Understanding the Universe

Understanding the universe is not a small question, but it is nonetheless a task that humantity has set ourselves. It is not only that scientists all focus on their own preferred aspects of this universe, but that every baby actually takes on this task - starting three to four months before they are born.

When a task looks too big, it is natural to divide it into smaller tasks. When the scale of an undertaking gets away from us, it is useful to focus first on what is within our grasp. There is an old adage that applies both to scientists and to babies: we can only learn what we almost already know. It also applies to AI, to Artificial Intelligence.

So let us start from an anthropocentric or babycentric viewpoint. The baby looks outwards at the mother that cares for it, the family that nurtures it, the culture that provides its norms, the society that provides the framework for all this, and the physical environment of village, town or city, nation, state and/or country, continent and planet, that embed them all.

Technically the baby's task is developing an ontology, an understanding of what exists around it. Part of this is language, and indeed the learning of phonology and prosody, and even the beginnings of syntax and semantics, starts before they're even born. But a baby doesn't distinguish between what is physical law and social convention, intrinsic property or arbitrary labeling. The sound of the word 'milk' or 'orange' or 'juice' is just as fundamental to the baby's understanding as the taste, color, texture and so on. Even the way you consume it is part of this meaning complex.

A famous anecdote has a teacher showing a piece of fruit to a class of kindergarten children.  They are unanimous that it is a grapefruit... until the teacher starts to peel and segment it and eat it like an orange. Now they are convinced that it must be an orange. The practical pragmatics of how you get nourishment from the piece of fruit far outweighs the superficial, accidental, features of color and size that we rely on initially.  Those are only clues to guide us into deciding if and when and where and how we might eat it.

Culture shock is the adult version of the same phenomenon - when we move to a different society things that we take for granted, habits and customs that are ingrained and fundamental to our understanding of our world... all these can be torn away from us in an instant. Or were in the world I grew up in before the advent of instantaneous worldwide communication and ubiquitous multimedia.

As the child grows up, the intrinsic scientist becomes a student and extends the horizons of their universe. As an adult in our modern civilization they may focus down into a particular trade, or they may turn their search of the universe to research that takes them beyond the here and now of everyday life, to seeking knowledge of the broader universe, the knowledge that we call science.

Science

Some scientists turn a microscope on their society and the culture; some turn it to the human psyche and nervous system, some to the cells and atoms that make up the biological and geological world. Some dig back into the past; some delve into the future; some spread their wings above, below and beyond the surface of this planet...

Some scientists turn a telescope to the stars, distinguishing wandering planets and distant galaxies. Some seek to understand the nature of matter, both the microcosm within and the macrocosm without. Some seek to understand the nature of nature, of time and space. 

It is not enough to derive empirical laws, we want to explain and understand our universe. Are we in a universe governed by precise but arbitrary laws? Or is their a rhyme and reason behind it all that we have not yet understood?

Not only do we move within and without, to lower and higher scales from the womb of our initial development, we also suspect that there are further dimensions beyond the familiar space and time.  Modern theories of physics hypothesize a variety of different dimensions: some microscopic, some macroscopic, some that might provide shortcuts across space and time.

From Science Faction to Science Fiction and back

The purpose of my writing is to blur the distinction between science fiction and science fact. Science theories are always fiction - a theory is just a story with arguments and logic that aim to provide an explanation of what we know and experience, as well as to explore implications that go beyond what is known or has ever been experienced.

The best scientists are interdisciplinary and creative - their broad experience and imaginative explorations allows them to see connections that others haven't and couldn't.

The best science fiction authors also extend the bounds of science, and the mark of good hard science fiction is how well it develops and predicts the future of technology.

My Paradisi Lost stories

Encounters with wormholes and asteroids, exploited, benign and catastrophically dangerous feature in the Paradisi Chronicles stories, including my Casindra Lost subseries, which also feature genetic engineering, an emergent AI 'Al' and a captain who is reluctantly crewed with him on a rather long journey to another galaxy - just the two of them, and some cats... There's another AI, 'Alice' that emerges more gradually in the Moraturi arc. The Paradisi colonization aims to preserve the pristine ecosystems of New Eden, restrict mining to the other planets and asteroids of the system, and genetically modify people to suit the ecosystem rather than overwhelm it with introduced species: https://paradisichronicles.wordpress.com/

Casindra Lost

Kindle ebook (mobi) edition ASIN: B07ZB3VCW9 — tiny.cc/AmazonCL

Kindle paperback edition ISBN-13: 978-1696380911 justified Iowan OS

Kindle enlarged print edn ISBN-13: 978-1708810108 justified Times NR 16

Kindle large print edition ISBN-13: 978-1708299453 ragged Trebuchet 18

Moraturi Lost

Kindle ebook (mobi) edition ASIN: B0834Z8PP8 – tiny.cc/AmazonML

Kindle paperback edition ISBN-13: 978-1679850080 justified Iowan OS 

Moraturi Ring

Kindle ebook (mobi) edition ASIN: B087PJY7G3 – tiny.cc/AmazonMR

Kindle paperback edition ISBN-13: 979-8640426106 justified Iowan OS 

Author/Series pages and Awards

http://tiny.cc/AmazonPL & http://tiny.cc/AmazonMW

WorldCon2020 presentation (COVID-style):

http://tiny.cc/CoNZHumanTalkyPPT (downloadable talky) & http://tiny.cc/CoNZHumanTalkyPPT

New York City Book Awards 2021 (Gold and Silver): 

https://nycbookawards.spread.name/?filter=Category-%3AScience%2520Fiction,Science%2520Fiction%252F%2520Adventure

Paradisi Chroncles Lost Mission page:

https://paradisichronicles.wordpress.com/lost-mission-series/