POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: CHICON 8 – Alien Aliens Part 22 Does ANYONE Have the Right To Terraform Another World?(Alien Aliens Part 22)

Using the Programme Guide of the 2022 World Science Fiction Convention, ChiCON 8, which I WOULD have attended in person if I had disposable income, but I retired two years ago, my work health insurance stopped, and I’m now living on the Social Security and Medicare…I will be using the Programme Guide to jump off, jump on, rail against, or shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. My opinions may bring glad hearts to some, or cause others to wish to stomp me into the muddy ground of Lilydale Park shortly after a long rain.

Colin Alexander: (moderator) writer, SF and F; pseudonym for Alton Kremer, physician, biochemist, medical researcher
Eva L Elasigue: writer - poetry, short story, and scripts
Kevin Wabaunsee: writer, biomedical research news editor, editor @ Escape Pod, Prairie Band Potawatomi.
Sue Burke: author, literary translator

If we terraform a planet, what happens to the living things that evolved there? Would an "Earth-like" planet have living things we could live alongside? How might Earth life integrate into an alien ecology? This panel will contemplate the ecological impacts of making another planet more Earth-like.

For ME, the first clear idea of altering a planetary environment in order for an intelligence to live there were the chtorr-a-forming alien Chtorr in David Gerrold’s novels that introduced the idea in WAR AGAINST THE CHTORR. That book is “Set in a devastated early 21st century United States with logical expected advances in current technology such as a fledgling moon base [it] describe the invasion of Earth by an alien ecology. The story is unusual in that the tactics used by the aliens eschew the usual direct attack in favor of terraforming the ecosystem.” (Like I noted above, that should be “chtorr-a-forming” our ecosystem to conform to their own.

While I didn’t see the presentation, I’m hoping that someone brought up Gerrold’s book. Lately, it seems that the Human creature has entered a time of deep, almost religious self-recrimination; consistently now bringing to light events that happened in the past and attempting to either make reparations to the descendants of those who were most harmed by the event (I live in the state where “On December 26, 1862, following the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, the federal government hanged 38 members of the Dakota tribe in Minnesota. It was the largest mass execution in United States history.” (For an in-depth discussion, follow this link: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/09/dako-n09.html), and obsessing over details that may or may not be incidental – just as obsessively denying that either the event ever took place, or trying to put the event “into historical perspective” (Whatever that means. Usually it seems to mean, “They didn’t know what they were doing because that’s just the way things were then. I’m not responsible.”)

My question is why would we think that Humans alone would consider terraforming a planet to suit themselves?

Because we’re the only intelligent life in the known universe (– please don’t use the movie CONTACT’s argument that “Carl Sagan said, 'I'd say if it is just us ... seems like an awful waste of space.'" to somehow convert me to your POV that there JUST MUST BE ALIENS. As far as I can tell, Sagan never said this. It is “creatively expressed in the movie version of Carl Sagan’s novel, Contact…” – but thus far, there is NO evidence that there is life anywhere but HERE. A plethora of life, even more lifeforms if you consider all that have gone extinct (without Humans lifting a single, evil finger) – but anywhere else?

Nada.

In fact, if you want to get into the ethics of terraforming, let’s look at the Chicxilub Event. If you’re going to insist that THERE MUST BE INTELLIGENT ALIENS, then you have no choice but to consider the possibility that Earth was terraformed by asteroid impact that finished the extinction of the dinosaurs and initiated the upward climb and Age of Mammals. Even with today’s technology, Humans altered the orbital trajectory of an asteroid: “NASA has confirmed that its DART spacecraft has altered the trajectory of the asteroid that it crashed into two weeks ago, demonstrating the potential of this tool for planetary defense. A trial run at planetary defense has proven successful. Oct 12, 2022, https://physics.aps.org/articles/v15/156#:~:text=NASA%20has%20confirmed%20that%20its,this%20tool%20for%20planetary%20defense.&text=A%20trial%20run%20at%20planetary%20defense%20has%20proven%20successful.

So why do I harp on this point? Because if it’s possible, AND there is intelligent life Out There, then WE are as vulnerable as we assume other planets are.

