Recent content by Hudata

M31. And Saturn- because I've been fascinated by it ever since I was little.

I've been fascinated by space ever since I was very, very small. I remember how shocked I was when I was five or six and my mother explained that there was no floor or "ground" to space. The idea that there could be no "bottom" and no objective "up" and "down" took me aback, and for the first...

Ok. I know this is so simple a point that it sounds trite. Still, it's as valid and unavoidable an issue when it arises in quantum physics as in philosophy, theology, or any other realm: How can it be objectively true that there is no such thing as objective reality if there is no such thing as...

Could the world be otherwise, and yet perfectly habitable for a different kind of critter?

But what if there is no microphone? What if there were nobody in the universe but the man?

In other words, if a man says something and no woman is there to hear it is he still wrong? Well, if something requires observation to exist, sure. But instinctively I don't think it does.

The song is very well known in the USA. I learned it as a toddler. My mother and especially my grandmother used to sing it to my pet triceratops. ;) As a man who honors and respects women and wants to avoid the pitfalls of sexism, "mansplaining," and all the rest, I still remain fascinated by...

Concur. That's not even taking account of issues with which science is not even equipped to address, like self-awareness. What is "self," anyway? What is it to be "aware" in the sense that we are? How is it possible to objectively observe what is subjective by nature? I'm afraid that Data, like...

I don't believe that AI's will ever achieve actual sentience. although I have no doubt that they will simulate it convincingly in the near future. The more we learn about the complexity of the human brain and the nature of consciousness the less likely it seems to me that we will ever be able to...

On the other hand, how much diversity can you have in a population whose central tenet is assimilation?

This is a minor point and I may get some flack for this, but Tuvok always bothered me. Not that Tim Russ didn't do a fine job, but while it makes sense that doctors, the Borg, and many other groups would reflect Terran racial diversity and that Vulcans might be racially diverse as well, somehow...

I'm still waiting to see what the Space Force is actually going to do. My only problem with it is that while it's a cool concept, we seem several decades from it having an actual, useful mission that others aren't accomplishing quite well already.

Hi, everyone. Bob here. 70-year-old retired Lutheran minister, amateur astronomer, and lifelong space nut. Prefer Babylon 5 to Star Trek but like both. I've read all the Dune novels, and have eclectic tastes in sci-fi. Hyukatake, Hale-Bopp, and the Great American Eclipse were among the...