The notion that humanity is the only intelligent species in the galaxy or universe is irrational.

First it assumes that other intelligent life forms are the same as humanity or close to it.

Second it assumes that other intelligent life forms want to leave their home world and travel to meet, well us. Or since humans love killing each other another sentient species would arrive with the intention of starting a war of conquest. You know travel umteen hundred light years passing millions of habitable world just to do what humans would do to them if we could.

Third it assumes that an intelligent life form would by nature seek the knowledge of space travel.

Fourth it assumes that a sign of intelligence is the wanton destruction of a species home world brought on by severe overpopulation, since that’s what we’re doing.

It does seem that some humans are actually arrogant enough to feel certain we’re it when ‘it’ is an intelligent life form. Humans as an example of an intelligent life form is one that is destroying its home world. By the end of this century it is quite possible that life on this planet will not be possible due to the extreme lack of resources such as clean drinking water and food. The oceans (Baltic Sea for starters) are showing signs of dying. No oceans, no life.

How’s that for signs of intelligence? Elected officials make every effort to ignore scientific truth so in the end they add a large quantity to their personal fortune. Life be damned. The future can go to hell.

Because we are ignorant enough to disbelieve the factual evidence of our planet wide destruction, surely can we be certain every other intelligent life form that might exist on another planet was, is, or will be the same.

Two examples show that as incorrect. Elephants and dolphins.

If another planet’s sentient species is aquatic, would that care about space flight? If it was avian, would it care about intergalactic travel? Traveling to find a species like us? Seriously?

Living as we do is not necessarily the only sign of intelligence or any kind of indication of intelligence. In fact it may be a sign of a species longing for the end of it all. We’ve included that scenario into most religions as a ‘just in case’.

Believing we are the only sentient species in the galaxy, the universe is ignorance wrapped in a candy coating of arrogance. Period.

I felt fortunate to meet Anne McCaffery in Hollywood, California several years ago. I had, of course created an image of her in my mind that made her into a person greater than most.

Instead the Dragon Creator was as ordinary as me and you. We talked about cats. I had a ginger Main Coon cat and she had a variety including Maine Coons. I wasn’t sure my cat could be a Maine Coon since he was orange. She assured me that color did not determine his designation as a Maine Coon cat.

I did comment on her dragon stories and she told me a movie may be in the works. Nothing to date but hope springs eternal.

More than most things fictional or real, I love the concept of dragons doing what I need them to accomplish. Think of a dozen that do your bidding. Traffic jam? A half dozen dragons led by a red swoop down and clear the way.

Bully pushing you to the brink of doing the unthinkable? A pair of reds should clear up the bully’s misguided thinking.

But it’s equally interesting to know how the idea of dragons came to be part of popular mythology.

Imagine you’re living about a thousand years ago. You discover the skull of a triceratops. No one then knew of dinosaurs as we do now, or at all. You carry the skull back to your village after a long and difficult effort to drag it up an on your mule drawn cart using say two logs as a ramp.

Everyone you meet are stunned by your discovery. Yet no one including local aristocracy can explain its existence. More bone are located and little by little they are assembled into a massive creature. Not all bone were triceratops, but who knew? Or who cared?

Finally it was decided, possibly by the prince, count, Duke, or whoever was in charge that the beast could fly. That would’ve proved frightening to the masses who lacked any real education. Who believed superstition as a way to understand the natural world outside the limits of their existence.

Of course, it’s possible even the noblemen and women believed it. Superstition guided most lives then even as it does quite a few now. Either way the man in charge now needed to be know as the man who skew dragons. Such power!

Time developed the discovery into serious mythology. Enough so even religions included dragons into their stories. During the Middle Ages dragons came to represent the devil. And the Christian Saint George was depicted as a dragon slayer. Although he was not known for that that in his lifetime.

Occasionally I love the innocence of ignorance. The creation of dragons is one of those occasions. And no, I’m not implying that any religion was or is founded on ignorance of any kind. Sigh. Sad how these days a disclaimer is more often than not, absolutely necessary.

However, Dragons should live forever.

Yahoo news and perhaps all online media new sources are the digital replacement of supermarket tabloids. Nothing but either the worst of humanity, politicians and their self-serving babble, or animals/pets acting as they do but interpreted as behaving in a way humans like just because humans want them to.

If you want to be depressed or sleepless read it all.

Before digital life people got involved in the physical reality of life and honestly did not care about the idiotic and often insane behavior of the scattered few we now focus on as if they represent us all.

Life was lived in a place controlled by each person that encompassed necessity, friends, and family. The hell with the rest of the world. If it didn’t trespass on an individual or their rights the individual ignored it.

Now we act as if individuality takes second place to everyone and thing else.

I suggest you Shut it all off and take a walk in the woods. And remember the only bear in the woods is the fear of a bear in the woods. Unless you’re in the Washington DC. There, creating fear is the lifeblood of denial.

Frequently, I’ve read that Stephen Hawking invited time travelers to attend his birthday party. He would invite them after his birthday.

The first time I read about his invite I thought about how that might play out. If several strangers dressed weirdly knocked on his door the day before his birthday would they be welcomed? Would he really be inclined to accept them as travelers? Or would they get turned away?

Well, I thought, one could walk the streets of any city and find people dressed as anything. So how travelers dressed might prove meaningless.

Since I don’t think time travel tourism would be allowed since removing one artifact from the past might cancel out a segment of the future that needed to exist, only a trained professional would venture back in time.

What specifically did Stephen Hawking believe he had to offer them to make the likely expensive and time consuming visit to his birthday party? I’m thinking he had nothing to offer. It humanity reaches a point when we can time travel, well think about the scientific knowledge that will require. What Stephen Hawking knew was insufficient to create a basis for the science of time travel.

We still cannot prove that dark energy and dark matter truly exists. Since in reality time only exists for humans perhaps we’ve overlooked the need to think as if all time really does exist at the same time. And perhaps dark matter or dark energy is the key to unlocking a way to move through time. Since the theory of dark matter is that it’s everywhere that there is no matter, well…So again why would a person who could travel through time attend Stephen’s birthday party?

Or did they?