M.J. Rose

The man called Alan Turing was certainly a genius: He foresaw the power and influence of computers – as well as how they would work. He also lived a life of persecution for being a homosexual, he was eventually arrested and forced into chemical “castration”. They say he committed suicide by lacing an apple with cyanide (his favorite story was Snow White and The Seven Dwarves.)

But the most interesting thing about Turing is that he was the first person to ask the question: Will machines someday be able to think like humans? And if so, will they be victims of prejudice too?

The Turing Problem

from RadioLab

“100 years ago this year, the man who first conceived of the computer age was born. His name was Alan Turing. He was also a math genius, a hero of World War II and he is widely considered to be the father of artificial intelligence. But the world wasn’t kind to Alan Turing. In 1952, he was arrested and convicted under a British law that prohibited “acts of gross indecency between men, in public or private.”

Whenever I read an article about how Antarctica was once a warm and tree covered paradise, my imagination soars and I wonder, well then, who was living there then? Some people say that the true location of Atlantis is under the ice of Antarctica – it IS a giant island after all… And with all the evidence lately of civilization being way older than we ever thought, who is to say that we weren’t around a million years ago building cities? (See: The Vedic literature of India!) –

EcoAlert: Ancient Antarctica Found Warmer & Wetter Than Expected

(DailyGalaxy.com)

Blow your mind and read about Puma Punku, my favorite ancient ruin. Built with stone cutting techniques that rival our own, this place is the smoking gun for the idea that super advanced civilizations existed way, way, way long ago –

“Pumapunku, also called “Puma Pumku” or “Puma Puncu”, is part of a large temple complex or monument group that is part of the Tiwanaku Site near Tiwanaku, Bolivia. In Aymara, its name means, “The Door of the Cougar”. The processes and technologies involved in the creation of these temples are still not fully understood by modern scholars. Our current ideas of the Tiwanaku culture hold that they had no writing system and also that the invention of the wheel was most likely unknown to them. The architectural achievements seen at Pumapunku are striking in light of the presumed level of technological capability available during its construction. Due to the monumental proportions of the stones, the method by which they were transported to Pumapunku has been a topic of interest since the temple’s discovery.

Of course there is no certainty that this was the reason as the ancient builders left no written records. All the legends have been handed down through the generations…”

Read more here.