AI Beats Human Poker Champions

www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=BDYCRFWYJLEDOQSNDLRSKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=208802992
AI Beats Human Poker Champions
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PORTLAND, Ore. — Humanity was dealt a decisive blow by a poker-playing artificial intelligence program called Polaris during the Man-Machine Poker Competition in Las Vegas. Poker champs fought the AI system to a draw, then won in the first two of four rounds (each round had Polaris playing 500 hands against two humans, whose points were averaged.) 

But in the final two rounds of the match, Polaris beat both human teams, two wins out of four, with one loss and one draw. IBM's Deep Blue beat chess champion Gary Kasparov in 1997. A year later, the University of Alberta's Computer Poker Research Group began winning hands with early prototypes that eventually became Polaris. 

A decade later, Polaris 2.0 added poker to the list of machine triumphs. The key to Polaris' poker prowess last weekend was a tactical shift in midstream designed to prevent human's from exploiting perceived weaknesses. Add to that, Polaris learned from experience. "There are two really big changes in Polaris over last year," said professor Michael Bowling, who supervised graduate students who programmed Polaris. "First of all, our poker model is much expanded over last year--its much harder for humans to exploit weaknesses. 

And secondly, we have added an element of learning, where Polaris identifies which common poker stratagy a human is using and switches its own strategy to counter. This complicated the human players ability to compare notes, since Polaris chose a different strategy to use against each of the humans it played," Bowling said.Before the Las Vegas match, this newest version of Polaris had only played two matches against champion poker players, resulting in one loss and one victory. 

Polaris repeated the pattern of improving as it learned, falling to humans in the first two rounds, but defeating them in rounds three and four. "Repeatedly, I heard players exclaim that they had never seen a human do that before," said Bowling. "Switching strategies really threw the humans for a loop." Polaris played against Nick "Stoxtrader" Grudzien--a $1 million poker contest winner and founder of a Web site which provides poker-coaching and online play with world champions. 

Other human champions were coaches on Grudzien's site. In the first Man-Machine Poker Competition, two human champions beat Polaris in its last two matches, but Polaris won and played to a draw in the first two. The older version of Polaris did not learn, but the humans did, beating Polaris 1.0 in three of four rounds by exploiting weaknesses. Polaris 2.0 had learning built into its programming, thereby countering the learning ability of the humans by switching strategies whenever they did. 

Even though Polaris beat the humans in Las Vegas, the University of Alberta group said it expects to be asked for rematches by the vanquished pros as well as by other poker experts who will claim the win by Polaris was a fluke. "Even after Deep Blue beat Kasparov, there were still some skeptics, and I think the same is true here," said Bowling. "Over the next year or so there are going to have to be several rematches before everyone is convinced that humans have been surpassed by machines in poker." 

Meanwhile, Bowling's group plans to expand Polaris beyond its current limitations, enabling it to play more complicated poker games than its current heads-up, hold-em version. They also plan to expand efforts to apply the poker-playing algorithms to useful applications. "The techniques we are devising have broad applications outside of poker," said Bowling. "For instance, wireless sensor networks are exploring one of our poker-like algorithms to lay out sensors in buildings in a way that yields better understanding of how heat flow patterns affect efficiency." 

One algorithm, called counter-factual regret, monitored the outcome of hands lost by Polaris and what could have been done to change the outcome. Polaris could then watch for similar circumstances and adjust more effectively. BioTools Inc. (Edmonton, Alberta) has built previous versions of Polaris into a downloadable poker coach called the Poker Academy.

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11 Aug 2006
Clive Akass, Personal Computer World
www.pcw.co.uk/personal-computer-world/analysis/2162044/man-gave-bill-gates-world
Gary Kildall Was One of the Founding Fathers of the PC
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The birth of the IBM PC was also the making of Bill Gates, thanks to a door-step farce that has become an industry legend. IBM at the time had dominated the industry for a quarter-century, though it had been late getting into digital computers, and even later getting into what were then called microcomputers, which it tried to pretend were not a threat to its mainframe business. By the late 1980s ‘micros’ (as in Microsoft) could not be ignored, and IBM set up a team to design one.

The obvious person to provide the software was Gary Kildall, head of a company called Digital Research, who had written CP/M – the operating system used on almost all micros. Legend has it that two suits from IBM called by appointment at Kildall’s home, but he was off flying and had left his wife Dorothy to do the talking. She baulked at signing a non-disclosure agreement and showed them the door. So they turned instead to a fledgling company run by a 24-year-old college dropout whose name was Bill Gates. 

Microsoft did not even have an operating system and promptly bought one called QDos, virtually a CP/M clone, for $50,000 from a Seattle engineer called Tim Patterson. The legend is essentially true, though what really hassled Dorothy Kildall when IBM showed up was the fact that she was preparing to go on holiday the next day, according to former Symantec chief executive Gordon Eubanks, who knew everyone involved. 