As Earth’s “twin”, should we terraform Venus? Someone already thought of that in the 70s. Watch this. I show it to my Alien Worlds class every year. “Mind-slaughter” (1977) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVj2mgrTtU8 It STILL gives me the creeps! On the other hand, altering its atmosphere will NOT make it habitable. Venus will continue to have a day that would see (for example) the sun rise on the First Day Of Spring (March 20, 2023), and set 37 weeks later on December 4, 2023…I doubt that life As We Know It would survive after 243 days of daylight. Of course, the night would be the same if you stayed in the same place - 243 Earth-days long. The only way you could make Venus livable for Humans is to change the planet’s atmosphere, rotation...And therein lies the question implicit in any discussion of terraforming: “Who gave YOU the right to change…”

OK, what if we changed HUMANITY instead? Well, you could always change Human behavior. Create Humans with a society that would move with the incredibly slow terminator line… and therein lies the question implicit in any discussion of Humanoforming (aka, Genetic Engineering): “Who gave YOU the right to change Humanity…” For a novel that deals with this issue, try THE CHILDREN STAR (2009), by Joan Slonczewski. Fascinating read.

Do I think we just throw all caution to the wind and willy-nilly start to change planets, moon, atmospheres, and asteroids to make way for MORE Humans?

No. But I DO think we should take into consideration the possibility that if there IS Intelligent Alien Life Out There, that we may have already been the victims of terraforming – or may become the victims in the future.

So, aggression or naivete? Which one is the path to colonizing the Solar System, the Orion Arm, the Milky Way, and eventually the Universe? I leave that for an intellectual exercise of your own. I've certainly stirred myself up...

Program Guide: https://guide.chicon.org/; https://locusmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/chicon-8-twitter.png[GS1]
Image: https://space.nss.org/wp-content/uploads/terraforming-mars-large-kevin-gill.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Creating Alien Aliens, Part 9: Aliens In OUR Solar System?

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver speak at a convention hosted by the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Since then, I have shared (with their permission) and applied the writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, and Julie Czerneda. Together they write in genres broad and deep, and have acted as agents, editors, publishers, columnists, and teachers. Since then, I figured I’ve got enough publications now that I can share some of the things I did “right”.

While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do all of the professional writers above...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see! Hemingway’s quote above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!

Part 1: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/01/slice-of-pie-creating-alien-aliens.html
Part 2: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/02/slice-of-pie-creating-alien-aliens-part.html
Part 3: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/02/slice-of-pie-creating-alien-aliens.html
Part 4: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/04/slice-of-pie-creating-alien-aliens-part.html
Part 5: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/09/writing-advice-creating-alien-aliens.html
Part 6: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2021/02/writing-advice-creating-alien-aliens.html
Part 7: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2021/04/writing-advice-creating-alien-aliens.html
Part 8: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2021/05/writing-advice-creating-alien-aliens.html

There have been discussions regarding aliens in our own Solar System since before HG Wells penned WAR OF THE WORLDS in 1897. In that classic, the aliens are from Mars and though we conceivably have the same basis for life, DNA, we still don’t understand the aliens.

I might point out that the MARTIANS don’t understand alien life either!

Sarah Zettel postulates not only do Humans live in the clouds of Venus, but there was an ancient alien civilization on the surface…an now another set of aliens are looking for a new home…The Sabre Project of the short film, “Mindslaughter” has Humans terraforming Venus in a flash and discovering too late that the millipede-like aliens had not only an underground society, but had written records. There are of course, the series of Venusian adventures of ER Burroughs.

CS Lewis saw aliens on Perelandra and Malacandra (Venus and Mars to us), as wildly varied as life on Earth – but entirely different spiritually. Where Humanity had it’s Adam and Eve moment and FAILED the test, Mars passed it and Venus is on “the night before the exam”. AC Clarke had aliens on Mercury.

In fiction, Jupiter and its moons host alien life as well, as do Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto/Charon/et al. There are alien worlds likely beyond the edge of the Solar System and into the near-interstellar Oort Cloud.

So, what ABOUT alien life in the Solar System? What ABOUT us ignoring it because it doesn’t conform to what we’ve decided “alien life” should be. STAR WARS, STAR TREK, and most of the UFO (or now, officially, Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon, or UAPs) community are determined to believe that life out there is basically just like life here…except the fact is that, we haven’t even explored HERE to any extent and we’re already postulating Interstellar (or even Intergalactic!) Civilizations without even making an attempt at discovering life as we do/don’t know it right here.

