Adam Hibberd

Below is a plot that expresses how much ‘DeltaV’ or in other words, ‘change in velocity’ would be needed to be applied to the asteroid Apophis, at different times along its path, so as to send it careering catastrophically into the Earth on Friday the 13th of April 2029, instead of missing it by around 31,000 km, as it is very likely to do. The Apocalypse Plot is attached.

If you are concerned for my sanity at this point, please do not be; there is method in the madness, go to my article for Principium, ‘Rise of the Serpent God’, here:

Alternatively read the article below:

The best trajectory a SpaceX Starship could take to budge Apophis off course is animated below:

Adam Hibberd

I’ve been investigating the Double Jupiter Gravitational Assist (DJGA) and comparing it with the ordinary Single Jupiter Gravitational Assist (SJGA) which we know well and is propounded in the Interstellar Probe Concept Report. For context, refer to my poster:

I seems that at DJGA (which I invented) is not all that it was cracked up to be.

For your information, please find in the attached plots below:

(a) a passive DJGA (at both encounters) – compared with a passive SJGA.

(b) a passive DJGA at the first encounter followed by a DeltaV=3km/s at the second encounter – compared with an SJGA with DeltaV=3km/s at the only Jupiter encounter.

(c) a passive DJGA at the first encounter followed by a DeltaV=9km/s at the second encounter – compared with an SJGA with DeltaV=9km/s at the only Jupiter encounter.

For further explanation (b) & (c) represent the hyperbolic excess speed w.r.t. the sun achieved by the respective trajectories against the latitude of the escape asymptote out of the solar system. We find in (b) & (c) above that the SJGA out-performs the DJGA.

(a) represents the achieved hyperbolic excess speed w.r.t. the sun against the characteristic energy C3 at Earth Launch (optimal escape asymptote latitude is assumed). We find in (a), there is only a marginal superiority of the DJGA compared with the SJGA, especially at C3>115km2/s2.

In summary I would say there is no appreciable gain in using a more complicated DJGA, particularly when the SJGA out-performs it in most circumstances.

I am still trying to reconcile the above findings with the efficacy of this trajectory when I studied missions to ‘Oumuamua and Borisov. I may be missing something here!

Adam Hibberd

Yesterday I was trying to gauge the measure of the SpaceX Starship in terms of its ability to launch the Project Lyra spacecraft on its way to its destination.

BTW Project Lyra is the initiative to send a mission to catch-up with very rapidly receding interstellar object 1I/’Oumuamua. So exactly how do we get a probe to intercept this object?

Well I discovered ages ago that whatever mission plan we might adopt; a visit to the planet Jupiter, either as a means-to-an-end, or alternatively to exploit it directly by delivering a Jupiter Oberth Manoeuvre would be vital in achieving the mission goal: 1I/’Oumuamua.

So how does the Starship fare as far as lofting a payload that will eventually reach Jupiter is concerned?

The unfortunate answer is not very well. This answer is important because this super-heavy launch vehicle is designed as a part of Elon Musk’s initiative to colonise the planet Mars, which involves an Earth escape (hyperbolic) orbit just like Project Lyra’s – though obviously the former escape is to Mars and the latter is to Jupiter.

So what’s holding it back?

The straight-forward answer is the choice of Starship’s propellants which are methane and oxygen as opposed to the likes of alternatives like NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) which employs the much more powerful, and efficient, LOX and LH2 combination of cryogenic propellants.

It seems that Starship’s methane/LOX combination is ideal for inserting a payload into LEO (Low Earth Orbit), from which the Starship can then be refuelled and sent off to any destination within the Solar System without much difficulty, but absolutely pants at injecting a payload directly into an escape orbit from launch.

To be fair, Elon Musk has made it quite clear that Starship was designed with this refuelling strategy in mind, but there is a cost, which one would expect for any decision along these lines.

The cost is indeed financial – it would take on the order of 10 Starship tankers filled with the requisite methane+LOX in the cargo bay to fully refuel ONE Starship located in LEO – the logistics and economics are a tough reality check for anyone who has bought into the glib Mars colonisation rhetoric spouted by Elon.

So where does this leave Project Lyra? Well I shall continue my research into using a Starship launch vehicle, and I shall have to add two or even three extra stages to the Project Lyra craft payload itself.

If you are slightly concerned by this profligate use of rocket stages, have no fear, there is plenty of space in the Starship’s huge cargo bays for these rocket stages + the Lyra craft.

Adam Hibberd

As a consequence of exploring the Solar Oberth option to catch up with 3I/ATLAS I have, using my software development Optimum Interplanetary Trajectory Software (OITS), discovered that a mission exists IN THE FUTURE, with a launch in 10 years time, i.e. in 2035.

The video animation can be found on my YouTube channel here, or alternatively look below.