No-one at the time knew that the IBM computer was going to become the industry’s major standard platform. And the real reason Kildall did not get the contract was that he was simply too laid back to be a good businessman, Eubanks told me in 1996. “Gary could have owned this business [ie, computing] if he had made the right strategic decisions... He did not care that much. Dorothy ran the business and he ran the technical side, and they did not get on.” It was Gates who had the vision. “Bill was extremely focused and driven,” Eubanks recalled. 

Microsoft tweaked QDos a little and called it MS-Dos. It ended up running in nine out of 10 of the world’s PCs, and traces of it can still be found buried in Windows XP.CP/M lingered on for a few years and Novell bought Digital Research in 1991. Kildall died in 1994 at the age of 52 from injuries received in a biker bar brawl during a night out in Monterey, California. Kildall was one of the founding fathers of desktop computing, but he seems destined to go down in history as the man who gave Bill Gates the world. * For a longer version of the 1996 Gordon Eubanks interview see here.
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http://artesian.blogspot.com/2006/03/of-demons-and-oracles.html
A Shrine Sacred to the God Apollo
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Back in the day when Christianity was a new young religion, the great intellectual minds of Greece and Rome still pondered the old mysteries. There were many schools of thought that provided the answers to the big questions, and thousands of disciples followed in the steps of the Epicureans, the Stoics, the Peripatetics, and many others. 

Some of the less prominent thinkers dealt with smaller, yet still important issues, like the "Training of Children", the "First Principle of Cold," the "Three Sorts of Government," the "Virtues of Women," "Whether it is Good Manners to Talk Philosophy at the Dinner Table," "Why Mushrooms are Produced by Thunder," and "Why Women do not Eat the Middle Part of a Lettuce." 

The author of all of the above treatises is none other than the inestimable Plutarch, more famed for his Lives of Famous Greeks and Romans than his philosophical inquiries. Among his list of philosophical dialogues is one that discuss the possible "Passing of the Oracles." Oracles had long been a part of life throughout Grecian, and thus Roman culture.  

Stories about the various predictions of oracles abound, almost as much as those stories in Livy about a sheep giving birth to a calf in the forum, while lighting struck the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus three times, thus signifying a defeat of the Samnites or some such enemy of Rome. Probably the most famous of all oracles is that of the Oracle at Delphi, a shrine sacred to the god Apollo. 

Herodotus, in Book I of his Histories, tell the story of that fabled king of Lydia, Croesus. Having decided to find out which oracle was the true one, Croesus devised a test. He sent out messengers to every known oracle, with instructions for each messenger to wait until one hundred days before consulting the oracle to which they had been sent. On the one hundredth day from when they set out from Sardis (Croesus' capital), they would ask the oracle what Croesus was doing at that exact time. 

They would bring back the various responses, sealed, and Croesus would then determine which oracles correctly identified his actions. After the messengers departed, he racked his brain trying to come up with the most bizarre thing he could be doing, so as to throw off those oracles that weren't truly prophetic. He come up with the idea of chopping up a turtle and a lamb, and tossing them in a brass cauldron, and making soup out of it.
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After a long time, the answers all came back, and only the oracle at Delphi nailed it. The priestess there, called the Pythoness because Apollo supposedly slew a python that dwelt there when he founded the temple, said, in the poetry peculiar to pagan prophectic priestesses, "Oooh, I smell turtle, and...lamb...and there's lots of brass. Cooking...stew! 

Oh, that sounds good. I want turtle stew." Okay, okay, those weren't the priestesses exact words, but that's pretty much the idea. Anyhow, Croesus was convinced, and then asked if he should attack Persia, and if he would come out on top if he did? The oracle told him that he would destroy a mighty empire if he attacked Persia, which was all the encouragement Croesus needed. He attacked Cyrus' burgeoning empire, and destroyed his own magnificent Lydian empire by doing so. 

Whoops! So you can see, those oracles can be tricky. In Plutarch's day, however, there was a good deal of curiosity over why the oracles seemed to have gone silent. So much so, that Plutarch tackled the problem in a philosophical treatise. He asks the question: where have all the oracles gone? For some reason, in his day, oracular prophecy seems to have dried up like a desert streambed in the dry season. Among the stories the people in his dialogue relate, is that of a man named Epitherses.  

According to the story, this man was sailing on a ship near some islands in the Aegean Sea, when a voice from one of the islands hailed their Egyptian pilot by name, which was weird because nobody on the ship had bothered to learn the guy's name. Anyhow, the voice called Thamus (for that was his name) three times, and when the bewildered pilot answered. The voice told him that when he was opposite a certain place, he was to shout out from the ship, "Great Pan is dead!" Everyone of the ship was in awe, but the pilot did as he was asked. 