We’re more-or-less sure that there are no detectable radio signals coming from any of the planets in the SS, except for ones we’re sending back ourselves. But, what about OTHER kinds of signals?

NO: I CATEGORICALLY REJECT TELEPATHIC POWERS AS ANYTHING BUT A PLOT DEVICE FOR STORIES THAT WON’T WORK WITHOUT IT…I’m (kinda) sorry, but I don’t allow my little kids to do it in the Alien Worlds class I teach (for recent article I wrote on it, go here: https://theworkandworksheetsofguystewart.blogspot.com/2020/11/ideas-for-how-to-teach-writing-class.html). I’m neither going to use it myself nor believe that the only way we’re be able to communicate with intelligent alien life is by certain people being able to “thought talk”… (Have you ever thought of how incredibly complex talking to another HUMAN would be telepathically? How would you keep your thoughts to yourself? Could they randomly go wandering around inside your head? And what language would people THINK in? STAR TREK’s “Devil In the Dark” came close to almost making it realistic when Spock telepathically tried to talk to the Mother Horta and only got searing waves of PAIN!)

Anyway, how about we see if we can contact aliens on Earth? How about ones that your local chapter of Save Whatever Animal You Want To routinely point out that are near-Human intelligence? Chimpanzees? What about communicating with Elephants? (If aliens like Vulcans, Endomorphs, Hutts, Heptapods – and all the other ones get to have capitalized names, then Dolphins, Chimpanzees, (both of which weren’t all that smart and needed our intervention to Uplift in David Brin’s Uplift novels…) Dogs, Cats, Elephants, and the rest some people believe are practically Human…should be our priority for communication.

But except for a few freaky Gorillas and Chimps and Dolphins whom we’ve taught pidgin forms of English, we honestly don’t CARE about communicating with them, not on any real level.

We want the Wookies! Show us the Andorians! Send us ET! Lemme talk to the Worm Aliens! Where is Optimus Prime? Maybe the Great Gazoo? Fine then, where’s Superman? One of the Lantern Corps aliens? OK, I’ll take the Pug…

But, no. I honestly don’t think we’re ready! We’re not even interested in talking to the aliens on Earth, and the Benevolent All-Mind sees that. Aliens from around the Solar System, Alpha Centauri A, the Near Stars, or the Orion Arm don’t seem interested in chatting with us…or even invading us for that matter! We’re left blinking wide-eyed and looking up to the night sky and wondering if Fermi was right: “In the summer of 1950 with fellow physicists Edward Teller, Herbert York, and Emil Konopinski, while walking to lunch, the men discussed recent UFO reports and the possibility of faster-than-light travel. The conversation moved on to other topics, until during lunch Fermi allegedly said suddenly, ‘But where is everybody?’”

Where, indeed. Perhaps, people, the aliens are right here in our zoos…

Sources:
Mercury – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_in_fiction
Venus – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_in_fiction
Mars – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_in_fiction
Jupiter and its Moons – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_in_fiction
Saturn and its Moons – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_in_fiction
Uranus and its Moons – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus_in_fiction
Neptune and its Moons – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptune_in_fiction
Trans-Neptunian Objects – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto_in_fiction, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Neptunian_objects_in_fiction Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/30/91/a9/3091a970dc71d6747e6a562a5b79384f.jpg

Slice of PIE: Why the Incentivization of Charity May Separate Us From An Interstellar Federation

NOT using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in Helsinki, Finland in August 2017 (to which I be unable to go (until I retire from education)), I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. But not today. This explanation is reserved for when I dash “off topic”, sometimes reviewing movies, sometimes reviewing books, and other times taking up the spirit of a blog an old friend of mine used to keep called THE RANTING ROOM…

The waves of horror as non-profit organizations predict the death of charity because people can no longer write their donations off on their taxes has reached tsunami proportions:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/business/dealbook/charities-budget-cuts-trump.html

http://www.wtsp.com/news/how-gop-tax-bill-could-affect-charities/496349896

http://www.pressherald.com/2017/11/30/bill-nemitz-another-tax-bill-target-donating-to-nonprofits/

https://www.salon.com/2017/12/14/how-the-tax-package-could-sap-the-flow-of-charitable-giving_partner/

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/republican-tax-bill-wallop-charities-article-1.3660592

It also seems that granting tax break for “philanthropy”, while the law will celebrate its Centennial this year, has hardly had a unanimously benevolent history and been without criticism: http://www.taxhistory.org/thp/readings.nsf/ArtWeb/972168BEA0B68D8585257B160048DD4A?OpenDocument

In fact, I never really thought about how “benevolence” might have a powerful political impact. Stupid me…

I am reminded of the reason my daughter withdrew from working toward a full International Baccalaureate Diploma. There were a few reasons, but one was that while she had done hours of volunteer work of her own accord, there were too many hours that she’d done that were for our church. The Program wasn’t interested in people volunteering for causes they supported. The Program wanted volunteers for the causes THEY supported.

