The developing structure of this newsletter is: one weekly post like this one, with a similar title, public; other posts on specific topics, one or two a week, some public and some for paid subscribers.
I’ll post thoughts and interesting links as they come, without trying to polish everything. I’ll post more polished and complete writings in turingchurch.net (I’ll post links with summaries here), and I aim at consistency and crystal clarity for my book in preparation.
I’m setting things up to produce a podcast and hope to post the first episode next week.
Turing Church is not an organized religion or church with rules and rites and pastors and that kind of things (it may or may not become one in the future). But were Turing Church an organized religion of church, the question would be asked: who is welcome and who is not welcome?
My answer is very simple: everyone is welcome. In particular, everyone is warmly and equally welcome regardless of skin color, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual preferences, etc. This is reflected in the discussion policy for this website: be nice to everyone or else. This is so self-evident and obvious to me that writing it down seems surreal.
Happy 10th Birthday to Sci-Hub with congratulations to Science's Pirate Queen, happy launch and mission to Inspiration4’s crew, and happy launch to Bitcoin in El Salvador!
Alexandra was a participant in a series of online neuroscience events that I co-organized in 2010 (btw stay tuned, I’ll have something to say about the future of this project soon). Then Alexandra moved on to create Sci-Hub, for which she has my gratitude forever. I don’t know what I would do without Sci-Hub and similar services.
I’m impatiently waiting for the launch of Inspiration4 on September 15. Inspiration4 will be the world’s first all-civilian mission to orbit. The mission will be launched and operated by SpaceX.
In the meantime I’m watching “Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space” on Netflix.
The Inspiration4 website states that the mission “represents a new era for human spaceflight and exploration.” I agree, and I’ll have more thoughts to share next week.
See also my post “Bitcoin el salvador?”
Reading list
I’m reading again the story of the Fundamental Fysiks Group, “How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival” by David Kaiser, and the two best known books by group members: “The Tao of Physics” by Fritjof Capra, and “Quantum Reality” by Nick Herbert. Also, “The Dancing Wu Li Masters” by Gary Zukav, who was inspired by the work of the group.
The Fundamental Fysiks Group explored entangled quantum realities, FTL and time travel, and bridges between psi (the quantum wavefunction) and psi (the paranormal). About psi the paranormal, see also “The Reality of ESP: A Physicist's Proof of Psychic Abilities” by Russel Targ and Targ’s autobiography “Do You See What I See: Memoirs of a Blind Biker.”
YES, I support and praise psi research in both senses. Call me a believer, and I think the world needs more Fundamental Fysiks. To pay homage to the work of the Fundamental Fysiks Group I have added “metafysiks” to the one-line description of this website.
I’m also reading some recently published books:
“Being You: A New Science of Consciousness” by Anil Seth.
“Fear of a Black Universe: An Outsider's Guide to the Future of Physics” by Stephon Alexander.
“The Science of Can and Can't: A Physicist's Journey through the Land of Counterfactuals” by Chiara Marletto.
More about these books next week.