As the ship drew across from the appointed place, Thamus shouted "Great Pan is dead!" Immediately there arose a sound of a multitude of voices wailing in sorrow from the land. Pan, it should be mentioned, is a kind of goaty god of pastures and sheep and stuff. The story spread quickly after that, so much so that Tiberius Caesar (the imperial heir of Augustus, who ruled from 14 to 37 A.D.), sent for Thamus to hear the story for himself, and ask the experts what the deal with Pan was. 

I bring up this story in particular to offer support for the theory that I consider well-founded, regarding the pagan gods. Namely, that these 'gods' were demons. Now, this 'theory' is nothing new, and the story I tell was certainly well known in its day. But I just want to point out a couple of things. 

First is the strong evidence of the accuracy of some of the ancient oracles, which I do not consider to be at odds with the idea of demonic workings, and that they controlled the oracles and spoke through them; and second is the timing of this story. Note that the emperor is Tiberius - the man who was emperor when Jesus was raised from the dead, and conquered death itself. The traditional date for that death is 30 A.D. - leaving only a span of a few years for the demon Pan to die. 

Plutarch himself is probably writing somewhere in the vicinity of 100 A.D. Whether or not the story is true, the timing of the oracles passing away is certainly not to be doubted. Indeed, to those who have eyes to see, is not the Lordship of Christ plainly evident? He has risen, and He has conquered. Even the pagan prophets witness to His glory.
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www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/10.23/01-creativity.html
Irrelevance can make you mad
By William J. Cromie, Harvard News Office
Creativity Tied to Mental Illness
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Ignoring what seems irrelevant to your immediate needs may be good for your mental health but bad for creativity. Focusing on every sight, sound, and thought that enters your mind can drive a person crazy. It interferes with an animal's hunt for something to eat, or a busy person's efforts to sleep. 

As you might guess, psychologists have a term for ignoring the irrelevant; they call it "latent inhibition." A team of them at Harvard has discovered that students who score low in this seemingly vital trait are much more likely to be creative achievers than those who excel in putting things out of their minds. 

"Scientists have wondered for a long time why madness and creativity seem linked, particularly in artists, musicians, and writers," notes Shelley Carson, a Harvard psychologist. "Our research results indicate that low levels of latent inhibition and exceptional flexibility in thought predispose people to mental illness under some conditions and to creative accomplishments under others." 

Carson, Jordan Peterson (now at the University of Toronto), and Daniel Higgins did experiments to find out what these conditions might be. They put 182 Harvard graduate and undergraduate students through a series of tests involving listening to repeated strings of nonsense syllables, hearing background noise, and watching yellow lights on a video screen. (The researchers do not want to reveal details of how latent inhibition was scored because such tests are still going on with other subjects.) 

The students also filled out questionnaires about their creative achievements on a new type of form developed by Carson, and they took standard intelligence tests. When all the scores and test results were compared, the most creative students had lower scores for latent inhibition than the less creative. Some students who scored unusually high in creative achievement were seven times more likely to have low scores for latent inhibition. 

These low scorers also had high IQs. "Getting swamped by new information that you have difficulty handling may predispose you to a mental disorder," Carson says. "But if you have high intelligence and a good working memory, you are more likely to be able to combine bits of new information in creative ways." 

IQ and Creativity

Whether IQ tests are the best way to measure intelligence is debatable, but some studies do show a correlation between high IQ and creativity. Such studies conclude that the two increase together up to a score of 120. Beyond that level, little increase in creativity has been found. (The average IQ score of the general population is 100.) "We didn't find this," Carson notes. "We saw creativity increase as IQs climb to 130 (the average score of Harvard students), and even up to 150." 

Bothered by the nebulousness of IQ tests, Carson is seeking to find "more specific functions" that protect creative people from going nuts. Work already done suggests that a good working memory, the capacity to keep in mind many things at once, can serve such a function. "This should help you to better process the increasing information that goes along with low latent inhibition," Carson explains. "We're doing more experiments to determine if that is so." She and her colleagues also plan to check out ways to reduce the blocking of seeming irrelevance with drugs.

Many creative people have touted the value of alcohol and other stimulants, such as amphetamines, for this purpose. Carson wants to find a way to do the same thing without the unwanted side effects of drugs and alcohol. She is investigating nonaddictive drugs and ways to manipulate biorhythms, the 24-hour sleep-wake cycle, with varying exposures to bright light. 

Another possibility goes to the different stages of paying more attention to what is around you. First there's insight, where creative ideas form and which may be enhanced by a buzz of unrelated stimuli. Then comes evaluation and editing, which require focus and concentration. Carson and her colleagues have started testing creative people to see if they can manipulate their attention filter during these different stages.
 
