are we alone
Having watched the X files on TV, and played in Simon's X files campaign, I
have re-examined my thoughts on various things. Namely, I have had two
rather contradictory attitudes wandering around in my head, and never
noticed :-)
You see, I had taken a lot of the well-thought-out science fiction futures
as reasonable. The idea of mankind developing some sort of ability to
travel to the stars was something I expected. The idea of us encountering
other alien lifeforms I accepted as I read it.
Yet, when I heard about UFOs I thought "complete nut" and dismissed them.
In fact, I had generally two ways of looking at my world. Very much an
"until" script. Thus the first part of my adult life was to be very prosaic,
and involved working as a computer programmer. i took everything very much
as is seen. The other was *when* we had developed star travel, I would "go
to the stars" and be involved in all the wierd and wonderful things that I
read about. Meanwhile, on being confronted with eldrich things (telepathy,
aliens, etc cetera), I would dismiss them
It appears that there are huge facets of contradicion as to what I found
believable. Thus, I practice Aikido, and cannot fail to be aware of some of
the odd things you can do with that :-). I know that often I can feel far
more about a situation than logic tells me, and often those gut feelings are
more right than the rational side of me would want. However, as it amuses
me, I have not worried about it :-)
I find the tool of analysing people using Horoscopes strangely helpful in
understanding people, and their different modes of getting on. Yet, my
logical part will desperately ignore it. I remember many years ago, a
Horizon program on Astrology, which obviously unnerved the producers, as
they had gone to prove what a load of old tosh it was, and found frightening
correlations. Today, you can read about the remarkable correlation between
someone's birthchart and their accident tendencies in the Daily Telegraph.
This is even though that is only using the influence of their Sun Sign,
which any *good* astrologer would shake their head at.
In looking at the character I am playing in the X files campaign, I have
done some research that *she* would have done, and also brought intp sharp
focus the contradiction in *my* head. Jackson is, after all a sceptic
(modelled vaugely after Scully, although *much* uglier), and yet I would
allow her to realise when it is incontrivertable when something is real.
Thus, when she saw the alien spacecraft, and met the telepathic greys, she
has admitted it.
Yeah, all right, that is fiction you say. And so it is. But, the odd thing
is I look around *my* life, and now wonder. I have been reading up and
thinking about it all. I guess also my reevaluatioin of this all goes back
to the time last summer, when the Hale-Bop comet was in the sky. Sue has an
enormous telescope, and we were lucky enough to be able to have it in our
back garden most of the summer. I found myself looking at the stars in a way
I had never done before, and being awed at the scale of the Universe. If you
follow B5, which I do, you will see an example of a reasonably well-thought
out future. For those who do not, there are quite a few alien races (maybe
20?) who are named by humans after the real Earth name for their stars.
Yet, if you look up where Minbare, Centarii etc cetera, are actually
loacted, you will realise that they only occupy a small fraction of the
galaxy (a Known Space region). Yet, the older races are refered to having
gone to the galactic Rim. This is a vast distance away. I am discribing this
pooorly, but basically, the point is that JMS *appears* to have failed to
realise the scale of the galaxy ie hundreds of millions of stars. I had also
done so until very recently, although I have read loads of SF, it had either
not been described, or it had not sunk in.
Now, it feels to me that I live more and more in that SF world that I grew
up reading about. I have my new mobile phone, computers which are obsenely
pwerful. I read on Friday in the Telegraph about the science behind a method of
extending the life of our cells (a major part of an immortality treatment).
I see genetic methods being developed to treat cancers and genetic
abnormalities... and I read about the Face and Pyramids on Mars.
And it goes like this. If there are aliens out there, where are they? If
there are lots of them, are we in a zoo until we "grow up", and that is what
UFOs are? If there are aliens, and life is a common part of the way the
Universe is made, then we are by no means a First One. For life, you need
the elements found on our planet. That means that you need a
second-generation sun (ie one formed out of the remenants of previous suns
that has gone nova). But these ingredients formed several billions of years
before the solar system. Therefore, there could well be aliens with a
head-start of billions of years on us.
And where are they? If they are common, they also need to travel. Even
common does not cover the vast scale of things: "space is *big*. So, is
a hyperdrive theoretically posible? We don't know.
What we *do* know is that if aliens are not out there, we are the most
amasing fluke immaginable. Why would God have made the Universe so damn
*big* if it was meant for just us!
If they *are* out there, then most likely, they have been so for quite a
while. So, if they have been through our solar system, they are either still
here (UFOs etc cetera) or they are long gone. History is such a snap-shot of
the existance of the Earth.
If they are long-gone, then perhaps they would have left us something. Like,
for instance some huge sculpture of a face, plus some pyramids on Mars,
where it would not go off!
whilst I was thinking all this out, the debate about FTL starts up on IFIS.
Like showed me on Thursday, that the debating society will be putting on "Do
Aliens Exist" I read the list, and feel maybe some of you guys feel a bit
like I do now. Wow!! I guess I know which side I am debating. It looks like
fun, too. The world of my imagination is a far more *fun* place, with lots
of interesting things.