Another name for forcing individuals to work for a cause not their own in order to meet the requirements of an educational reward is conscription. Indentured servitude might be another phrase. Her question was, “Are you volunteering for something if it’s something that is required?” In other words, isn’t “mandatory volunteerism” an oxymoron?

She didn’t get the Diploma.

National Honor Society also has such requirements as well – along with doing volunteer work for causes a student personally believes in, they are required to “volunteer” for causes that the organization has deemed worthy.

Another thought, is philanthropy limited to wealthy civilizations? According to Wikipedia, there doesn’t seem to be any record of philanthropy prior to Europe in the 17^th Century. Also, there appears to be a distinctive difference between philanthropy and charity, with philanthropy being much better than charity: “Philanthropy has distinguishing characteristics separate from charity; not all charity is philanthropy, or vice versa, though there is a recognized degree of overlap in practice. A difference commonly cited is that charity aims to relieve the pain of a particular social problem, whereas philanthropy attempts to address the root cause of the problem—the difference between the proverbial gift of a fish to a hungry person, versus teaching them how to fish.”

Charity has a far more ancient history dating back to (quite possibly) the dawn of recorded history; certainly since the Pharaohs instituted the construction of the pyramids (NOT a charitable act, BTW). The infographic below notes that charitable giving has been growing since then and has become foundational to western society.

So, why do I bring this up here? Aside from the fact that charitable giving is likely to survive the elimination of the tax credit and that there is something to be said for reducing the influence of donors over organizational policy…

I bring it up because I’ve never seen mentioned anywhere in a science fiction story or novel the possibility that aliens or alien civilizations might consider charitable and philanthropic giving – perhaps even SACRIFICIAL giving – to be the mark of mature civilization, one that indicates that the society in question has overcome its biology with mind.

Maybe aliens haven’t contacted up because we are, as a planet, as a species,  entirely too selfish? I mean, English speakers can read a book called, THE SELFISH GENE (by Richard Dawkins, world-famous atheist, author, and speaker) in which he expands and popularizes the ideas of WD Hamilton, to wit: “Despite the principle of 'survival of the fittest' the ultimate criterion which determines whether [a gene] G will spread is not whether the behavior is to the benefit of the behaver, but whether it is to the benefit of the gene G ...With altruism this will happen only if the affected individual is a relative of the altruist, therefore having an increased chance of carrying the gene.”

I’m adding this new answer to the list of answers to the Fermi Paradox (simply stated: “…a simple question that anyone looking out at the night sky has probably asked themselves: Where is everybody?...it’s a big universe, so why can’t we see life anywhere but here on Earth?”) https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/what-is-the-fermi-paradox I’ve written on Fermi’s Paradox before (http://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2017/06/slice-of-pie-post-ideas-is-this-like.html)

So maybe aliens are waiting for us to start giving selflessly and when it seems that an unselfish gene has entered the pool, we’ll be contacted by an advanced civilization…

Just so you know, I have a story in mind that might explore this.

Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charity_(practice), http://blog.winspireme.com/a-brief-history-of-charitable-giving-infographic

Image: https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/vector-charity-line-logos-signs-volunteer-set-52185464.jpg

Slice of PIE: Post-Ideas – Is This Like Post-Christian and Post-Truth?

Using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in Kansas City in August 2016 (to which I was invited and had a friend pay my membership! [Thanks, Paul!] but was unable to go (until I retire from education)), I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. This is NO event as the link is provided below appears to be dead now…(How much would you like to bet that the title generates more hits than I’ve ever gotten? The current record after “CHRISTIANITY: Anthropogenic or Universal?” is “Conspiracy Revealed: Adolph…” with 979 hits…)

OMGosh! I’m going to have to come up with some of my own ideas again!

