Ted Chiang’s Sci-Fi stories: reviewed by Joyce Carol Oates

Copyright 2019, InterAmerica, Inc.

The May 13, 2019 New Yorker has a review, by Joyce Carol Oates of Ted Chiang's Sci-Fi oeuvre [Page 63 ff.]:

2002’s Stories of Your Life and Others  and his newest Exhalation [Knopf]

Ms. Oates’ offers excerpted sentences that told me the stories were right up my alley since they pertain to concepts and ideas often discussed here and at other UFO blogs and sites.

For instance “In an appendix to the collection, headed ‘Story Notes,’ Chiang says that the ‘Alchemist’s Gate’ was inspired by the physicist Kip Thorne, who speculated that one might be able to create a time machine that obeyed Einstein’s theory of relativity.”

In her mention of a story about a parrot, whose species is facing extinction, Oates offers this from the tale:

“The universe is so vast that intelligent life must have surely have arisen. The universe is also so old that even one technological species would have had time to expand and fill the galaxy. Yet there is no sign of life anywhere except on Earth. Humans call this the Fermi Paradox … sometimes known as the Great Silence. The universe should be a cacophony of voices, but instead it is disconcertingly quiet.”

And in “What’s Expected of Us” is this:

“Pretend that you have free will. It’s essential that you behave as if your decisions matter, even though you know they don’t. The reality isn’t important: what’s important is your belief, and believing the lie is the only way to avoid a walking coma. Civilization now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has.”

“The Truth of fact, the Truth of Feeling” is a meditation on memory. And “The Lifestyle of Software Objects” is about virtual robots, “digients.”

“Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom” (in Exhalation) concerns a “paraself” – a self that inhabits a parallel universe.

Ms. Oates gives a “high five” to both the 2002 book and the new one, Exhalation so I ordered both from Amazon, which my pal Bryan Sentes will rebuke because of the bad working conditions, he says, at the large retailer.

(I’ve asked for his forgiveness.)

RR

The Earth’s [unique] Reality and UFOs

Copyright 2019, InterAmerica, Inc.

Let me try this one more time….

The one thing that undercuts my thesis that an advanced extraterrestrial civilization hasn’t visited or isn’t visiting Earth – whether by von Neumann probes or physically (actually) – is the idea, which I fully support, that Earth is a unique planet, a one-of-a-kind existence in the cosmos.

The “reality” of Earth is a reality that we human s understand, somewhat, and appreciate, which almost forces the idea that ETS from elsewhere would, upon discovering us, by accident or probes, be fascinated by life here.

My position remains that earth is such a backwater planet, in a cosmic location that it would make it unlikely that anything or any other sentient beings would find us or keep coming here, via probes or by space craft [UFOs], in the numbers that sightings or reports seem to indicate.

Moreover, Earthlings moving out into the vast array of space to colonize other planets, for the sake of discovery or because Earth becomes endangered by catastrophes of many kinds, is a scenario also tempered by distances, time, and other factors which mitigate a wholesale emigration elsewhere.

We one-of-a-kind human race are going nowhere and are visited by no one now or ever.

Thus, it seems we should wallow in our uniqueness and celebrate what we are and will be for a very long time, and give up the hope that “outsiders” will appear or have appeared to observe us benignly, apparently.

The humanoid encounters reported in the UFO context are answered by Jose Caravaca’s Distortion Theory or the asides of Jacques Vallee, John Keel, and others.

Those encounters are also unique to our existence.

The hippie statement of the 60s applies: Where you are is where it’s at.

N.B. Image atop from http://www.bigideaskc.com/articles/you-are-unique/

RR