Books by Larry Bell

This is a true storybook adventure about us-you and me-along with countless other truly exceptional Homo sapiens who made our lives possible: So it''s about people who invented languages, cultures and cooperative societies; who sought spiritual and scientific understanding of the world and Universe; who created marvelous arts, architectures, tools and machines inconceivable to previous generations; and who continue to surprise us with future transformative discoveries and inventions that remain unimaginable today.The story-our story-begins a very long time ago, 13.7 billion years ago, about 5.3 billion before our planet was born 4.5 billion years ago. It then took about another 4 billion years for Earth to become teeming with simple, single-celled organisms that eventually evolved into you and me.Within only the last ten thousand years some of those Homo sapiens ancestors of ours invented agriculture, battled and domesticated larger animals for food and clothing, competitively warred against each other and Neanderthal hunter-gatherers, established settlements, cities and empires, built great pyramids and cathedrals, formulated complex cultures and laws, developed advanced scientific methods and philosophies, and composed inspirational literature, music and sonnets.Some inventive and adventuresome Sapiens contemplated the architecture and workings of a celestial Universe and applied that knowledge to guide voyages of discovery, trade, conquest and migration to extend domains and dominions.Others-within little more than the last century-have harnessed the power of lightning and atoms, have mastered flight, have traveled many times faster than the speed of sound, have transmitted information from everywhere to everywhere else via orbital satellites, have walked on the Moon, and have conceived artificial brains that can already outsmart their human creators.After all, if humans can invent machines which are increasingly smarter than we are, where does this lead? Are we in a sense "playing God" in a way that will render human reasoning obsolete?Future human historians-should any survive-will determine whether our truly exceptional creativity led us to outsmart ourselves.

Cyberwarfare: Targeting America, Our Infrastructure, and Our Future identifies and elaborates previous examples and current actions involving American cybersecurity forces, allies and adversaries that pose imminent national and personal security dangers. By “cyber war,” we are generally referring to a foreign (or even domestic) government-level nation-state actions that are intended to penetrate another nation’s computers or networks for purposes of causing physical equipment damage or critical service disruptions. Military and civilian intelligence organizations, for example, routinely prepare cyber battlefields with virtual computer explosives in the form of software malware called “logic bombs” and “trapdoors” placing virtual explosives in other countries’ power grids, financial and communications networks, and other critical utility infrastructures.

Be wary of seductive invitations to trade away privacy for ever-more convenience, security and autocratic control. Exercised through our free minds and choices, infotech opportunities and and benefits are virtually unlimited. Controlled by special interest agendas of a powerful few, the applications for social oppression are endless.

This book strives to be neither utopian nor apocalyptical. Nevertheless, there is always an unrealistic natural tendency to assume that tomorrow will resemble our positive and negative experiences today, only a little bit different-or maybe extremely so-instead of recognizing that we are in the middle of an unknowably disruptive change.This is a revolution like no other: one that is inconceivably pervasive and profound; terrifying and tantalizing; and above all, inevitable and irreversible. Whereas the computational power of the human brain is largely prewired by evolution, AI capacities arising from computer technology power and applications are growing exponentially.Entirely new quantum computing technology can now be expected to accelerate processing capacities at progressively astounding rates. Just as current AI applications promise to transform an endless variety of peaceful information and problem-solving tasks, QC's capacity to out-think conventional computers presents enormously troubling military and economic cybersecurity challenges.In any case, there is no way to turn back the clock of technological progress, just as there are no known theoretical limits to computational intelligence.Will such inventions ultimately supersede our most valued qualities, capacities and necessities of human "natural intelligence"? Or rather, will unfathomably rapid and all-encompassing AI developments and applications empower us to reach higher intellectual, creative and spiritual potentials?Reinventing Ourselves challenges readers to consider multi-faceted and interconnected layers of these predominate visions and to contemplate which are likely to be most true. Both views will likely prove to be at least partially correct.Meanwhile, our personal choices are either to reinvent ourselves one day at a time or to accept obsolescence.

Whole brain thinking is evidenced in everyday life through our awareness of surrounding environments. It is expressed through curiosity which compels our interest in how and why natural and man-made things work the way they do, the interconnected relationships between ourselves and others, the patterns and rhythms observed in nature, the spiritual lessons and explorations that motivate higher purposes and values, the inspirations experienced through image forms, literature and stories of the past, in music and everything combined that our human, holistic minds can contemplate.

Why are each of us here? Is this our first and last time around? If not, what aspects of our true "selves" will follow our present mortal experiences? Such fundamental questions have fascinated philosophers, theologians and scientists over thousands of years. Cosmic Musings author, Professor Larry Bell explores a literal universe of possibilities revealed through his provocative, contemplative and highly readable lifelong tour of diverse teachings and theories dating from Aristotle up to leading contemporary thought leaders.