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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 952222" data-attributes="member: 177">Okay, Colonel.  If you wish to believe that you're immune to an effect that demonstrably affects the rest of your species, you're free to do so.  The thing I refer to happens time and again in the physical and psychological sciences - choosing a scale and method of measurement channels one's mind into thinking on specific terms.  This can be constructive, but also leads you into a rut.  If you think this doesn't happen to you.... well, more power to you.  I hope you don't take offense at my "Doubting Thomas" attitude on the point. I didn't say it would not clarify thoughts, Colonel. I said it would restrict your thinking.  One can think clearly down restricted channels. Sometimes that's even necessary.  But in a place where we hadn't even yet defined what counts as "human", it seems counterproductive to start measuring it.Which brings me to it - if we cannot conclusively tell what either human or alien thinks, what's the purpose of a measure of "humanness"?  What, exactly, are you trying to measure?  Thoroughly aside, I'm not sure the above is true (unless you mean they've got a brain).  They have certain syndromes where later in life they begin to fail to be able to restrict emotions, but the same basic thing happens to some humans, and we don't have specific organs for the task.  The Vulcans came upon emotion control as a social development, rather than a biological one.It seems to me that how they behave and think are simply more valuable and interesting when talking in terms of writing fiction.  The fact that a critter's got an extra eye in it's head may be a plot point, but how it's thoughts and behaviors differ because of that eye are a matter of character development.  The first is mechanics, the latter is psychology.But then, I repeat, if the focus is on the mentation and behavior - it is highly plausible to have a human with behavior and thought that is more alien than that of an extraterrestrial.  Having an extra heart, or six reproductive organs isn't material in comparison to sociopathic behavior, for example.  Clealy to be less offensive.  There are humans born with physical differences, or who develop them later in life.  You certainly wouldnt want to call the "less than human".  Do you want to call them "other than human"?  A character uses wheels to get around instead of legs.  How much other than human is he?  Does it matter if he's a dolphin on land, a human cripple, or an "Uplift Universe" g'kek?I don't ask that for reasons of political correctness.  I ask it as a real part of the discussion - what makes a human human, and an alien an alien?  If a member of homo sapiens, born and bred on Earth, can have many qualities that make them "alien", how is it really "alien"?  Are we saying that "alien" is no more or less than "differing in any manner from human norms"?  I gotta wonder if that's useful.By the measure of physicality, the Narn and Centauri of B5 were certainly alien.  But they bugged some people specifically because psychologically they weren't at all alien.  They were perfectly understandable people of other cultures. Fans loved them for that - we could wallow in Londo's angst, feel G'Kar's pain.  So, were they alien, or not?</blockquote>

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