Horcrux! Soul Fossil! Dragon Cathedral! Adhocracy! Space Catholics! Dang. I wanna come too.
Morphing into somewhat jellyfish status to travel faster than human bodies can tolerate - I seem to remember something like that used in a sci-fi novel from my youth, Piers Anthony's, "The Macroscope". The humans would climb into their dissolution chambers & essentially morph back through evolution to a primordial ooze, then be reconstituted/reassembled upon arrival.
The part of your wide-ranging proposition, Soul Fossils, is also reminding me of Neil Stephenson's, "Fall, or Dodge in Hell", in which the protagonist's brain/mind is downloaded into a virtual reality which he has to create, kind of like a God.
Great minds picking up on similar scenarios?
Your above scenario would make a great novel, you know...
The “corpsicle” is a common scifi trope, but I just always figured there was no way we were going to get technology to a state where we find it’s the tech and not our “don’t freeze me!” biology that’s the limiter. We aren’t made to be frozen. I tried reading a Xanth book but couldn’t get into it. I do love Neal Stephenson! The Baroque Cycle is an all time favorite.
Also if you could go to Christmas Mass at a Dragon Cathedral wouldn’t you do that?
Another thought provoking read, my Guy. But one question - why delineate between higher and lower order lifeforms when deciding whether or not to begin the process of terraforming etc? I assume that you do not want to interfere with the destiny of said lifeform(s) (akin to the directive in Star Trek), but why the distinction? If the presence of ANY lifeform (e.g. non-intelligent/unevolved) is enough to leave a planet alone, and look for another, why were the lifeforms split into two categories? It seems like you could simply say, "If there is any life there, we move on." If you are willing to ignore the unintelligent lifeforms, and proceed with terraforming, then two categories are indeed necessary. But if I read the piece correctly, you would not disturb EITHER form of life, in which case, again, why have two categories? I, for one, believe that life is actually quite prolific, in habitable (i.e. Goldilocks) zones. If life is found to be widespread, then you would need categories (as you would have to ignore the cases with lower organisms, and go ahead as planned). But you could still leave planets which support intelligent species alone (if you so choose, you might just want to spread the glory of Catholicism to the savages).
Just saw this: basically you also want to skip the worlds with life on them because i don’t think that’s actually a net benefit. There’s too many ways for it to be fundamentally incompatible with us. If some of our molecular chirality went the other way, you could be surrounded by stuff chemically identical to stuff on Earth, but you’d starve if you ate it all. It would just be easier to work from a clean slate.
My guess is that the great filter is the formation of the first cells. I could be wrong, but it’s just so hard to get that thing working right.
I for sure want to read the fiction set in Space Catholic land. As a Frank Herbert nerd, the idea of Space Catholic sounds to me like if the Butlarian Jihad never happened and the Bene Gesserit and Bene Tleilax were united in common purpose . . . super weird and interesting! Do you in fact have a bunch of Space Catholic fiction I've overlooked??
First paragraph of the article. People do gravestone rubbing, not etching. You also have one JOE-el.
To my Catholic eyes, you seem to be overly obsessed with prolonging the existence of the human race. The fossil record of Earth shows that God seems to like starting over again with major extinction events. God had a magnificent thing going with the dinosaurs, but he decided to rub the slate clean and start over.
I view the self-destruction of the human race as a probable part of God's Great Saga. We left Eden and found we did badly on our own. Bringing about our own demise would be the ultimate proof that we do poorly apart from God. That's why in the Book of Revelation God has to restart the human enterprise in a "new heaven and the new earth.”
Indeed, all parts of the New Testament agree that our time on this earth will end, and that the permanent human community can only begin when Jesus returns in glory to reign over those who obey God—a hope diametrically at odds with your hope to perpetuate the human race indefinitely in the form of space Catholics.
And, if I take your plan seriously, you can only begin to save the human race at some distant point in the future when near lightspeed space travel is possible. If your first wave of probes encounters unsuitable planets, you plan to divert them to another system more light years away, and if that proves unsuitable, onto another system. Hard to see how to meet the energy requirements for so much cruising around the universe.
Thanks for the eye. I wrote this under hostile conditions as my son thinks it’s very funny to attack me while I’m writing now. And it is funny. But also frustrating.
I guess the way I look at a lot of this stuff, regarding the fate of humanity and the universe, is that I should try to do the best thing that I can understand even after I thought about it and wondered and prayed and asked if there was something better. I can still be wrong/following my own ego, etc, but that’s the duty I feel I owe. I don’t think God made a mistake to make us and I’d like him to look at the universe one day and see us live up to something He gave us.
Dear Some Guy: I laid a pretty heavy trip on you with all my theology, and I know that you are struggling to think these things through the best way you can. I hope you know that I really like your work.
I mean, you have to have a sense of humor about it. And then they’ll ask “Who is that?” And you’ll have to explain books, television, adaptations, etc and our crab-people descendants will be very intrigued by all of it.
Horcrux! Soul Fossil! Dragon Cathedral! Adhocracy! Space Catholics! Dang. I wanna come too.
Morphing into somewhat jellyfish status to travel faster than human bodies can tolerate - I seem to remember something like that used in a sci-fi novel from my youth, Piers Anthony's, "The Macroscope". The humans would climb into their dissolution chambers & essentially morph back through evolution to a primordial ooze, then be reconstituted/reassembled upon arrival.
The part of your wide-ranging proposition, Soul Fossils, is also reminding me of Neil Stephenson's, "Fall, or Dodge in Hell", in which the protagonist's brain/mind is downloaded into a virtual reality which he has to create, kind of like a God.