So, in no particular order, here I go:

YA science fiction – where’s it going now that the dystopian frenzy seems to be settling down?

Christianity and science fiction – is there really any problem…or is it more a “quality issue”?

Education in SF – why do SF writers insist that Americans have somehow hit upon the “perfect” educational institution and how might the union-stasis be having a negative effect on paradigm-shifting change? (See: “Gladly Wolde He Learne” by Harry Turtledove -- http://turtledove.wikia.com/wiki/Gladly_Wolde_He_Lerne)

The future of the Wild – why do we seem to build cities over everything? Is “progress” REALLY our middle name?

The future of Population – is “more people” always better? (GRR Martin’s Tuf Voyaging stories, in particular, the Suthlam ones)

AI – REALLY possible? REALLY desirable?: And do the proponents realize that they TOO will be destroyed…or do they assume that because they sing its praises, they’ll be accepted by our “robot overlords”?

Nature – what’s natural and what defines a “park” and do us 21^st Century types REALLY know what “nature” is?

Camping in the Future – where? What? How might it be…REALLY different?

Different Societies – Will They Be As Leftists Expect Them To Be? (Historical Note: Left was Right, Right was Left…the old GOP (anti-slavery) and DFL (pro-slavery)…)

Back to WHAT Future? – What if the Global Warming debacle led to a society that went ALL THE WAY backwards? (Returning to pre-1800 levels of CO2, pollutants, emissions, etc…means eliminating excess population…and a way to DO that may be to secretly boost the anti-vaxxer movement.)

Fifty Solutions To The Fermi Paradox – I’ll comment on each one from this list! That should keep me going until the Program for WorldCon in Helsinki is published! (www.astro.ufl.edu/~lebo/.../Fermi's%20Paradox%20-%20Stephen%20Webb.docx)

And For Yet MORE Ideas – here you go: http://www.mikebrotherton.com/2008/09/08/ten-issues-for-hard-science-fiction/

So then, until next time (‘cause I’m on vacation AND I don’t have any idea what to say about ANY of these…well, that’s not exactly true, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!), ponder these and then have at it whenever I post an entry!

Program Book: the link appears to be no longer alive…

Image: https://www.portent.com/images/2013/08/iStock_000016093336Small.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: A DIFFERENT Answer to the Fermi Paradox

Using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in London, August 2014, I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. The link is provided below…The Music of the Spheres: Panelists discuss how music and our understanding of the universe

have developed, hand in hand. From historical concepts such as ‘Musica universalis’ and celestial spheres, through Kepler’s ‘Harmonici Mundi’ to modern harmonics and String Theory. With: Rachel Erickson (M), Joseph Norman, Catja Pafort, Isabella van Elferen, Hannu Rajaniemi...

I had a thought the other day...

Hmmm...I need to back up here before I launch into this essay.

Thesis: Every Human on Earth has grown up with music. “Music is found in every known culture, past and present, varying widely between times and places. Since all people of the world, including the most isolated tribal groups, have a form of music, it may be concluded that music is likely to have been present in the ancestral population prior to the dispersal of humans around the world. Consequently music may have been in existence for at least 55,000 years and the first music may have been invented in Africa and then evolved to become a fundamental constituent of human life.” (The Origins of Music, Nils Lennart Wallin, Björn Merker, Steven Brown (eds)).

Seeming non-sequitur: The school district I work for originally banned the use of headsets, cellphones, ipods, and any other electronic device during the school day. Battle was joined and eventually the district retreated. The thing is that it wasn’t only he students who fought on the side of music access. It was the young teachers as well. They wanted to be able to use their playlist whenever they wanted to...This revolution was virtually universal, championed by students with learning disabilities and no interest in school through students who scored perfectly on the ACT test and got straight As in all honors classes...

Seeming non-sequitur: I  had accordion lessons at an early age, switched to coronet for a very BRIEF sojourn, then discovered that vocal music was my forte (pardon the music pun). Not long after that, I discovered the guitar, and have in my possession an 11-string, Yamaha FG230 that is (at LEAST) 45 years old, in a case given to me by an ex-girlfriend then repaired by my brother, and travelled some million or so miles with me to various and sundry concerts. I have been in choirs since I can remember; in my case, from seventh grade onward (though it was probably before that!). I sang in a choir all the way through my second year of college, then in small groups for another decade, traveling not just in the US but in Canada, Nigeria, Cameroun, and Liberia – as well as Hawaii and Haiti – where I was privileged to hear music from very different traditions.  I am, as it were, no stranger to music.

