dots?

I discovered a reproduction of a presentation on the NICAP web site where Fish gives her explanation and justifications for her selection of stars.

Among the interesting things she says:

Kinds of Stars on the Main Sequence, and Their Relation to Life. There are 7 main spectra groups of main sequence stars. These are, going from the most massive to the least massive, from the hottest to the coolest, from bluish to red: OV, BV, AV, FV, GV, KV, MV. Each of these groups is divided into 10 subgroups of descending size. Thus B9V is closer in size and characteristics to AOV than to BOV. Theoretically there are 70 subgroups within these 7 groups but not all of these are used regularly.  

Star types 0, B, A and down to F2 are massive hot stars. Gravity forces the atoms closer together so atomic reactions take place at a faster rate than on smaller stars. So, although they have more matter, they burn faster, and last for a shorter period on the main sequence, not long enough for life to form if it takes as long as it did on Earth. Almost all of these stars are rotating fast, indicating that they probably do not have planets. There is very little chance for planets with life around these stars.  

F2V to F5V could support planets with the beginnings of life but not all of these stars are rotating slowly so probably many do not have planets. In an F2 system, life might just be forming as the star starts to leave the main sequence.  

F5V to F7V have more stars rotating slowly indicating the possibility of planets. 

From approximately F8 on, all main sequence stars are rotating slowly, probably indicating planets. According to Carl Sagan, F8 is the point where intelligent life would have time to emerge. So main sequence stars from F8 through the Gs, to the early Ks have a possibility for life, including intelligent life.  

Many exobiologists place the break-off point for life in the early Ks, usually K2. A few extend it to KS. Stars get progressively cooler. With late Ks and Ms the stars are so cool a planet would need to be very near the star’s surface to get enough heat for life processes. This raises problems of synchronous rotation, but one of the biggest problems is solar flaring. Apparently tiny stars have the same kinds of solar flares as stars like the sun. On the sun a solar flare changes the over-all output of energy very little, as there is so much total radiating surface besides the flare. On a small star, the same size flare may give off many times the star’s usual energy, destroying any life that might be on a nearby planet.  

To summarize, the best chance for life is F8, all Gs, through KO, especially where the KO and G8 groups overlap. There is a possibility for terrestrial life and/or colonization around F5 to F7 stars, and much more remotely F2 to F5. There is some chance for life in K1 and K2 systems, and possibly, in special cases K2 to K5, but little around stars smaller than K5.  

This answers the question as to why she selected the stars she did. So far as I am aware nothing has changed in the Astro-biology field. The range of most probable candidates  for habitable planets is long lived stars in the F8 through K2 class stars. Yes I am aware that there are those that have proposed "more extreme" habitable zones but so far as I can tell those are more the exception than the rule.

Internal Consistency does not constitute proof

Fish's conclusion in the presentation about the Betty Hill map was:

Since we did not have the data to make such a map in 1961 when Betty saw it, or in 1964 when she drew it, it could not be a hoax. Since the stars with lines to them are such a select group, it is almost impossible that the resemblance between Betty’s map and reality could be coincidental. Betty’s map could only have been drawn after contact with extraterrestrials.  

I don't necessarily agree with the last word in the last sentence. Accepting her map as a "Zeroth Approximation" does give enticing enough results to say there may be validity to the map Betty Hill sketched but to say that it proves that this was proof of contact with ETs is a far stretch. I won't say that it is untrue, I just believe that it takes more than a map and conversations remembered via hypnosis.

There have been plenty of cases of internally consistent "automatic writing or mediumistic" books written. Among them are the "Sefer HaZohar", the foundation of Jewish Mysticism written in the late 13th Century  and "Seth Speaks" as "channeled" by Jane Roberts in the 70s. Both are internally consistent, have great philosophical and religious insight, and are logically consistent with the topics they deal with but both are "unprovable" in the sense that they only have a tenuous connection to reality.