Creativity and Madness

How can people lower their inhibition quotient and increase creativity on their own? There's really no good answer to that question yet. "We may have identified one of the biological bases of creativity," Carson says, "but it is only one among many. Creativity also is associated with a variety of personality traits, social and family factors, and direct training." 

There also remain fundamental biological riddles to solve. Cats, rats, mice, pigeons, and other animals show latent inhibition. When they discover something is useless for helping them to survive, ignoring it helps them survive. 

Then there's that mysterious connection between psychosis and creativity to probe. "Highly creative people in our studies," Carson notes, "showed the same latent inhibition patterns found in other studies of schizophrenics. "Both madness and creativity must involve many different genes," Carson points out. "It's not impossible that the two share some of these genes. 

It's my hope that future research into this and other areas will help us progress toward silencing the demons of mental disorders that often coexist with the muses of creativity." Until then, the situation is cogently expressed by this old joke: A man is driving past a mental hospital when one of the wheels falls off his car. He stops and recovers the wheel but can't find the lug nuts to secure it back in place. 

Just then he notices a man sitting on the curb carefully removing small pebbles from the grass and piling them neatly on the sidewalk. "What am I going to do?" the man asks aloud. The fellow piling the pebbles looks up, and says, "Take one of the lug nuts from each of the other wheels and use them to put the wheel back on." 

The driver is amazed. "Wow!" he exclaims. "What a brilliant idea. What are you doing in a place like this?" he asks, nodding toward the mental institution. "Well," the man answers, "I'm crazy, not stupid." "That's exactly what our research is about," Carson comments. "It shows that, to be creative, you can be bright and crazy, but not stupid."
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www.blavatsky.net/newsletters/DNA_and_atlantis.htm
DNA and Atlantis
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Dear Member of Blavatsky Net,
The previous newsletter discussed Cro Magnon man and showed that Blavatsky had correctly noted that the Guanches of the Canary Islands and the Basques of the Pyrenees were Cro Magnon. 

Today we also know that the Berbers of Morocco are descended from Cro Magnon. Blavatsky went on to note that this also connected the Cro Magnons with Atlantis. Since Cro Magnon had only been discovered, at most, 20 years before she was writing, that showed a very fast notation of what was significant and where the truth lay. 

Specifically, this newsletter will take the following statement of Blavatsky and vindicate it by recent DNA discoveries - showing, amongst other things, that the Basque of the Pyrenees in Spain and France do have some ancient connection with North America. Again the Atlantean connection will be obvious.

**If, then, Basques and Cro-Magnon Cave-Men are of the same race as the Canarese Guanches, it follows that the former are also allied to the aborigines of America. This is the conclusion which the independent investigations of Retzius, Virchow, and de Quatrefages necessitate. The Atlantean affinities of these three types become patent. (SDii791) **

It is mitochondrial DNA analysis that now confirms her views that she had supported back then with her Cro Magnon data. 

MITO WHAT?
 
To show what mitochondrial DNA analysis is, and its advantages over human DNA, we should first discuss human DNA (known as hDNA). DNA is of course a molecule that encodes all the information that specifies exactly what your body is on the physical level. You may know that DNA as a molecule is shaped like a long ladder where the two sides of the ladder are twisted. 

The steps of the ladder are made from any of four combinations of molecules. The exact sequence of the steps of the ladder (which of the four choices were selected at each step) represents the information encoded by the DNA. Every cell in the 30 trillion cells of our body contains a copy of that DNA molecule. 

The "ladder" that is the DNA molecule is exceedingly long for humans, being a ladder with 3 billion steps. Since it is a ladder with 3 billion steps it is difficult to work with. While passing by human DNA you might be interested in another observation. 

The DNA molecule is wound tight. Only a tiny part of the human cell is composed of the nucleus of the cell. DNA is a still smaller part of the nucleus. The cells themselves are tiny. For example, a brain cell is 1/10,000 th of an inch. So the DNA is indeed very small. 

After thinking of these DNA as very small it tends to surprise people that if one of these ladders were unwound and stretched out, it would extend a full six feet! The reason is that 3 billions steps makes a very long ladder. (While we are at it, it becomes staggering to think of 30 trillion 6 foot ladders in each of our bodies. And we are instructed by the Darwinists that the 30 billion 6 foot ladders came about by chance?) 

Still there is the question, what is mitochondial DNA? Each mitochondrion (plural is mitochondria) is a separate bacteria. Each of our cells (except blood cells) contains hundreds to many thousands of mitochondria. The mitochondria perform a critical function for our body. They convert sugar in the form of a glucose molecule, into energy. As such, the mitochondria are the basis of life. Since they are a separate bacteria, they have their own DNA that differs from human DNA. 

