One of my characters in Mermaid Song says this, from a point of view ten centuries in our future, with regard to other sentient races in the Cosmos: “Humans nearly destroyed several on your own Earth. That many on one planet is a unique anomaly. Your planet was blessed. Technology is not sentience. The explorers of the Republic have trampled evidence for centuries. As you noticed, humans of the Republic used us for food. The other races avoid viral civilizations as you would a disease. Your sphere of influence was small, only fifteen hundred light years across. A tiny cyst. The electromagnetic radiation you could detect and understand has not reached this area yet and radiation from the ancient races has already passed you by. The radiation you could detect was beyond your ability to recognize. The cyst is remote, you’ve been around an extremely short period of time and the galaxy is very large.”

We are discovering more and more planets. We know of hundreds now. It is beginning to appear that planetary systems are the norm in our galaxy. Wickipedia states there are 200 to 400 billion stars in our galaxy. Our future lies out in the stars. One of our biggest rewards for becoming a viable species on this planet will be interstellar travel. The technology to travel even to the nearest star is far beyond us now, but, perhaps much sooner than we think, someone, somehow will look at things in a new way, create a whole new context for technology and we’ll be able to build our first star ship.

What do you think?

“Humans have no access to reality outside themselves. You are physically engineered to filter experience through your nervous systems, and reconstruct it in your brains, as with most sentient beings.”

“Well then, what are we? The people I know. What are they?”

What is reality? What if reality is a chimera? What if Einstein’s concept of there being no privileged frame of reference applies to our experience of life. In short none of us have a privileged point of view. With an underlying real experience that anyone can assert is theirs, we get a world full of people hell-bent on imposing their reality on others. That’s the way things are now and have been for some time.

If I am right, truly knowing what is going on, and you don’t, I would be hard put to respect your point of view.

Objectivity is a myth. I am certain there is an underlying reality, but no one experiences it directly. Religious faith must ultimately boil down to the fact that God provided you with a privileged frame of reference that need not be investigated or even questioned. The faithful are in direct contact with the truth and God. A very dangerous place for the rest of us considering the faithful cannot be held responsible for their beliefs. They are unable to respond to their own beliefs, they must simply believe because it is true.

What do you think?