That is the problem with most "contactee / abduction" reports. Generally there is nothing in an abductee's testimony which can actually be tangible. Betty Hill's star map is different in this regards. It was "testable".  Either there is or there is not a set of stars which map to what Betty Hill sketched. Marjorie Fish showed that there is a set of stars which, within some amount of error, there is such a set of stars.

Marjorie Fish did the painstaking work without the assistance of a computer and showed there is a "near likeness". I'm not aware of anyone that has done any further work other than someone (with a book to sell) that Fish got it wrong because he knew someone who had a "Grey" talking to him who said it was somewhere else. Really? What kind of proof is that? 

So while the map may not be proof  that The! Map! Is! Proof! Of! ET! It does show that at least one point of what Betty Hill recalled had some connection to reality. See the "Proof the map is not a Hoax" section of Marjorie's presentation.

Did She or Didn't She?

Another minor controversy seems to be whether or not Marjorie Fish "recanted" her findings in regard to the map she developed. It seems someone changed Fish's obituary to state that she had "recanted" unbeknownst to the person in her family who wrote obituary. A letter from her niece, who wrote Marjorie Fish's obituary, was posted at the Bad UFOs site noting that Marjorie Fish never did, to her knowledge, "recant". As noted in the letter:

Marjorie’s work on Betty Hill’s map is still viable and worthy of consideration. To clarify what I was referring to, I remember Marj talking about a binary system that would not allow for the development of life – the source was not a newly issued star catalog. While working on the obituary for Marjorie, my father recalled that Marj wrote a letter/statement to the effect that new data indicated that a system could not support life so her matching of the Betty Hill map was incorrect. Perhaps she and/or the recipient(s) realized that the published interpretation of the data was in error – not Marjorie’s work. In any case, Marj did not tell my father who was not involved anyway. If one wishes more details, please see the attached notes from Stanton Friedman. Our current knowledge allows for planets and possible life where Marjorie had indicated. 

The larger point, that Marjorie was a true skeptic willing to let go of projects she was deeply involved in if the evidence was to the contrary, also remains. We will see how many people using my obituary for Marjorie to say her work is “debunked” will make corrections to their sites, etc.

So what about them Aliens?

So let's talk evolution for a moment. So what kind of Star and planet would allow the evolution of this:

An Artist's rendition of an alien abductor

This is an artist rendition of the appearance of the abductors Barney and Betty Hill case. This is not your X-Files grey. The above image is taken from a web page on the NICAP site concerning the artist's impressions of what the various facial features may mean. When reading the artist's impressions think about what it may mean to help understand the evolutionary environment of this species.

Some things of note right off the top: 

1) Wrap-around eyes in our environment is usually a feature found in animal species which are considered "prey". 

2) If the eyes were protected by a membrane it might mean the environment was "dusty" or "polluted" for long enough time for the creature to evolve that natural protection.

3) Large eyes may indicate the creature evolved in a low light environment meaning a dimer sun or more distant sun. 

4) The artist makes note of the Hill's reporting a "blue lighted interior" of the craft. That might indicate a "bluer star" than the sun (Stellar Class F8 or F9?). Much as we use "orange" as dash lights in some automobiles to assist in clearly seeing or using instrumentation.

One could speculate that the abductors possibly come from an F8V or F9V star who's home planet is on the outer edge of the habitable zone. The light received from their star is dim causing their species to have large eyes. The planet is dusty and or polluted with sufficient atmospheric turbulence that they have evolved protective membranes over their eyes.

This is of course speculation --  which is what this blog is about but as is well known:

Speculation != Proof.

Which for you non-programmers translates as:

Speculation does not equal Proof.

Remember that as we slog through things here in the Zeroth Circle.

Of Planets,Programs, Data, and ET star maps.

There was a recent post at Keven Randle's Blog about Marjorie Fish's interpretation of the Betty Hill star map. One of the commenters noted that at 2d rendition of a 3d Map is likely to be highly flawed. To an extent this is true. Another commenter lamented the fact he did not have the tools to actually examine the map. Randle's objection to the Fish map was that it only appeared to include "Sun type" stars.

