Evolution is largely a temporal phenomenon, Merrill. The environment changes, and populations in that environment change in turn, or they languish. Individual organisms don’t evolve; populations do. Nature doesn’t give a damn about individuals. The...

Imagine, Bishop, that you have a beloved cat, but that your cat is not with you. If you close your eyes and further imagine you are petting your cat, the same neurons in your brains...

The journey of a thousands suns begins today.Some may question whether the journey is worth the sacrifice and danger.To them I say that no sacrifice is too dear and no danger too great to ensure...

When General Genius built the first mentar [Artificial Intelligence] mind in the last half of the twenty-first century, it based its design on the only proven conscious material then known, namely, our brains. Specifically, the...

Society can serve its citizens only to the extent that it knows them.

In a thousand years, Fred, no one will even know or care we existed.

What a mistake that had been, to create a construct [AI] that could suffer. He knew that now. Life, pain, death, they were no playthings. Biology was serious business, not for amateurs and foolish gods.

Consciousness is the chronic pain of life, and all higher organisms suffer it every waking moment.

Capitalism was a marvel, as long as you were a capitalist.

Why do we need so many people on Earth? I ask you. What are they good for? They live out ludicrous lives of pointless desperation. Ninety-nine percent of the human population is so much wasted...

Be they pharaohs or freeholders, barons or farmers, landowners have been the most capable, most intrepid, and most assertive members of civilized society.