Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site caip.RUTGERS.EDU
Path: utzoo!linus!gatech!seismo!caip!hoey
From: hoey@nrl-aic
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Space Is Clean
Message-ID: <374@caip.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Thu, 7-Nov-85 14:06:46 EST
Article-I.D.: caip.374
Posted: Thu Nov  7 14:06:46 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 9-Nov-85 06:01:03 EST
Sender: daemon@caip.RUTGERS.EDU
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 31

From: Dan Hoey 

    From: mtgzz!leeper@caip.rutgers.edu (m.r.leeper)
    Date: 31 Oct 85 21:25:28 GMT

    ...thinking about how likely it was that if we found life in the
    universe it would likely be something that would turn our
    collective stomachs.

    ...So most life-forms we find disgusting, but the converse is even
    more true.  Only a small part of the matter on Earth is connected
    with life-forms, yet everything disgusting is.

This is an awesome thesis.  I like it, it's a pretty idea, but...  I'm
not convinced.  True, giant insects, organic slimes, or humanoids with
tentacles might incite disgust (remember the diplomat in Heinlein's
*Star Beast*).  But why do we expect aliens to look like something we
avoid on Earth?  Real aliens should be so different from anything we
would recognize as organic that aversion wouldn't be aroused.  Could a
monolith, a hurkle, a berserker, or a beach ball make you queasy?  And
if aliens have anywhere near as stringent environmental requirements as
humans do, our environments will probably be disjoint, so we won't see,
smell, or touch anything but the inside of our life support system.
Certainly, really alien aliens that we can't meet face to face are a
minority in SF, but I attribute this to a lack of author imagination,
effects budgets, and audience empathy.

But it sure is a nice idea.  ``There's only one thing wrong with the
Great Red Spot...  It's alive!''

Dan Hoey