I'll try to address these questions or point to tools or data that can be used to answer them.

2d Maps:
There are several ways of mathematically creating 2d maps which attempt to maintain the proper relationship but depending upon the data and / or the unit of measure used there will always be a "distortion" that while not properly displaying the exact distances between "points of interest".

There are two methods I have found that can create these kinds of approximations. 1) Self-Organizing Maps otherwise know as "Kohonen Mappng"  and 2) Similarity Mapping. Both are interrelated in terms of being able to take multi-dimensional data and creating a 2d map. The limitations of doing so are the size of the unit of measure and the number of dimensions used. A 3d map measured in parsecs [a unit of distance measuring 3.26 light years] will appear less distorted than a 3d map measured in miles.

I have used both Kohonen Maps and a version of Similarity Maps to create 2d star maps-- but while they may give a good approximation of the distant relationships they cannot give an accurate one. On Page 85 of the August 1986 copy of Byte Magazine Rob Spencer shows a way to take almost any kind of multi-dimensional data and turn it into a 2d map. Spencer's original program was written in MS Basic for Mac [in 1986]. In 1993, I ported it to MS Windows 3.11  for CA-Realizer 2. Since the program is written in a "dead programming language" it is more of a curiosity than anything.... but if you want a copy of the source code send me an email.

An example of the program's output using the 66 nearest "Sun Type" stars during a calculation run is:

Of course a map is not the forrest and the results of the above map are distorted from a real 3d map. I used parsecs as the default unit of measure. The above methodology could be applied to a 2d map to make a 3d map-- but the accuracy would be very much in doubt.

Does this distortion invalidate the Fish map? Not really any more that before the question was raised as Hill had originally reported the map was displayed in a 3d display device and her original map was her 2d perception of what she saw. Distortion is built right into the original map. Fish only looked, with her bead an string map, to duplicate the 2d view of that 3d space and then give names to the possible stars Hill saw  in the 3d projection.

Habitable Planets for Who?
As mentioned, another objection to the Fish map was it only appeared to include "Sun type" stars. Why is this significant? Or even a problem?

 In the early 1960s [1962 or 1963] an astronomer, Stephen H. Dole, wrote a report for the Rand Corporation under a contract with the US Air Force. The report was published in 1964 as a book entitled "Habitable Planets For Man" [The link to RAND has a free PDF version of the book.]

Dole  sets out the type of planets which would be hospitable to humans and possibly by human-like species. The parameters for "life" or "colonization" of planets are dependent on a number of factors such as gravity, atmospheric composition, solar illumination and so forth [See the book for specifics]. Ms. Fish, as an amature astronomer and teacher,  may have been aware of Dole's work and given that the Hill abductors were "humanoid", she may have assumed [rightly or wrongly] that they too would have similar environmental needs as a human.

Kevin Randle, in his evaluation of Fish's map, makes the point that the exclusion of other stellar types makes Fish's map either unreliable or in need of serious re-evaluation. So lets look at that for a moment.

We're going to make a number of "unfounded assumptions" here-- the first of which is that there are such things as ETs. The other assumptions are that they are humanoid, are similar enough to humans that they can walk on our planet, that they can breath our air, and that they can see using the light spectrum our sun provides.

I don't particularly believe that there are ETs or that if they exist they have interstellar origins but that is immaterial to the question at hand, which is: What is the likelihood such a species described in our assumptions could live on a planet orbiting an"M" class star [e.g. a red dwarf such as Proxima Centauri]?

The answer? Not really good.