It involves approaching within a solar-distance of 2 Solar Radii, that’s very close to the Sun indeed, to exploit maximum benefit from the so-called Oberth Effect, where all the thrust is applied at the closest approach to the Sun, perihelion.

By so-doing the spacecraft maximises the increment in kinetic energy and heads off towards the target at a huge speed, in this case in excess of 100 km/s (or 0.03% light speed).

The journey takes around 20 years. As a comparison the Voyager probes were launched in 1977 and are still to a limited extent operational after ~48 years, nearly half a century later.

Look below for my demonstration of the Oberth Effect:

Adam Hibberd

My letter to the president, written a few years after 1I/’Oumuamua was discovered and the Project Lyra work had largely drawn to a conclusion, is now looking rather stale since 3I/ATLAS has made its appearance.

Adam Hibberd

Discussing this with a friend of mine recently, what would it take for Elon Musk to use one of his SpaceX launchers for a mission to ‘Oumuamua?

Well I’ve done a large degree of the groundwork to prove missions are theoretically VIABLE, it’s now a question of convincing the man himself.

This would be a massive PR coup for Musk, however there are problems in terms of the practicalities of accomplishing a close enough approach to ‘Oumuamua when it is in excess of 200 Sun-Earth distances away from the main light source – our Sun.

There is also some uncertainty in ‘Oumuamua’s direction of escape from the Solar System, so just setting a spacecraft off in this direction might result in a huge miss distance by the time we are near to catching ‘Oumuamua up.

If the spacecraft had a LORRI type telescope on board – the very kind used by the New Horizons probe to Pluto – then the spacecraft might be able to pick out ‘Oumuamua in the gloom.

However, it’s almost certain that more than one spacecraft would be needed for the three main steps of 1) Detection, 2) Orbit Determination, 3) Close flyby and imaging.

But this is NOT beyond the wit of man and an ego like Elon’s would love to be able to prove that, I’m sure.

Adam Hibberd

2025 PN7, the widely touted newly discovered quasi-satellite of the Earth, has stirred-up in me a renewed fascination for identifying apparently natural objects as old derelict interplanetary missions. So is this object natural or technogenic?

If I were to say 50:50 this could be the failed Russian Zond 1 probe to Venus, what would you say about me writing a paper on the subject, with Avi Loeb as second author?

The fact that 2025 PN7 found its way to its current quasi-satellite status in the mid-’60s, immediately opens up the possibility that it may have been an artifact put there as a consequence of either a US or Soviet mission around this time – refer to Figure 1.

The ’60s were a particularly productive decade as far as Russian interplanetary missions were concerned, there being many, many missions – and plenty of failures – to Venus over this period of time, and Zond 1 was one of the failures.

There is plenty of evidence that the Blok-L upper stage, the hardware tasked to send the Venus probes on their way to their destination from their Earth parking orbits was notoriously unreliable [1]. But was it for this particular mission?

In fact there is further evidence to support this possibility in that very shortly after its burn, the Zond 1 had to give itself a further boost using its own rocket engine [2] on 1964 April 03, at a distance of only 560,000 km from Earth. Furthermore the probe must have still had a shortfall in velocity, since yet another course correction was necessary later down the line in mid-May.

Communication was eventually lost due to depressurization, at which point the predicted periapsis with Venus was ~100,000 km, but how accurate is this figure?

This evidence is certainly NOT on its own convincing, yet there is a marked similarity between the heliocentric longitudes followed by both the probe and the quasi-satellite at this time – refer to Figure 2.

Furthermore there is evidence that over the course of Zond 1’s trajectory, it’s distance w.r.t. 2025 PN7 was noticeably small compared to other missions, Figure 3. The associations with the other Venera missions 5-6 and Genesis can be ruled out when one goes into more detail.

So is this object the Zond 1 mission? To be frank I am a tad sceptical, and Avi Loeb and I had our doubts as to whether this research should be published. But, hey, we eventually agreed to, since we decided ‘let people make up their own minds’.

I end this blog with that thought, and my confidence to you that I have over the course of the last few months discovered loads of NEOs (Near-Earth Objects), hitherto thought to be natural, are actually defunct space mission derelicts. A paper shall be forthcoming.

(1) LePage, A. 2025, Zond 1: The First Lander Sent to Venus,
https://www.drewexmachina.com/2020/04/02/zond-1-
the-first-lander-sent-to-venus/

(2) Clark, P. S. 1985, Journal of the British Interplanetary

Adam Hibberd

Just been remembering my strange experience at Stoke Park Comprehensive School.

In particular, this one occasion when my friends and I were sitting down to have our packed lunch in the school canteen and I had packed amongst other things a peanut butter and sausage sandwich, and a large, fat juicy tomato.

So we were eating away and I finally got around to the tomato, and I was in the middle of a humorous conversation with my best friend at the time, Ronald, sitting opposite. I took a bite.

