Thursday 7 December 2017

Cosmic Consciousness

On Earth, there is both animal and human consciousness. What else might there be here or elsewhere?

(i) Poul Anderson imagines non-human Terrestrial intelligences. See here.

(ii) Alan Moore imagines a vegetable consciousness pervading the Earth. See here.

(iii) CS Lewis imagines immortal inorganic intelligences throughout the Solar System. See here.

(iv) Fred Hoyle imagines intelligent interstellar gas clouds. See here.

(v) In Anderson's Technic History, the universe produces sophonts as casually as snowflakes. See here.

(vi) James Blish imagines immortal energy beings interacting with civilizations in successive galaxies. See here.

(vii) In Anderson's Genesis, inorganic intelligences emanating from Earth find little life and apparently no extrasolar organic intelligences. See here.

(viii) Current evidence: many nearby extrasolar planets, some suitable for life, but no life or intelligence detected as yet. See here.

Seven fictional examples, three by Anderson.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Thanks for linking to my essay about "Night Piece," an extremely difficult to understand story by PA.

Of the seven examples you listed, by preference is for (v), where we see many non human intelligent races in the Technic History.

Sean