Fame at Last!
An author just wrote and told me he mentioned a science fiction book of mine in a footnote to his treatise on the so-called Fermi Paradox, which is, that if life arises by a natural side effect of the chemical composition of planets circling metallic stars, even if the event is very rare, the stars are so numerous — one is tempted to call the number astronomical — that many signs of their civilizations should be all around.
His treatise is called THE GREAT SILENCE, and my name is mentioned on page 276. The author is Milan Cirkovic of the Astronomic
Myself, I cannot take the so-called paradox very seriously, since it rests on a topic of which the human race has no first hand knowledge at all: how life arises from non-life.
I suspect that in the absence of Arisian life spores, only amoebae, fungi, and asexual and amorphous life can arise, hideously alien to our own, breathing poison, and emitting deadly psionic energies from radioactive brains, and dreaming only of cosmic conquest. Please note that my suspicion is based on nothing but wishful thinking. However, no one else has even the slightest scintilla of an iota of evidence that any life ever arose outside our Earthly sphere. Indeed, the idea that life can arise from non-life, at this point in the history of science, is not even dignified enough to be called an hypothesis. It is not based on any observation.
Nonetheless, the speculations about the Fermi Paradox are a rich source of science fictional ideas. The universe is vast. Where is everybody?
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
