My Favorite Science Fiction Books

I feel like this is going to be a hard list to do. There are so many good ones out there. But I will try to reduce the list to the top 15, (in my opinion) best science fiction (or speculative fiction, if you will) books. Here we go:

1. Anathem by Neal Stephenson

2. Hyperion (Cantos) by Dan Simmons (4 books)

3. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

4. Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein

5. Ilium and Olympos by Dan Simmons (2 books)

6. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein

7. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

8. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

9. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

10. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

11. The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

12. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.

13. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

14. The Road by Cormack McCarthy

15. Dune by Frank Herbert

There you go. The best sci-fi, in my opinion. There are so many more good ones, but I feel like these, (as far as I can remember) are the best. (I feel like I'm missing some, but I'm going this at work, so this is what I can remember. Please, give me your list. I'm interested in what I may be missing.

Books of the Summer

So, I changed my mind on the books I'll be reading this summer. I have such great memories of sitting in work, listening to books, and then biking home, still listening. Being engaged. I want to do that again. I may be reading the books in the previous post on my own, but I want a good list of Science Fiction books to listen to while biking over the summer. So here is what (I think) I'll be listening to.

1. DUNE

2. THE MOTE IN GODS EYE

3. SOLARIS

4. WORLD WAR Z

5. CAT'S CRADLE

The Books of This Semester

This was a long semester. Lots of reading and writing of papers. (I think I wrote about 20 papers). But I thought I'd post the list of books read for my classes this semester. It's a pretty impressive list. Took a lot of time to get through, but I'm glad I got through each book. 

The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Republic by Plato

Poetics by Aristotle

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

The Guide for the Perplexed by Moses Maimonides

Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

New Science by Giambattista Vico

The Complete Works of Emily Dickinson Edited by Thomas H. Johnson

Short Stories by Hawthorne

Course in General Linguistics by Saussure

Ethics by Benedict De Spinoza

The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Discourse on Metaphysics by Leibniz

Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville

Banito Cereno by Herman Melville

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke

Principles of Human Knowledge by George Berkeley

Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass by Fredrick Douglass

Deaf In America by Carol Padden and Tom Humphries

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume

Dissemination by Jacques Derrida

Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

That is a total of 25 books. Lots and lots of reading. Next semester will probably be even more. But for now, during the summer, I'm going to take it easy. Less books and books I want to read. Should be good. I'm starting with my dads book, again, because I want to actually write a paper dealing with the Hell he describes and freewill. Should be good. 

Family and Stuff

I love this picture of Lesa and the boys. Just thought I'd share. (Photo taken by my Aunt, the photographer, Melanie).

I also took this today of Maddox who helped me clean my bike. He loves working on my bike with me, and even has his own tools. We washed both of my bikes and his bike. I was going to take a pic of him with all of them, but once his was clean he was off riding it around, so that didn't happen. He loves to say, "Dad, my bike is fast because it's a Trek, and yours is a slow Felt." Makes me laugh.

Maddox and Asher were in the backroom the other day where I keep my bike stuff and workout stuff and wanted to wear some of my stuff, so, I put it on them. Maddox has my swim cap on, and his goggles, and Asher has my Tough Mudder head band on.

Maddox drew this with dry erase markers. I love it and don't think we could ever erase it.

Reading List for the Summer

Well, I must say that I've read more than I thought I could over this last semester. Lots and lots of books. But this summer I'm going to get to some reading that I've wanted to do for some time and haven't gotten around to it. Here's my list, probably in the order I'll read them in (they may over lap):

1. Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell

2. The Brother's Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

3. Spiritual Writings, by Soren Kierkegaard

4. Thou Art That, by Joseph Campbell

Any other suggestions? I need a bigger book list so please let me know what you will be reading this summer!!

My Poetry and Publications

So, I just had a poem published at Wilderness Interface Zone. I'm pretty excited about it. This year so far I've had three publications. One at Tales of the Zombie War, a site devoted to zombie stories, I had a paper published, and presented at the UVU Philosophy Conference, and now this poem has been published. I must say. It's a good start to the year. I have a few more things (two sci-fi stories) that have been submitted for about 2 months. I'm not hopeful (but really never am), but still, no rejection letter is better than getting one 5 days after submitting it.

Anyways, feel free to read the poem or story, and for anyone interested, here are the notes I used for my philosophy paper presentation as the paper is longer and more tedious.

ZENO'S PARADOX ON MOTION : THE ARROW

UVU PHILOSOPHY CONFERENCE

So. Zeno's metaphysical paradox on how there is no motion. I mean, you take an arrow--shoot it and if you imagine it at some given instance of time it is frozen in that place. So, obviously, there is no motion. Got it? OK.

But really, What do these ideas do to our perception of reality? Is it altered at all? I mean, how important is having actual motion, really? We’ve gotten by this long with not moving . . . or moving, (who knows) and seem to be fine--sort of. The way I see it, though, is that these questions, maybe seemingly simple help define the human condition. They are important to out being and how we interact within the world.

So back to the arrow.

_______________________________________________________________________

Again, just to make this clear Zeno gave the example of an arrow being shot. He has us imagine the arrow in flight then we consider it frozen at a single point in time. He then says that the arrow, at that point is stationary, and so, in all other instances of time the arrow must also be stationary.

