Arguments for and against human exceptionalism

 This was triggered by an article I read in Philosophy Now (Issue 171, Dec 2025 / Jan 2026) by Adam Neiblum who authored Rise of the Nones: The Importance of Freedom from Religion (Hypatia Press, 2023). I don’t normally mention the publisher, but I find it interesting that they are named after the famous female Librarian of Alexandria, Hypatia (pronounced hi-pay-shia) who was infamously killed by a Christian mob in AD 414. I’ve written about her elsewhere.
 
The article was titled, Evolution or Progress, and asks “what the difference is and why it matters”. Not really a question, though one is implied. Basically, he’s arguing that evolution is not teleological (though he doesn’t use that term). Instead, he discusses the erroneous belief that most people associate evolution with progress, which is a symptom, not just of anthropocentrism, but our religious heritage. I think these are actually 2 different things, while admitting, for many people, they are connected.
 
I want to start by challenging his premise that the association of evolution with progress is not as erroneous as it appears, depending on how one defines or describes progress. My dictionary has 2 definitions:
 
1: forward or onward movement towards a destination
 
2: development towards an improved or more advanced condition
 
By the first definition, I think he’s right, but not by the second definition. If one looks at the historical evidence, going back not just millions but billions of years: the increase in complexity and sheer diversity from the most simple cells to animals with brains, I’d argue surely applies to definition 2.
 
To emphasise my point, I’ll quote from Neiblum’s essay, who provides his own definition of progress:
 
A)    An ideal or goal – literacy, or justice, for example.
B)    A gap between this ideal and the real-world state of affairs.
C)    A process of movement – individually, collectively, or even species-wide – towards that goal or ideal.
 
We can see these are not the same ideas. Evolution is neither purposeful nor intentional, it has no ideal, aim, or end-point.
 
One can see how this aligns with my dictionary definition 1, but not definition 2.
 
To be fair to Neiblum, he does address my criticism, in as much as he acknowledges evolution results in increased complexity. But he also points out that so-called primitive lifeforms (my words, not his) like insects, crocodiles, sharks (and other so-called living fossils) still thrive. But the reason they thrive, is that they have become part of an eco-system (the same with gut bacteria, for example). Evolution never applies to a species in isolation; just look at the fact that we all can’t exist without plants processing the carbon dioxide we expire as part of the extraordinary process called photo-synthesis.
 
Neiblum then goes on to discuss the role of religion, and specifically the Christian religion, in distorting or exaggerating (again, my terms) our anthropocentrism. But I’ll return to that specific point later.
 
I would like to point out that humans are not the only examples of exceptionalism in the animal kingdom. To give just 2 examples: the peregrine falcon can literally fly through the air at 200mph (in a dive); and the sperm whale can dive down to 2-3km and stay underwater for up to 45 mins.
 
But human exceptionalism is unusual and unique in the sense that, to quote Paul Davies: ‘We can unravel the plot’. I admit I tend to get annoyed when people tend to dismiss our unique ability to comprehend the universe to the degree and extent that we’ve managed to achieve. I recently watched an excellent series titled HUMAN, presented by paleo-anthropologist, Ella Al-Shamahi, which is very extensive and comprehensive for a lay-audience, and one of the things that stood out was how ‘break-throughs’ (for want of a better term) in cognitive abilities, seem to happen virtually simultaneously in different parts of the globe; the use of written script being a good example.
 
So, our cultural evolution, has tended to happen in jumps. And, in this sense, it is synonymous with progress to which Neiblum would undoubtedly agree. In his next-to-last sentence, he states that evolution has endowed us with the unique capacity to progress (emphasis in the original) using “evidence, reason and science”.
 
Personally, I think it is our unique grasp of mathematics that has been the most salient feature in propelling our advance in knowledge and comprehension of the natural world. To quote Eugene Wigner:
 
It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here… or the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind’s capacity to divine them.
 
This was from his famous essay, The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences. And this is arguably the only reason, as Davies asserts, ‘we can unravel the plot’.
 
In my last post, I briefly talked about language, as well as imagination. Now, I actually believe that imagination is not unique to humans, in the sense that it allows us to mentally time-travel, and I suspect other creatures can do that as well, which we see in their ability to co-operate and act towards a goal. Implicit in that ability is the capacity to imagine that goal before it’s actualised. To the extent that other creatures can do this, I contend they have free will.
 
But humans take imagination to another level, because we can mentally time-travel to worlds that don’t even exist, which we do every time we read or watch a story. And this entails that other superpower we have, which is language. To quote from my last post:

…we all think in a language, which we learn from our milieu at an extremely early age, suggesting we are ‘hardwired’ genetically to do this. Without language, our ability to grasp and manipulate abstract concepts, which is arguably a unique human capability, would not be possible. Basically, I’m arguing that language for humans goes well beyond just an ability to communicate desires and wants, though that was likely its origin.
 
And this is the thing: these abstract concepts include mathematical equations, scientific theories and engineering designs (including, by the way, the theory of evolution, which is central to this discussion). But more than this, we ‘download’ this language from generation to generation at an age when these concepts are well beyond our cognitive abilities. And it’s this unique facility that has allowed us to create entire civilisations and build the scientific enterprise that we all depend upon and take for granted (if you’re reading this).
 
I’ve spent a lot of time belabouring a point, because my arguments thus far have nothing to do with religious beliefs.
 
