A
spaceship of the Grand Survey or later of the Allied Planets enters
orbit around a planet covered with elaborate buildings and other
structures constructed by mobile, bipedal organisms which have fingers
and opposable thumbs at the end of forelimbs freed for manipulation and
which cooperate by exchanging complicated signals with sound waves and
flashing lights. However, each organism has no brain, just internal
mechanisms for reception and response. They cannot converse
linguistically because they are not conscious. Is this feasible?
11 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Probably not naturally, thru ordinary evolution. But, apologies for mentioning it yet again, "The High Ones" comes to mind. The "fauna" dwelling on the planet Zolotoy were not conscious, but were making use of elaborate structures and complex mechanisms. Thousands of years before, a totalitarian regime arose on Zolotoy which succeeded in banning independent thought. In time, evolution got rid of a function, intelligence, that was not being used. The Zolotoyans became creatures empty of mind and selfhood programmed to make use of devices and constructs they did not know they did not understand.
Now I'm rather sorry "The High Ones" was not placed in the Technic timeline! I also wrote a letter to Anderson discussing that story, because it bothered me.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I should have added to my comment above that if Anderson had written "The High Ones" to be part of the Technic series, the background setting of the story would have to be very different, to make it fit in. The story as we have it has a very different scenario, using as background the hypothesis a Soviet conquest of all Earth.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But surely the situation on the other planet is a comment on the situation on Earth?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Another thought I had was that in THE REBEL WORLDS, Chapter III, we see Flandry making some commends about some intelligent races he knew of that seems appropriate to this discussion. He said, in part: "One species may be combative and anarchic by nature, another peaceful and antlike, a third peaceful and anarchic, a fourth a bunch of aggressive totalitarian hives."
Which made me wonder, can the individual members of a species that was antlike or members of aggressive totalitarian hives be intelligent and self aware as we understand those terms? The context of Flandry's remarks makes me wonder if "intelligence" in those species has to act thru all its members linked together in some kind of mass "hive" mind. Because these two races reminded me of the Zolotoyans in "The High Ones." And, yes, I could be wrong!
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
At first I was not sure what to make of your comment. But, speaking from memory, Anderson's thought in "The High Ones" was that Marxist totalitarianism, by claiming to be perfect and infallible, would naturally or logically end in banning all independent thought. That a regime like that which had conquered Earth might end, after thousands of years, with the human race suffering a fate like that of the Zolotoyans.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Any kind of totalitarianism, not just one claiming to be Marxist.
The Time Traveler travels to 802,701 AD and finds an evolutionary outcome of Victorian social divisions. Anderson's space travelers, in "The High Ones," travel to an extra-solar planet and find an evolutionary outcome of totalitarianism.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But Marxist totalitarianism was the example Anderson specifically mentioned in "The High Ones." And you can't deny the longest lasting and most vicious totalitarianisms of the 20th/21st centuries has been the Marxist ones.
I've read Wells' THE TIME MACHINE more than once and I never thought his rather ridiculous scenario of evolution driven by Victorian socio/economic stratifications convincing. Contrastingly, I find the situation hypothesized in "The High Ones" far more plausible.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Yes, I do. Stalin's dictatorship was the antithesis of Marx's message of proletarian self-emancipation. We draw the line between indisputable fact and political interpretation in a different place. We should at least clarify where that line lies. We will never agree on the political interpretation.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
First, and most objectionably, not Stalin alone. All the horrors he perpetrated began and were started by Lenin. All that Stalin did was to complete and extend what Lenin had started. I will never agree to any minimizing of Lenin's share of these evils. also, Lenin and Stalin were constantly justifying what they did via their quoting from and interpreting of the Marxist scriptures. And every other single Marxist regime behaved likewise.
Given all that, I find it unacceptable to argue Marx preached a "...message of proletarian self-emancipation," whatever that means. People who would like to sympathize with Marxism would do better to discover what it was within Marxism that made its so easy to use for totalitarian ends.
Anderson himself, at one time, was inclined to regard Marxism favorably, but became totally disillusioned with it. I based this both from his published works and comments he made to me by letter.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
There is no dispute that Anderson did not support Marxism.
Marxist texts are not scriptures. Marx and Engels said in a later Preface to the Manifesto that something in it had been disproved by history.
Marx did not preach. He promoted proletarian self-emancipation which has a very clear meaning which is not altered by anything done later by anyone else. Every so-called Marxist regime did likewise.
By now, you should know in advance what I will say at each stage of this argument and that, after everything has been said, we will still disagree so why go through it again? I am not concerned to prove my case in this forum. I am content simply to note a disagreement as with some other issues.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
For which I apologize. On some matters we are never going to agree.
Btw, I went to Barnes and Noble Saturday, where I ordered a copy of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's MARCH 1917, in three volumes.
Been in a chess mood lately, reading/playing thru some of the lines in Howard Staunton's CHESS PRAXIS, a rpt. of his 1861 chess manual. I had GREAT difficulty relearning Descriptive notation.
I'm a slow reader, but I finally finished Tolkien's THE CHILDREN OF HURIN. And I'm getting near the end of Anderson's THE GAME OF EMPIRE.
Ad astra! Sean
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