A speculative mind

  Websters defines Empathy as: “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.” Empathy is what makes us human, though lord knows there are many humans who don’t seem to have any. A person without empathy is like a caveman, only concerned for himself. Selfish. It is a lack of community and by extension, a lack of the need for civilization. The person who lacks empathy can have a bit of community, but only with others exactly like himself. It seems like societies go through cycles of empathy and less empathy. Sometimes a single event can change the course of society. Prior to America’s involvement in WWII, the general feeling in America was not very empathetic. We had our own problems. We were still dealing with the lingering effects of the Great Depression, and had been for years. That kind of stress makes it hard to think of others. Hitler was slashing through Europe. He and his fol...

  When I was in school, I think I liked the idea of reading, more than actual reading. There were a number of books I read because I wanted to impress myself that I had read them. I read Frankenstein, Catch-22, The Lord of the Rings , and others. I am not a fast reader. I can’t zip through a book like some people, but I tried to with these books. The result was that I did not get much out of them (other than the naughty bits in Catch-22 ). I checked them off my list, impressed with myself. But what were they about? It wasn’t until I went to college and met my friend Vern, who instilled in me a love for reading, that my attitude changed. He introduced me to authors I had never read: Ursula K. LeGuin, Robert Heinlein, Walter M. Miller, James P. Hogan, and John Varley. His enthusiasm was infectious, and I found myself reading and actually enjoying the books. These books led me to new authors in the science fiction and fantasy realm.   Eventually I reread some of those earlier ...

  Despite both of us having science backgrounds, my wife and I share a leaning toward the artistic, though we may express it in different ways. In her life, my wife has been a painter, a poet, a singer, an actor, and a fiction writer. Not to mention a mother. I don’t remember what precipitated this event, but my wife, my son, and I were at home in the front room. My wife was responding to something my son said. She said, “remember, you get half your brains from me. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be a complete idiot.” To which my son started howling with laughter and said to me,” I think you have just been insulted.” Sometimes I feel like Rodney Dangerfield. I get no respect. But that is not an uncommon state of affairs for fatherhood. When my son was going to middle school and high school, my wife was always the one to go in with him to get him registered for classes. One time she was unable to go and I had to be the one to get him registered. “Ugh,” he said. “why can’t Mama do i...

  Science is about observation and insight. There is a difference between how the public thinks science works, and how it actually works. This is fundamental to the question of good science vs bad science. In both cases an observation is made and then a hypothesis is created to explain the observation. This is the point at which good science and bad science differ. A good scientist will then look for other evidence that either confirms or denies his hypothesis. S/he may then do experiments to test that hypothesis. If a test confirms the hypothesis, they are not finished. They may go through many cycles of experimentation and testing before they feel comfortable in publishing their results. Good scientists have to be ready to accept the fact that further testing may prove their hypothesis wrong. That is part of the process; it is essential to the process. Bad science is where after making your observation and coming up with a hypothesis, you only look for other data that supports ...

  I suppose it is time to do a wrap-up for 2024. These are my favorite books of the past 12 months. These are books that I read in 2024. That does not mean they came out in 2024 (most of them didn’t). I read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, but I read other things too, so these are the best books I read in 2024 in no particular genre and in no particular order. Again, these are just the books that I liked. You may have hated some of these books and that’s okay. This is my list. I had difficulty narrowing it down to five. That is why this top five list inexplicably contains six.   It is also why there are honorable mentions afterward.   Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky Comic existentialism in robot form. Who could imagine such a thing? Well, the brilliant Adrian Tchaikovsky, that’s who. Don’t let the “E” word scare you off. I promise, it’s funny.   The Dog Stars by Peter Heller A post-apocalyptic story about an airplane pilot and his dog who par...

  I never expected existentialism to be so funny. Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky is about a robot’s search for meaning. Or maybe it is about a robot who doesn’t know he is searching for meaning, but he is nonetheless. He also doesn’t know he is going on a quest, but he is as sure as if his name were Bilbo. His name is not Bilbo. His name is Uncharles (long story). Uncharles is a is a robot valet. A gentleman’s gentleman (or rather a gentleman’s gentlerobot). The human society is crumbling and does not have much need for valets anymore. But Uncharles only knows what his programming is telling him, and that is that he needs to serve, and specifically to serve humans. That is going to be rather difficult as there aren’t many humans left alive in this broken world. Being a robot, he has to follow his instructions, his task list. If those tasks are now impossible to do now, then he has to get creative about fulfilling his tasks. The first task is to find out what is wrong wi...