Religion implies that there is a purpose and we are central to that purpose. I think purpose has evolved, and I’m unsure if Neiblum would agree. I’ve argued before that the Universe appears to be pseudo-teleological or quasi-teleological in that there is no end goal, yet the very mathematical laws that we have the cognitive capacity to ‘unravel’ seem to allow for a goal, even if it’s open-ended. Possibly, I’m subconsciously influenced by my ability and passion as a storyteller, because I prefer to write a story without knowing what the ending is. I’m not the only writer who does this, though there are others who won’t start a story without knowing the ending in advance.
 
I’ve always struggled with the concept of a ‘creator’ God, which is not dissimilar to the more recent belief that we live in a simulation. In a recent episode of an Australian satirical programme called The Weekly by Charlie Pickering, one of his guests, Rhys Nicholson, did a skit on this, even citing Nick Bolstrom, who is an academic proponent, but also comparing it to the widely held belief that there is a God pulling the strings behind the scenes (metaphorically speaking). Paul Davies in his book, The Goldilocks Enigma (highly recommended) also argues that the ‘simulation hypothesis’ is just a variation on ID (Intelligent Design).
 
I also like to cite Jordan Ellenberg from his excellent book, How Not to Be Wrong; The Power of Mathematical Thinking, where, among many other contentious topics, he discusses the ‘Bayesian inference of the existence of God’, whereby he shows that the Universe being a computer simulation has at least the same probability as it has being a divine intervention.
 
The thing that has struck me about all the Gods in our combined histories is that they all have cultural origins, including the Abrahamic God, and they are all anthropomorphic. I’ve long agreed with 19th Century philosopher, Ludwig Feuerbach, that ‘God is the outward projection of man’s inner nature’. God is something internal not external, though, of course, that doesn’t rule out an external source.
 
Personally, I’m attracted to the Hindu concept of Brahman (as was Schrodinger) as a collective mind that could be the end result of consciousness rather than its progenitor. I’m not proposing this as a definitive resolution, but it would provide a goal that Neiblum considers anathema to science.
 
All that aside, I think there is another aspect to seeing ourselves as ‘exceptional’ in the animal kingdom here on Earth, because it gives us a special responsibility. We are effectively the guardians of spaceship Earth by default. However, it’s a two-edged sword: we have the unique capability to destroy it or to safeguard it. Which one we do is dependent on all of us.

John Searle (31 July, 1932 – 17 September, 2025)

 My grand-niece, giving an obituary at my mother’s funeral (a few years back), read out a rather clever poem she’d written, called ‘What’s in a dash?’ In the case of John Searle, it includes an academic career as a philosopher, who created a thought experiment that found its way outside of academia into popular discourse. It also included ignominy when he was stripped of his title as Professor Emeritus of the Philosophy of Mind and Language at the University of California, Berkeley, following accusations of sexual harassment in June 2019 (refer Wikipedia for details).
 
Just on that, we live in a time of cancel culture, but also changing social norms, which I think are largely for the better. Personally, I don’t necessarily condemn someone for sleeping with a student, depending on circumstances, though I know many find it shocking. But if they’re both legally adults and it’s consensual, I wouldn’t rush to judgement. Erwin Schrodinger, well known for his libertine views and habits, got at least one student pregnant when he was living in exile in Ireland during the war. I only know this because I read about her grandson living and working as a physicist in Australia. Apparently, he only learned of his esteemed ancestry relatively late in his life. As I said, social norms have changed.
 
And relationships in workplaces are common, including myself, though the workplace was a kitchen and not an office. Having said all that, I think being in a position of authority and coercing someone who rejected sexual advances is a sackable offence, irrespective of the environment. And according to the Wikipedia article, that was the case with Searle. Nevertheless, in the NYT obituary, they added the following:
 
After Professor Searle’s death, Jennifer Hudin, the former director of the Searle Center, stated publicly that she had faced related accusations, but that both she and Professor Searle were innocent of all charges.
 
It is worth reading her email to Colin McGinn where she disputes the outcome and how she claims that Searle was actually exonerated by the investigation, but it was subsequently overturned. Having served on a jury (for a sex-related charge, as it turns out), you literally have to work out who’s lying and who’s telling the truth; in this case, neither I nor you can do that.
 
Although it was over 3 months ago, I only learned about his death when I came across a one-page obituary in the latest issue of Philosophy Now (Issue 171, Dec 2025 / Jan 2026).
 
I won’t relate a history of his career, because others do that more comprehensively than I can, in links I’ve already provided. I read his book, MiND, a brief introduction, many years ago, probably when it was published (2004). I can still remember coming across it unexpectedly in a book shop (I hadn’t visited before or since) while I was getting work done on my car. I found it a very stimulating read. Of course, I’d heard about his famous ‘Chinese room’ thought experiment, and to quote The New York Times again:
 
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, an internet reference source, the Searle thought experiment “has probably been the most widely discussed philosophical argument in cognitive science to appear since the Turing Test,” the mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing’s 1950 procedure for determining machine intelligence.
 
While looking for obituaries online, I came across an interview he did for Philosophy Now in the Winter 1999/2000 Issue 25, so a millennium issue effectively. It gives a good overview of his philosophy that includes his ideas on language, where he coined the term, ‘speech-acts’ plus his ideas on The Construction of Social Reality (the title of a book I haven’t read). He effectively argues that these 2 fields, combined with his ideas on mind (therefore, 3 fields) are all related.
 
It was in Searle’s book, Mind, that I first came across the term, ‘intentionality’, which has a specific meaning in a philosophical context, and is related to the conscious mind’s ability to represent something externally, internally. That’s my clumsy way of explaining it, because it directly relates to my personal philosophy that we all have an internal and external world, which affects everything we do, because they are interdependent.
 
