John C. Wright's Blog, page 219

More Reviewer Love for CLOCKWORK PHOENIX

Hat tip to that relentless juggernaut among editors, Mike Allen. He has this to say:

Congratulations to the following Clockwork Phoenix writers whose stories received Honorable Mentions in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois:

 

Marie Brennan (</a></b></a> swan_tower), "A Mask of Flesh"John Grant (</a></b></a> realthog), "All the Little Gods We Are"Tanith Lee, "The Woman"C.S. MacCath, "Akhila, Divided"Cat Rambo (</a></b></a> catrambo), "The Dew Dro

Question about Exolife

"As Jodi Foster says in Contact, "If there isn't life on other worlds, it seems like an awful waste of space." "

Hm.  I wonder if we would be comforted to discover that all those seemingly empty stars are filled with the aliens from ALIEN, predators from PREDATOR, Azathoth, Cthulhu, Skrulls, Klingons, Space Vampires, Rulls, Xeelee, Wormfaces, Scramblers, not to mention Eddoreans, Fenachrone, Overlords of Delgon, and the Dark Lords of Sith, or some other outerspace equivalent of beetle? 

There are

An Apology for the Crusades, or, View from Another Continuum

"So, Roman Catholic Church, it is time to confess to your sins and prepare to meet your maker. Open your archives for all to see. Tell us the truth about your origins. Give back to the Jews any items from the temple of Solomon you have in your possession. Ask the Muslims to forgive you for the Crusades. Explain the total truth of your church and ask for forgiveness, which shall most certainly be granted since, in the overall karmic balance, your good works far exceed your sins." This quote comes

Exolife!

Jordon 179 asks an question worthy of endless debate in his blog, which I copy here to see if my readers also wish to discuss it. He asks about life in the universe:

My question is simple, but I'm going to break it down into sub-questions, and I'd be very interested in hearing both people's opinions of the sub-questions, and their reasons why they hold these beliefs. You don't have to answer all of this, though the more you do the more interesting I'll probably find the answers. The reasons are

Madness

The modern world has gone mad.

Exhibit A: here we have PETA, the Psychotics for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, criticizing with President Obama for ... wait for it .... swatting a fly. I am not making this up.

Here is the link.

The president has been getting lots of kudos for a lightning-fast, Mr. Miyagi-worthy swipe he employed to slay a pesky house fly that was buzzing him in mid-interview during a taping with CNBC that aired Wednesday. "He stopped the interview to track and kill the

Bio-ethics and Scienitific Illiteracy

I was at a science fiction convention not long ago, talking on a panel whose topic was "bio-ethics". The phrase "bio-ethics" as far as I can tell, means the study of how not to apply normal ethical norms to novel medical and biotechnological techniques.

As inevitably happens, some yammerhead began denouncing the religious obscurantism for being "against science" -- apparently on the grounds that abortion is scientific, whereas a descent respect for human life in the womb is unscientific, mere

Green Earthfriendly Tip of the Day

According to Ben Bova's column, ethanol derived from corn, when used for fuel, produces more carbon-dioxide than gasoline. (hat tip to the Sci Fi Catholic)

On the Same Topic

A question for any friendly materialist out there willing to answer.

Randall says: i believe matter exists. It's just Occam that leads me to the assumption that nothing non-material exists.

Mike Flynn answers: 

Obviously, you believe Ockham's Razor exists. Is it material? If so, of what matter is it composed? Of course, few understand what Brother Ockham, OFM, really said. In modern terms, he said, "Don't have too many terms in your models, or you won't understand your own model." He placed no li

The Firebird of Koschei the Deathless

You know, I often wish I had a long green flying-cloak I could use to summon springtide, or, better yet, terraform Mars. Then, I could merely swoop through the thin, chilly skies of that rust-locked planet, or soar down the Valles Marineris, or overtop the Everest-shaming grandeur of Olympus Mons, and spread a sylvan garden, kingly with oak, gorgeous with grass, flower-gemmed and rich with heavy pinelands clad, flowing in my wake, and butterflies would be my heralds.

The only drawback of the t

Dialog with a Materialist

Part of an ongoing conversation:

Jordan 176 (quoting me) writes:

1. If reductionist materialism is true, all reality is unselfaware matter in motion.

Self-awareness is a property of sufficiently complex information-processing systems. The system as a whole is self-aware, though this property does not inhere in the elements. This is called an "emergent property." Emergent properties were unknown to the Ancients, but they are common to many sorts of complex systems; for instance, the physics of gas