Great minds picking up on similar scenarios?
Your above scenario would make a great novel, you know...
The “corpsicle” is a common scifi trope, but I just always figured there was no way we were going to get technology to a state where we find it’s the tech and not our “don’t freeze me!” biology that’s the limiter. We aren’t made to be frozen. I tried reading a Xanth book but couldn’t get into it. I do love Neal Stephenson! The Baroque Cycle is an all time favorite.
Also if you could go to Christmas Mass at a Dragon Cathedral wouldn’t you do that?
Oh heck yeah! Does smoke come out of it's nostrils at midnight?
Only if the new space pope has been elected.
Ah the ole Space Catholic trope!
Just kidding, this was a crazy article. Reminds me of the Ender's Game series with the Brazilian Space Catholics.
That planet is too sexy for me.
Another thought provoking read, my Guy. But one question - why delineate between higher and lower order lifeforms when deciding whether or not to begin the process of terraforming etc? I assume that you do not want to interfere with the destiny of said lifeform(s) (akin to the directive in Star Trek), but why the distinction? If the presence of ANY lifeform (e.g. non-intelligent/unevolved) is enough to leave a planet alone, and look for another, why were the lifeforms split into two categories? It seems like you could simply say, "If there is any life there, we move on." If you are willing to ignore the unintelligent lifeforms, and proceed with terraforming, then two categories are indeed necessary. But if I read the piece correctly, you would not disturb EITHER form of life, in which case, again, why have two categories? I, for one, believe that life is actually quite prolific, in habitable (i.e. Goldilocks) zones. If life is found to be widespread, then you would need categories (as you would have to ignore the cases with lower organisms, and go ahead as planned). But you could still leave planets which support intelligent species alone (if you so choose, you might just want to spread the glory of Catholicism to the savages).
Just saw this: basically you also want to skip the worlds with life on them because i don’t think that’s actually a net benefit. There’s too many ways for it to be fundamentally incompatible with us. If some of our molecular chirality went the other way, you could be surrounded by stuff chemically identical to stuff on Earth, but you’d starve if you ate it all. It would just be easier to work from a clean slate.
My guess is that the great filter is the formation of the first cells. I could be wrong, but it’s just so hard to get that thing working right.
There seems to be an underlying aquatic theme to this post.
Did you write it after watching “Finding Nemo” with your family?
lol. This is true, actually. But crabs also have evolved like the most separate times in history. God loves crabs.
I for sure want to read the fiction set in Space Catholic land. As a Frank Herbert nerd, the idea of Space Catholic sounds to me like if the Butlarian Jihad never happened and the Bene Gesserit and Bene Tleilax were united in common purpose . . . super weird and interesting! Do you in fact have a bunch of Space Catholic fiction I've overlooked??
Not yet! But the one about Mars comes kinda close.
First paragraph of the article. People do gravestone rubbing, not etching. You also have one JOE-el.
To my Catholic eyes, you seem to be overly obsessed with prolonging the existence of the human race. The fossil record of Earth shows that God seems to like starting over again with major extinction events. God had a magnificent thing going with the dinosaurs, but he decided to rub the slate clean and start over.
I view the self-destruction of the human race as a probable part of God's Great Saga. We left Eden and found we did badly on our own. Bringing about our own demise would be the ultimate proof that we do poorly apart from God. That's why in the Book of Revelation God has to restart the human enterprise in a "new heaven and the new earth.”
Indeed, all parts of the New Testament agree that our time on this earth will end, and that the permanent human community can only begin when Jesus returns in glory to reign over those who obey God—a hope diametrically at odds with your hope to perpetuate the human race indefinitely in the form of space Catholics.
And, if I take your plan seriously, you can only begin to save the human race at some distant point in the future when near lightspeed space travel is possible. If your first wave of probes encounters unsuitable planets, you plan to divert them to another system more light years away, and if that proves unsuitable, onto another system. Hard to see how to meet the energy requirements for so much cruising around the universe.
Thanks for the eye. I wrote this under hostile conditions as my son thinks it’s very funny to attack me while I’m writing now. And it is funny. But also frustrating.
I guess the way I look at a lot of this stuff, regarding the fate of humanity and the universe, is that I should try to do the best thing that I can understand even after I thought about it and wondered and prayed and asked if there was something better. I can still be wrong/following my own ego, etc, but that’s the duty I feel I owe. I don’t think God made a mistake to make us and I’d like him to look at the universe one day and see us live up to something He gave us.
Dear Some Guy: I laid a pretty heavy trip on you with all my theology, and I know that you are struggling to think these things through the best way you can. I hope you know that I really like your work.
You’re totally fine. I get weirded out by a lot of my own opinions when I read them the next day.
Tee hee!
My digital fosil would likely be closer the uncle you mention at the beginning of this article than I'd like to admit 🤪
This is why we need to all practice being uncomfortably sincere with each other.
Okay. I think that's good idea in principle, but I don't understand how that relates to creating a digital fossil.
I figure they’ll sound the way you sounded when writing. So if you want to have an uncomfortably sincere fossil you have to be sincere all the time.
Okay. Fair enough 👍🏻
"I Am Hari Seldon!"
--first thing I'd say on Jo-El.
I mean, you have to have a sense of humor about it. And then they’ll ask “Who is that?” And you’ll have to explain books, television, adaptations, etc and our crab-people descendants will be very intrigued by all of it.