Religions > Atheism > OT: Alternative physiologies - how would you classify these things?
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Uncle Buck" |
| Date: |
07 Mar 2006 06:25:15 PM |
| Object: |
OT: Alternative physiologies - how would you classify these things? |
I'm pondering alternative anatomical models of biology, and am curious how
others here might classify some of these things. Assume we've made it into
space and are now encountering extraterrestrial lifeforms of some of the
descriptions below. How might you suggest we go about classifying - or even
just deciding -how- to classify - these things?
1. "Hemians" - Among all the lifeforms we encounter, these bi-pedal
humanoid-like creatures are the most similar to us in appearance, and we get
along fabulously on a social/cultural level, to the point of lifelong
pair-bonding in some cases. However, what we would classify as "male" based on
anatomy alone is actually the egg-producing gender, and what we would classify
as "female" based on anatomy is the sperm-producer. When they copulate, the
"male" 'ejaculates' his egg into the womb of the "female", the 'uterus' of which
is in a state of constant sperm-production (the 'uterine' wall sort of "sweats"
sperm, and periodically flushes in a non-sexual event we might compare to
nocturnal emissions on human males). Once the egg is fertilized, it attaches to
the 'uterine' wall and sperm production ceases until after the child is born.
The "male", meanwhile, is free to go elsewhere and lay as many other eggs as
'he' wants.
Query: Any thoughts on how to label their genders in human terms?
Would our present "male" and "female" suffice, with perhaps the qualifier
"hemian" before it, or should we come up with something new to describe them
with? Assuming as would probably be the case that they're not at all
genetically compatible with us, how would you view human/hemian sexual
relations? Would a human male and a hemian egg-carying "male" be "homosexual"
since they both have a penis? Or perhaps sperm and egg production would be the
defining factors to you? Or perhaps even more, you'd just chuck the notion of
male and female completely when trying to describe such relationships?
2. "Pledia fruit": Got the idea behind this one from an old B-movie, the
identity of which I'm unable to locate at the moment. A plant we call "pledia"
is found the fruits of which induces the bodies of many terrestrial females -
humans included - to spontaneously clone itself. The pregnancy once rooted
transpires just like any other, only there is no father. At first, the
offspring of such pregnancies are often horrendously mutated. But in short
order, medications and supplements of varying sorts are found which bring the
mutation rate down to acceptable levels (about what it is with normal sexual
reproduction). Within a hundred years, pledia fruit has become the preferred
reproductive option for a large enough percentage of human females, that the
extinction of the human male has become assured.
Query: Would you hope to find some way to preserve the human male? If
so, why? (Note that this is actually a question we can already ask - at our
present level of technology, an all-female society is already possible (if not
practically achieved), and in ways that an all-male society isn't.)
3. "The Temporoi" - We encounter a species who have naturally evolved the
ability to travel through time by a sort of "temporal arm", the evolution of
which is only possible due to certain temporal conditions and exotic types of
matter to exist near their world of origin (the existence of the exotic matter
is determined to have been the result of some aeons-gone civilization, but its
mingling with other elements and evolving into biotemporal lifeforms was a
purely natural process). Via chambers resembling miniature passenger cars on
trains, they're able to permit human observers to accompany them on some of
their travels into the past and the future. There is a "speed bump" point,
however, about 150 years away within which they won't permit us to go 25 years
of. The advisability of this is beyond question, as these creatures evolved to
traverse time and as such would - out of simple self-preservation - know how to
do so in the safest possible manner. But on those missions beyond that point,
human observers report that humanity has become extinct. They're unable to
determine how or why, only that it is so, and the Temporoi aren't talking.
Query 1: The "temporal appendage" they've evolved is unquestionably
part of their biology, but it's not directly detectable by any physical means,
other than that you know it's been used when you find yourself at some alternate
place in time to where you would normally be. How would you classify such
undetectable organs? Would the existence of such a thing in any way cause you
to rethink the possibility that humans or other terrestrial animals may also
have "invisible parts"?
Query 2, not related to the physiology, but an interesting facet of the
situation to me just the same: How would knowledge of humanity's impending and
inevitible extinction affect you? What preparations would you make? Would you
try to calculate logically what might be the cause, knowing that the mere act of
your calculating may in the end be somehow what brings it about?