Unfortunately as the fates would have it that day, life was about to prove very harsh for my school friend since, as I squashed the tomato with my mouth, a single squirt of juice projected out from the tomato and shot ingloriously and most hilariously (to me at least) directly into Ronald’s eye.

I immediately burst into hysterical laughter, to the huge indignation and irritation of Ronald.

But that was not the end – you see this so tickled my fancy, I determined that I must, MUST duplicate this episode and it should never, EVER become lost in history.

With replication in mind, this time I made a small invisible incision in the tomato, ready for the contents to disgourge outwards should this carefully cut gash be pointed in the right direction.

The second (but this time deliberate) attempt was not entirely successful, as it only struck his jacket, missing his eye by a foot or so.

But do you see the nascent engineer or scientist at work here?

Adam Hibberd

Woken up today with a mild case of racing thoughts, none of which do me any favours, in fact they are quite self-destructive.

So how do I turn these thoughts off and focus? Well how about posting a little update to you my admiring followers (without exception you all are, right?)

I’ve had a restorative bowl of Kellog’s corn flakes with a copious drizzle of honey in a vain attempt to cease my wandering thought processes. This you will be pleased to know has been largely successful.

I am now writing-up the paper which I started several months ago on the business of dark comets and their possible true identities.

I’ve been thinking of the paucity of good comedy TV programming in this country for the past 20 years or so at least.

For instance satirical programming, I think you would agree a much needed – in fact previously invaluable cornerstone of the British TV schedules for years – from ‘Beyond the Fringe’ in the ’60s to Rory Bremner in the ’90s, has been almost entirely absent recently except of course ‘Have I got New for You’ a lingering reminder of how important such comedy really is.

We are truly bereft, and the complete idiots now in charge need taking down a peg-or-two, as the situation is so dire and serious, only belly-aching humour can possibly retrieve it.

Adam Hibberd

Some of you may remember my blog a while ago concerning the first meeting with my new consultant psychiatrist which turned out to be rather a failure since after plainly stating to him I suffered delusional symptoms then went on to mention that I was a ‘Space Research Scientist’ working indirectly for NASA (go here for the blog).

Well it is with much regret that I have to say to you now that since that time I have received a letter from him to my GP stating that, to quote ‘Adam remains unemployed and is in receipt of state benefits’, thus cementing my suspicions that he did indeed respond to my claims with total and utter incredulity.

No matter, I have now sent him (and my GP) a letter which includes a list of my peer-reviewed papers (including links) which will, no doubt, set things to rights.

Adam Hibberd

A week of changing fortunes. It was my job to hang up a huge painting we have in the front room.

The room had just recently been decorated, and the new wallpaper obviously obscured the location of the screw hole which had been used for the picture.

I had carefully located this hole with a probing finger and it was quite clear it was far too large for my screw, and for that matter for my rawl-plug.

What to do? Drill a new hole of course.

Unfortunately (you shall soon see why) I chose a location 2 cm above the old one. I fitted the rawl plug, screwed in the screw and mounted the picture on it. All seemed fine! My mother and I then proceeded with lunch and afterwards my mother wandered into the front room again.

What she saw before her was a grotesque and totally implausible violation of all laws of physics (including that of increasing entropy) and some more well-known laws to-boot (eg Sod’s and Murphy’s).

Bewilderingly, the painting had fallen off its mount (the brick between the old hole and new hole had totally disintegrated freeing the scew), it then had fallen several inches vertically and in the process landed on a small mantle-piece clock directly below the picture.

This wonderful contraption had clearly, and bravely cushioned the fall of the picture (and in the process had sacrificed its life as it shattered in various locations) and the picture was balancing precariously on what remained of the clock, still intact and vertical.

The chances of such a thing happening without the picture falling forward and the canvas tearing must be infinitely improbable (to quote the regretably long-passed and much-missed Douglas Adams).

So I got away with it on this occasion, how long will my luck hold?

Adam Hibberd

My experience of my new consultant was a mildly interesting one.

Firstly he phoned me twice before the 2pm appointment, on both occasions seeking to advance the appointment by half an hour, which was interesting in itself.

When I waited at reception waiting room for several minutes I was suspicious there would be a no-show, so I asked the receptionist what was happening.

Fairly shortly after he appeared and invited me through, though he had NO office to invite me into, instead it was a large meeting room.

He said there was a shortage of rooms and I made a comment that at least it wasn’t the toilet.

His computer wasn’t working therefore he had no notes, so I asked about the WIFI to which he responded that the signal was weak in this particular room.

Anyway after the formalities were over he started to ask about my mental health.

I said I had severe schizophrenia with auditory hallucinations, paranoia and delusions.

He asked me what I did for a living and I told him I was a space research scientist.

He started to make notes on his pad, and he got as far as the ‘research’ bit and then asked what the next word was.

