Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

Science Fiction and Fantasy are two different geners; In Sci-Fi, you have space, aliens, and lasers all fighting for a galactic cause. In fantasy, you have Elves, mages, warlocks, and Orcs fighting each other for no reason, while using swords and armour when they can obviously just use magick.
Unfortunatley, the two often mix, which creates the Sci-Fi Fan. we know today.[size=0]Heck, even WoW became Sci-Fi Fantasy when the Burning Crusade came out...[/size]

_________________

I was told differently...I understood that "Science Fiction" was any fictional story where the science presented was plausible, whereas "Science Fantasy" was any fictional story where the "science" presented was implausible or impossible (such as proving that God exists or something like that). "Fantasy" (without the "science") is stuff that just uses magic (or magick) to explain away everything, instead of science.

_________________
The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

Well, even if we discount Clarke's Third Law, there are still overlaps between the genres. Both, at least these days, are concerned with adventure and the struggle between good and evil.

This is not always so. After all, when science fiction first started out, it was primarily concerned with exploring the possibilities of technology and their implications on humanity. Bladerunner is a good example of this.

But take Star Wars for example. It has knights with swords, magic (aka, the Force), dragons and monsters, etc. The science is there, but only as a backdrop for what is really more of a fantasy story.

The same is true with Star Trek, only the science plays more of a central role at times. In fact, the science often plays the part of the Deus Ex Machina, that vital plot element that saves all their hides at the last minute. And, invoking Clarke's Third Law, we see that, at least in Star Trek, technology serves essentially the exact same function as magic in fantasy.

Oh, I'm not doubting that Science Fiction and Fantasy have different flavors. Science Fiction usually tastes like the future, whereas Fantasy usually tastes like the past. But that has more to do with seasoning than with actual differences in the genres.

But let's face it: in Star Trek, the science has become implausible. Sentient holograms that are solid, sub-atomic particles that can be made to behave in any way imaginable, etc. The only difference is that they say, "We used Krieger Wave acceleration," instead of, "A wizard did it."

_________________

I was referring more to the original series than the subsequent ones. Anyway, I suppose that science fiction is more a matter of balancing implausible scientific elements with ones that could actually be implemented.

_________________

Google's not that hard to use.

_________________

I disagree with that - if we found life on another planet, we'd be interested. Who says the aliens wouldn't? I'm sure they'd be curious, especially if we were one of the first alien species they had encountered.

Well, if they did find us, it would still take them for-freakin' ever to ever arrive at or contact Earth anyway. >_>

_________________
So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain. Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?

Actually, the translation there is misleading. The term actually means something like "sea monsters."

Here is cut and pasted from the Brown Driver Briggs Lexicon. Forgive the odd characters, as the Hebrew font does not carry over into HTML.


Jigga Jigga JAAA!

_________________

aaaaaaactually, it doesn't mean sea monsters at all. the words used there in Hebrew translate into something like "great reptiles."

You did notice he quoted a Hebrew dictionary to back himself up, right? According to the dictionary entry he cited, it could mean dragon (which is a large reptile) or sea monster (which are generally thought of also as large reptiles). Sure, dinosaurs are also large reptiles....

BUT, there's more than just the Hebrew here. Ancient Jews translated their scriptures into other languages as well, and looking at the words they chose in those languages can help clarify what they meant in the Hebrew. The word they chose in greek is κήτη, (ke-te-), meaning sea monster or big fish, which is where we get the word cetacean, the english adjective for whales. This is from a Greek text that was translated by Jews who knew both Hebrew and Greek. If they meant a dragon or some kind of large land lizard like a dinosaur, they wouldn't have picked a greek word that could only mean a large sea creature.

Oh yeah, aliens. If we find aliens, the religions of the world will adapt their positions and move on. It won't be all that big a deal.

_________________
ATTN: LOWER BOARD USERS HAVE MOVED TO ANOTHER FORUM. COME JOIN THE FUN!

yeah, but if you actually look at the term in Hebrew, you can derive the meaning just from looking at the text itself. the term is "taninim gedolim." "gedolim" means large or great. "taninim" is only found in one other place in the Torah, where it describes what Moses's staff had turned into -- in one place it's called a "nahash," serpent, and then it's called a "tanin." so either a "tanin" is a kind of snake, or a snake is a kind of "tanin." since all the animals named in Genesis are types rather than individual species, it stands to reason that "tanin" is a category of animals as well, meaning that it would likely be the category into which snakes fall, namely reptiles. it's also interesting that none of the other animals listed in Genesis are described with modifiers like "great," except for this one. i'm not saying it necessarily should be translated as "dinosaurs," but i don't think it's such a bizarre leap to make.

