What is an interesting hard scifi concept that is rarely explored.

>>8647430
Language.

>>8647444
In what way?

>>8647430

The idea that there are concepts that humans don't understand.

For instance, we have theory of mind and many other species do not.

What do we lack that others may have?

>>8647522
But what could they have? We have something existing, being a thing like a pipe. We have mechanical like a steam engine, then we have computation.

What could possibly be beyond that? and not just some form of advance computation?

In "retards meet alien for first time," they never explore extraterrestrial art, music, literature, culture or any of that. Aliens are almost exclusively galactic conquesting assholes which truly serves no purpose for how small they are in reality. Like you'll see one civilization that is earth sized that wants nothing more than to settle on every planet instead of sit down and read "The Art of Magoogalatization: A Primordial-Expansive Perspective on Subquark Reactivity."

Are we to believe that aliens never practice hobbies?

>>8647522
Read Blindsight by Peter Watts, the aliens in this book are exactly what you're talking about.

>>8647524

I think he is going the route of the limitations that humans and language have.

Like if you go into any language you will see that there are words that simply don't have any translation in your language because they convey a concept that is usually expressed in phrase or supossed in context, but when you have a specific word for the idea you expand your ability to express and think about it.

And human comprehension has limits, when you are a child the concept of death can't simply be really understood, so when an animal is eaten somehow it still lives in the predators stomachs from a child point of view, and of course children don't have a concept of sex and other things so this implies that there are ideas and mechanisms in the universe that we simply don't get because we don't know if we are like children to those concepts, incapable of grasping what should be innate to our own reality.

Yeah, I think he is trying to say that...

>>8647522

Even historically we can see the knowledge of humans now has greatly expanded since the past.

What will our ancestors think of our "primitive" understanding? They might very well refer to our time period as the dark ages.

>>8647522
How do you even write anything about unknown unknowns?

How humans actually understand anything at all.

I mean, a computer can understand syntax, but we can understand semantics, and where does that ability come from?

Not quite to the topic but imagine if it turned out that genetically engineering species to your purpose it really effective and superior to building robots.
And then we become the evil space hive that sends nasty creatres from bioships down to others' planets to conquer them for us.

>>8648489

I like this one. There is so many reasons that it is weird that we can communicate. A forest of millions of neurons, sound waves propagating through air, and then somehow that turns into a conversation. It's amazing that anything works.

>>8647430

What if the green/gray humanoid aliens that fly in spaceships were evolved/modified humans from the future studying humans from the past?

The aliens never were from a different location... they were just from a different time...

>>8647444
I thought the expanse treated it quite nicely with its Belter-Accent. Though its just a backdrop for realism and not a major plotpoint. Culture in general is one though.

>>8647430

Tales of Symphonia brought up an interesting thought.

What if there are parallel universe as some jerks from the other universes are ciphering off energy/compute power/luck from our universe and that's why we have wars/disease/suffering? We need to fight our parallel universes to the death.