“If we are so far unable to find meaning for our existence, why would we expect meeting ET to change things?”

“What is Value? Does it exist, is it for real? Or is it something we make up to justify our capricious behavior?”

“Ovid freed us from the collective anonymity of Plato and prepared us for the intensely personal theology of Jesus.”

“AI treats Sally as the intersection of a bunch of sociological variables…(but) Startrek’s Borg Collective takes ‘post-modern Sally’ to a whole other level”

“What holds everything together? How is it that Universe is a universe, that it has an identity?”

“Accomplish as much as possible, experience as intensely as possible, but change as little as possible!”

“Perhaps social scientists will be first to identify the elusive factors that drive unexpected results.”

“We had to invent AI, specifically LLMs, before we could understand NI (Natural Intelligence)…i.e. how Universe works.”

“Anything we do that affects something outside us also affects us… Reciprocity is all around us, yet we are oblivious to it.”

“Both individual justice and collective survival require equality of opportunity; neither benefits from artificially imposed equality of result.”

“What if it is the final moment of my life…endures forever in my consciousness?”

“We now accept what (Lewis) Carroll said in jest as a tolerably accurate description of the human condition.”