I saw an extended interview, not-so-recently, of Raymond Tallis by Robert Lawrence Kuhn on Closer to Truth, where he had a different take on it, which some might consider radical, yet is actually a good working definition: ‘Nothing is made explicit except by a creature who is conscious of it. And aware of it.’
 
In other words, there is this relationship between consciousness and reality, whereby something has no specificity (for want of a better term) until a conscious entity perceives it. I’ve made a similar point, when I’ve argued that when it comes to the question: why is there something rather than nothing? There might as well be nothing without consciousness. The Universe seems to have the inbuilt goal or destiny to be self-realisable. Paul Davies has made a similar point.
 
This is arguably related to Searle’s ideas on intentionality, because I think it’s what philosophical intentionality is all about – the mind’s ability to conjure up its own internal reality, which may or may not relate to the external reality we all inhabit. In fact, I’ve argued that evolution by natural selection is directly dependent on our ability to do this, simply because the external reality can kill us, in infinitely diverse ways.
 
Regarding Searle’s pre-occupation with intentionality, I would like to quote from another post, where I reference Searle’s book.
 
It’s not for nothing that Searle claims ‘the problem of intentionality is as great as the problem of consciousness’ – I would contend they are manifestations of the same underlying phenomena – as though one is passive and the other active. Searle wrote his book, Mind, in part, to offer explanations for these phenomena (although he added the caveat that he had only scratched the surface).
 
I argued in the same post that intentionality is really imagination, which allows us to mentally time-travel, without which, we wouldn’t be able to reconstruct the past or anticipate a future, both of which are essential for day-to-day interactions, not to mention, survival.
 
Searle would argue that intentionality is something that separates us from AI, and I would argue the same for imagination, which allows me to segue into his Chinese room thought experiment.
 
Many would argue that it’s past its use-by-date, and I even came across someone recently, calling it the ‘Chinese room fallacy’. On the other hand, with the rise of LLMs like ChatGPT, I’d say it’s prescient. Basically, Searle believed very strongly – some might say to the point of arrogance – that ‘the brain is not a computer and the mind is not software’, meaning it doesn’t run on algorithms, and I would agree. It doesn’t help that we use the word ‘language’ when talking about both computers and humans.
 
More specifically, the whole point of his Chinese room argument is that a person could answer questions addressed in Chinese and respond in Chinese (basically, inputs and outputs) without ever understanding the Chinese language, simply by blindly following a set of rules (algorithms) and manipulating symbols accordingly. Searle argued that this is basically what all computers do. The point is that it would give the impression that the person in the room understood Chinese, similarly to the way some people believe that a computer understands something the same way a human does. And this is what we’ve found with ChatGPT.
 
I’ve recently been watching a podcast series by Lex Fridman where he interviews some very clever people, including a series with mathematician, logician and philosopher, Joel David Hamkins (John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Logic at the University of Notre Dame). I mention him, because in one of the podcasts he remarks how he finds AI not at all helpful in exploring mathematics; specifically, ChatGPT. Now, I’m not at all surprised, but maybe there are other AI tools that are specifically designed to help mathematicians. For example, mathematicians now use computers to run myriad scenarios to formulate proofs that couldn’t be achieved otherwise. But it still doesn’t mean that the computer understands what it’s doing.
 
In the Philosophy Now interview, Searle talks about language and ‘social reality’, which I’ve barely touched on, yet they are obviously related. To quote from the interview, out of context:
 
On the account that I give, social reality is a matter of what people think, and what they think is a matter of how they talk to each other, and relate to each other. So you can’t have a social reality without a language, not a human social reality without a language.
 
What he doesn’t say, at least not in this interview, is that we all think in a language, which we learn from our milieu at an extremely early age, suggesting we are ‘hardwired’ genetically to do this. Without language, our ability to grasp and manipulate abstract concepts, which is arguably a unique human capability, would not be possible. Basically, I’m arguing that language for humans goes well beyond just an ability to communicate desires and wants, though that was likely its origin.
 
In the same passage of the interview, he explains how we follow specific social protocols (though he doesn’t use that word), giving the interview itself as an example. They both know what social rules they need to follow in that particular environment. The thing is that I came across this idea when I studied social psychology and they are called ‘scripts’, which in turn, are based on ‘schema’, and these are culturally dependent. In other words, our actions and our responses, be they verbal, written or behavioural, are largely governed by social norms that we have delegated to our subconscious.
 
That maybe an oversimplification, and not doing him justice, so I recommend you read the interview for yourself.
 
Humans are not the only social animal, but we have created a cultural evolution that has overtaken our biological evolution, giving rise to the term, ‘meme’, coined by Richard Dawkins and elaborated on by others; most notably, Susan Blackmore, which I’ve discussed elsewhere. But integral to that cultural evolution is language, because, even without written script, it allows us to accumulate memories across generations in a way that no other species can, which is why we have civilisations.
 
Searle argued that he wasn’t a physicalist (or materialist), which made him clash with David Dennett, but also not a (Cartesian) dualist, which some might argue is the only alternative. Searle acknowledges that consciousness has a causal relationship with the neurons in our brain. To quote:
 
The brain is made up of all these neurons and the individual neurons…  But what happens is that neurons, through causal interactions – causal interactions, not just formal, symbolic interactions but actual causal relationships with actual neurons firing and synapses operating – cause a higher level feature of the system, namely, consciousness and intentionality.
 
