Alien Psychology

[madd0ct0r]

on of two sci fi books - dark side of the sun: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Side_of_the_Sun

also includes probability math used as an oracle, robots doing morris dancing, a race called the 'erg' i think, who were so alien to humans that erg cosplayed as humans for new insights into the universe (and for some reason always reminded me of the Japanese).

In his other sci -fi book - there's two significant alien races, the Kung and the Shand. A running theme in the book is that none of the races can really understand each other but get along fine, and just picture each other as furry humans (or equivalent). This is referred to as being 'cosmopolitan'.

[Batman]

Oh right. I remember Strata now. I was even worse than the first two Discworld books.

[Chirios]

I don't see where space travel is incompatible with religion - there are plenty of religious people involved in the US space program, including scientists and astronauts.

It isn't, but many aspects of human (or alien) sacrifice would be. Sacrifice was claimed to be necessary to ensure the functioning of the universe, we know for a fact that it isn't, and a sufficiently advanced alien society would know the same.

[Ahriman238]

I don't see where space travel is incompatible with religion - there are plenty of religious people involved in the US space program, including scientists and astronauts.

It isn't, but many aspects of human (or alien) sacrifice would be. Sacrifice was claimed to be necessary to ensure the functioning of the universe, we know for a fact that it isn't, and a sufficiently advanced alien society would know the same.

I remember a short story some time ago about the chaplin on a space cruiser of exploration. He had a few arguments with atheist crew members (particularly the doctor) until they found something to affirm and destroy faith at the same time. They the remains of an alien culture, the first proof of alien life they know. The aliens were killed in a supernova, and built a vast repository of their history, science and culture within their system's version of Pluto. For a few weeks the crew immerse themselves in studying the aliens, until they start calculating dates and find the light of that nova reached earth... around 4 BC. Considered by most theologians to be the actual year of Christ's birth.

I wonder how that would have played when they got home.

[Simon_Jester]

Shrugged off as cosmic coincidence? If you're not a Christian, this proves nothing, because stars go nova all the time. It's not hard to believe that an unexpected big light in the sky would get rolled into someone's savior-myth if it happened around the time of their birth. Especially when there's a lot of vagueness about which year they were born in; Jesus's birth is described in the gospels as being simultaneous with the census of Quirinius (6 CE), but also simultaneous with the reign of Herod (who died in 4 BCE). The waters are permanently muddy, in my opinion.

If you are a Christian, this is weird- but you don't necessarily have to think of that star exploding as a consequence of divine intervention or say that it happened "because" of the birth of Christ or the need for that. If Christians can cope mentally with plagues, earthquakes, and hurricanes, they can cope with novas. And there's still the doubt about whether the "Star of Bethlehem" was in fact the nova in question, whether there was some sort of confusion, blah blah blah...

Really, I think the news would kind of get swallowed up- it hits this chaplain so hard because he's a very sensitive, imaginative man with no one to reassure him when the underpinnings of his beliefs start to wobble.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I remember reading that story as well, although I cant remember where.

I think it was not so much the 4 Ce nova thing that damaged faith, but rather another civilisation that their all-loving God allowed to be obliterated by soemthing that should (to an omnipotent being) be easy to stop.

[madd0ct0r]

on a simlar vein, came across a short story a while ago.

the team were investigating a species of fungus, that seemed to be able to communicate by exuding rings of changing chemicals in the mud around them. It's a very slow, blurry way to communicate, but the results were starting to become consistent.
the chaplin on the team was more interested in their understanding of moral concepts.

Working on his own, he sinks in a mud pit. The fungi's reaction is "At last, something to really work with, not those silly surface chems"

[Nyrath]

I remember a short story some time ago about the chaplin on a space cruiser of exploration. He had a few arguments with atheist crew members (particularly the doctor) until they found something to affirm and destroy faith at the same time. They the remains of an alien culture, the first proof of alien life they know. The aliens were killed in a supernova, and built a vast repository of their history, science and culture within their system's version of Pluto. For a few weeks the crew immerse themselves in studying the aliens, until they start calculating dates and find the light of that nova reached earth... around 4 BC. Considered by most theologians to be the actual year of Christ's birth.

Yes, Sir Arthur C. Clarke's The Star 1955, which regularly comes up in rec.art.sf.written's "What's The Name Of This Story?" category,

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?40913