Dole says on Page 106 in the book:

Of the one hundred nearest stars (plus some eleven unseen companions) listed in Allen’s table (Allen, 1955) of the stars within 22 light years from the Sun, approximately forty-three could have habitable planets (see Table 21). All but fifteen of these are so small, however, that they could have a habitable planet only if the planet also possessed a satellite large enough and close enough to maintain its rotation rate. Hence, the proportion of stars that have a reasonable likelihood of having habitable planets in the solar neighborhood is of the order of 13 per cent. The remaining sixty-eight stars were omitted for the foLlowing reasons: Three (Sirius, Procyon, and Altair) are excessively massive and therefore too short lived; seven are white dwarfs; fifty-seven are too small, and they would either retard planetary rotation at ecosphere distances or produce destructive tides on those planets that had their rotation maintained by a large, close satellite; one (40 Eridani A), otherwise acceptable, is in a system with a nearby white dwarf. [emphasis added]

It should be noted that there are more definitive star catalogs now than in 1955 but I do not believe that there is any reason to question Dole's conclusions here. 

So why is the Astrobiology community of today excited about the Proxima Centauri discovery? Simple. First it is not because ET lives there but because there is a possibility of a "goldilocks" planet. What is a "goldilocks" planet? It is a planet that is located in the right orbit for a number of the factors that Dole described to be "Just Right" for liquid water and possible for life to exist. If the planet observed is a "goldilocks" planet it might be a place for humanity to colonize in some distant future [if we survive]. 

Yet one should take this with the understanding that the amount of  "talking up" such a possibility allows them to promote more funding for their particular research field. Before one gets carried away with the idea, one should ask the question: could Proxima or other stars like it actually be the evolutionary home planet for a "humanoid-type" ET? 

The description of the Hill's ETs makes them "nearly human" in many respects. A creature which evolved on a planet orbiting an "M" Class star is probably going to have a different eyes than Humans-- ones designed to see in a dim, red shifted light spectrum of a small, dim star.

While I'm not a UFO researcher nor one that has closely followed the Hill story, what I have read about the description of the "ET / Abductors" were that they were nearly human-- i.e. not the short, skinny, big-eyed ETs of Roswell fame.  Given the evolutionary unlikelihood of a "humanoid ET with human-like eyes" and the other necessary "human" constraints listed by Dole for the ET to be "human-like", the answer {in my opinion] to the question of "could Hill's ET have come from a planet orbiting a star like Proxima Centauri?" is a resounding NO. 

What about other Class M stars? Based on what I've seen of the Kepler telescope exoplanet data I'd say that the ET described by the Hills is even less likely to have come from any of the other Class M stars where  "non-goldilocks" planets have been found by Kepler. To get the kind of "humanoid ETs" that have been described in most of the encounters reported looking at Tartar and Turnbull's HabCat  catalog of ~25000 stars may be the best bet. 

On the other hand-- no signals or other indications have come from any of the stars on that list proving they might host "ETs".

You can do this at home:

So what should you do if you want to try to duplicate the Fish map or prove she was wrong?

First you need data. If you followed the link you'll see that Winchell Chung has a whole page of real, legitimate star catalogue data. He has had his 3d Star map site running for many years and has prided himself on the accuracy tho' he is behind on maintenance so some of the links may be broken.

Ms. Fish originally made a "bead and string" map today all of that can be done with a program and a bit of "grey matter" exercise. There are a number of programs for Windows and Mac that can act as planetariums and allow for "traveling" between systems...

But the best program I am aware of which can actually use "real" star catalog data, create virtual "bead and string" 3d star maps and even "draw lines" between stars is AstroSynthesis 3.0  The program was created to be used as a utility for table-top role playing games but it can import xyz data so real data from actual star catalogues such as the  European Space Agency's Hipparcos star catalog with ~118,000 stars of all kinds or the HabCat list noted above may be "massaged" into useful X,Y, Z coordinate data for use with AstroSynthesis. 

The displayed data by the program is as accurate as the data that is used. Someone has posted some CSV data for use with the program. If you are unsure of that accuracy of the data you'll have to download the original catalog(s), convert the data, as needed, and then import it.