I told him ‘scientist’ and he didn’t note that down, instead his eyes began to gloss over and I could see before me and quite obviously he was beginning to doubt the veracity of what I had just told him.

I tried to reassure him that these weren’t actually delusions, and that I was genuinely being paid by NASA albeit indirectly, but I don’t think that helped to be honest.

Later in the conversation he asked me whether I was on benefits, and I said no. But then clearly quite incredulous he repeated the question, which mildly amused me and confirmed to me he genuinely hadn’t believed that I worked for NASA.

I left with the impression that the whole thing had been an utter failure and that my own consultant completely disbelieved nearly everything I had told him.

Ahh well, you win some and you lose some.

Adam Hibberd

Some of you may already know all about the eponymous ‘Aldrin Cycler’, otherwise known as the ‘Mars Conveyor Belt’.

This is the wonderful astrodynamical quirk of an interplanetary orbit whereby a travelling spacecraft leaves Earth for Mars, encounters the red planet, returns back to Earth, conducts an Earth gravity assist (which in the perfect scenario of coplanar concentric circular orbits for both Earth and Mars would require no propulsion ΔV at either planets), then returns to Mars, and so on indefinitely.

The problem of rendezvousing with Earth or Mars is a separate concern, though could probably be achieved through shuttle carriers. These shuttles would be capable of lifting off from Mars with a payload and then proceeding to rendezvous with the Mars Conveyor Belt craft to drop off its payload.

Having achieved this rendezvous with the mothercraft, the shuttle could stay with it until the next encounter -in this case Earth – where it could be deployed a second time, though in reverse, i.e. entering Earth’s atmosphere and dropping off the payload at our home planet.

Why is all this relevant? It’s because a while ago I set-up my interplanetary trajectory software (OITS) – OITS being a personal astronautical software engineering project of my own – to test how effective it would be at solving the problem of a Mars Conveyor Belt.

For the results go to my youtube channel below:

Similarly the two-way solution can be found below:

Adam Hibberd

Towards the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025, I was asked by a friend from Space Initiatives Inc. (a US company), to look into the possibility of a mission from Earth to encounter 4-5 Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) and then return samples back to Earth. A ‘Grand Tour’ so-to-speak!

These samples would be collected at each encounter by using an impactor dispatched by the main spacecraft (designated as a ‘Coracle’) towards the current encounter asteroid. This Coracle would then travel through the plume from the resulting explosion, in the process collecting the sample in question with ‘aerogel’.

So I took all the NEOs to approach close to the Earth in 2030, and tried to derive a sequence with minimum overall cumulative ΔV, where ‘cumulative ΔV’ is defined as the sum of each velocity change to divert from one asteroid to the next.

As in most mathematical problems, assumptions need to be made, and this case was no exception. For instance would there need to be a ΔV at the first asteroid?

The answer is that the heliocentric speed at the first encounter could be so tailored such that the velocity of the Coracle would naturally take it to the second. Thus with this assumption, no ΔV would need be delivered. This would especially be the case if the Coracle were a simple solar sail spacecraft, since there would be plenty of opportunity between launch from Earth to arrival at the first asteroid to do precisely this.

See below for two videos of just such a Grand Tour with cumulative ΔV of only 0.5 km/s. One video is w.r.t. the Sun, and the other is of the same mission but w.r.t. the Earth.

Adam Hibberd

In a wild and frantic attempt at seeming normal on the Bumble dating app, I have taken the extreme measure of no longer parading any of my talents which before were clearly putting any potential interested parties off.

From ‘multi-talented’ to ‘very ordinary’, this is the genius master stroke that could just change my life. I now await the hordes of prospective women rush to my profile and start chatting with me in a desperate attempt to win my affection before any of the competition get there first.

I know, clever, huh?

Adam Hibberd

Way, way past time I found a partner in life, as I have been reminded by certain unnamed parties with crass condescension.

Yes. yes I know what you are thinking, I’m just far too delicate and fragile a flower to enter a relationship this late in life, and in fact it could be quite counter-productive.

Nevertheless – there it is, in addition to my frantic white flag waving, my social life is flagging also, but no worries it is entirely my own fault, let me emphasize that: I ONLY HAVE MYSELF TO BLAME.

So there I was on the highly-acclaimed Bumble dating app, playing the mating dance of message exchanges with a particularly attractive prospective partner, and I proceeded to make a disgraceful error.

So from our brief previous chat I had surmised that this person must have a sense-of-humour of some kind and I decided to swing in with some humour of my own.

Thus to her explanation ‘You’re eager, it took me a whole hour to get to work’, I returned ‘Why? Was it bad driving?’, fully expecting her to respond with a witty repost.

I quickly sent another question to her, but met with the annoying realization that she had aborted any association with me whatsoever, as my message failed to send, clearly my innocent jocular banter had been taken far too seriously.