The mitochondrial DNA ladder has only 16,569 steps! Therefore it is much more conducive to use in research than is human DNA. It is abbreviated as mtDNA. Since the DNA of a mitochondion is not human, where does it come from when a new human is born? The answer is that the newly born child has taken some mitochondia from the mother - not the father. 

Now things get interesting. The DNA of the mitochondria mutate. They mutate at a well understood and predictable rate. By analyzing the mtDNA of living humans and comparing it to other humans, we can determine the lineage of the mothers. Then we can take ancient samples of mtDNA, say from a tooth or bone that is thousands of years old, and begin to study ancient migration patterns. In some cases this analysis of mtDNA conflicts with the standing paradigms of archeology. Very noticeably this has occurred concerning the origin of American Indians.

EDGAR CAYCE
 
In some cases the statement made by Edgar Cayce while in trance have a high degree of similarity to the teachings brought by Blavatsky. For example, Cayce said that Atlantis sunk in the year 10,014 BC. Theosophy also gives a specific year that is several hundred years later. 

So though the two years differ, in perspective, Casey's date is highly similar to Theosophy's date for the sinking of Atlantis. It is actually a bit complicated to derive Theosophy's exact year so I will postpone that interesting question for a subsequent newsletter. 

When that time comes I will also discuss in detail the recent remarkable estimate by science for that sinking. It comes so close to Theosophy's date as to seem uncanny. Meanwhile, the followers of Edgar Cayce have observed the recent mtDNA discoveries and in a number of places noted their relevance to evaluating the statements of Edgar Cayce. 

Those discoveries are also similarly relevant to evaluating the statements of Blavatsky. Cayce made a number of statements about how people from Atlantis went to surrounding locations for various purposes. His statements highly conflicted with North American archeologists. 

Amongst North American archeologists it is strongly held orthodox dicta that the Western Hemisphere before Columbus was only inhabited by individuals whose ancestors came to that land by passage across the Bering Strait no earlier than 9,500 BC. Archeologists who held otherwise were likely to have their careers destroyed due to such daring divergence. 

It happened that archeologists in South America found numerous sites in South America that proved otherwise but that only caused the north american archeologists to discredit the south american. This archeological litmus test became so strict that it became known as the "Clovis curtain", named after a certain archeological site. The Clovis curtain was not to be lifted. All were to have come over the Bering Strait and from no where else and definitely not earlier than 9,500BC. 

Cayce asserted otherwise that people had come to North America from Atlantis and much earlier than 9,000 BC. From a Theosophical point of view, there is nothing impossible about Cayce's claims. Of course people could come to North America from Atlantis and much earlier than the Clovis curtain permitted. Theosophy would also allow Lemurians to reach South America. Blavatsky also has an opinion on this Bering Strait issue. The following quote may not be well known.

**Must we fall in the old rut and suppose no other means of Populating the Western Hemisphere except "by way of Behring's Strait"? Must we still locate a geographical Eden in the East, and suppose a land equally adapted to man and as old geologically, must wait the aimless wanderings of the "lost tribe of Israel" to become populated? ("A land of Mystery" article by Blavatsky published in 1890) **

So with this understanding of the lay of the land - albeit a bit complicated - we should hear what mtDNA has to say. 

mtDNA TALKS
 
Interestingly, the original intent of mtDNA studies was to help in better understanding health issues. It came as a shock that this tool could be used to study ancient migration patterns. A prime debate at issue then became the origin of the American Indian.

**DNA analysis on Native Americans began in the 1980's but with rapid technological improvements, research intensified in the early 1990s. Several teams of genetics researches at prominent American universities have been conducting numerous studies. Although results from early studies showed the expected Siberian-Asian ancestry of the majority of modern Native American tribes, things took an unexpected turn in 1997. At that point it was found that a small percentage of modern Native Americans have an unusual type of DNA then known to exist only in a few locations in Europe and the Middle East. Subsequent research indicated that the European DNA was not the result of genetic mixing after Columbus. (Mound Builders, by Gregory L . Little, John Van Auken, Lora Little, published 2001 p 60) **

Then came the important discovery.

**In 1997, a fifth mtDNA haplogroup was identified in Native Americans. This group, called "X," is present in three percent of living Native Americans. Haplogroup X was not then found in Asia, but was found only in Europe and the Middle East where two to four percent of the population carry it. In those areas, the X haplogroup has primarily been found in parts of Spain, Bulgaria, Finland, Italy, and Israel. (ibid p 62) **

In a later book, Little et al state that the percent of individuals among the Iroquois with haplogroup X was a striking "nearly 25%".

