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Comment by colordrops | Hacker News Reader

If I didn't know the context I'd think the visualization was some kabbalistic symbolism rather than scientific imagery.

A favorite sci-fi speculation of mine is that all that goofy geomancy and similar "edge of seeming like it means something" stuff in occultism is some alien intelligence attempting to send us the knowledge required to come visit them. They've found some exotic way to influence minds at a distance, or to transmit information such that minds might "resonate" with it, or something. What we end up getting are distorted glimpses of theories of quantum gravity, how to build an Alcubierre drive, etc., but we think its angels, demons, and ghosts and basically construct a cargo cult around it.

Arthur C. Clarke: Childhood's End

Rather like Lem's "His Master's Voice" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Master%27s_Voice_(novel))

Sounds like an Interocitor

Drop the occulty aspect and this is the premise of the 1985 movie Explorers:

A kid sees in a dream what he thinks is a circuit board, so he takes a drawing to a techy friend of his who fills in the missing parts and builds it. Turns out to create a solid floating sphere, that they get the idea to use for space travel - and end up meeting the aliens that sent them the dreams.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al75vXD6koc

(That said, the stylized form of the circuit in the dream could totally be the source of the occulty aspects - a gear looking like a sun, for example, as seen in the trailer at about 0:23, not to mention the flying aspect)

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