I find this similar to Douglas Hoffstadter’s idea of a ‘strange loop’, which is that the causal loop goes both ways, and this relates to free will, or what someone called ‘causal consciousness’, which I claim, is related to imagination. I quote Philip Ball from his tome, The Book of Minds:
 
When we make a choice, we aren’t selecting between various possible futures, but between various imagined futures, as represented in the mind’s internal model of the world… (emphasis in the original)
 
Searle spends an entire chapter on free will in his book, Mind. I leave you with his conclusion, which might be a good place to wrap this up:
 
Even after we have resolved the most fundamental questions addressed in this book, questions such as, What is the nature of the mind? How does it relate to the rest of the physical world? How can there be such a thing as mental causation? And how can our minds have intentionality? There is still the question of whether or not we really do have freedom.

The inherent tension between free speech, hate speech and censorship; where to draw the line

 The last Question of the Month in Philosophy Now was What are the Proper Limits of Free Speech? and answers were published in Issue 171, December 2025/January 2026. I submitted one, which wasn’t published. I don’t mind as they had excellent answers.
 
Limits on free speech is a contentious issue, because it axiomatically requires an arbitrator as well as criteria for arbitration, and, in many cases, it can have political ramifications. In my response, I argued that it is a consequence of our tribalism, which results in the subjectivity of perceived truth and the role of censorship (refer below).
 
Just on the subject of arbitration, I saw a recent documentary on our electoral system in Australia, and the head of our Electoral Commission, said there was no censorship of campaign advertising because they could not be seen as an arbiter of ‘truth’ without being accused of political bias (from whichever side). The only legal requirement is that the advertisement needs to be authorised by the political party that is being promoted. This doesn’t stop other organisations from putting in their 10c worth; but I’m talking about organisations whose views are well known, as are most media outlets, so it’s seen as political commentary rather than campaigning, though the distinction may be blurred.
 
Slightly off-track, but still relevant. Even more recently I watched a documentary on the history of Twitter, from its inception up until its sale to Elon Musk. They interviewed all-but-one of the cofounders, and my immediate impression was how naïve they were, when the ‘dark side’ of Twitter emerged, and how they failed to foresee it, let alone control it.
 
And this goes to the nub of the issue concerning the limits of free speech. In particular, how it was weaponised by organisations like ISIS, not to mention by Trump during his 2020 election campaign, when his hate speech was unfiltered. He was banned as a consequence, then allowed back on, in time to stoke the fires of the Jan 6 storming of the Capital, before being banned a second time, despite being POTUS. This didn’t stop some of his followers tweeting “Hang Pence”, among other inflammatory tweets. This confirms my own criterion for the ‘proper limits of free speech’, after I had written my analysis (see below).
 
I couldn’t help but compare Twitter with Wikipedia, especially since I watched a recent interview with its founder, Jimmy Wales. I know it’s a completely different platform, but Wikipedia could have easily created a warren of rabbit holes similar to YouTube and other social media outlets where the need to grow a consumer-base at all costs means that truth and accountability are jettisoned.


Wikipedia is a completely different model where the credibility of the ‘source’ is paramount. As someone who has prepared evidence for courts of law, I believe the same principles can apply in the court of public opinion, and I believe Wikipedia demonstrates this possibility. In a court of law or mediation process (I’ve been involved in both), the evidence and its credibility is the only criteria that matters. So when something is fact-checked and rejected, I don’t call that censorship – I call it being morally responsible.
 
I think one of the problems with my submission to Philosophy Now, was that 400 words is too limiting to discuss the nuances of attempting to deal with misinformation that can have life-or-death consequences, which includes current misinformation about vaccines. I think that both the far-right and far-left can be guilty of being anti-science and this has consequences for all of us. I think we need to acknowledge our dependency on people who have expertise that the rest of us don’t have, which was an everyday occurrence for me in my professional life in engineering. I have little patience for politicians who eschew scientific advice, no matter the field of inquiry.
 
Wikipedia, as revealed in the interview, is also accused of political bias, but I think that’s inevitable if you refuse to cater to conspiracy theories, which is something else I attempted to address in my original submission. At the end of the day, it comes down to trust, as Jimmy Wales keeps emphasising. People tend to trust their ‘tribe’, which is why, and how, social media has created echo-chambers fed by algorithms. And yes, I’m susceptible to that as well. 

I’ve written previously on how one can find truth in a post-truth world, and I rely on the lessons I learned from preparing arguments in disputes. I found that if they are based on documented evidence that can’t be disputed, then you're in a good position. This is more difficult in the alternate universes created on the Internet, but sticking to the science is a good starting point. I tend to agree with Prof Brian Cox, that ignorance is the greatest danger facing humanity in the 21st Century. So ideas need to be contested, but I don’t think it helps to give conspiracy theories the same footing as evidence-based science.
 
This is my original 400 word submission to Philosophy Now.
 
This is a multi-faceted issue, so I’m going to start with context. We are a tribal species – one only has to look at other primates. And it’s an example of where a biological evolutionary trait has been amplified by cultural evolution, which in humans, has uniquely overtaken biological evolution. This is central to understanding how free speech has become problematic.
 