**Not long after [1997], studies were published that had performed mtDNA analysis on the remains of individuals who had been buried in mounds in north central America. Sometime thereafter many studies reported on the testing of ancient remains recovered from burials from other parts of the United States. As with the living Native Americans haplogroup X showed up - in about 4 percent of the remains. But in the Northeast, in the traditional lands of the Iroquois, it was in nearly 25 percent of some tribes as well as in ancient remains. Then haplogroup X was found in several individuals who had died over 8000 years ago in Florida. All these remains were so old that the implications were crystal clear: haplogroup X had to have entered America thousands of years before historical times. (Ancient South America, Little et al, pub 2002, p 50) **

This same book published by these authors added the significant new item:

**In a 2001 study haplogroup X was identified in ancient remains (6,000-8,000 years old) found in several cemeteries in the traditional area occupied by the Basque - The Pyrenees Mountains of France and Spain. (Ancient South America, by Gregory L. Little, John Van Auken, Lora Little published 2002, p 50.) **

That is significant to Casey followers because of all the places that Casey indicates were locations for departing Atlanteans, the Pyrenees were the most frequently referenced in his readings. Theosophists may also observe that the Pyrenees get special mention by Blavatsky relative to Atlantis. 

Once the rare and mysterious haplogroup X was shown to be in the Basque population as well as in North America - we have proven what we set out to prove. Blavatsky has been proven right again. In summary: mitochondrial DNA discoveries show that the Basque population is related to the North American Indian population. 

Since these results were obtained from 6,000 to 8000 year old cemeteries in the Basque area and since they were also ancient in North America, they were not caused by activities occurring after Columbus. Instead they reveal an ancient connection. The most natural explanation is a common center in Atlantis. Unfortunately we cannot at this time determine the actual haplogroups of Atlantis - we can only determine the haplogroup of the Atlanteans by inference. We also have an interesting detail concerning when the mtDNA entered North America.

**The time estimates on haplogroup X entering America were at first shaky, because too few samples had been taken. But later, it seemed hat haplogoup X entered by 28,000 B.C. and again in 10,000 B.C. (ibid, p 50) **

These appear to be waves of immigration from Atlantis. The second wave corresponds to the date of the sinking of Atlantis as given by both Casey and Theosophy. That should count as another supportive discovery. 

HAPLOGROUP X IN THE GOPI DESERT
 
Little et al add some more information of interest:

**In July 2001, a research letter was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, relating that a few people with the "X" type had been identified in a tribe located in extreme southern Siberia. These people, called the Altasians, or Altaics as Russian geneticists refer to them, have always lived in the Gobi Desert area. ...[ the presence of X ] is of ancient origin. (Ancient South America p 50) **

Little et al are particularly interested in this because they are finding X in all those places that Casey had identified as destinations for people leaving Atlantis. Theosophy notes that the Atlanteans did go to the Gobi desert though it does not specify the town of Altaics. It offers that information in a number of places with perhaps the most direct describing how advanced individuals found refuge in the area of the Gobi:

**A continent [the larger continent of Atlantis] inhabited by two distinct races; distinct physically and especially morally; both deeply versed in primeval wisdom and the secrets of nature; mutually antagonistic in their struggle, during the course and progress of their double evolution. Whence even the Chinese teachings upon the subject, if it is but a fiction? Have they not recorded the existence once upon a time of a holy island beyond the sun (Tcheou), and beyond which were situated the lands of the immortal men? (See de Rougemont, ibid.) Do they not still believe that the remnants of those immortal men-who survived when the holy island had become black with sin and perished-have found refuge in the great desert of Gobi, where they still reside invisible to all, and defended from approach by hosts of Spirits? (SDii372) **

One more quote on ancient civilizations around the Gobi I would select out as particularly interesting. It shows how much the occult tradition knows about the subject. Though unusually long, this quote is inherently fascinating. I also like it because at its end it mentions "tall" - thereby lending still more support to the Theosophical scenario of evolution.

**Yet the traces of an immense civilization, even in Central Asia, are still to be found. This civilization is undeniably prehistoric. And how can there be civilization without a literature, in some form, without annals or chronicles?

Common sense alone ought to supplement the broken links in the history of departed nations. The gigantic, unbroken wall of the mountains that hem in the whole table-land of Tibet, from the upper course of the river Khuan-Khé down to the Kara-Korum hills, witnessed a civilization during millenniums of years, and would have strange secrets to tell mankind.

The Eastern and Central portions of those regions - the Nan-Schayn and the Altyne-taga [today known as Altyn-tagh] - were once upon a time covered with cities that could well vie with Babylon. A whole geological period has swept over the land, since those cities breathed their last, as the mounds of shifting sand, and the sterile and now dead soil of the immense central plains of the basin of Tarim testify.

The borderlands alone are superficially known to the traveller. Within those table-lands of sand there is water, and fresh oases are found blooming there, wherein no European foot has ever yet ventured, or trodden the now treacherous soil. Among these verdant oases there are some which are entirely inaccessible even to the native profane traveller.

