7 entries
Bell Labs, Roswell & reproducing machines
The postwar dates, the recovered-technology allegation, and three different von Neumann ideas.
Chapters
5 entries
Cellular automata and emergent complexity
Self-reproduction, emergence and the mathematical reach of tiny programmes.
4 entries
LLMs, jailbreaks & cosmic narratives
Alien-themed anecdotes, Lilly references and documented spiritual language in model interactions.
5 entries
Humanity as a work in progress
Self-transformation, transferable minds and the ambition to participate in evolution.
4 entries
When intelligence changes the pace of history
Historical discontinuity, intelligence explosions and the limits of recursive improvement.
5 entries
The Great Filter: behind us or ahead?
Rare origins, technological danger and the uncertain meaning of a quiet sky.
Across the Cabinet
Strange overlaps reaching this collection
- Von Neumann appears on two different family treesExplicit citation
One historical figure, two afterlives: Vinge’s 1993 essay quotes Ulam recalling von Neumann, who also appears here through self-reproducing automata.
- Lilly’s machine organism meets post-biological aliensCurated parallel
A curated pairing: Lilly’s machine organism and Schneider’s post-biological civilisations both ask what happens when intelligence outgrows the organisms that made it.
- The strange persistence of symbolic communionCurated parallel
A curated parallel: McKenna’s entities engaged in visible linguistic activity beside Anthropic’s records of model conversations drifting toward spiritual language and silence.
- AI could explain absence—or change who is presentAlternative hypotheses
Alternative hypotheses, not a combined finding: Garrett’s possible AI Great Filter versus Schneider’s possibly synthetic successors changing who the neighbours are.
- A responsive object can feel like a partnerCurated parallel
A curated parallel: two installations, Rokeby’s movement-to-sound system and Lozano-Hemmer’s voice-replaying microphones, that make a technical process feel like a partner.
- The rule changes what a mark can becomeCurated parallel
A parallel, not an equivalence: the rule that turns Johnny’s marks into sound, beside explicit rules that change patterns in cellular automata.