Project Gutenberg 2009-12-15 Public domain in the USA. 75 Phillips, Rog 1909 1965 Graham, Roger Phillips Browning, Craig Terry, W. E. 1921 1992 Terry, Willis E. Terry, Bill The Unthinking Destroyer Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net "The Unthinking Destroyer" by Rog Phillips is a philosophical science fiction short story published in the late 1940s. The narrative explores the complexities of intelligence, both human and extraterrestrial, through the dialogues of two characters, Gordon Marlow and Harold Harper, as they contemplate potential life on Mars. The story raises critical questions about how intelligence might manifest in forms that are radically different from human understanding. The plot centers around a dialogue between Gordon, a philosopher, and Harold, an undergraduate student, as they discuss the nature of intelligence and the dangers of assuming that extraterrestrial beings would recognize or manifest intelligence in recognizable forms. They speculate on the possibility of intelligent life on Mars that may think and reason in ways incomprehensible to humans, warning of the risks humanity could pose by unwittingly destroying advanced beings due to their inability to recognize them as intelligent. The story culminates in a poignant reflection on the arrogance of human assumptions when encountering the unknown, ultimately prompting readers to consider the broader implications of intelligence beyond human experience. (This is an automatically generated summary.) en Science fiction Short stories PS Text Browsing: Literature Browsing: Science-Fiction & Fantasy Browsing: Fiction 47760 47769 2024-09-13T06:30:42.713313 2023-09-13T11:18:33.831297 text/html text/html 43740 2021-01-05T22:41:54 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 135221 2021-01-05T22:41:54 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 application/zip 184360 2024-09-13T06:30:46.145272 application/epub+zip 182927 2024-09-13T06:30:44.065309 application/epub+zip 65727 2024-09-13T06:30:43.174310 application/epub+zip 320582 2024-09-13T06:30:47.703271 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 312607 2024-09-13T06:30:45.501282 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 140892 2022-09-14T07:43:39.316714 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 41168 41067 2024-09-13T06:30:42.503292 2023-09-13T11:18:33.637313 text/plain; charset=us-ascii text/plain 40968 2021-01-05T22:41:54 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 15535 2021-01-05T22:41:54 text/plain; charset=us-ascii application/zip 19125 2024-09-13T06:30:47.832262 application/rdf+xml 13789 2024-09-13T06:30:43.517298 image/jpeg 3801 2024-09-13T06:30:43.342327 image/jpeg 186017 2024-09-13T06:30:42.726308 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia