by Mystikan » Fri May 12, 2006 11:20 pm
<!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Col Quisp:</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> The Arnagest as I understand it would certainly not countenance the wilful destruction of any culture. Its mandate centres on the idea that information must be preserved and expanded at all costs and cultures are treasurehouses of information. The primary purpose of the Arnagest in this context is the preservation of as many cultures as possible, taking into account that some cultures manifest a warlike nature as part of their mindset. These too have their place and purpose; the Arnagest is not about eliminating war and promoting peace, but rather about ensuring a balance between the two is kept. So the Arnagest would not "kill" humanity just because it doesn't fit into the scheme of things, rather it would try to establish how humanity would interact with the starfaring civilisations proximal to it, as well as to prevent humanity (or anyone else) from assaulting or exploiting worlds whose inhabitants are vulnerable - and preventing other more advanced races from so assaulting or exploiting humanity. That said, should humanity demonstrate a propensity to warfare the Arnagest would have no qualms about introducing humans to other like-minded races and letting them fight it out amongst themselves, rather than attacking and damaging other civilisations whose mindsets do not encompass violent conflict.<br><br>When I said "the ramifications for Earth and its people..." etc, I did not mean to imply destruction, but certainly dramatic changes in humanity's perspective. How would you react, for example, to beings capable of psionically reading and controlling your thoughts and actions (even though they might not actually want to do that)? Would you not greatly fear and/or loathe such beings, no matter how benign they may be? Or how would you relate to beings that might demonstrate in their own culture the same degree of love and care as humans in their own families, yet to human eyes are hideously ugly, or stink? Or a race that deliberately kills its own young to preserve only the best traits and prevent overpopulation; would people not attempt to impose "human" ethics and morals on such a race? In overcoming human xenophobia, a radical shift in the human mindset would be essential, and that in turn would lead to changes in human culture so profound that the resulting civilisational norms may no longer be recognisable as "human" to the people of today - any more than an Australopithecus would recognise today's humans as his own descendants. But <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>that</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> change took a million years; establishing meaningful contact with alien civilisations, if it happened tomorrow, would fundamentally change the perspective of everyone on this planet overnight. And the effects of such a dramatic and sudden change is something the Arnagest, as much as humanity itself, would have cause to be concerned about, and to mitigate any potential cultural damage as far as possible.<br><br>-------------<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>dugoboy:</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> To the best of my knowledge, the Arnagest actually has no knowledge of this planet. A search of its information base for planets called "Earth" (or phonetic equivalents) turns up literally hundreds of thousands of matches, which is not surprising given that the word is a simple monosyllable and there are <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>hundreds of billions</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> of inhabited planets known to the Arnagest. Most planets are given short, simple names by their inhabitants, before they are aware of the true nature of their world (ie believing their world is flat and at the centre of the Universe etc) and so the names originally usually mean something like "ground", "rock" "home", "place", "parent", "god" and so forth. Furthermore, even if the Arnagest has discovered Earth but has not as yet had a chance to study it, they would have no way of knowing this planet was called "Earth"; in this case, the planet would be listed in the information base only under its galaxy code and coordinates relative to the centre of its galaxy. So I have no way, while there, of establishing whether the Arnagest has charted this Earth or not.<br><br>When I am at the Arnagest, Earth is as much like a dream world to me as Arnagest itself seems to me when I'm here. When I told my peers in the Arnagest about it, most dismissed it as a fantasy derived from my desire to escape the pressures of responsibility placed on me there; here, I'm just a humble nobody whose actions and decisions don't profoundly affect anyone, and I like it that way. Some of my peers in the Arnagest, however, have accepted the possibility that Earth may be a real place as yet unmapped by the Arnagest, and so have directed me to behave in such a manner as would be expected of an Arnagest exponent delegated to such a world - hence my post to the mind-control forum. That post represents the sort of thing the Arnagest would reveal to a world it was preparing for interstellar contact, but in actuality the Arnagest does not appear to have found this Earth (yet), so I would say those who have instructed me to apprise people here of the Arnagest and report back on the results are either testing me for inconsistencies in my putative Earth fantasy, or otherwise just hedging their bets in the event Earth is (to them) a real place.<br><br>-------------<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Mentalgongfu:</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> I apologise for making the assumption that everyone here was a skeptic doubtful of the validty of anyone's claim to being in contact with alien civilisations. It just seemed that way to me from the tenure of the general response to the mind-control post. For the record, I certainly don't make any such claim; as I stated previously, I don't know if I'm in contact with an actual alien civilisation or not. I am following this thread, although I might not check back every day, since my work schedule doesn't always allow me to spend time in forums. I like to take the time to read threads carefully and compose meaningful responses in forums rather than just dashing off two-minute one-liners when the boss isn't looking, so while I may not post every day, I'll certainly keep an eye on things here and see how it all develops.<br> <p></p><i></i>