Seeming non-sequitur: That said, I pose the following question: what if star-roving intelligence REQUIRED the admittedly off fusion of music and mathematics? Did anyone ask this question – it seems like a logical extension from “Panelists discuss how music and our understanding of the universe have developed, hand in hand.”

Posit: What if the development of music was a necessary component in the development of orbital mechanics, Titus-Bode Laws, and for taking advantage of  competing gravitational tugs...which create a vast network of passageways by which a spacecraft can travel over large distances while expending very little energy, “Grasping [Newton’s inverse-square] law, we can further derive equations which describe the motion of the sun, the planets and the Voyager spacecraft flying between them.” ?

Seeming non-sequitur: In his book, The New Music (Oxford University Press, 1987, pp 42-3), Reginald Smith Brindle says, “...mathematics is ‘the basis of sound’ and sound itself ‘in its musical aspects... exhibits a remarkable array of number properties’, simply because nature itself ‘is amazingly mathematical’.”

Conclusion: What if we are alone in the Universe because no one else has ever developed the fraternal twin fields of music and math?

Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music, https://books.google.com/books?id=vYQEakqM4I0C&printsec=frontcover&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false

Program Book: http://www.loncon3.org/documents/ReadMe_LR.pdf

Image: http://schoolofgroove.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Beyond_the_Math_is_Music_scrap_by_shirohato.png

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Astrobiology, the Pseudoscience and Wishful (though very, very Educated) Thinking – Part 2

Using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in London this past August, I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. The link is provided below…

Hart-Tipler are WRONG! (add echoing sound effect); Sagan-Anyone That Believes Wildly Enough MUST BE RIGHT!!!! (add earthquaking and echoing sound effect)…

It’s funny, because the author George Dvorsky here (http://io9.com/11-of-the-weirdest-solutions-to-the-fermi-paradox-456850746) says, “Most people take it for granted that we have yet to make contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. Trouble is, the numbers don’t add up. Our Galaxy is so old that every corner of it should have been visited many, many times over by now. No theory to date has satisfactorily explained away this Great Silence, so it’s time to think outside the box.”

What exactly does “the numbers don’t add up” and “No theory to date has satisfactorily explained away this Great Silence” mean to these people? Apparently it means, ignore reality and propose ever more fanciful and wild explanations when Occam’s Razor is quite clear: “...among competing hypotheses that predict equally well, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may ultimately prove to provide better predictions, but—in the absence of differences in predictive ability—the fewer assumptions that are made, the better.”

Thus far, all of the hypotheses are equal: not one has produced evidence of intelligence beyond Earth. Ergo, the one hypothesis that DOES explain the evidence: “There’s no one but us”, is correct.

But science fiction writers and pseudoscientists refuse to accept such a conclusion and try to come up with wilder and wilder explanations for the observable fact that there are no intelligent alien life anywhere but here. In fact, despite brightly optimistic claims from NASA its very self, “‘I think we’re going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and I think we're going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years,’ NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan said April 7, 2015 during a panel discussion that focused on the space agency's efforts to search for habitable worlds and alien life.” There remains no EVIDENCE that there is life, space scientists insist that there is WATER everywhere, “For example, oceans of liquid water slosh beneath the icy shells of the Jupiter moons Europa and Ganymede, as well as that of the Saturn satellite Enceladus. Oceans covered much of Mars in the ancient past, and seasonal dark streaks observed on the Red Planet's surface today may be caused by salty flowing water.”

For whatever reason, they leap to the conclusion that where there is water, there certainly must be life. While evidence on Earth certainly supports this belief, “...extreme heat and some synthetic laboratory environments might be the only sterile conditions on the planet’s surface that it’s possible to find zero traces of life. New organisms are regularly discovered that push the boundaries of life as we understand it, although where that line will ultimately be drawn remains unknown. As Santos says, ‘What does not exist is more difficult to prove than what does exist.’”

While it is certainly possible – and despite the abundance of negativity above, I still hope we discover life off of Earth – confirmation of life off Earth awaits presentable, incontrovertible EVIDENCE. As for the arrival of that dubious day – I am not holding my breath.

