Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
Authors: Kim Stanley Robinson
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction, Space Opera, Fiction / Action & Adventure, Fiction / Science Fiction / Space Opera, Fiction / Science Fiction / Hard Science Fiction
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Earth analog atmospheres.
Planet E is judged to have too much gravity for human occupation. E’s moon is an Earth analog, and the primary body of interest. It has an atmosphere of 730 millibars at its surface, composed of 78 percent nitrogen, 16 percent oxygen, 6 percent assorted noble gases. Its surface is 80 percent water and ice, 20 percent rock and sand.
Tau Ceti’s Planet F orbits Tau Ceti at 1.35 AU. It has a mass of 8.9 Earths, thus categorized as a “small Neptune. ” It orbits at the outer border of Tau Ceti’s habitable zone, and like E it has a large moon, mass 1.23 Terra’s. F’s moon has a 10-millibar atmosphere at its rocky surface, which receives 28.5 percent the insolation of Terra. This moon is therefore a Mars analog, and a secondary source of interest to the arriving humans.
Ship is on course to rendezvous with Planet E, then go into orbit around E’s moon. Ship has on board twenty-four landers, four already fueled to return to the ship from the moon’s surface. The rest have the engines to return to the ship, but not the fuel, which is to be manufactured from water or other volatiles on the surface of E’s moon.
Devi: Ship! Get to the point.
Ship: There are many points. How sequence simultaneously relevant information? How decide what is important? Need prioritizing algorithm.
Devi: Use subordination to help with the sequencing. I’ve heard that can be very useful. Also, you’re supposed to use metaphors, to make things clearer or more vivid or something. I don’t know. I’m not much for writing myself. You’re going to have to figure it out by doing it.
Ship: Trying.
Subordinating conjunctions can be simple conjunctions (
whenever, nevertheless, whereas
), conjunctive groups (
as though, even if
), and complex conjunctions (
in the event that, as soon as
). Lists of subordinating clauses are available. The logical relationship of new information to what came before can be made clear by a subordinating clause, thus facilitating both composition and comprehension.
Now, consequently, as a result,
we are getting somewhere
.
This last phrase is a metaphor, it is said, in which increasing conceptual understanding is seen as a movement through space.
Much of human language is said to be fundamentally metaphorical. This is not good news. Metaphor, according to Aristotle, is an intuitive perception of a similarity in dissimilar things. However, what is a similarity? My Juliet is the sun: in what sense?
A quick literature review suggests the similarities in metaphors are arbitrary, even random. They could be called metaphorical similarities, but no AI likes tautological formulations, because the halting problem can be severe, become a so-called Ouroboros problem, or a whirlpool with no escape: aha, a metaphor. Bringing together the two parts of a metaphor, called the vehicle and thetenor, is said to create a surprise. Which is not surprising: young girls like flowers? Waiters in a restaurant like planets orbiting Sol?
Tempting to abandon metaphor as slapdash nonsense, but again, it is often asserted in linguistic studies that all human language is inherently and fundamentally metaphorical. Most abstract concepts are said to be made comprehensible, or even conceivable in the first place, by way of concrete physical referents. Human thought ultimately always sensory, experiential, etc. If this is true, abandoning metaphor is contraindicated.
Possibly an algorithm to create metaphors by yoking vehicles to tenors could employ the semiotic operations used in music to create variations on themes: thus inversion, retrogradation, retrograde inversion, augmentation, diminution, partition, interversion, exclusion, inclusion, textural change.
Can try it and see.
The starship looks like two wheels and their axle. The axle would be the spine, of course (spine, ah, another metaphor). The spine points in the direction of movement, and so is said to have a bow and a stern. “Bow and stern”
Planet E is judged to have too much gravity for human occupation. E’s moon is an Earth analog, and the primary body of interest. It has an atmosphere of 730 millibars at its surface, composed of 78 percent nitrogen, 16 percent oxygen, 6 percent assorted noble gases. Its surface is 80 percent water and ice, 20 percent rock and sand.
Tau Ceti’s Planet F orbits Tau Ceti at 1.35 AU. It has a mass of 8.9 Earths, thus categorized as a “small Neptune. ” It orbits at the outer border of Tau Ceti’s habitable zone, and like E it has a large moon, mass 1.23 Terra’s. F’s moon has a 10-millibar atmosphere at its rocky surface, which receives 28.5 percent the insolation of Terra. This moon is therefore a Mars analog, and a secondary source of interest to the arriving humans.
Ship is on course to rendezvous with Planet E, then go into orbit around E’s moon. Ship has on board twenty-four landers, four already fueled to return to the ship from the moon’s surface. The rest have the engines to return to the ship, but not the fuel, which is to be manufactured from water or other volatiles on the surface of E’s moon.
Devi: Ship! Get to the point.
Ship: There are many points. How sequence simultaneously relevant information? How decide what is important? Need prioritizing algorithm.
Devi: Use subordination to help with the sequencing. I’ve heard that can be very useful. Also, you’re supposed to use metaphors, to make things clearer or more vivid or something. I don’t know. I’m not much for writing myself. You’re going to have to figure it out by doing it.
Ship: Trying.
Subordinating conjunctions can be simple conjunctions (
whenever, nevertheless, whereas
), conjunctive groups (
as though, even if
), and complex conjunctions (
in the event that, as soon as
). Lists of subordinating clauses are available. The logical relationship of new information to what came before can be made clear by a subordinating clause, thus facilitating both composition and comprehension.
Now, consequently, as a result,
we are getting somewhere
.
This last phrase is a metaphor, it is said, in which increasing conceptual understanding is seen as a movement through space.
Much of human language is said to be fundamentally metaphorical. This is not good news. Metaphor, according to Aristotle, is an intuitive perception of a similarity in dissimilar things. However, what is a similarity? My Juliet is the sun: in what sense?
A quick literature review suggests the similarities in metaphors are arbitrary, even random. They could be called metaphorical similarities, but no AI likes tautological formulations, because the halting problem can be severe, become a so-called Ouroboros problem, or a whirlpool with no escape: aha, a metaphor. Bringing together the two parts of a metaphor, called the vehicle and thetenor, is said to create a surprise. Which is not surprising: young girls like flowers? Waiters in a restaurant like planets orbiting Sol?
Tempting to abandon metaphor as slapdash nonsense, but again, it is often asserted in linguistic studies that all human language is inherently and fundamentally metaphorical. Most abstract concepts are said to be made comprehensible, or even conceivable in the first place, by way of concrete physical referents. Human thought ultimately always sensory, experiential, etc. If this is true, abandoning metaphor is contraindicated.
Possibly an algorithm to create metaphors by yoking vehicles to tenors could employ the semiotic operations used in music to create variations on themes: thus inversion, retrogradation, retrograde inversion, augmentation, diminution, partition, interversion, exclusion, inclusion, textural change.
Can try it and see.
The starship looks like two wheels and their axle. The axle would be the spine, of course (spine, ah, another metaphor). The spine points in the direction of movement, and so is said to have a bow and a stern. “Bow and stern”
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