Relevant Academic Disciplines

Several academic disciplines are directly relevant to Poul Anderson's fiction:

cosmogony

cosmology

physics

quantum mechanics

biology

psychology

history

economics

politics

philosophy

theology

Major issues are:

the origin of the universe

the evolution of life

the emergence of consciousness

the nature of intelligence

the organization of society

Those of us who are concerned about such issues read more than Poul Anderson's sf! - although his works often dramatize these issues for us. One regular blog correspondent, Sean M. Brooks, has recommended philosophical works by Mortimer J. Adler whose The Difference Of Man And The Difference It Makes (New York, 1968) is introduced by Theodore T. Puck who suggests that, if human beings are essentially no different from other animals except for having more powerful minds and if machines can be mentally more powerful than human beings, then maybe "...almost any human aspirations..." (p. xv) are invalid? Contradiction and non sequitur. To have a more powerful mind is to be essentially different. Mentally more powerful machines would not invalidate but share human aspirations. 

Adler asks whether human beings differ from other animals:

"Basically in kind or basically in degree?" (p. 10)

Why should it be basically either? Some philosophers recognize that quantitative changes become qualitative. Organismic sensitivity quantitatively increased until it qualitatively changed into bodily sensations which are mentally reorganized into perceptions of discrete objects. Manipulation of a perceived environment led to thought about it. A single line of development includes qualitative transformations. At least, that seems to be an adequate account of what has happened.