Future Shock

[BlackCat]

Rama revealed by Arthur C. Clarke has some pretty special aliens but to understand what is going on you'll probably have to read the three previous books that are standard scifi and stupidity of humans.

[Lorizael]

But that's just my point: religion is not really about "understanding the world around us," it's about understanding us. Most deities in most societies are very anthropocentric, not just in looking and acting like humans, but in existing to patronize human concerns. Look at the Greek pantheon (I'm sticking to Greece here since they're the best known) and you'll see that most of the deities are dedicated to specific aspects of human life. Zeus is there for kings, his wife for marriage, his daughters for lust, craftiness and hunting, his sons for smithing, the arts, commerce and athletics, war, and drinking. One brother is there for sailors, the other for facing up to death, his sister for the all-important business of agriculture. Purely natural functions are on the fringe, and only touch the core where they concern otherwise-uncontrollable dangers such as famine and earthquakes. Zeus had lightning not because we were curious about lightning, but because he was the most powerful and controlling lightning is something you'd expect a powerful deity to do. The ancients and medievals did have a mechanistic understanding of at least some natural phenomena--the separate spheres of earth, water, air and fire, for example. That this understanding was grossly erroneous does not make it any less mechanistic.

I think you're selling human curiosity a little short here. Nearly every religion has some sort of cosmology describing where everything comes from, what it's all made of, etc. If that's a basic feature of religion, my guess is it's not just an accidental byproduct of coming up with stories for our anthropomorphized gods. Rather, I think it's part of an extremely common human affinity, which is to figure out how the world works. For example, there's a good deal of evidence to suggest that we are not born with (complete) innate knowledge of physics but have to put it together through repeated observation of the world around us. Eventually, we know that this will balance and that will not, that this will roll and that will slide, but it's not automatic; it's all part of our brain's attempt to make sense of the world. Because humans are self-reflective, any process we invest mental energy in can also be something we consciously theorize about. This manifests in our worldview being filled with human agency, but also in us developing all sorts of wacky metaphysical models for what reality is all about.

I view SF as a way to examine human life from perspectives unattainable in other forms of fiction. But I think of transhumanism as a broken animal finding ways to break itself further.

Sometimes breaking something is the best way to figure out how it works.

[Elok]

Ah, but where's-it-all-from and where's-it-all-going are crucial parts of the story--and nature's creation invariably centers on, or at least culminates in, humanity's creation. Whereas basic intuitive physics is a skill of immediate practical importance, which must be mastered as a prerequisite for daily activities. But you can live out your whole life and die without ever knowing what lightning is, or what causes the seasons. I imagine most people wouldn't learn anything of either if it weren't for schools, and as it is most people have forgotten the bulk of what they learned there. I'd guess perhaps one (randomly selected adult American) person in five can explain accurately why we have seasons, and not one in ten could tell you more about lightning than "it's electricity." I don't have a particularly good idea of the latter myself. I once went on Wiki to find out the exact mechanism, discovered it was complicated and involved terms I didn't understand, and decided that on balance I didn't really need to know the truth of it all that badly.

Yes, the sciences do exist, and there are a lot of curious and clever people out there who are driven to know more about them, but curiosity about nature is not the kind of fundamental human need religions develop to address. "What happens after I die" is important to everyone, whatever answer they come up with. "What are the stars made of" is an interesting tidbit that amuses some people. Which isn't to say the latter isn't tremendously useful. It's just not emotionally compelling to the bulk of humanity.

[Elok]

This is, of course, a subject I have thought a lot about, mostly because it's a favorite tactic of intellectually lazy atheists wishing to discredit religion: "Most religions attempt to explain some natural phenomena. Science is better at explaining those phenomena. Therefore religion is just obsolete science and all of it, whether it seeks to explain nature or not, can be ignored." Which is kind of like "Wood can be burned to produce heat. But we have more efficient ways of heating now, so the entire lumber industry is obsolete."

[Lorizael]

I'm definitely not trying to frame a science vs. religion debate here. As I said, different religions tend to have competing cosmologies, but that doesn't mean different religions tend to have competing field equations for the evolution of space-time. I'm not implying here that the cosmology-making of those religions is consequently inferior to science, but that it serves a different role. The reason why science is mathy and law-driven is because science is about making predictions we can verify. I don't believe the only feature of reality is that it yields to prediction, so I don't think it's the case that science tells us all we need to know about the world around us. (I do think science tells us what to have high confidence in and what to act on, though. And that's certainly not nothing. And I and many others can derive wonder from the explanations that science provides.)