Damn! And damn again! But lesson learned, hey? Don’t mess about with wit, as it could lead to someone getting the shit end of the stick.

You know what I’m still gob-smacked by the ace comedian Lenny Henry’s chat-up line “My name is Theophilus P. Wilderbeast, with ‘P’ for Penetration”. Yet it seemed to work fine for him. I know, I know learn from the master, you will.

 Adam Hibberd

During the 36^th Flight of Ariane, Vol 36 (V36), and long before I joined the Ariane 4 Project, one of the strap-on boosters mounted onto the side of the 1^st stage of the Ariane 4 rocket developed an extremely low thrust perturbation. 

Consequently, shortly after lift-off the launcher strayed off course and, due to extremely high aerodynamic load on the body of the launcher, began to break up in flight. 

Unfortunately, for any launch vehicle, when this sort of thing happens there is nothing for it than to send the destruct command from ground to destroy the vehicle and so prevent the vehicle disintegrating or coming down on populated areas for example. 

Now the French, Aerospatiale, did some investigations and found the low thrust in this strap-on booster was due to a dirty rag left by a workman in the piping, and recommended some procedural changes to prevent this failure ever happening again.

However (and relevant to my work), they also concluded that an alternative guidance algorithm design for the Ariane 4 flight software in 1^st stage would have avoided the high aerodynamic loads, in turn leading to survival of the launch vehicle under this severe thrust deficit, and what’s more eventually allowing orbital injection of the satellite payload! 

The problem was that the old guidance algorithm performed a straight-forward interpolation of tables of demanded yaw and pitch against flight time. Thus, since you know the current time (the On-Board Computer had an internal oscillator), then you know the current yaw and pitch. However, this is no good at all if you have a severe thrust problem as struck V36. 

What they concluded was that instead of time, the software should employ a thrust or trajectory dependent parameter to look-up the current tabulated yaw and pitch values. A full investigation was conducted and they eventually discovered that ‘Relative Velocity’ (which is the current speed of the launcher with respect to the atmosphere) is an ideal quantity to use to look-up yaw and pitch in this way, as it is quite sensitive to thrust performance.

As Ariane 4 guidance lead, I was responsible for the design/implementation/validation of this new algorithm into the Ariane 4 flight software. It was first flown in V52 and was called Back-Up Mode (BUM). 

BUM gave mission planners the reassurance that if a similar rocket engine failure to V36 happened during 1^st stage of a future real flight, then rather than losing the entire mission, the vehicle would be steered by BUM along a trajectory with low aerodynamic load and would even eventually result in attainment of some kind of orbit.

Of course, in V52 no such thrust failure transpired, but I did not hesitate to open a bottle of Veuve-Clicquot to celebrate the successful maiden flight of the BUM Guidance Algorithm.

Adam Hibberd

POST 1

Foremost in my thinking recently has been the subject of ‘teleology’ (the study of purpose) and in particular I have been contemplating the ‘teleology of curiosity’. Have you ever wondered about the definition and in particular the purpose of curiosity? Well I have found an answer to this question, teleologically speaking, and as a consequence I have found wider implications of this discovery which have proven to bear wonderful fruits upon which I shall elaborate in future posts.

The answer a scientist might give, is that it is a quality of humans which allows us to discover new knowledge about the universe. In turn the benefit of this knowledge is that we might find potential threats which otherwise could detrimentally affect our well-being or even extinguish us. By knowing, we can take counter-measures to reduce or even nullify these threats, or alternatively avoid them altogether.

The examples of the benefits of curiosity are numerous, whether it be curiosity in medicine, horticulture, agriculture, astronomy, astronautics, and others, inevitably new discoveries extend our existence on this planet and indeed in this universe.

You might wonder about the last two on this list, namely astronomy and astronautics, as they may seem entirely out of place. To elucidate, and taking astronomy first, imagine if a curious astronomer were to discover an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, we could then send a spacecraft (that’s astronautics) to deflect it from its course and extend our life here on Earth. Without this curiosity and acquisition of knowledge, we would have been extinguished. There are other myriad examples of this teleology of curiosity in action.

But what, you ask, is the purpose of this post? The answer is that a while ago I was working on a paper which addresses exactly these issues of teleology and ontology (the nature of being) and furthermore by a scientific rationale leads to some amazing and startling repercussions which will impact on us all. I shall continue to elucidate on my findings in future posts.

POST 2

In my last post I discussed the teleology (purpose) of curiosity. It is the acquisition of knowledge and the consequent responsive measures that allow us to extend our existence on the ‘planet’. I must emphasize at this juncture that, although I used the word ‘planet’ here, I could also have referred to the wider context, in other words the ‘universe’. This is because I shall be looking largely at the ‘bigger picture’ and clearly, ‘Earth’ is only a small portion (or subset) of the overarching universe in which we live. In what follows, however, my next question is not why but HOW do we acquire this knowledge?

