Adventures in Thought Space

When most people think of advanced alien civilizations and super-sentient species’, they imagine a spacefaring civilization unbound by physical laws. The Sci-Fi writer in me imagines the same, but, especially after writing this post, the philosopher imagines something much less grandiose, even banal. The impetus for this article was the aliens in the Netflix show  Three body Problem , based on the book series by Cixin Liu. The species, supposedly, couldn’t lie and may not have had independent minds with the perception of Free Will. Perhaps they are a hive-like species. Although there’s no way to know, this seemed counterintuitive, but despite this, or perhaps BECAUSE of it, I was intrigued. Then again, it’s possible they’re lying about their ability to lie, which would really thicken the plot. While the aliens are supposedly not more intelligent, just older, they made me wonder what a “superior” species might be like.    The article took longer than expected and ended up ...

An understanding of Olympic lifting is helpful but not truly required for the following. Some attempts are made to accommodate the less initiated.   The clean and snatch are not mere weightlifting exercises--but athletic events. Explosiveness, speed, flexibility, and coordination are all involved, especially in the “full” versions of the lifts (that is, if achieved by squatting under the bar). Unlike bodybuilding and “power”-lifting, it is not at all a stretch to call Olympic-lifting a sport. However, the all-too inevitable aggrandizements of the sport's practitioners have led to the misconception they require more skill and general athleticism than is the case. While this outlook may motivate O-lifters and provide other psychological benefits, it doesn’t make it entirely correct, nor does it make it a useful outlook for conventional athletes performing the lifts for general strength-training purposes. These aggrandizements coupled with common epidemic deficiencies have led to the...

The following is an introduction to my historical vampire-like universe called Draugr City, not an essay. There are no prerequisites.         For years, I’ve been intrigued by vampire/mythical monster universes but have found them awkward and unintelligent. I’m obsessed with alternate-history and epic sci-fi world-building, but these genres tend to be inaccessible, dry, and overly expositional, sometimes barely qualifying as fiction. I love movies and comics, but their developers are constrained by the need for brevity, especially in the “microwave society” of today. And I always wanted to see a brand of mythical monsters (directly or indirectly) produced by extraterrestrial beings.    So I created an accessible supernatural-horror-like universe bottomed, instead, on an expounded science. It’s influences include the comic book series “League of Extraordinary Gentleman” by Allan Moore, the movie series “Underworld,”and the film “The Ninth Gate.”  ...

This is an introduction to my epic military sci-fi/alternate history universe called Lone Star City; it is not an essay. The italicized portion is a direct excerpt from the first episode. Several scientific references have links to wiki articles and my post on the physics of my universes, “ relativistic subquantum kinetic s,” if you’re looking for more details. There are no prerequisites.         In 2008, I decided to create an adult comic book or comic-like saga, but its roots were already there, lying dormant.    1995 is my favorite year of films:  The Usual Suspects, Heat, Braveheart, and Casino  all graced the big screen. Joining them on the big screen, but certainly not gracing it, was  Judge Dredd  with Silvester Stallone   as the titular character. Entertaining enough but far from good, I was still intrigued by the world. I loved the idea of a post-apocalyptic World where people were packed into “megacities” with large stretc...