Jenny Gould
---
jenny@
"Share and Enjoy"
-Marketing Division, Sirius Cybernetics Corporation
(The above opinions do not represent a policy statement for or on behalf of
One Chip Solutions)
have re-examined my thoughts on various things. Namely, I have had two
rather contradictory attitudes wandering around in my head, and never
noticed :-)
You see, I had taken a lot of the well-thought-out science fiction futures
as reasonable. The idea of mankind developing some sort of ability to
travel to the stars was something I expected. The idea of us encountering
other alien lifeforms I accepted as I read it.
Yet, when I heard about UFOs I thought "complete nut" and dismissed them.
In fact, I had generally two ways of looking at my world. Very much an
"until" script. Thus the first part of my adult life was to be very prosaic,
and involved working as a computer programmer. i took everything very much
as is seen. The other was *when* we had developed star travel, I would "go
to the stars" and be involved in all the wierd and wonderful things that I
read about. Meanwhile, on being confronted with eldrich things (telepathy,
aliens, etc cetera), I would dismiss them
It appears that there are huge facets of contradicion as to what I found
believable. Thus, I practice Aikido, and cannot fail to be aware of some of
the odd things you can do with that :-). I know that often I can feel far
more about a situation than logic tells me, and often those gut feelings are
more right than the rational side of me would want. However, as it amuses
me, I have not worried about it :-)
I find the tool of analysing people using Horoscopes strangely helpful in
understanding people, and their different modes of getting on. Yet, my
logical part will desperately ignore it. I remember many years ago, a
Horizon program on Astrology, which obviously unnerved the producers, as
they had gone to prove what a load of old tosh it was, and found frightening
correlations. Today, you can read about the remarkable correlation between
someone's birthchart and their accident tendencies in the Daily Telegraph.
This is even though that is only using the influence of their Sun Sign,
which any *good* astrologer would shake their head at.
In looking at the character I am playing in the X files campaign, I have
done some research that *she* would have done, and also brought intp sharp
focus the contradiction in *my* head. Jackson is, after all a sceptic
(modelled vaugely after Scully, although *much* uglier), and yet I would
allow her to realise when it is incontrivertable when something is real.
Thus, when she saw the alien spacecraft, and met the telepathic greys, she
has admitted it.
Yeah, all right, that is fiction you say. And so it is. But, the odd thing
is I look around *my* life, and now wonder. I have been reading up and
thinking about it all. I guess also my reevaluatioin of this all goes back
to the time last summer, when the Hale-Bop comet was in the sky. Sue has an
enormous telescope, and we were lucky enough to be able to have it in our
back garden most of the summer. I found myself looking at the stars in a way
I had never done before, and being awed at the scale of the Universe. If you
follow B5, which I do, you will see an example of a reasonably well-thought
out future. For those who do not, there are quite a few alien races (maybe
20?) who are named by humans after the real Earth name for their stars.
Yet, if you look up where Minbare, Centarii etc cetera, are actually
loacted, you will realise that they only occupy a small fraction of the
galaxy (a Known Space region). Yet, the older races are refered to having
gone to the galactic Rim. This is a vast distance away. I am discribing this
pooorly, but basically, the point is that JMS *appears* to have failed to
realise the scale of the galaxy ie hundreds of millions of stars. I had also
done so until very recently, although I have read loads of SF, it had either
not been described, or it had not sunk in.
Now, it feels to me that I live more and more in that SF world that I grew
up reading about. I have my new mobile phone, computers which are obsenely
pwerful. I read on Friday in the Telegraph about the science behind a method of
extending the life of our cells (a major part of an immortality treatment).
I see genetic methods being developed to treat cancers and genetic
abnormalities... and I read about the Face and Pyramids on Mars.
And it goes like this. If there are aliens out there, where are they? If
there are lots of them, are we in a zoo until we "grow up", and that is what
UFOs are? If there are aliens, and life is a common part of the way the
Universe is made, then we are by no means a First One. For life, you need
the elements found on our planet. That means that you need a
second-generation sun (ie one formed out of the remenants of previous suns
that has gone nova). But these ingredients formed several billions of years
before the solar system. Therefore, there could well be aliens with a
head-start of billions of years on us.
And where are they? If they are common, they also need to travel. Even
common does not cover the vast scale of things: "space is *big*. So, is
a hyperdrive theoretically posible? We don't know.
What we *do* know is that if aliens are not out there, we are the most
amasing fluke immaginable. Why would God have made the Universe so damn
*big* if it was meant for just us!
If they *are* out there, then most likely, they have been so for quite a
while. So, if they have been through our solar system, they are either still
here (UFOs etc cetera) or they are long gone. History is such a snap-shot of
the existance of the Earth.
If they are long-gone, then perhaps they would have left us something. Like,
for instance some huge sculpture of a face, plus some pyramids on Mars,
where it would not go off!
whilst I was thinking all this out, the debate about FTL starts up on IFIS.
Like showed me on Thursday, that the debating society will be putting on "Do
Aliens Exist" I read the list, and feel maybe some of you guys feel a bit
like I do now. Wow!! I guess I know which side I am debating. It looks like
fun, too. The world of my imagination is a far more *fun* place, with lots
of interesting things.
Jenny Gould
---
jenny@
"Share and Enjoy"
-Marketing Division, Sirius Cybernetics Corporation
(The above opinions do not represent a policy statement for or on behalf of
One Chip Solutions)