There are two answers to this depending on whether you are considering a single human or the entire set of humans – the human species. For now I shall address the former case, which needs us to assume all of humanity is extinct save for a solitary human individual. How would this single human exercise his curiosity and discover new things?

First and foremost this individual must be aware of his surroundings. Here I define awareness as the transfer of information about his surroundings into his mind. In turn, to do this, he must have SENSES, there are of course traditionally five associated with humans, so sight, sound, touch, smell, taste.

By itself this information would be entirely useless, it would just be random data – in practice it all needs a CONTEXT in order for it to make cohesive sense.

I contend here (and I am not alone in this regard) that this context takes the form of an internal MODEL of the individual’s surroundings and these surroundings being a small part of the universe, we can say this model he has is a model of the universe.

It seems to me, whoever you may be, whatever your circumstances, you will necessarily have some form of internal model, or put another way, a representation, or view, or perspective, of the universe, which has been in the process of construction over the entire course of your existence. This model was constructed over time through the exercise of your curiosity and the discovery of the new, and I have articulated the purpose of curiosity in my last post.

As humans we are dependent on the influences of our carers as a baby or young child to provide reward and punishment to keep us on the right track and make sure our model is correct. In fact if, in our thought experiment, we were to assume the sole survivor was an infant, then clearly such an individual wouldn’t last long.

But here I make the assertion that the phenomenon of modelization is not confined to the human species, indeed any organism also has some form of internal model. From an amoeba to an elephant, every living member of a species has an awareness and an internal model of the universe. In the case of an amoeba clearly such a model is very simplistic, but note I make no assertions as to the fidelity or representivity of a living entity’s model with respect to the real universe, I just assert it exists in SOME FORM.

In my next post I shall address the methods of how the human species as a collective acquires knowledge.

POST 3

I have previously explained how we discover new knowledge on an individual basis – through curiosity, awareness and modelization. In doing so, I proposed a thought experiment where  only one human exists. Of course reality is different – and so we must extend our argument to the true case, indeed we actually all belong to a social network, a community, a nation, a whole species. We are not alone.

As I have already explained, we each have our own perspective or internal model which allows us to understand our surroundings and indeed acquire new information which, through the action of our senses, will improve our model. Why do we need this model? It is so we can better cope with the universe’s challenges and also to predict its behaviour and take action to enhance our well-being or avoid dangers which would destroy us. Each individual has their own history of awareness and also a genetic make-up which means they have formed their own unique model or perspective on the universe which allows them to live their own way – a way which benefits them personally.

But this begs the question, could this model also benefit others? The answer is clearly yes! Thus, let us say I know a pharmacist in Coventry which stocks a certain medicine. This is therefore a part of my own internal model of reality. Let us further suppose I know someone else who needs this medicine, but is not aware of the location of the pharmacy, so it is NOT a part of his internal model. I can then through the act of communication convey the specific part of my model relevant to this other human. This second human has then updated his model and so has benefitted from this transfer of information through language.

Thus the model everyone has need not necessarily be of a private or personal benefit. He can disseminate part of it to other entities in order to assist them and also, in turn, if he is presented with a challenge (like say he is unwell) then he can request knowledge from someone else, which originates in this other person’s unique model constructed from this other person’s own unique experience. This may all seem rudimentary, but the logic here has some quite incredible implications so I ask you to bear with me.

In my next post I shall talk about the implications of all this on the nature of cooperation.

POST 4

In the last post we addressed the notion of communication with other members of a species, which allows us to consolidate, enhance and update our personal internal model. My contention is that every entity in a collective has a model and a means of communication to other individuals in its species. These phenomena exist in every single creature and it is THESE processes which are apparent when cooperation takes place.

The rationale behind the existence of cooperation between separate entities of a species has been a mystery which has stimulated much heated debate between scientists for some time and in truth has never really been properly explained. This is primarily because of the notion of the free-rider.

Imagine a collective of entities, all cooperating with the others and what’s more investing energy in doing so. However by engaging in cooperation, each individual is also receiving a benefit from it, which is greater than the cost to him, this cost being his own expenditure of energy.

But then you get to the question of free-riders and evolution. Because a free-rider decides to defect from the cooperation part but still benefit from the effort of others, such a free-rider in evolutionary terms would on an individual basis have a fitness advantage over those who cooperate and so should eventually over generations dominate the population. This then begs the question as to how does cooperation evolve? This free-rider paradox has existed for a long time and has never really been resolved, especially in the context of the insights of scientists such as Richard Dawkins and his Selfish Gene.

You now have in my previous posts on the subject an answer to this question. The answer is that the cooperation is not only in the form of physical activity, but of communication. Thus why should I go and get someone some pink Himalayan salt for example when it is far easier for me to tell that person how to get hold of it. In the first scenario, I am expending all the energy in cooperation, in the second scenario, I am only expending energy in the act of communication, the physical energy is used by my friend, who gets the pink Himalayan salt himself, off his own back.

