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Permalink Reply by Unseen on June 25, 2012 at 10:17pm

I remember it being very New Age at the end, and certainly not Christian, despite the sympathetic Christian character played by Matthew McCaunaghey. However, it's been quite a while since I saw it.

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Permalink Reply by Diane on June 26, 2012 at 6:51am

The book was one of those pivotal books I happened upon in my youth that made me really think about the cosmos and our place in it.  I didn't get any feeling from the book that we should believe in a god, but that other life and dimensions exist  - should we exercise our willing suspension of disbelief.  

The book laid the groundwork for reading more of his books, and for learning more about cosmology, planetary evolution, evolution of life, and our desperately isolated position here on Earth,

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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on June 26, 2012 at 7:59am

"desperately isolated," Diane? I rather enjoy the solitude! Who needs a multi-tentacled neighbor dropping by to borrow a cup of graagh ever day or so?

Even if we DID get a visit from another world, Arizona would find a way to send them packing! If we can't coexist with our Mexican neighbors, how could we expect to treat our intra-galactic ones? If they're out there, it's quite possible they bypass our planet for a reason --

In case you haven't guessed, I don't think very much of some of us.

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Permalink Reply by Gabriela Menicucci on June 26, 2012 at 8:59am

You might like Melancholia where the protagonist Kirsten Dunst is convinced that we are alone on the universe, that life on earth is evil, and earth should be destroyed.

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Permalink Reply by Unseen on June 26, 2012 at 9:03am

That's why I love the movie. So not "Hollywood happy ending."

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Permalink Reply by Gabriela Menicucci on June 26, 2012 at 9:29am

All of his movies are like that *boom* in your face there's no god!. And there are many directors out there with this unusual approach. Of course not americans not in Hollywood.

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Permalink Reply by Unseen on June 26, 2012 at 2:46pm

And now imagine that barbarity (for barbarity can't be ruled out) tied with an almost unimaginable technology.

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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on June 26, 2012 at 3:13pm

Actually, our own entry into the space program came about as a result of the cold war, as a demonstration that "ours is bigger than yours," so to speak - why would we not imagine that another civilization might not have initiated their own space program for military reasons?

Put that much advanced technology behind a military mentality, and what do you have --? Certainly not the Welcome Wagon!

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Permalink Reply by Unseen on June 26, 2012 at 9:06am

Isolation is probably good. Any species who could get here might, as Stephen Hawking cautions, be coming to harvest us.

But I'm not worried, given all the obstacles to getting here.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Diaz on June 26, 2012 at 1:09pm

That is a possibility, but I think that fear is just a reflection of what humans have done in the past to each other. Personally I think a species that could travel at near-light speed or super-luminar speeds if it is possible, would have survived their technological adolescence  by becoming a global species. I think they would be peaceful.

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Permalink Reply by Unseen on June 26, 2012 at 2:42pm

Or perhaps they gained their technology through conquest, the way, for example, the U.S. got the Nazi rocket technology after the war. I find this idea that any advanced species must be non-predatory a bunch of wishful thinking. I'm in line with Stephen Hawking who fears that if some alien beings come here, we can't assume their intentions are good.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Diaz on June 26, 2012 at 3:26pm

Precaution towards what we don't understand is a good thing.

Resources is the only thing I could imagine being a motivating factor to enslave another species. But a species that is capable of interstellar travel needs to be able to harness vast amounts of energy and other resources to begin with, and I don't think the earth can provide anything that could not be found easily anywhere else in the cosmos (except for life). In short, I think a species that would be interested in exploiting our species would do it simply because they are sadistic. Possible but I think unlikely.

I think they most likely would be indifferent towards us. Maybe take a human or two and test on them and learn about us once in a while. Like we do with other animals. In fact, since intelligent life is a rarity the only thing of value we can offer beings of that intellect is a reality show on how a civilization struggles to avoid self-destruction.

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