If you notice, Cobalt, the BDB reference does seem to lean heavily toward reptilian creatures. If anything, I was saying that your understanding of the term is closer than the KJV "whales."

In fact, my college Hebrew prof., Dr. Stephen Hooks, seemed to think it was referring to the Nile Crocodile, a creature that, even today, can grow up to 20 feet in length, and some people think that at one time, may have grown even larger. Now, I've seen some 8 ft. alligators up pretty close before (see Mexico pics in Post Your Pics Part Whatever thread), and believe me, they're pretty scary at that size. Now imagine one nearly 3 times the size! O_O

The problem, however, is the term's limited usage. With only two direct references in available literature, it's hard to pin down its precise usage in Genesis. That's why I tend to favor "monster" over "dragon" or "serpent."

_________________

Okay, this has gotten off of topic once, then the topic that was spawned of it went off topic, so lets steer back to the original thread, M'kay? Toastpaint.

Okay, first things first, in a scientific point of view, it is not possible for the human race to be the only inteligent beings in this universe. This universe is so massive, that one thing cannot be done in one place, without having been done elsewhere in the universe. You know when you come up with a good idea for an invention, and then people tell you its stupid, but then a month later, the invention you thought of became reality and is selling on the market? Its kinda like that.

But looking at this in a religious point of view; The bible states that God created heaven and the earth, meaning that he only created our planet, and the sub-conscious realm of heaven. So where does that leave other beings that must exist somewhere in the universe? Were they created by god? Or did they do what science told us we did? Perhaps god created only the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun for us when we were unintelligent beings, then when he found us looking up to the sky, he created the stars, the other planets, and several other objects in space. When we acquired the technology to go into space, he made a barrier to stop us, I.E. the lack of oxygen. We found a way around it, so he created areas beyond what we have found, made the other planets impossible to live on, and made everything so far away, so that way no life on earth can reach it in their lifetime. God created space to satisfy our need to discover, and made it so we could only go so far.

But then again, thats just me.

_________________

Short and simple: While I do not completely rule out the possibility of the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, the assumption that they do exist must have conclusive evidence supporting it before Skeptics are required to refute the possibility.

In other words, imagine somebody goes and tells you: "Look, I'm a wizard," are you going to automatically assume they are such, because of the massive amount of people and the odds that one of them is going to be a wizard, or are you going to request proof supporting the claim? The answer is simple: If you are a logical person, proof is required beforehand. Since it is impossible to prove a negative, logically, the positive must be proved, before contrasting evidence is required to negate it.

Although there is quite a plethora of space remaining in the known universe for further life to exist, that does not make it conclusive that aliens do exist. Remember, the odds of what occurred on earth to occur elsewhere are EXTREMELY low, perhaps to an extent at which they would not statistically happen on another planet. Even if there are millions of steps in this staircase on which I currently tread, that does not mean that one of them is going to spontaneously disappear when I step on it.
-Fov

_________________

It is not always impossible to prove or disprove a negative.

Playstation 4 doesnt exist yet. Negative, and proven. The problem with aliens is that we dont currently have the necessary resources to prove or disprove the possibility.

The odds of what happened on earth happening on another planet are not as low as you may think. Think of it like the lottery: It's very rare that anyone you know wins, but at almost every (barring some flukes, like lost tickets) time, someone wins. This is because a lot of tickets are sold.

Now apply it to planets. There are literally billions of planets, so even if the odds of it happening to any given planet are very small, that doesnt mean it cant ever happen.

Oh, and your last sentence doesnt make any sense. Please explain.

_________________

EXPLANATION: I was comparing it to the "wel ther r a lot of palnets so 1 of dem has alions!111" mentality. There are a lot of stairs; this does not necessarily indicate one of them is going to disappear spontaneously.

_________________

I don't think the odds of life and the odds of complete disappearance of an object are quite the same. Life doesn't violate the foundations of chemistry and physics.