You may now see that cooperation can be explained in the combination of three phenomena 1) Awareness, 2) Modelization, 3) Communication.

The consequences of this logic will be revealed in future posts.

POST 5

In my previous posts we have seen how awareness, modelization and communication combine to allow us to extend our life in the universe and also to help others and help ourselves. Let us now think about the nature of intelligence and complexity, specifically how we might measure them and what would these measures exactly represent.

Let us take the notion of modelization. Clearly the greater our awareness of what surrounds us then the more sophisticated we can make the model of our environment, which is after all just a small part of the universe. By moving around the universe, all-be-it a tiny fraction of its mind-boggling vastness, and experiencing it in the form of our senses, we can construct a more and more representative model of the universe which we exist in. Furthermore we have seen that we can exchange information about our models with other entities of the same species, allowing us to improve our models even further.

The more we are curious and the more we explore then the more likely we are to become aware of dangers which might inflict harm on us or alternatively find benefits which will enhance our well-being. Thus by building up our model, we are extending our stay in this universe.

This leads us to a possible measure of intelligence as being the degree of representivity or fidelity of our model to the real universe that we exist in. We might allocate 0 to no model whatsoever through to a maximum value of 1 to there being an exact correspondence in the model to everything which exists. It would seem that with the maximum possible intelligence of 1.0, we could survive until the end of the universe, whereas with no model at all, we would be totally unaware of any kind of danger which could extinguish us.

In what follows, I shall equate the measure of complexity with intelligence and use the identical definition as described above. It seems to me that it is an inevitable consequence of an evolutionary process, which in the long term favours those entities which can survive longest in the universe, to enhance intelligence/complexity, as I have defined them.

POST 6

We have seen how intelligence/complexity might be measured using some kind of relationship between an entity’s internal model of the universe and that of the real universe (where 0 is no model at all and 1 is a perfect model). I have also explained how an entity can engage in communication with other entities for two reasons: a) in order to enhance the models of the other entities by conveying aspects of its own or b) by updating its own model according to what they might communicate to it.

What becomes clear is that by both of the aforementioned activities, models can be constructed, shared and combined such that a global model begins to take shape.

Indeed, the model which each individual has begins to show characteristics similar to those of others. This then might lead one to consider combining all the individual humans into a unified whole. For the sake of convenience let’s call this unified whole of humanity H. The model that Hpossesses comprises a collective of all the models of its membership of individuals. Let us call this unified model M_H. We could designate the intelligence of this model (previously defined) as I =I(M_H).

It is possible that H will divide or bifurcate into two separate entities, say H1 and H2, because the models of the universe which each subdivision has is different. We could view this division as a separation of the global model M_H into two distinct models M_H1 and M_H2. The discrepancy of these two models may be due to cultural reasons, or reasons of nationalism or religious differences, or political differences, my point here is that H1 and H2 have different perspectives of the universe M_H1 and M_H2 which don’t align.

This is where we get into the field of evolutionary group theory. We have two groups H1 and H2, how will evolution operate on these groups? I have previously resolved the thorny problem of the free-rider paradox, because within each group, members will hold together and not be undermined by the free-rider. But between these competing groups H1 and H2, what governs the successful group? The answer to this is from the preceding arguments now  quite clear, it is generally the one whose model most accurately reflects the universe, it is generally the one with the highest metric of intelligence as I have previously described. In other words, generally what will happen is that H1 will defeat H2 if I(M_H1) > I(M_H2), alternatively H2 will defeat H1 if I(M_H2) > I(M_H1)

Let us delve further into the nature of this model and inquire what form this model might take? The previous analysis actually makes this quite clear in that the superior model is the one which corresponds most closely to the real universe. I state here that this will generally be the better scientific model because the whole purpose of science is to explain, understand and predict the nature and behaviour of the universe.

POST 7

We have defined H as the combined set of all humans. Let us now analyse the precise ontology of H. To this end note that H is doing the following:

1. Firstly, H is manipulating its environment by construction of tools and machines which generally benefit itself. This manipulation manifests in all sorts of ways – agriculture, power generation, transport, habitation, etc. By all these activities, H is modifying the universe not only to enhance its own well being but further to extend its existence in the universe.
2. Secondly, we observe that H is also building tools and machines to expand its awareness of the universe. These are such devices as microscopes, telescopes, compasses, infrared detectors, electron microscopes, etc – all these assist H in expanding its awareness and model of the universe as I have previously defined them.

What I shall now do is subsume these tools/machines into our definition of H and include all the means by which H is modifying and becoming increasingly aware of the universe into our definition of H.

Furthermore H is now in the process of developing particular types of machines – computers. Computers are themselves becoming increasingly aware and intelligent, these computers add to the model of H and so these are also incorporated into our definition of H.