There is a relationship between free speech, perceived truth and censorship. I say, ‘perceived truth’, because it varies between standpoints, or tribes, and creates clashes in various forums from newsrooms to social media platforms to political outlets and even university campuses. Yet, arguably, it’s arguments over ‘truth’ that is the real problem when dealing with free speech, because one person’s education is another person’s propaganda. This has led to virtual alternative universes, which are not just different but opposites. Well known examples include climate change, where in one universe it’s a hoax or conspiracy, and in another universe it’s a scientific fact, and the not-so-recent COVID pandemic where, in one universe, vaccines saved lives and in an alternative universe, they were a ‘bio-weapon’. And of course, this extends into American politics, where in one universe, the candidate stole an election and in an alternative universe, the other candidate attempted to overthrow it.
 
Misinformation and disinformation are now rampant in the age of social media where regulations are not as stringent as they are in traditional media and the platforms are not legally responsible for what people post on them. Yet free speech, by its implicit intention, allows all views on a topic to have equal validity. This has led to arguments about ‘balance’ being imposed on public broadcasters by politicians and other parties, where scientific, evidence-based statements are expected to stand alongside conspiracy theories as if they have equal footing. It’s similar to arguments for ‘Intelligent Design’ to be taught alongside biological evolution.
 
To curtail these arguments brings the response of censorship. But there are some forms of censorship that virtually all tribes condone, which usually involves the protection of children. It’s only censorship of ‘free speech’ between groups or tribes that is contentious.
 
But the most pernicious aspect of tribalism arises from a tendency to form an ingroup-outgroup mindset, resulting in intransigence. And when the outgroup is demonised, the consequences can be dangerous, even fatal, and ‘free speech’ can be weaponised into ‘hate speech’. This delineates the ‘proper limit’.

Some notes on writing, with examples

 These are some posts I’ve written on Quora over the last month – a small sample (only 4), as I often write 2 or 3 in one day.

The first 3 are about dialogue and the last one is about description - so, no dialogue. All but the first include examples.
 

How can one improve their dialogue writing skills for a novel or short story? What techniques can be used to make dialogue more engaging and authentic?

I have one word for dialogue: spontaneity. I really think that’s the key, so I don’t overthink it. I compare it to learning a musical instrument (something I failed at), which means it requires a lot of practice – a point that Vincent Berg makes and emphasises in his answer.

Actors will tell you that the secret to their craft is to be in the moment (I can’t act either) and to be able to say a line of dialogue as if it’s just come into their head. Well, that’s exactly my approach when I write it.

I learned how to write dialogue from doing exercises in writing classes, so that’s what I recommend to everyone else who is just starting out. 

 
What's the difference between good and bad dialogue?

Most truthful answer: I don’t know, but I know it when I read it.

This is because anyone can judge dialogue, not just writers. Factors that contribute are more subliminal than obvious. For a start, it doesn’t distract or throw the reader out of the story, which means it’s contextual and relevant. Dialogue that jars means it’s inconsistent and doesn’t fit with our expectations of that character.

All dialogue reflects the relationship between characters, which could be one of power or vulnerability or potential friendship or potential adversary. Relationships can change and grow or deteriorate, and dialogue reflects all of that. A relationship can change from one of contempt to begrudging respect, for example, and that can be hard to pull off.

It may sound strange, but I don’t think about it too much, because it has to be spontaneous. I often compare it to playing jazz, even though I’m not a musician. You need to get inside the character’s head and know what they’re thinking. Given it’s always at least a 2-way interaction, you need to be able to swap heads. I really don’t know how I do that, but I just do.

An example always helps. Note we get some exposition as well as an insight into their relationship. Note also how mundane and ordinary the subject-matter is.

Astera asked Alfa if Carla was available for a holo-link, and within minutes she appeared in his room, lying on a bed, propped up on her elbows. Her blonde hair falling below her shoulders.


‘How was the moon?’ she asked.


‘We spent most of the time underground. Though, on its surface, you get an unbelievable view of the stars.’


‘Did you enjoy it? Was it worth the visit?’


‘I wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time there. Do you know women aren’t allowed?’


‘Actually, I did. Kym’s sister, Rita, wanted to work there, but they won’t let her.’


Astera wanted to change the subject, ‘It’s good to see you.’ He immediately felt that it was such a lame thing to say, but Carla surprised him.


Her face softened, because she knew it was genuine, ‘Good to see you too.’


He wanted to reach out and touch her, ‘Can we catch up today, do you think?’


‘Yes, I think so. What do you want to do?’


 ‘Why don’t we meet in the mall and decide from there.’


‘Okay, have you had lunch?’


‘I had a snack on the shuttle, but I could eat something more substantial.’


‘Okay, let’s sync our wrist bands so we can find each other.’


He saw her press the band on her wrist and he heard a ping on his.
 She then waved at him and disappeared into thin air.
 
 
What are some strategies to make dialogue and exposition flow naturally in a narrative, especially in scenes with minimal action?

There are 5 types or modes of narrative: description, action, exposition, dialogue and introspection. Some call introspection, ‘insight’, which it is for the reader, but I call it introspection, because it’s written entirely from inside the character’s head.

I wouldn’t overthink this, as it’s really a matter of fit-for-purpose. I’ve written scenes that are all exposition and scenes that are all description, but it’s not the norm. However, in cases where I’ve done that, it’s to compress time.

I’ve written long passages of introspection, but it’s where the POV character is alone – I did this in Elvene, when she was trapped underground.

Action is sequential, so think choreography; if it’s a fight scene, stay in one POV. But a car chase would also be action, or a space battle, which I’ve written. Again, keep it linear and sequential – one thing happens after another.

Dialogue is actually the easiest to write, though it mightn’t seem so when you’re starting out. It’s also the easiest to read, because it engages the reader, assuming it’s well written. Again, it helps if you stay in one POV.