The data is put into a sqlite database and can be searched /queried. It also includes a VB scripting interface to create search scripts or automate functions. The price is a reasonable one-- about $35 USD.

Final Thoughts and a Question:

One final consideration: There have been many different types of "ETs reported" yet I have never heard of one single UFO "researcher" who has spent the time to evaluate them from the view point of "Astro-Biology". What might be inferred about their home "environment" by what their appearance tells about their evolutionary environment.

As an example take those Roswellians. They are short, skinny [poor musculature?], have large eyes, large heads, small noses and lipless mouths. What does that say about the planet they evolved on? 

I am unaware of any UFO "Researcher" that has ever bothered to answer that question. Answer the question and you may begin to have an understanding of the purported ET's native environment and maybe even the type of star which their home planet orbits. [That is if they are not imaginary!]

Is the reason this has never been addressed is that too many "researchers" are wrapped up in the "Religion of Conspiracy Theory" that science and rational inquiry have fallen by the wayside? That is the way it appears. 

Instead of asking "scientific" questions, "UFO research" has boiled down to either adamant denial that UFOs or their passengers exist OR beating the dead horse of Roswell for nearly 70 years. 

So now that you have the data and tools what are you going to do with them?

Oh... here's an odd question for you to consider: Why did the U.S. Air Force want to know what type of planet was habitable for humans in the early 1960s and paid the RAND corporation to tell them? RAND was then a government owned think tank. We were just beginning the space program... Why look at stars for habitable planets which are literally TRILLIONS of miles away? Was Dole's report a kind of technical "$500 toilet seat" or did the Air Force actually have a need for that specific information? If so, what was the need?

Simulated Morality

Editorial Note: What follows is fakakta speculation. It has noting to do with reality and if you think it does then that's on you.

Consider for a moment the idea that what we call our universe and our life within that universe is  a computer simulation of a "real universe". We do not live in the "real universe" anymore than a player-character in a "Massive Multi-Player On-line Role Playing Game {MMORPG]" is a "real person". We may or may not actually be "real". Just as there are "player-characters" [PCs] there are "non-player characters [NPC]s

Is it REAL or Memorex?
Photo by the Author

Assume that the simulation we live in has physical rules and that is about it. Other rules or limitations may [or may not] be imposed within it by the "rules of the simulation" [i.e. The Programmer of the simulation places limitations on acceptable behavior] or what the players have accepted as "commonly accepted principles'. Being a "free form" simulation, we are allowed to make up our own "in-game" rules.

Most belief systems, whether they be religious or philosophical, have a "base line" for acceptable or "approved" behavior. Some of the rules are optional. Some are cultural rules which designed to maintain a cultural grouping. Sometimes moral codes conflict. Sometimes moral codes are effected by economics.  Some are impossible  to prove in that they pertain to things which happen after death or how a "deity" will act or react to a believer. What ever they are, they cannot be ignored with impunity.

The mandatory rules of social behavior becomes the morality of the social system that developed it. Each community or nation or even group of nations has some kind of "morality". Normally we consider the precepts of our moral code as a "foundational issue" [i.e. a requirement] for a modern civilized society. These are precepts which must be obeyed [or at least acknowledged]. Usually the accepted moral code gets written into the legal code of a society. You can be sure that if you fail to be a "moral" citizen, that law enforcement will show up at your door.

BUT --

What if we are living in a Simulation?  If we are living in a "Simulated Universe" one of the most disturbing issues is the question: What happens to "Morality"?  Is "Law" and "Morality" relative to whether you live in reality or live in a simulation?

Take for example the Massive Multi-Player On-line Role Playing Games {MMORPG]" we mentioned above--  In a MMORPG you can kill another player or kill an NPC and "take their stuff". There is no repercussion for that act other than that same harsh action may befall you. There is no "moral" or legal punishment.