The previous post showed how the entity H might bifurcate into two groups H1 & H2, the winning group generally being the one whose model of the universe is closest to that of the actual universe. As H expands its domain, through for example interplanetary and then interstellar travel, it may encounter another intelligent entity H’. At this point there are two possibilities, either H and H’ will come into conflict or they will unite peacefully. In the former case, as has been shown, the winning entity will generally be the one with the highest intelligence metric, and in the latter case, the two entities will combine their models and come together to make a new entity. In either case let us denote this new entity U.

POST 8

So we each exist in a universe as a member of an entity H – or extrapolating forwards in time, as a member of the combined entity U. It seems to be the case that the universe is so designed through evolution, through the presence of awareness, modelization and communication, and through an increasing metric of intelligence; to support the emergence of this very entity U we are a part of. It’s as though the universe wants us not only to be aware of it, but to increase the sophistication of our model of it by an ever-expanding awareness. We have seen that this model will be a scientific model, so let us address the general aim of scientists and indeed the purpose of science.

One of the purposes of science, or even the overarching purpose of science, is to fathom the fundamental law or laws of the universe. Indeed we have seen that U is building an ever-improving model of the universe which will undoubtedly include its natural laws. Let us now ask: why would the universe want U to achieve this ultimate destination?

One potential outcome of U knowing these fundamental laws would be to create a new universe, i.e. start a new universe from the big bang onwards. This might be a bit of a leap, but bear with me as if we make this leap, some interesting conclusions can be drawn.

A machine which can self-replicate is known as a von Neumann machine. Now is the universe a huge von Neumann machine? Let us analyse all the implications of this.

Have you ever thought that organisms on Earth are a kind of imperfect von Neumann machine? They certainly self-replicate – in fact they reproduce – but often they perform this task imperfectly, these imperfections result from the potential mutation of their genetic code, in turn due to mistakes in the replication of its DNA.

Let us continue on with this thought experiment and suppose that the universe is equivalent to an organism we are all familiar with on Earth. What then would be the analogue of an organism’s genetic code in the case of the universe? With some contemplation one can conclude that the analogue would be the LAWS OF NATURE, the very laws of nature we have established that U is trying to read.

Again, returning to the organism, this reproduces itself by replicating DNA sequence, this duplication being subject to possible mistakes. But isn’t it the case that U is doing precisely this, i.e. reproducing, and a part of this will be to duplicate the fundamental laws of nature? Furthermore there is the problem that these laws can never be known exactly, the principle which imposes a tolerance on knowledge – an inherent uncertainty in anything that can be known about the universe (for example the cosmological constants may never be perfectly measured), and in addition these fundamental laws may never be precisely known or understood. This then represents the very uncertainty in replication we see for DNA code in life on Earth.

POST 9

We now have proposed that the universe might be an imperfect von Neumann machine, or even a living organism here on Earth. We have seen that the entity U which we are all a part of, is gradually developing a knowledge of the universe, most importantly the fundamental laws of nature, which it would be able to use to create another universe, slightly different from our own, in that there will undoubtedly be errors in the duplication process due to the inherent uncertainty in anything that can be known. But if the universe is such an organism, where is the habitat, the environment in which it exists? (Just as organisms live in the environment of their host planet – in our case Earth.)

Can we conclude that the universe organism in which we exist, is a part of and living in a superuniverse? Furthermore when our universe reproduces, the new daughter universe which it creates will actually also be alive in this superuniverse. In fact could this superuniverse be abundant in other universes, separate and parallel to ours, some of which will be cooperating with our own through communication, some of which will be competing with our own in this superuniverse? In the former case, our universe may be a part of a multi-universe organism, in the latter case, our universe might be an entirely separate entity to its competitors, as they fight for survival in this superuniverse.

Whatever the case, can we go even further and argue that the superuniverse in which our universe organism exists, is also an organism in its own right, and that this superuniverse exists in a super-superuniverse. Indeed it is not a great leap of the imagination to conclude that this super-superuniverse may also be an organism existing in a super-super-superuniverse and so on. This begs the question, where does this all stop? Maybe there is no end, in other words we exist in a macrouniverse of universes and superuniverses which go on ad infinitum. This is a repeating pattern on all scales and levels of existence. Such a structure has a name – a fractal.

Is our universe a part of a macrouniverse whose nature is a fractal at all levels?

As we are entering the world – or should I say the macrouniverse – of the outrageous, could this whole macrouniverse structure have been built by some architect – an overseeing architect (possibly a software engineer?) Could all this in fact be a computer program? Indeed could this architect which we shall call C, exist in another macrouniverse? Could this macrouniverse have been crafted by some other architect which exists in another macrouniverse?

I think you can see where we are going with this logic. Each macrouniverse fractal structure is itself buried in an infinity of macrouniverses, in other words we have a fractal within a fractal structure.