Basically, what we have in stead of motion is a string of individual moments in time lined up to give us the illusion of motion.

The official argument is as follows: (1) when the arrow is in a place just its own size, it's at rest. (2) at every moment of its flight, the arrow is in a place just its own size. (3) therefore, at every moment of its flight, the arrow is at rest.

_______________________________________________________________________

Little did Zeno know when contemplating the nature of reality that thousands of years later, what he said would show up in quantum mechanics. The QUANTUM ZENO EFFECT. This shows that an object moving through time, in quantum states, does not in fact move, but shifts between each collapsing wave function.

The best way to illustrate this is with a movie reel. The eye can only process so many frames per second from a reel, and when we watch a file we see motion as the reel is played at a certain speed. But really, what we are seeing are hundreds, or thousands of individual frames. What the naked eye sees does not prove or indicate what is actually, physically taking place.

Quantum mechanics gives us the illusion that there is motion when really there is none.

*Example of 64 bit game*

_______________________________________________________________________

However, there are other methods of looking at Zeno’s metaphysical claims of motion scientifically. For instance, it would seem that there must be more than just instances that somehow correspond with one another. William Poundstone asks, “There must be some information attached to a moving arrow that identifies it. Otherwise, how does it “know” to jerk forward in the next instance?” How would we be able to tell that the arrow was “moving” or would continue to move?

The motion, (or at least perceived motion) of an object brings about results. One of those is kinetic energy. An expression of the fact that an object in motion can bring about work on anything it hits or comes in contact with. It limits the amount of work an object could do as a result of that objects motion.

And what’s more this kinetic energy can be measured. For instance, the output of an arrow traveling at 90 meters per second would be 33.45 joules. This is a direct result of the arrows motion.

*Story of William Tell*

There is a measurable force that would need to interact with each object in order for such a result to come about. What caused that force or energy? It would seem that it was motion.

However, the main purpose of the paper is not to examine the differences or arguments but rather to redefine our notion of . . . motion.

The great Aristotle said that time is the measure of motion. Or rather, ANY change is motion. *Leibniz* In this light, movement can be defined as an object change through time. And since we are aware of time, it must, on some level exist, if not only a construct of our minds.

Therefore, I argue that movement can be categorized as an objects experience through time.

For instance – If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to SEE it, does it still have motion? – YES. There was an experience even if not conscious that took place.

Furthermore, in Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, the rate of a clock as well as material changed is lowered within a fast moving system. The closer the object moves to the speed of light, the slower time moves. Motion effects time. In fact, time is merely a by-product of motion. Essentially clocks “clock up” motion, not time. Time is simply how we understand that motion.

And so, when incorporating just these two different idea's about motion it seems that we must then reevaluate not how we perceive motion, but what we perceive as motion. Motion cannot be defined as an objects physically moving through space consecutively–even at a quantum level, for we can see that there can be illusions in this, like the movie reel—but that it must be defined by the results that we see come from an object moving through space or space-time.

I feel that redefining our view of motion all together must be the most conclusive resolution. When science can no longer, (so far) give an answer to a question seemingly so simple, maybe it is time to redefine the original problem—motion.

Motion = our experience through time.

Me and My Bike

About two years ago I decided that I needed to start biking everywhere I went. Bike to work, to school, as well as go on various rides. Since then I have not looked back. I've traveled over 7,200 miles since that time. 

This is at the top of a short hill that had an ave. grade of about 10% but got to points of 30% grade.

I made the hard decision last year to also bike through the winter. It was easy last year as the coldest I biked in was about 6*F, and there was very little snow. This year was a lot different. I biked in -4* and went through weeks and weeks of bitter, wet, hellish snow.

Biking home at 1:30 AM from work in the snow.

 I am also going to be starting a charity program that gives bikes to students who need them, for free. It's nothing big, but if you're interested or want to help let me know. I'll be buying cheap bikes over the summer, (or trying to find some for free), and will fix them up to give away (on campus) at the beginning of the fall semester.

The boys love helping me clean and tune up my bikes whenever they can.

Last summer I set up some goals to bike certain routes and trails and completed many of them. And this year I'll be doing even more, and with a group of great guys who will be racing with me, (on team Cycling Cyclopaths) in the Salt to Saint race. Which I'm very excited for.

At the top of Dry Canyon Rd. -- A great climb.

Near the top of the Alpine Loop Rd. (Sundance Side), near the end of the three peaks challenge, (Squaw Peak, South Fork and Alpine Loop in one ride).

So, this year--Summer--should be pretty fun. No more cold riding, or snow. I'll try to do better at keeping this blog updated with the different rides I go on with plenty of pictures. 

Top of Rock Canyon - Road on the gravel for some time. Fun but cold (at the time) ride.

Fall Registration / Why Do I Do This to Myself

I'm not sure what was/is going through my head, but for this coming fall semester I have registered for 18 credits. Also known as 6 classes. All of which are literary classes. Well, I guess my main motivation is that I really just want to graduate. Because of my 1.5 year science stint I am feeling like I should be further than I actually am. So, time to hurry this up.

Here are the classes I am signed up for. We'll see how it goes.

Topics in Shakespeare
British Literature Before 1800
Rhetorical Theory
Adolescent Literature
Academic Writing
Early American Literature