Anyway, the point is, there are certainly other ways of producing true or meaningful statements about the world that are not based in science, and I accept that religions and myths play a part in that. (I don't accept that they have any better a handle on ontology or metaphysics than science does, though. For that you need to join my cult.) That said, I think the role played by religions and myths extends far beyond merely providing stories to account for our existence. One of the great aspects of the human imagination is how tangentially related to anything even remotely useful it can be. Maybe it's just an extreme version of peacock feathers, but even so, peacock feathers have a beauty and complexity that gives them connection and meaning beyond the immediate process and purpose that brought them into existence.

[The Mad Monk]

Thermodynamics has practical applications and dire implications.

[The Mad Monk]

CJ Cherryh has created some very alien aliens in her works; for example, the "methane breathers" in her Chanur series:

The Methane-Breathers


The alphabet, language, and culture of the methane-breathing knnn, tc’a, and chi species, in the Merchanter Compact, as depicted in the Chanur novels in the science fiction universe created by C. J. Cherryh.

The methane-breathing species in the Merchanter Compact are vastly different from the oxygen-breathing species (e.g. humans). They are completely alien in biology and psychology.

Breathing gases, temperature, pressure, and possibly gravity conditions favored by methane-breathers are completely foreign, in fact fatal, to humans and other oxygen-breathers. Sound and lighting levels and wavelengths used by methaners are extremely uncomfortable to oxy-breathers, sometimes to the point of nausea or other harm. A comfortable environment for a methane-breather appears to oxygen-breathers to be a swirling, neon or fluorescent mass of blues and violets, with similar bizarre fluorscence reflected from their bodies.

Concepts of navigation and commerce were very difficult to translate across the vast gulf of understanding between such disparate groups. Methane breathers move in manic, seemingly random patterns, like arthropods or other invertebrates.

The Knnn

The knnn are a methane-breathing species among the Merchanter Compact. They look like snarls of black hair, with entirely too many legs, and with mandibles or other appendages somewhere therein. They are highly technically advanced. Their ships can move in ways impossible for any other species. Knnn ships can make turns, stops, and starts in regular space and jump space that would kill oxygen-breathers. Their ships can move in synch, in tandem, and can cluster in a group around other ships, and even accelerate and deliver oxygen-breather ships, with their crew and cargo undamaged. The knnn do not recognize or obey navigational lanes. The knnn do trade in some fashion. They take and receive goods or items, including tc’a passengers. In the early days, they were a lethal hazard, sometimes taking ships off and opening them for cargo, leaving the remains, until the tc’a got the message across that this was unacceptable.

No one but the tc’a can communicate with the knnn. Only knnn numbers are rendered by computer translators, and it is unclear whether knnn even have names. The reason for this is unknown. It may be due to the vast differences in biology and psychology in the knnn and tc’a, as opposed to oxygen-breathers, or it could be custom or treaty. Knnn have a habit of broadcasting their singing voices over system-wide com. The sound of their singing can range above and below the normal hearing range of any oxygen-breather species, and can often be eerie, painful, and annoying. Knnn-song may be anything, conversation, loneliness, love-lorn, or love-sick. Only the knnn and the tc’a seem to know.

The Tc’a

The tc’a are yellow, leathery, serpent-like creatures. The tc’a have multi-part brains and think and speak in a seven-part matrix which may be interpretted in any direction. Only the tc’a can communicate with the knnn. Tc’a speech is something like electronic noises, static, pops, and squeals. The stsho are able to communicate with the tc’a, which suggests a very alien mindset in the stsho indeed. The stsho were able to get across to the tc’a the idea behind the Compact, which the tc’a impressed upon the knnn, fortunately, more or less. Tc’a words have a singing quality to them. Tc’a/Chi Ships

Tho’o’oo Tc’a/Chi ship. T’T’Tmmmi Tc’a/Chi ship. Tc’a/Chi Places

The Chi

The chi are almost always found together with the tc’a. It is unknown, in fact, whether they are two separate species, or two variant forms of one species. There is also speculation whether the chi are even intelligent. It is unknown whether the chi are pets, slaves, or some type of independent symbiote of the tc’a. The chi are stilt-like creatures. Crazy as a chi is a common epithet.

[Lorizael]

I'm embarrassed to say I've never read any CJ Cherryh. I'll get to her eventually.

[The Mad Monk]

Better sooner than later.