Hurricanes may "tear up the sands and sweep whole plains away," they are powerless to destroy that which is beyond their reach.

Built deep in the bowels of the earth, the subterranean stores are secure; and as their entrances are concealed in such oases, there is little fear that anyone should discover them, even should several armies invade the sandy wastes where- ... But there is no need to send the reader across the desert, when the same proofs of ancient civilization are found even in comparatively populated regions of the same country.

The oasis of Tchertchen, for instance, situated about 4,000 feet above the level of the river Tchertchen D'arya, is surrounded with the ruins of archaic towns and cities in every direction. There, some 3,000 human beings represent the relics of about a hundred extinct nations and races - the very names of which are now unknown to our ethnologists.

An anthropologist would feel more than embarrassed to class, divide and subdivide them; the more so, as the respective descendants of all these antediluvian races and tribes known as little of their own forefathers themselves, as if they had fallen from the moon.

When questioned about their origin, they reply that they know not whence their fathers had come, but had heard that their first (or earliest) men were ruled by the great genii of these deserts.

This may be put down to ignorance and superstition, yet in view of the teachings of the Secret Doctrine, the answer may be based upon primeval tradition. Alone, the tribe of Khoorassan claims to have come from what is now known as Afghanistan, long before the days of Alexander, and brings legendary lore to that effect as corroboration.

The Russian traveller, Colonel (now General) Prjevalsky, found quite close to the oasis of Tchertchen, the ruins of two enormous cities, the oldest of which was, according to local tradition, ruined 3,000 years ago by a hero and giant; and the other by the Mongolians in the tenth century of our era.

"The emplacement of the two cities is now covered, owing to shifting sands and the desert wind, with strange and heterogeneous relics; with broken china and kitchen utensils and human bones. The natives often find copper and gold coins, melted silver, ingots, diamonds, and turquoises, and what is the most remarkable-broken glass. . . . ." "Coffins of some undecaying wood, or material, also, within which beautifully preserved embalmed bodies are found. . . . The male mummies are all extremely tall powerfully built men with long waving hair. (SDxxxii-xxxiii) **

END OF THE CLOVIS CURTAIN?
 
After exploring that Altaic detail, we can return to the issue of the Clovis curtain. In 1997 it looked as though the Clovis curtain had been dealt a fatal blow. With haplogroup X now discovered in North America and not in Asia, the Bering Strait explanation was insufficient. However, after X was discovered amongst the Altaics, the Clovis folks at least had an arguing point. 

However, geneticists, as opposed to paleoanthropologists, agree that the Altaic haplogroup X is not from Asia. So the arguing point of the Clovis folks is not very sound. Thus the mtDNA is supportive of Blavatsky's position against the Bering-Strait-only position but to be fair, there is still controversy. To convince yourself based on the evidence that she was right just read about the South American archeology in "Ancient South America." 

Of course, once one concludes positively on the existence of Atlantis, then obviously the Clovis curtain is an erroneous position. In contrast to Clovis, the following paragraph shows Blavatsky's presentation of the basic idea that a land mass in the middle of the Atlantic had refugees moving both East and West from one central source. 

The time sequence of this article of hers is interesting. She started her public Theosophical work in 1875. In 1877 she published Isis Unveiled and gave a couple pages of reference to Atlantis. This article of hers published in 1880 states a very fundamental idea in all of Atlantology. 

Then in 1888 her Secret Doctrine contained much reference to Atlantis. For those who don't know, Theosophy asserts there was once an Atlantis of continental size, it broke apart and sunk, and finally the remaining island sank around 10,000 BC.

**Who knows, then, but that Jules Verne's fanciful idea regarding the lost continent Atlanta may be near the truth? Who can say, that where now is the Atlantic Ocean, formerly did not exist a continent, with its dense population, advanced in the arts and sciences, who, as they found their land sinking beneath the waters, retired, part east and part west, populating thus the two new hemispheres? This would explain the similarity of their archæological structures and races and their differences, modified by and adapted to the character of their respective climates and countries. Thus could the llama and the camel differ, although of the same species; thus the algoraba and espino trees; thus the Iroquois Indians of North America and the most ancient Arabs call the constellation of the "Great Bear" by the same name; thus various nations, cut off from all intercourse or knowledge of each other, divide the zodiac in twelve constellations, apply to them the same names, and the Northern Hindoos apply the name Andes to their Himalayan mountains, as did the South Americans to their principal chain. (Land of Mystery, article by Blavatsky 1880) **

GUANCHES AND mtDNA

Being emboldened by the successful finds of Little et al, I decided to "google" the phrase "mtDNA Guanches." I wondered if another loop of proof could be tied. I found that the field continues to produce results that diverge from classical paleoanthropological views. It appears that it would be necessary to research down to the level of actual molecular sequences in the mtDNA ladder to determine what has actually been found so far.

