We might compile a collection of wise sayings from the Technic History, starting with:
"[Falkayn's] partners...were too experienced to believe the old cliche that all humans look alike." (p. 368)
That is how human beings would look to many intelligent species in Technic civilization: all alike.
"It is just as well that the average human does not know on how many planets he is the standard of the bawdy joke."
-Poul Anderson, INTRODUCTION A SUN INVISIBLE NOTES TOWARD A DEFINTION OF RELATEDNESS IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, December 2009), pp. 263-265 AT p. 265.
This INTRODUCTION is presented as an extract from An Introduction to Sophontology by the mysterious Noah Arkwright who is mentioned only in the three introductions that were added in The Trouble Twisters just as Hloch's twelve introductions and one afterword were added in The Earth Book of Stormgate. The Technic History is elaborate indeed. Fortunately, The Technic Civilization Saga preserves every layer of this narrative.
In the 1960s, I revelled in the idea of a multi-species galaxy where mankind was just one race among many.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
A pity we know so little about Noah Arkwright! Besides being a scholar Arkwright was something of a con man.
I think the only way mankind will ever find out for sure whether or not intelligent life is rare in the galaxy is by getting out there!
Ad astra! Sean
Hi Paul and Sean!
I did the same, in my youth. Nowadays, having been made ever more pessimist, I would regard the discovery on other planets of even bacterial life completely unrelated to Earth life as nearly the worst possible news. My ideal galaxy these days is an Asimov Foundation galaxy...
People's perceptions skip irrelevant detail.
Eg., back when dress was much more dissimilar between the sexes, it was much easier to convincingly imitate the other gender.
People literally didn't -see- as much of the anatomical detail. They looked at the silhouette and other obvious markers. Things that are obvious to us were invisible to them.
The reason people of different appearance 'all look alike' at first is that you're seeing the obvious. You have to get past that stage to see the details.
Kaor, Johan and Mr. Stirling!
Johan: LTNS! I hope you are well. But, I disagree, I would prefer for non Terrestrial life, plant, fauna, intelligent races, to exist on other worlds. Why should you think the discovery of extrasolar life forms of any kind be bad news for mankind? I can see possible dangers, sometimes, among such life forms--but also many benefits.
Mr. Stirling: I agree, many things are obvious once we get past immediate first perceptions. I recall how Conan Doyle used the phenomenon you described in one of his Holmes stores, when he had Irene Adler disguising herself in men's clothes.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean:
I think Johan is concerned about what "Great Filter" is preventing obvious technological species from having taken over the Galaxy.
If there are lots of planets with complex life on them that suggests the Great Filter is most 'intelligent' species making mistakes that kill themselves off, like nuclear war or environmental mismanagement.
Another pessimistic possibility is that interstellar travel is way harder than we think.
OTOH is complex life is rare, then humans are the lucky ones & we have a good chance of spreading through the galaxy.
Kaor, Jim!
Or, as Anderson suggested in IS THERE LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS?, the human race might be one of the earlier intelligent species to achieve a high tech civilization in our galaxy. If so, that could explain why efforts at SETI has not, as yet, found unequivocal proofs of intelligent life elsewhere.
I would still prefer the human race to go boldly out into the cosmos, instead of cowering in terror on Earth!
Ad astra! Sean
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