Saturday I rose relatively early and had a swim in the hotel pool. Staying at a hotel with a pool makes one feel about three times healthier than otherwise. No back problems from an unfamiliar bed, which means better sleep, which means one isn't living on caffeinated sodas to stay focused.
Anyway. Once again the first panels of the day were among the most interesting. I began with "Research Rabbit Holes," about excessive research or bizarre digressions in researching stories. I'm a bit prone to that sort of thing myself, so it was good to see that people like Andy Duncan, Karen Joy Fowler, and Lawrence Schoen do it too.
Immediately afterward in the same room was a presentation on "What's New From SETI?" — to which the answer was "Not much, or you'd have already heard about it in the newspapers." I knew that going in, of course; nobody announces major scientific results at a science fiction convention.
At noon I took my station in the Autographing Area and signed a bunch of books. I was mildly surprised that no magazine collectors stopped by with copies of F&SF for me to deface, as this is the first time I've been in California. Every signee got a promotional card for Arkad's World. I signed for an hour (well, I signed for about twenty minutes with plenty of time to chat) and then went in search of lunch.
This meant I accidentally ran across the Big Controversial Protest. It consisted of about two dozen demonstrators, an equal number of counter-demonstrators, and a number of police equal to both groups combined. Without getting into the specific issues involved, I have to say both groups were terrible about "optics" and message discipline. The demonstrators were at least sensible enough to bring American flags and dress like normal people, but their signs and slogans boiled down to "WorldCon is full of pedophiles and they won't allow us in!" Across the plaza their adversaries looked like scary terrorists and were opposing fascism by denouncing the United States and screaming insults at the cops.
Proportion of convention-goers not involved in any way: 99%.
Proportion of San Jose residents unaware of what was going on: 99.999%
Proportion of passers-by who understood what any of this was about: 0%.
Anyway. After lunch I attended an extremely good panel on Alien Minds, with neuroscience people and philosophers discussing how aliens might understand the universe and what obstacles there are likely to be in communication. The audience questions at the end were surprisingly good and incisive.
I followed that up with yet another panel on SETI, this time on the impact of recent exoplanetary discoveries on the search for life in the Universe. The short version is that we have a pretty good estimate of how many stars have planetary systems (nearly all) and what proportion of those planets are in the liquid-water zones of their host stars. SF author David Brin pointed out something I've already noted here: it's increasingly likely that we're the first. A lot of potentially lifebearing worlds may be covered by icecaps, or too massive to leave easily, or lacking in any dry land, or otherwise unsuitable for a technological civilization.
That wrapped up the official part of the convention. The grownup fraction of the Crack Team spent the rest of the evening visiting the Locus 50th Anniversary party, stopping in at the SFWA Suite, and schmoozing with editors in the hotel bar. Back to our own room at about midnight, because we're getting a little old to party until dawn.
"Alien Minds, with neuroscience people and philosophers discussing how aliens might understand the universe and what obstacles there are likely to be in communication." Any notes on ideas? Sorry missed it.
Posted by: Gregory Benford | 08/21/2018 at 03:29 PM
Greg: The neurologists and biologists on the panel were very skeptical about communication with alien intelligence. Several of them pointed out we haven't even worked out a good definition of what intelligence is -- and there's a strong suspicion that it's actually a set of several different traits, all heavily contingent on human evolution.
The lone philosopher on the panel pushed back hard, arguing that there would be a common ground in scientific and mathematical truths (assuming the communication is via some technological medium).
Posted by: Cambias | 08/22/2018 at 06:16 PM
Don't need orked out a good definition of what intelligence is--that'll emerge from the collision of species. We can't really speak to dolphins but they're (a) not all that smart & (b) not tool users, ie, no obvious math smarts to start with...
Posted by: Gregory Benford | 09/01/2018 at 02:33 AM