Use description to set up a scene, but keep it brief, and also use a character’s POV, and then stick with it. Dialogue always tells us something about the relationship between the interlocutors. Exposition is often included in dialogue.

Artemus was seated behind his semicircular desk with the cityscape behind him as a floor to ceiling vista; a not-so-subtle reminder of what he commanded.


He gestured for Sartre to take a seat in the only chair available.


‘How are you finding the woman called Donna?’


Sartre thought his phrasing indicated that he didn’t think of Donna as someone of any significance to him.


‘She seems okay. The girls like her and she doesn’t interfere with what they do.’


Artemus nodded as if this satisfied him, ‘What’s her relationship with Kym?'

Sartre knew that Artemus already knew the answer, so he said, ‘I believe they’re lovers.’


Artemus smiled, ‘You only believe?’


‘I haven’t asked them and I don’t intrude on their private lives, but they do spend a lot of time together and their body language suggests they’re more than friends.'

Artemus got up and the desk rotated so that he was now standing directly in front of Sartre, which made him uncomfortable. Sartre knew it was intentional. 

Artemus walked to Sartre’s left and slightly behind before continuing.


‘I’m pretty sure Donna is a spy.’


Sartre turned his head towards him, ‘How do you know that?’


Artemus looked down at him without bending his head. ‘I don’t, it’s a hunch.’


He turned on his heels and walked back to his chair, so that he faced Sartre without the desk. ‘You don’t become as successful as me by trusting people.’


Sartre said, ‘What do you want to do?’


‘Nothing.’ He let the desk resume its original position and then put his elbows on it with his hands together, his fingers resting at his nose. Then he put them down in order to elaborate, ‘She’s put herself in a position where we can use her.’

 
Why do some beautifully described settings fail to make a story compelling, and how can writers balance description with plot action?

It’s possible to do both at the same time, depending on context and where you are in the story. I think it’s important to create mood and atmosphere, and its effect on the character. This is an example I’ve given before because it achieves a number of things at once: it compresses time, moves the story forward and creates tension and expectation. 

Elvene walked across the rolling hills in front of her and only occasionally glanced back towards the ocean. She was conscious of leaving behind her only link to long term survival in the form of Alfa, who was hidden and incommunicado. She knew she was taking a huge gamble, but Alfa was no insurance policy against marauders, and ultimately the ship’s survival may be more important than hers. At times she couldn’t see the ocean at all, as she crossed shallow valleys, but it always reappeared when she climbed the western side. There was a strong wind coming in from the sea and she imagined that it could be a desolate place at some times of the year but today the sky was relatively clear with some clouds scudding across at high altitude. She reckoned that she should reach the tree line at just about sunset, though she knew such estimates could be misleading. The sun was falling towards the hills in front of her and when she reached the last valley, the shadows slowly stretched towards her like the forest was reaching out to embrace her approach.

Some notes on time travel; and why it’s not on my wish list

 This is a post I wrote on Quora in answer to a question, where I gave all the reasons I don’t. It’s a far-ranging post, including science fiction tropes and real science speculation. I also managed to contradict myself, but rather than correct it, I left the error to highlight my lamentable memory. How could you forget your first sci-fi story?
 
Have you ever wanted to time travel?

There is both a philosophical and psychological component to this question, as well as a scientific one. As a sci-fi writer, I have not entertained it, though I have written a story where characters living on different worlds aged differently, which was also done in the movie, Interstellar, albeit different storylines with different consequences.

I’m also a longtime fan of Dr Who. I especially like the 50th Anniversary episode, The Day of the Doctor, where we have 3 Doctors, played by Matt Smith, David Tennant and John Hurt, though Tom Baker has a cameo appearance towards the end. Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald is the companion, but Billie Piper (Rose Tyler) has one of the best roles as Bad Wolf, where she’s the conscience of a sentient Doomsday machine; a brilliant, innovative plot device, especially when she plays the foil to John Hurt’s Doctor.

But arguably one of my favourite episodes is The Weeping Angels (who make reappearances, like Daleks) so I’m talking about the original episode. It’s David Tennant’s Doctor with Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman), one of my favourite companions, and one of the cleverest uses of time travel I’ve seen. 

Probably my favourite time-travel movie is Predestination, based on a short story, All You Zombies by Robert A Heinlein (rejected by Playboy, apparently). It starred Ethan Hawke and a brilliant Sarah Snook, before she became famous, and was made in Australia.

The psychological component is that I have no desire to go back and change my past, because it would make me a different person. I’m a strong believer in having no regrets despite making some terrible mistakes in my life; I own them. The alternative is to live in self-denial and eternal name-blaming. Do not go there: the destination is self-pity if not self-destruction; I’ve been down that path and came back.

The other scenario is to time-travel to somewhere in the past or future, a la Dr Who. But here’s the thing: the culture, the language and the customs are so different to what you know, that it would be next-to-impossible to adjust. Our morality is more dependent on social norms than we like to admit. It’s hard for us to imagine living in a time when owning slaves was socially acceptable and women were literally treated like children or intellectually backward compared to men. So, no, I have no wish to go there. And I don’t want to know what the future is either – it could be dystopian, catastrophic or a kinder more forgiving world. I prefer to live in the present and try to impact the future in whatever small way I can.

I almost forgot. How could I? I actually wrote a screenplay involving time travel, where a teenager is taken to another world in the future, titled Kidnapped in Time. So I just contradicted my first paragraph. Here’s the thing; spoiler alert: when he’s allowed to return to Earth and meet his father and brother, who have aged more than him, he decides to stay on the world he was taken to, because it’s now his new home. I still think it’s a good story, well told, and not dated, even though his Earth childhood is set in 1960s, like mine, though his family life is nothing like mine.

