Science Fiction Interpretations

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Subject: Science Fiction Interpretations

Posted by: brm50diboll
Date: Jan 02 17

I have debated with myself starting a Virtual Blog for months. I have so little free time nowadays that I may not be able to keep it up, but I think I'll at least try. This is intended to be wide-ranging, so it wouldn't fit in the Television, Movies, or Literature boards categories and I don't want to clog up General with just my observations but here I can rant if I choose and people can choose to ignore me or engage my flawed analysis if they wish.

469 replies. On page 1 of 24 pages. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

brm50diboll

First up: The Twilight Zone episode "People Are Alike All Over" from early in the first season (1959) and starring Roddy McDowall as astronaut Sam Conrad on the first manned trip to Mars. He crashes on Mars, his commander dies shortly after the crash and he is afraid to open the door when he hears knocking outside, but in his commander's dying words he is told he shouldn't be afraid because he believes people are alike. So he opens the door and finds Martians dressed in togas who communicate telepathically. The air is breathable, the temperature moderate, and the Martians seem nice, if a little odd and not fully forthcoming. The female Martian tells him we won't hurt you. They take him to a house to wait that is a perfect middle-class 1950s house with all the amenities. But when he gets tired of waiting for them to return, he discovers the house has no windows and the doors are locked. Then a giant window with bars outside it opens up and he sees many Martians looking at him with a sign that reads "Earth Creature in his native habitat" and discovers he is in a zoo. He cries out that his commander was right, people are alike!

If an alien creature landed on earth alive, would we kill it? No. We would put it in a zoo so people could see it! There is a tendency to think in science fiction that if we ever encountered alien intelligent life, it would be technologically inferior to ours. (I know there are no humanoid Martians, but follow my reasoning.) Probabilistically speaking, it is much, much more likely any alien intelligence we encountered would be superior, not inferior to ours.

Reply #1. Jan 02 17, 4:38 PM

daver852

There is a really funny book by Christopher Anvil called "Pandora's Planet." The premise is that aliens invade Earth, but we are more intelligent and more technically advanced than they are, with the exception of interstellar travel.

Reply #2. Jan 02 17, 7:56 PM

brm50diboll

Interesting. I have had people ask me that if I believe there are more technologically advanced civilizations than ours in the Milky Way Galaxy, why aren't we aware of them? Surely our SETI project would've detected them. Perhaps. There are too many uncertainties in the values used in the Drake equation for me to be confident that other intelligent civilizations in our Galaxy exist. But even if they did, perhaps they are bound by a sort of Star Trek-like code "Prime Directive" that prevents them from interfering overtly in the development of our "primitive culture" and to do so, they have shielded themselves from our detection.

Reply #3. Jan 02 17, 8:06 PM

brm50diboll

I did Google "Pandora's Planet" and read the summary and some of the reviews. It does seem interesting. Too bad I don't have time to read actual books anymore, for the foreseeable future. I don't think humans are anywhere near interstellar travel (or even manned interplanetary travel) at the moment. Maybe there is a "simple" shortcut we've missed.

Reply #4. Jan 02 17, 8:16 PM

daver852

The idea that there are other intelligent races but no evidence of them is discussed in Fermi's Paradox. Personally, I think that intelligent life is very rare, and we may very well be the only intelligent species in our galaxy, if not the universe.

Reply #5. Jan 02 17, 10:57 PM

brm50diboll

Consider the HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey. *Disclaimer: I have not read the Arthur C. Clarke book, just have seen the Stanley Kubrick movie. I understand there are significant differences between the two, but since I haven't read the book, all my comments relate to the movie.* What I have read about artificial intelligence work in computers is that it is a completely different order of "intelligence" from humans, but what was fascinating about HAL was that it wasn't just intelligent, it was self-aware and, more interestingly, it was evil. There was a great deal of symbolism regarding the black monoliths that I do not really understand, but if one were to design an AI that approximated human consciousness (as opposed to real AI research in computers), it would need to be self-aware, have drives (an id, so to speak), and have some sort of moral value system that distinguished between good and evil. HAL was evil, but did HAL recognize it was evil? In the sequel 2010, it was explained that HAL's aberrant behavior was a consequence of the secret message it carried creating a programming conflict. A bit too simplistic an explanation, I think. What kind of algorithm would be needed for a computer to have some sort of value system that could be considered moral or ethical to human observers? Maybe the monolith could tell. Whether it was the hominid noticing it could use the bone as a weapon or HAL noticing it could report a false fault to get the astronauts out of the ship, something "clicked" mentally.