Query 3: An emissary of the Temporoi approaches you with an offer to be
among a small contingent of humans taken into the future, well beyond the "speed
bump", where you'll be permitted to live with other volunteers and repopulate
the species. Two conditions: 1. You can never come back, and 2. You can't tell
anybody who isn't also going. If you don't agree to these two conditions,
they'll simply undo the invitation by going back to before it happened and
stopping themselves, and you'll be nonethewiser. Would you do it? And since
the Temporoi already interfered enough to tell the whole race we'd be extinct,
how would you feel about their refusal to clue in the race that - via potential
volunteers like yourself - the human race, while extinct for a time, will be
back again someday?
4. "Nannons" - It is found that beings with psychologies vastly more complex
than ours and with an infinitely "richer" experience of reality exist, only
they're composed of nanotech. They're everywhere - countless, an
incomprehensible population. Billions of them could easily fit onto an average
human hair. Their society moves at such a pace that to them, we are like
barely-moving statues, "frozen matter" virtually petrified in time in comparison
with how quickly they occur on their own level. In fact, they're incapable of
the patience necessary to interact with us individually, and instead form
"composite beings" through which their society interacts with ours. Their
composite beings are to them like a multi-billion dollar corporation is to us.
There are multiple levels of management and work, and decisions made by
countless individuals to determine what we are communicating to them and what
their response to us as a "whole" is going to be. If they could live and die in
lifespans which feel as long to them as ours do to us, the act of us asking a
single question to them would take hundreds of their generations. But they
can't die, not against their will at least, and so the same beings of this
composite "entity" generally tend to be around from our first syllable to our
last. But we wouldn't notice it if they weren't, the composite doesn't reflect
too much of any single one of their personas.
At our present level of technology, we are incapable of affecting them
in any way they do not want to be affected. Some of them are benign, some
malevolent, and those malevolent ones do try and harm us from time to time.
They're almost always stopped by the benign ones, however, and so we rarely ever
notice their activities. They reveal to us that their interactions with us in
ages past are what led to our myths of angels and devils and other "unseen
agents", but that they are a purely natural, real-world phenomenon, a result of
technological advancement, not spirits as ancient humans had believed.
Query 1: Do you suppose their "composite beings" might in some sense be
self-aware in ways which exclude the awareness of their individual selves?
Query 2: If you knew it might draw unecessary attention to yourself
from the malevolent ones, would you risk trying to find a way to affect them in
the interest of being able to protect yourself from an attack by such a being?
Query 3: If you were to find that humans (and other terrestrial
animals) actually _were_ composite beings composed on a subatomic level of
nannons, and they wanted to end the experiment and let your body dissolve back
into the countless googaquadrillions of individuals composing your body, would
you agree to such a thing if they gave you the choice? The lives each nannon
composing you would be able to live free of you would be unimaginable, the lives
they live as part of you seeming like virtual slavery in comparison. Then
again, they're the ones who decided to do such an experiment. Should you have
to suffer for their decisions? Assuming they would honor your decision in the
matter, would you sacrifice your own existence as a composite being in order
that the countless beings composing you may experience freedom? Or would you
insist that they live with the consequences they've created until such a time as
those consequences finished playing themselves out (i.e., you've met a natural
human death, after which those composite beings can separate without destroying
you)?
That's all. For now. :-)
--
L8r,
Uncle Buck
************************************************
The true mark of a civilized society is when its
citizens know how to hate each other peacefully.
************************************************
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| User: "Ben Kaufman" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Alternative physiologies - how would you classify these things? |
07 Mar 2006 09:17:06 PM |
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On Tue, 07 Mar 2006 19:25:15 -0500, Uncle Buck <UncleBuck@SpamMeNot.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
Query: Any thoughts on how to label their genders in human terms?
Would our present "male" and "female" suffice, with perhaps the qualifier
"hemian" before it, or should we come up with something new to describe them
with? Assuming as would probably be the case that they're not at all
genetically compatible with us, how would you view human/hemian sexual
relations? Would a human male and a hemian egg-carying "male" be "homosexual"
since they both have a penis? Or perhaps sperm and egg production would be the
defining factors to you? Or perhaps even more, you'd just chuck the notion of
male and female completely when trying to describe such relationships?
Hmm.... which is the prettier one and would it put on a pair of garters?
<SNIP>
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