Personally, I think that if we find something on another planet, it wouldn't necessarily be life as we know it. I've always believed in the possibility of alternative biologies, as far as aliens are concerned. On a grand scale, I don't see "alive" and "not alive" as being completely black and white. Look at viruses, for instance. They aren't technically living, but they exhibit many properties of living organisms.

Furthermore, I don't think we'll find little green men or such, for the simple reason that from an evolutionary standpoint multicellular organisms are almost a fluke. Compare the shear amount of unicellular organisms to the relatively miniscule amount of multicellular ones.

The "wel ther r a lot of palnets so 1 of dem has alions!111" mentality is actually a very logical one. The possibility of life on any given planet is small, but since there are billions of planets, it is actually quite reasonable.

So yeah. Zeno pretty much covered most of it.

_________________

Took the words out of my mouth, bwave. I mean, if we're here, then it's possible others are here.

They probably have the intelligence of monkeys, or are smart enough to not bother.

_________________

Oh great, now you just ticked 'em off. I blame chickenleg if we die.

Chicken Leg! Why did you seal humanity's fate? WHY!?! Everybody! I have a basement! It's safe there! COME TO MY HOUSE!

Literally folks, We're on a wiki forum for a cartoon and we're talking about aliens. We need to find a room at the funny farm, I GOT DIBS ON ROOM 105! How is it possible that it matters? I could care less if aliens come to see humans in their "naurawl hawbitawt".

_________________

We also talk about sports, politics, delicious foodstuffs, Zelda, bands, weird things to try on a guitar, and that jumble of stuff I'm not even gonna try to summarize that we tend to call RTI. We're not just an H*R Forum.



Does anything in life really matter? Humans strive for knowledge and meaning, that's why we discuss topics like this. Maybe it doesn't matter, but wouldn't it be great to know? Not everyoine's going to be interested in topics like this, but a lot of people are, often just for the sake of knowing.

On a side note, your sig is a bit too big. 100px high and 500px wide in total (including all pictures and text) is the biggest allowed here.

You know, I have to say the idea of Aliens is a bit wierd to me. It's hard to believe there is life anywhere else, I mean, if they were created at the same time as us, they would be five hundred years ahead of us in technology (If they had no Dark Age of their own), which seems to me they would be so advanced that they would have found us by now.

_________________

They didn't have to be created at the same time.

_________________

That doesnt make sense. Why would they be 500 years ahead of us in technology? Even for us, 10,000 years of research isnt enough time to figure out how to break the laws of physics, so therefore, even if they were 500 years ahead in technology, that wouldnt mean they would have found us. The nearest plantes outside of the solar system is bliions of miles away (I used to remember all this stuff off of the top of my head, but not so much anymore.), so it would take hundreds of years for even a signal to reach us, let alone the aliens themselves. Other factors include their natural resources. You just cant build good spaceships without enough metals. Also, they might just be dogs for all we know.

Like rusty said, they didnt have to be made at the same time as us, and who said they had to be intelligent? Earth was around for billions of years before a single organism had the ability to compute 2+2.

_________________

Well, the reason he's referring to is that because of the Middle Ages, humanity didn't get much done for a while. But yeah, you're right about even if they were that far ahead, they still couldn't find us part.

Question for Christians:
Something I've been chewing on for a while...If sentient life does exist beyond us, who does God love more? I understand that God is more devoted to humankind than animals, but what of aliens?

For an answer to that question, I'd suggest reading Out of the Silent Planet.

_________________

I don't think he would make life that is able to pose a threat to humans (not in a smarter more "evolved" way at least), so no I don't think he would love them more. That's not to say he wouldn't love them. He loves all of his creations and that's what makes him great, but I'm not a God called preacher so I guess I better not do a sermon or anything .

Edit: Rewording

_________________

Actually, there is one creature that is constantly on the verge of destroying humanity at all times. They have an article about it here.

And about who God would love more, I dont think he would love one more than the other. God seems to like creatures with free will choosing to like him.

Just remember, alens could possibly be soulless worms. They dont have to be humanoid in any way.

_________________

Even creatures who choose not to love God are still, at least for the time being, loved by him. "God demonstrates his perfect love for us in this: even while we were dead in our sins, Christ died for us."

_________________