Reply #6. Jan 03 17, 8:30 PM

C30

There is a theory that NO intelligent species are to be found in this, or any other, universe!

I ask you, is destroying the planet you live on "intelligent", or spending time and effort in inventing more destructive ways to kill, "intelligent"?

"Beam me up Scotty, there is no intelligent life here"

Reply #7. Jan 04 17, 1:59 AM

brm50diboll

I reject the idea we are "destroying the planet". The planet will survive. Humans may not, but that is a different question. Intelligence does not mean perfection. One can be intelligent and flawed.

Reply #8. Jan 04 17, 11:24 AM

brm50diboll

The climate of the earth has been both far colder and far warmer than it is today numerous times in geologic history. There have been many mass extinctions in geologic history, as well. The great Permian extinction is estimated to have killed off 90% of species. We may well be living in a new human-caused mass extinction now. Life will survive. Earth will not turn into Venus. Humans have been on Earth a far shorter time than most species. The destruction of whole ecosystems will change life, but will not destroy it. As humans, perhaps we should be a little less presumptuous about our importance to life on Earth. The

Reply #9. Jan 04 17, 11:49 AM

brm50diboll

The spurious "the" strikes again!

Reply #10. Jan 04 17, 11:50 AM

Mixamatosis

Sadly the destruction of whole ecosystems will make the Earth that survives less lovely to live in and will future generations blame us for not having saved them?

Reply #11. Jan 05 17, 4:46 AM

brm50diboll

I'm not going to get into politics. My point was humans are intelligent, despite the presence of foolishness and evil. I happen to love dystopias and apocalyptic scenarios and intend to discuss them some other day, but they are fictional. I happen to be an optimist on the future, actually. Thomas Malthus predicted dire consequences for humanity two hundred odd years ago and was wrong. More recently, Paul Ehrlich wrote a book called "The Population Bomb" that predicted all sorts of dire consequences and was wrong. Ignoring technological advances and assuming the future is just a linear extrapolation of the past is a mistake. My vision of the future is actually closer to "Star Trek" than to "Soylent Green", but discussing the more horrible scenarios is sometimes more interesting. They are fiction, though. Fiction is what I want to stick to in my virtual blog. Humans are intelligent. Can we become more intelligent in the future? I think so.

Reply #12. Jan 05 17, 6:19 AM

Mixamatosis

The main factor causing extinction of wildlife (as funtrivia quizes often remind us) is loss of habitat. Some of this loss is from population pressure. I listened to a programme on demographics yesterday which predicted that the world population would start to level off at 10 billion (we are now 7 billion) because by then (the theory is) most of the world will have gone through certain develomental stages of demographics. However the focus on causal factors didn't seem to include culture, religion and women's access to contraception. Some major world religions are against contraception and in many societies women have no power or education.

Reply #13. Jan 06 17, 3:09 AM

brm50diboll

Many, many, real problems out there. But humanity has made it this far and standards of living, even in poor countries, are better than they ever have been in history in most places. Birth rates have dropped even in third world countries. I am not a believer in government-mandated population control measures. People are increasingly choosing contraception on their own, even despite organized religious opposition. But I will stay away from discussing religion as well. I consider myself a traditional Christian, and respect traditions that honor the Golden Rule. We do need better education, however. Our increasingly complex modern technological society demands a better understanding of math and science. Scientists are not an exclusive priesthood with "secret rituals". People need to be able to understand and critically evaluate science and technology to a better extent than is the case now, where much of what happens is totally opaque to most people, breeding mistrust of basic facts, like the value and need for vaccinations, for example.