Scientifically, there are some scenarios. For example, Kurt Godel worked out, using Einstein’s field equations, that if the Universe was rotating, we would live in time loops. The thing is that if we lived in a time loop, we wouldn’t know, or would we? I think the CMBR (cosmic microwave background radiation) from around 14B years ago says we don’t. The other possibility is via multiple worlds, but I don’t believe in them, either quantum or cosmological, and if you changed worlds you wouldn’t know, because only the future would change and not the past. And then there is causality, which I argue underpins all of physics, though others might debate that, which I’m happy to oblige. Even QM has a causal relationship with reality when the wavefunction collapses and is irreversible.

A conversation with Alain Aspect, Nobel Laureate and seminal experimenter in quantum physics

 You may or may not have heard of Alain Aspect (pronounced Ass-pay), but he’s a significant figure in the history of the development of quantum mechanics. Looking him up, I was surprised to learn he’s not much older than me. He was in his mid-thirties when he did his groundbreaking experiments: among the first to demonstrate Bell’s theorem in practice, not just in theory, and effectively proving that entanglement is non-local, meaning it breaks with special relativity.
 
This was almost 30 years after Einstein died, and effectively proved he was wrong regarding his views on entanglement. Having said that, it was Einstein who set the ball rolling with the famous 1935 paper titled, "Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Considered Complete?" that he co-wrote with Podolsky and Rosen, so better known as the EPR paper. Aspect jointly won the Nobel prize with John Clauser and Anton Zellinger for his definitive experimental contribution to that topic.
 
So I was surprised and very pleased to come across a 55 min interview with him by Brian Greene on YouTube, as part of a series. I read an interview with Aspect decades ago in a book co-edited by P C W Davies and Julian R Brown titled The Ghost in the Atom. It included interviews with other luminaries in the field like John Bell, Eugene Wigner, John Wheeler, David Deutsch and David Bohm, plus more.
 
Aspect is French, but his English is excellent. It’s unusual to find interviews with experimental physicists as opposed to theoretical physicists, and I would call it refreshing, because he tends not to elaborate or speculate beyond what the evidence tells him. Having said that, Greene presses him on what his intuition tells him, and even that is informative, because he keeps it simple.
 
While I was watching, I made some notes. I did not know that he was the first to produce isolated photons. If you go to roughly the 16-17m mark, he explains how he ‘split’ the wavefunction of the photon into ‘2 half wave packets’ (along 2 separate paths using beam splitters), which seems impossible for an individual photon. He says that the only way he can explain it is with non-locality. In his own words, ‘if I measure the wave packet on the right, the other wave packet on the left instantaneously collapses to zero.’
 
I can still remember when I was studying physics at university in the 70s, writing that a single photon could travel down 2 separate paths and being marked down for it. I’ve no idea where I read it, but Alain Aspect proved it in the 1980s.
 
When asked specifically by Greene, ‘Does the photon travel down both paths?’ Aspect answers unequivocally, ‘Yes’. But then he says ‘if he takes a measurement, it only appears on one side’. Curiously, when Greene asks him about the well known ‘measurement problem’ and what his ‘intuition’ is on that, Aspect said he doesn’t have one: ‘it’s a great mystery’, but then says it’s ‘irreversible’. Aspect then says that if you ask a cosmologist, they will say there is a wavefunction for the whole universe, where there is no measuring apparatus. I think that’s the nub of the issue. Non-local means instantaneous, which is Aspect’s description, and by my simplistic reasoning, this means the entangled particles must occupy the same ‘now’ in time, though no one ever mentions that because it’s a heresy. And if you have a wavefunction for the entire universe, then arguably you have the same ‘now’ throughout the universe, which is even more heretical.
 
The best part of this video is that Aspect takes us through the entire history of entanglement, starting with Schrodinger who coined the term and famously said that 'entanglement was the defining characteristic of quantum mechanics separate from classical physics'. I think, along with superposition, it’s what led me to believe the Universe obeys 2 sets of rules: quantum and classical. QM rules before decoherence of the wavefunction and classical physics rules after.
 
Naturally, Greene asks him about the MWI (Many Worlds Interpretation), which some argue overcomes the measurement problem. Aspect responds that ‘it’s a logical solution, but it’s absolutely not palatable’ (to him), while acknowledging it’s popular with many cosmologists. Just as an aside, Mithuna Yoganathan (from the Looking Glass Universe YouTube channel) specifically eschews the idea that the Universe obeys 2 sets of rules and that alone makes MWI attractive to her.
 
Interestingly, Aspect makes an analogy with the second law of thermodynamics (~21m) by pointing out that it can’t be derived from Newtonian mechanics, where everything is time-reversible. I’d say the same applies to chaos theory. A lot of laypeople are unaware that Schrodinger’s equation is deterministic, meaning it’s time-reversible, but the ‘measurement’ makes it irreversible. Paul Davies has made this same point. Aspect doesn’t articulate this, but what he’s saying is that the second law of thermodynamics is just as ‘radical’ (my word, not his) as QM when it comes to confounding our expectations based on previously known physics.
 
Greene says, ‘[QM] has been unreasonably successful and unreasonably effective’ to which Aspect replies, ‘Yes.’ This introduces their discussion of the 1935 EPR paper (~22m), and is arguably the most erudite and stimulating part of the discussion, because it logically leads to a discussion on John Bell’s theorem in some detail, which is what led to Aspect’s now equally famous experiment.
 