Traditional anthropology continues to influence how the data is interpreted. Below is perhaps the most useful quote on the subject. Notice we are not told anything about X that may have been in the Canaries. We do not know how close U is to X. That information might be very interesting for Theosophists. (When the quote references "U6b1" that means haplogroup U with subgroups "6b1.")


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June 1998
Smithsonian magazine
Every subatomic particle has its opposite number, but luckily it's not true on a larger scale
Greetings From the Antiworld
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Over the year, we have discovered a basic law of nature pertaining to the antiworld. whenever we find a particle in our laboratories(and we have found hundreds of different kinds), sooner or later we will be able to detect its antiparticle. Are nuclei made from protons? 

Then we will be able to make antiprotons in a laboratory. Do we believe that protons and neutrons are made from even more fundamental particles called quarks? Then there will have to be antiquarks as well. Furthermore, in theory, the rules that govern this antiworld should be pretty much the same as the rules that govern our ordinary world. 

In most cases one would expect absolutely no difference between what happens when ordinary particles interact and what would happen to their corresponding antiparticles in a corresponding situation in the antiworld. When a particle and its antiparticle come together, however, all hell breaks loose. 

The representatives of the anti and ordinary worlds disappear in an explosion, and their combined mass is replaced by an enormous bust of energy and a cloud of secondary particles. In an isolated antiworld, antipeople would go about their lives the same as we do. When an antiperson flipped an antiswitch, antiatoms in the antilightbulb would give off the same kind of light that you are using to read these words. 

There would be no annihilation going on, because there would be no ordinary matter involved. If, however, you happened to be transported to this antiworld, and tried to shake hands with your antiself, the two of you would disappear in a titanic explosion. In that explosion your bodies would be converted almost entirely into pure energy; all that would be electromagnetic radiation and a thin cloud of particles. 

If, as seems to be the case, there is some sort of equivalence between matter and antimatter, you might expect antimatter to be fairly common in the universe. It is not. Until the early 1930s, in fact, no human being had seen so much as a single antiparticle. In the summer of 1932, a young Caltech physicist by the name of Carl Anderson had just finished putting together an experiment to explore the nature of cosmic rays. 

These are high energy particles that rain down continuously from space- they are going through your body at the rate of several per minute right now. These particles often collide with atoms high in our atmosphere, and physicists were looking at the debris of these collisions- in an apparatus called a cloud chamber- to learn what goes on in the nuclei of those atoms.
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When Anderson started watching his apparatus, he saw tracks left by all sorts of familiar particles: electrons, protons(which are the nuclei of hydrogen-the simplest atoms) and more complex nuclei. On August 2, 1932, however, something quite unexpected showed up. A particle that had the same mass as an electron had passed through, but this particle had a positive charge. 

As it turn out, this was the first bit of antimatter ever seen by a human being. Anderson dubbed his find the "positron," a contraction of "positive electron," and went on to find 14 more before he published his findinds in March 1933. The British physicist Paul A. M. Dirac had begun to postulate the existence of the positron in 1928, four years before it was first seen. 

The best way to visualize Dirac's theory is to picture a level field, and then to imagine digging a hole in it. When you are done, you will have two things: a pile of dirt and a hole in the ground. In a sense, the hole is a mirror image, a negative of the pile. Dirac identified the pile with the ordinary particles and the hole with their opposing antiparticles. If you picture things this way, some features of antimatter are a little easier to understand. 

For example, the masses of the particles and the antiparticles are equal: and there is always as much dirt in the pile as was removed from the hole. The pile stands above the ground(positive), while the hole is below it(negative). The picture also explains something else. When an antiparticle is created in high energy collision, the corresponding particle is always created as well. 

In the analogy, this make sense: you can't dig a hole without making a pile of dirt at the same time. In this view, an antiparticle can be thought of as the absence of a particle, a hole waiting to be filled. The initial discovery led to an expectation that the "anti's" of other particles would turn up in nature. Attention naturally turned to the proton, the heavy, positively charged particle that exist inside the nuclei of all atoms. 

For decades, physicists searched in vain through the debris of cosmic rays for the particle as massive as the proton but with a negative charge. The late Robert Golden finally found some in 1979. In the meantime, physicists turned to accelerators. In 1948, a young scientist named Owen Chamberlain moved to the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley. (It is now called the Lawrence Berkley Lab.) 

There, within a few years, an accelerator called the bevatron- named for the many billion electron volts(BeV) it would achieve-would be built on a hill overlooking San Francisco Bay. It would take protons, accelerating them to high speed and smash them into solid targets. Chamberlain realized that his machine could answer the question of whether the proton had an antiparticles. He and his colleges estimated that when the speeding protons hit their target( a block of copper), the spray of debris should contain about one antiproton for every hundred thousand ordinary particles.
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