Catmachine

The apparent size and age of the universe suggest that many technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilisations ought to exist. However, this hypothesis seems inconsistent with the lack of observational evidence to support it. The Fermi Paradox Why haven't we come across any aliens yet? I'm talking about convincing scientific proof, not garbled " ...them thar moon-critturs been done abducted me ag'in ..." reports from the likes of Cletus Hickson in Bumfuck, Arkansas . It feels right that aliens should exist. Surely by now we should have come across some hard evidence? A belief in aliens is older than our knowledge of the wider universe. Even before we had any idea that there existed worlds other than our own we had a concept of non-human intelligent beings. These concepts were quite distinct from our ideas of other humans. Even if Thugg the Caveman had taken a gap year before going to The University of Central Ugland and had trekked across Europe and down i...

"Sorry, did I say something wrong?" said Marvin, dragging himself on regardless. "Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bother to say it, oh god, I'm so depressed." Douglas Adams, The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy Now that we have our thought experiment of me-as-robot fully set up in the Thought Lab, it's time to start playing with it. Settle down. There are any number of advantages to my new state. Instead of having to struggle with contact lenses and then having to hold small print documents at arms length, I can simply upgrade and get a new pair of peepers from eyeBay. And I'm sure once I get the mechanism calibrated I can do away with all that getting tired stuff and simply go onto standby at the end of the day; no more tedious insomnia. It's only when I start talking about it in this manner that it becomes apparent how complex the human machine is. How many of these things I think I could do without, or...

"There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind" Douglas Adams, So Long And Thanks For All The Fish It can't have escaped the attention of the more observant amongst you that I began both today's and yesterday's entries with a quote from Douglas Adams, specifically quotes from his magnum opus, the five-part Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. Those of you who know me won't be surprised; Douglas Adams's work has been a big influence not only on my own style of writing, but on my mode of speech, my way of thinking, and not to put too fine a point on it, my life. I suppose it can partly be put down to the age at which I became acquainted with it; when Hitch-Hiker's was first broadcast I was an impressionable thirteen year old and, thanks to almost constant self exposure to science fiction in general and Doctor Who in particular, a fledgling nerd. I was therefore gripped initially by the SF ...