Reference: http://io9.com/beyond-fermi-s-paradox-ii-questioning-the-hart-tiple-1697244447?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow, http://www.space.com/29041-alien-life-evidence-by-2025-nasa.html, http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140303-last-place-on-earth-without-life

Image: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/08/29/extremophiles_2.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Ruins, Knickknacks, & Aliens…Oh, My!

Humans are obsessed with the past.

Three million people visit the pyramids at Giza every year. Annually, somewhere between four and ten million people visit the Great Wall of China. Thus far, a million people have seen the World Trade Center Memorial each year since it opened in 2011. The Battle of Gettysburg reenactments draws thousands of viewers each year – in 2013, the 150^th Anniversary reenactment drew an estimated 120,000 people.

Machu Piccu, Stonehenge, The Roman Baths, Hadrian’s Wall, Ellora Caves, Chichen Itza, Hieropolis? A million a year. Teotihuacan, The Acropolis, Pompeii? Two million a year. The Terracotta Army, The Forum, and the Coliseum? Three to seven million.

We love our history. We love our past. WE LOVE DRAMA! Think about what happened at each of those places! Think of the pain, the weeping, the joy, the victories!

Think of the movies. I cannot find a number that even hints at the number of historical films that have been made – and NOT just in the US! Russians make history films. So do the Chinese. Bollywood goes without saying. But the Israelis do, too. And the Brazilians.

Humans are stuck in the past, doomed to relive it so many times and in so many ways that eventually it becomes legendary, then mythical, then finally mystical. Anne McCaffrey wrote in 1968: “When is a legend, legend? Why is a myth, a myth? How old and disused must a fact be for it to be relegated to the category: Fairy tale? And why do certain facts remain incontrovertible, while others lose their validity to assume a shabby, unstable character?”

Will aliens have the same obsession as Humans? Will their obsession be greater? Less?

At Diversicon in 2013, the discussion was “Aliens + Alien Ruins + Human Past”, and while not moderating, Jack McDevitt’s work was the launching point of the session. ANCIENT SHORES, ETERNITY ROAD, the entire ACADEMY series, which deals with the origin of the mysterious Omega Clouds; and the Alex Benedict series, that deals with both Human and (possibly) alien antiquities are firmly based in this “future’s past”. In his third novel, THE ENGINES OF GOD, Humans find an ice statue that at least one intelligent alien left behind on Saturn’s moon, Iapetus. The assumption then is that they must think something like us because leaving a statue of yourself behind for posterity is a very “Human” thing to do – sort of an “ice sculpture selfie”.

Who’s to say this is a ridiculous assumption? Who’s to say what aliens will and will not think about? Others argue that “different ways of thinking” accounts for The Great Silence, ie: “Our Galaxy is so old that every corner of it should have been visited many, many times over by now. No theory to date has satisfactorily explained away this Great Silence, so it’s time to think outside the box.”

The fact is that we have no evidence for aliens. Expressed in his book, CONTACT, Carl Sagan’s argument that “If we are alone in the Universe, it sure seems like an awful waste of space.” (This is a paraphrase of Sagan quoting Thomas Carlyle: “A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space.”), and is differently iterated in his narration of the original COSMOS TV show when he says, “...absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

So, the question is, do YOU think that aliens will have their own version of “Antique Road Show”? Why or why not? What other responses to the past might an alien have?

Me? I think aliens will be alien and probably incomprehensible – and have attitudes that won’t support Carl Sagan or any other preacher on Earth. Except maybe having an idea of God. I’m pretty sure that will be a part of any aliens we ever meet.

Resources: http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/worlds-most-visited-ancient-ruins/3, http://io9.com/11-of-the-weirdest-solutions-to-the-fermi-paradox-456850746

Image: http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110626014559/memoryalpha/en/images/thumb/1/12/Horta.jpg/500px-Horta.jpg

Ideas On Tuesdays 1: ReVisiting Fermi's Paradox...

This is going to be a regular feature on POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS. Rather than irritating you though, I'd like to both challenge and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them -- and that you can post in the comment section.

My wife ran across this on msn.com:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41686017/ns/technology_and_science-space/

The comment at the end paraphrases Fermi's Paradox: "the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations."

Idea: What if every world with a technological, pre-atomic civilization is provided with a gate linking them to other worlds with other intelligences -- but the instant an atomic explosion occurs, the gate closes forever?