Reply #14. Jan 06 17, 1:31 PM

Mixamatosis

One of the most successful population control measures was government mandated (China) though the measure was rather brutally enforced. Soon China will be going through what we in the West are going through - an ageing population with not enough young people to provide a welfare support system (via taxation etc) for the old. This is said to be a temporary problem as, once the spike in older people has disappeared through natural means, the population will be in balance again. It mentioned though that the USA had escaped most of this problem because immigration had increased the younger population to keep the workforce vibrant. It postulated that immigration from countries with youthful populations with low job availability, was perhaps one solution to the problem.

Reply #15. Jan 06 17, 3:51 PM

daver852

The problem with population control is not in the industrialized nations, but with burgeoning numbers in underdeveloped countries.

Reply #16. Jan 06 17, 4:42 PM

Mixamatosis

Yes. The programme was looking at things in a global perspective so the high birth rate in some countries, which we may call underdeveloped, was said to have led to the "Arab Spring" upheavals and also mas migration because there are large numbers of young people with aspirations and not enough jobs for them. In Lagos, Nigeria, for instance, which is one of these areas with a high birth rate and a youthful population, the unemployment rate is said to be 40%.

On another science fictiony issue. What do people think of the "Internet of Things". This is the"future" as seen by corporations where everything in our homes is controlled through apps and we have "assistants" in the form of drones or microphones in our home that are interactive, can converse with us and provide information. This already exists with Amazon's "Alexa". However these can pick up everything said in the home. They can gather information about us and our consumer habits, and also they are another thing that hackers can possibly hack. Personally I don't want these things in my life but they may become the norm in future unless there's any significant resistance to going in this direction.

Reply #17. Jan 06 17, 5:16 PM

brm50diboll

I think I will have some time in the future to discuss the increasing reliance by humans on machines and where that may lead us. I am not a Luddite, however. Technology is useful, but it has its limitations. Our problems are not a simple matter of demographics. What advanced first world nations need is not so much youth as a better educated work force. The infusion of large numbers of young people who are unskilled does not help matters. We must adapt to the post industrial societies we now are by improving the education and the skills of the young people we have, not by bringing in hordes of unskilled and poorly educated. For one thing, complicated machines require training to properly use and service.

Reply #18. Jan 06 17, 8:34 PM

Creedy

What do you think of the possibility/likelihood/probability of another genetic split in the human race?

OR, if we become too reliant on machines etc, a regression?

That'd be a great novel.

Reply #19. Jan 06 17, 10:47 PM

brm50diboll

There was HG Wells "The Time Machine" with its Morlocks and Eloi. Humans are continuing to evolve, though the direction it may take is unclear. It certainly has not taken the planned direction in Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" with its societies of alphas, betas, gammas, deltas, and epsilons determined by how much alcohol was added to the decanting vessels the embryos were developed in. But since I brought that up, I am reminded of something the world controller Mustafa Mond said in that book. He said they had tried a test society of all alphas and it was a miserable failure as alphas did not want to do the menial labor necessary in any functioning society. I would daresay most of the regular players here on FT would qualify as alphas by Brave New World standards. Plato's ideal society would be run by "philosopher-kings" who could also be thought of as alphas. But "Star Trek" had a rebuttal to the idea that the best societies would be run by its intellectuals. In the episode "The Cloud Minders", we are shown the hubris of intellectuals who think they know how to run a society but didn't understand the hardships of the people who actually did the work. These leaders literally lived in a city that floated in the clouds called Stratos, while the workers who mined zenite on the surface were called Troglytes. The Troglytes were felt to be intellectually inferior to the Stratosians, but Captain Kirk, in his own patented reckless way, proved that was not the case. Before you judge other people, you should walk a mile in their shoes. Kirk forced the leader of Stratos (at phaser point) to mine zenite with his bare hands. Let's just say that by the end of the episode, Kirk had gotten a little more respect for the Troglytes by the Stratosians.

Reply #20. Jan 07 17, 12:40 AM

469 replies. On page 1 of 24 pages. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

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