Another aside: on Quora I met a physicist, Ian Miller, with whom I had some interesting and convivial conversations. He’s one of the few people I know who disputes Bell’s Theorem, or at least its consequences, and has argued he can refute it. I’ve always respected him, simply because he knows more than me, and I too have some heretical ideas, plus I agree with him that in SR, it’s the ruler that changes and not the space it’s purporting to measure. Much later, I learned that Kip Thorne, of all people, made the point that it's impossible to tell the difference (between the ruler and the space its measuring) from the mathematics alone. Regarding Bell’s Theorem, Miller contends it’s just mathematical not physical, yet Alain Aspect would beg to differ.
 
One of the aspects of Bell’s theorem that many people don’t know is that Bell wanted to prove Einstein right, but effectively proved him wrong. Others have contended that Bell’s conclusion to his own discovery was that the universe must be super-deterministic, but I know he didn’t say that in his interview in the book I cited earlier, and Aspect doesn’t mention it either. I can understand, however, if you believe that the entangled particles don’t experience the same 'now', then superdeterminism is a logical conclusion. Hossenfelder is a keen advocate for superdeterminism.
 
In fact, Aspect claims that Bell was a ‘realist’, which I understand means that he believed what Aspect believes: there is an independent reality (to the observer) and non-locality is a feature of the Universe. I remember reading an article in New Scientist, where it was argued you can have realism or ‘locality’, but not both.
 
One of Aspect’s salient points is that the famous arguments between Bohr and Einstein became epistemological, meaning they were philosophical differences rather than differences in reasoning, but only when Einstein introduced entanglement of more than one particle. According to Aspect, when they were arguing about one particle, Bohr’s arguments were based on pure logic. As Greene points out, the EPR paper introduces the concept of ‘hidden variables’ which, according to Einstein is what would make quantum mechanics ‘complete’. Aspect claims that Bohr’s response to the EPR paper was purely philosophical. In hindsight, we know we had to wait for Bell to give it a mathematical framework, which would ultimately make it testable, which is what Aspect achieved.
 
Just on that point, it illustrates the necessary relationship between mathematics and physics. There is an intrinsic relationship between a mathematical model and the need to measure physical attributes to determine, not only if the mathematical model is valid, but what its limitations are. This, in effect, is how the physical sciences have advanced since Newton. We have reached a point where some of our mathematical models can’t be measured using the technology currently available (string theory, anyone?).
 
Aspect says that Bell found ‘you cannot have locality in a hidden variable theory rendering all the predictions of quantum mechanics in the EPR situation.’ (~28m) I find this interesting because I’ve come across people on YouTube (Hossenfelder) who claim that Bell’s Theorem doesn’t disprove hidden variables. They could be right, because Aspect is not saying that non-locality rules out hidden variables and Greene doesn’t ask him. But Aspect’s conclusion certainly rules out Einstein’s hope that hidden variables would save locality. Aspect gives credit to David Bohm for reformulating the EPR thought-experiment in terms of a dichotomy – spin-up or spin-down – and not a variable of position and velocity as per Einstein.
 
Aspect goes into some detail concerning his development of his experiment, including the work of others, which took him 7 years. According to Aspect, John Bell followed his work and respected his result; even saying publicly, ‘I am sorry for the result, but I respect it.’ Which says a lot.
 
At 41m Greene brings up MWI again, saying that many argue it solves non-locality. To which Aspect responds that, for him, accepting MWI is ‘worse’ than accepting non-locality. And Greene agrees.
 
Greene also raises the issue of free will, and Aspect’s response is amusing and, in his own words, ‘Simple. If I don’t have free will to adjust the knob on my apparatus, I stop being a physicist.’ Green smiles, yet doesn’t give his views which I’ve written about elsewhere. Greene is a free will sceptic, if not denier (like Hossenfelder). Aspect elaborates, arguing that the contrary position is: ‘If it’s written in the Great Book, ever since the Big Bang, it’s an explanation for everything.’ So, not a believer in superdeterminism.
 
He spends some time explaining how non-locality doesn’t contradict SR (special relativity) in as much as you can’t use it to signal FTL (faster-than-light), though I do in my science fiction, which is why it’s called science fiction. He points out rather cleverly that it’s solely because of the random nature of QM that you can’t use it to send a signal, because the measurement outcome is completely unknown and can’t be forced. Because it’s random, neither party can know the outcome.
 
Towards the end, he explains how he has become an ambassador for science, which I imagine he’d do brilliantly. He says he is an ‘optimist’ despite attacks on science, especially under America’s current administration.

Addendum 1: I've discussed this topic before, back in 2009, when I reviewed the book I cited, The Ghost in the Atom. Back then, I wondered if QM was the consequences of a hidden dimension, which is still a possibility, though I now think it's a description of the future, which is why it can only give us probabilities.

 Addendum 2: Since writing this, I watched a video with Curt Jaimungal, where he discusses Bell's Theorem much more esoterically than I can. But he referenced a paper by Joanna Luc (30 Jan. 2025) What are the bearers of hidden states? On an important ambiguity in the formulation of Bell’s theorem.  A very lengthy and detailed paper, 23+ pages long, but she makes the following statement right at the end.

Strengthened Bells Conclusion: All HVTs consistent with the predictions of QM for Bell’s Experiment are non-local. (HVTs means hidden variable theories).

Note that this is consistent with Alain Aspect's conclusion, quoting Bell (refer main post).