By Prometheus on 2010 08 29
Thanks for the comment Dave! Your discovery sounds interestingly musical!
The headache lasted longer than I would expect ---for a good 24 hours. TOday, I feel okay. About drowning, may be your cyber paryers saved me:)
From the entry 'Stroking the Pain Away'.By Dave Scotese on 2010 08 29
I am happy you aren’t drowned! And thanks for the story. It reminds me of an activity I used to undertake with two heavy glass mugs. The bottoms were very thick and they had handles so that you could suspend them from a finger. When I did this and let the thick bottoms come together with just the tiniest bit of force (even just rubbing them together worked) they produced a sound that reminded me of baby laughter. So how’s your head?
From the entry 'Stroking the Pain Away'.By Dave Scotese on 2010 08 16
I like the idea of replacing the belief in impossible things as an inspiration with a belief in coincidence, subconscious good-nature, and… serendipity is a good word I guess. Or whatever *believed-to-be-possible* things we can come up with. That whole belief in scientifically impossible things that religion teaches really messes people up. Generally very good people, too.
Thanks!
From the entry 'Sexsomnia'.By B. Lucid on 2010 08 12
Love it! This is the one I’ve been using:
“-B.” is the pseudonym of a writer that never existed. He currently resides in the state of Hysteria, with his long-term girlfriend and a growing sense of insanity. He has briefly attended many colleges, and is almost complete with a degree in Celsius.
What do you think? Entertaining and informational or sophomoric and asininine?
By Rreed423 on 2010 08 12
What you are saying is that we can’t imagine what we can’t imagine. We can’t write stories about what we can’t imagine. Science fiction has to be about things we can imagine. Since we only have one model of intelligent life to base our stories on, we imagine many variations of that model.
Stories have rules. If aliens are too alien we can’t mentally digest them and we stop reading the book or watching the movie. Stories also need conflict, so aliens tend to be based on the conflicts we know.
If aliens ever come here, or it’s proven they already have, those particular aliens will be enough like us that they travel and have some reason to come here. If we go to them we may find that they have no concept of anything we understand. Or maybe they are in their planet’s stone age or Roman empire or medieval times.
Recent news about many possible Earth-sized planets suggests that someone or something is out there. Thinking otherwise is like a hermit crab thinking that there is no life outside of its tide pool.
You start writing about science fiction and end up with science. Science fiction is about what we imagine, science is an attempt to learn what we haven’t yet imagined. We imagine first, then imagine how to learn, then learn what we couldn’t have imagined.
From the entry 'Aliens 'R Us: The Ten Errors of Science Fiction'.By Sam Vaknin on 2010 08 09
Thank you for the comments, Dave.
I would have been far more sanguine had science fiction not been called SCIENCE fiction.
Reminds me of the Wikipedia “Encyclopedia” misnomer (http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/wikipedia.html).
Sam
From the entry 'Aliens 'R Us: The Ten Errors of Science Fiction'.By Dave Scotese on 2010 08 09
There are a few points here with which I disagree, but the one that sticks out in my mind is that automatism and intention cover everything. I don’t believe automatism implies determinism. Perhaps it does, but I see no way for us to find out. My model is quantum superposition: In any relay, there is at some instant an electron whose location determines whether or not the the relay will close, which in turn is a function of its wavefunction collapse. Usually, the difference that electron can make would be on the order of nanoseconds (if that), but we can count on the butterfly effect to promote any such wavefunction collapse into what could be construed as a random effect (the electron just happened to be there at the right time to… let’s say make Schroedinger’s cat die), or as intention on the part of whatever sentience we might imagine is controlling that electron’s wavefunction collapse. So I see a gap between deterministic automatism and intention - quantum randomness. But perhaps you believe that all wavefunction collapses are intended in some capacity by some sentient being.
You are approaching science fiction from a peculiar angle. It’s as if you see science fiction as an attempt to bring us closer to an understanding of what ETI might be like. But it isn’t. It’s entertainment. “The Ten Ways Science Fiction Aliens are Less Science and More Fiction” would work better for me. Or something shorter along the same lines. I think I’m mentioning this mostly because I have a sore spot for denigration, and you’ve denigrated science fiction a bit. Not too much though - I liked your article!
My bet is on #6 - they avoid us. Carl Sagan’s Contact, if I remember correctly, suggested that they had to avoid us until we were ready. Certainly, there could be rogue “explorers” - but why would you or I know about them? “If,” you wrote, “UFO sightings are mere hoaxes...” Perhaps a few are not. How many times have we explored the life forms living in the warm or hot sand next to the ocean trench that is constantly spewing out lava? We haven’t because it’s too difficult. The difficulty for us is physical, but I see no reason to ignore the possibility that human psychology at this point in history makes it difficult for aliens to accomplish much by exploring Earth in a way detectable to humans.
Yes, I’m making the same “errors” you cite at the beginning of your article, but really, they’re choices rather than (possibly/probably? incorrect) assumptions.
Thanks for making me think about it again!
Dave.
From the entry 'Aliens 'R Us: The Ten Errors of Science Fiction'.By Dave Scotese on 2010 08 08
I don’t think Mark puts any effort into making her life worse when she doesn’t put out. He probably neglects her more, but he doesn’t keep her locked up or force her to keep a bit in her mouth to yank on when she resists. Or does he? ‘cause if he does, then, yeah, I agree that the horses had as much choice as she did. But you didn’t characterize their relationship that way.
Sure there’s a difference between providing English lessons and providing Sex. It’s like the difference between helping someone figure out what’s wrong with their Internet connection and giving them an enema, a gynecological exam, or carrying a child to term for them. One is certainly more intimate than the other, and therefore often more taboo. I suspect you were imagining a more visceral difference, which you may be able to provide since I can’t.
I know that monetary compensation makes exchanges spiritually deadening and intimacy makes them spiritually livening, and that when mixing the two, results will vary, but was he really paying her, or actually helping her live? Because when you start providing for another person in ways that are not monetary, I think the spirituality starts coming back - even if there’s no permanence to the relationship. It has something to do with being accepted as a “trading partner” in media of exchange that are less universal than money. I think that spiritually deadening element of monetary exchanges is part of the foundation of the idea that money is evil.
I’ve been trying to teach my kids this: I consider one of my major responsibilities to figure out what qualities in other people (who want stuff from me) make them valuable to me. If I can’t find any, shame on me. If I can, I need to make sure they know so that they can choose whether or not to provide me with that value. It might be something they really don’t like to do, and that just means we ought not to be trying to trade with each other.
From the entry 'Renting Humans'.By julianyway on 2010 08 06
PS On a (I think) saddish note, even before he’s gone, she’s trying to pick me up in a sexual way. Unless you’ve had little Khmer girls carressing your arms and looking up at you with their beautiful seductive eyes. Ya gotta be there. PS I’m not gay. (I doubt that she is either.)
How does he react? He doesn’t. I point it out. He doesn’t react. Still very funny and nice.
My poor Western Standard.
From the entry 'Renting Humans'.By julianyway on 2010 08 06
The horse has as much a choice as anybody does. If it’s a reasonable horse, it does what it has to do to maximize whatever is supposed to be maximized (leaving that aside).
There’s a difference between providing English Lessons and providing Sex. True or False? Why or why not? Explain.
From the entry 'Renting Humans'.