In a game like this you can:

Steal a car. Visit a brothel. Sell drugs. Commit genocide. Destroy other people's property. Shoot, stab, burn, blow-up or otherwise harm other people or animals. Do things to other people that you would not do to your mother or even tell your mother about. All without falling afoul of a moral or criminal code [unless the behavior spills into the "Real World"]..  The "Programmer's Rules" may get rid of players that are annoying or abusive by removing their access to the game world or send the abusive player on a one-way trip to a Coventry [or Hell] node never to return to the main game.

Now consider that old question:

"If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to witness it, did the tree fall?"

Now consider it in a new light:

"If a crime is committed in a simulation, and no real entities enacted these crimes or suffered harm from these crimes, was a real crime committed? 

One might simplify that question to: Is a "simulated crime" actually a crime?

 A number of philosophy books which were published after the release of The Wachowski's "The Matrix." cover this topic. Dancing through the pages of those books one will find a number of views and the answer comes down to  Yes and No.

I think that when one simply answers "Yes" to such a question, one is insisting that the simulation is equal to the original. That may not be the case. When one answers simply "No" to such a question, one is insisting that Morality can only exist is the "real world". Again that may not be the case.

My Rabbi once told me that the favorite rabbinical answer to any question is "Yes and No" spoken at the same time. "Is it permitted to [fill in question]?  "Yes and no." After which one can expect a lecture on both the "Yes" and the "no" of the topic at hand.

So how does our legal system answer the question?

Games are just games. Simulations are just simulations. Our legal system says that no "in game" crime(s) are actually crimes unless they have an actual real world effect [actual crimes such as monetary loss, theft of service, etc.]. So if we're in-game and have no way to effect the outside, what does it mean?

Again lets ask that question:

If we are living in a simulation [a game, a MMORPG], is there such a thing as "real" Morality in our simulation? Or is our Morality "an illusion agreed upon" and have "no basis in reality"?

Let's add one last bit of strangeness... the cherry on top of this strange thing we call the world:

Ever noticed how UFOs slide across the sky like a mouse cursor on a computer screen? What if that is what they are? What if UFOs are from "reality"? Now ask your self: If UFOs are "visitors from reality" is what they are doing in our simulation "Moral"?

Simulation Running

A spider's web hidden in a ditch along the road in the
Shenandoah National Park Photo by Joel Crook ©2014

What if you had a software application to simulate a whole universe?

What if you had the hardware to run such a simulation?

What if you could inhabit your simulation with "intelligent agents" which appeared to have "free will"?

What if you had programming skills sufficient to manipulate what the "intelligent agents" perceived?

Given that you answered yes to all of the above questions the final question is:

Would you run the simulation?

In a number of forums, public and private there has been an on-going debate as to whether our reality is just such a simulation. The debate started many years ago with the publication of Daniel F. Galouye's science fiction novel Simulacron-3 in 1964.

The debate reached "epic" scale when The Wachowskis released their modern take on "reality as a simulation"--  "The Matrix" soon there after [in "philosophic time]  philosopher Nick Bostrom published his paper "The Simulation Argument".  

Bostrom proposed that we are actually living in an "ancestor simulation". The idea  is very anthropocentric and it may be even a bit naive but the paper did open the door to a serious discussion of not only "What is reality?" and "Can consciousness be 'digitized'?" but "Are we possibly living in a simulation?"

Most people that have become aware of the philosopher's arguments [and their various books on the subject ],  pro and con,  are unaware of a book that was published nearly 10 years before the release of the Matrix but dealt with the central core of the questions asked above AND with one question that was not addressed early on in the discussion: What is the probability that we do live in a simulation?

The author was "Ramsey Dukes" the nom de plume of Lionell Snell an occultist who took a degree in mathematics at Cambridge. The Book was "Words Made Flesh" which was originally published in 1988. In the book after developing the theme as outlined above he proposes, as an answer, what he calls "Johnstone's Paradox": 

"If Reality is ultimately Mechanistic, Then it is highly unlikely that this universe of ours is a mechanistic universe" 

Which is to say... Snell believes that someone answered all the questions above as "Yes".

Do you agree with that assessment? Why?


Card Fun:  For the second day in a row I took out the deck of cards, shuffled and tried to guess the colors of the cards. I guessed the colors correctly 30 out of 52 times. [four cards better than chance]. Does it mean anything? No. After all we live in  an mechanistic universe. Right? I'll keep doing this for a while. Just for fun. 

Pieces of Reality

The purpose of this post is to reintroduce this blog after a very long hiatus...

I started this blog two years ago after a "dust up" about who I am, where I've been, and what I've done. Dig around here a bit and you'll find a post about that. I won't hide and I won't lie -- which of course has gotten me into more trouble than lying through the teeth ever would have. After all if you have mark placed upon you for your failures, no amount of truth will ever make anyone believe you or take the mark away.

Those things were actually immaterial to the topics which were then at hand but to those who raised the issue thought otherwise. So I found myself banished but not wanting to set aside the things which my father had written I began to post some of them here.

My father was a engineering whiz with an IQ of somewhere between 140 and 150. He only had a bachelors degree but he loved designing things and building them... but at the same time he had been exposed to the "odd side of things" and over the years began to write down some of his observations of the "weird" things that are commonly called UFOs or UAPs... His opinions were not well liked at Mufon but he occasionally corresponded with a number of known UFO experts [Hynek and Vallee among them].

So I posted some of his writings here [most had been lost when he had to move out of his office space and could not afford to put his papers in storage]  but after a time I let this blog lapse...Not because I was not interested in "odd things" like UFOs or what they call ESP or PSI or Myth and Mysticism or Synchronicity but because what is the point of doing this if no one ever reads it? OTOH I'm not obsessed with the subjects except maybe Myth and Mysticism.

After sending the full text on a comment at a friend's blog, he asked me why I did not have a blog. I replied I have six of them but I 'm not using any of them now. He [Rich Reynolds] suggested I start again.

So I'll start again. I'm not so sure its a good idea but I'll give it a go.

The name of the blog "The Zeroth Circle"  has two components. One is the definition of Zeroth and you can see that definition to the upper right about the Zeroth Order Approximation. The second component is "Circle" which has its roots in Dante's "Circles of Hell" An astute reader will know there is no tenth circle in Dante's Inferno. So where did the Zeroth Circle come from?

Stop for a moment. Look around. Think about how wonderfully strange and grotesque this world is or can be. This is the Zeroth Circle-- the world we all live in. This world is a zeroth order approximation of Hell.

Think of the marvelous goofiness of the Skeptics and the Cranks and the Doers of Crapulous Deeds. The Lying Politicians, the Sinners, The Rodeo Clowns and the Barmaids at the Edge of the Known World. The Saints. The Healers. The Visionaries. The Average Janes and Normal Joes. The Heroes. The Murderers. The Geniuses. The Lies. The Truths. All of them marvelously impossible but upon whom this world depends for the very things which they are and which they do.

But let me tell you up front--- I don't have any special knowledge. I am not a saint. I am not after your money. I don't have a book or a TV show. I don't want you to come visit. I'm not asking for your trust or your blessings or prayers. [I'm Jewish by choice, I'm sure Jesus will understand].

What I do have are some stories. Some of them are even true. [I'm honest enough to tell you when they're not "true"].  Some are odd. Sometimes I have ideas. Sometimes Ideas get me. I've experienced high weirdness -- I have lived through "The Myth of the Dying God"... maybe I'll talk about it. I certainly don't expect you to believe me.

So welcome to you... I hope you'll find it of value.

Comments are moderated.

Card Fun: A little while ago I took out a deck of cards, shuffled and tried to guess the colors of the cards. I guessed the colors correctly 31 out of 52 times. [five cards better than chance]. Does that mean I'm psychic? No. It just means I can guess as well as anyone else.