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Is Science Fiction the Opiate of the Geek Masses?
jimharris writes "After reading Geoff Ryman's Mundane SF website, where he promotes a new form of science fiction based on real science, I got to wondering if traditional science fiction is just the opiate of the geek masses? Most science fiction is based on speculative fantasy rather than hard science - the common example being stories built around faster-than-light travel. Einstein rules, and FTL space travel has about zero chance of ever existing. SF writer Ian McDonald replied in his blog, Heads down, there's going to be incoming... and a rather wide-ranging discussion and elaboration of the idea is held over at mundane-sf.blogspot.com. Proponents of the Mundane Manifesto readily admit that traditional science fiction is just harmless fun, but I have to ask, how many people out there have a positive view on life because they believe in Star Trek in the same way that other faithful do."
This is why I rarely read the newer Science Fiction authors (newer meaning after the 1960s!), I prefer the older authors who actually had Doctorates of Science!
(or, in many cases, were on their way towards getting a doctorate in science and writing Science Fiction is how they paid for, in part, their education!)
Often times you can learn a lot about real world science from these authors (albiet some what dated now, as many areas of science have long since surpassed the knowledge possessed when these stories were originally written), something that I find lacking in modern day science fiction.
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It does not matter how many warp drives, alternate realites, laser guns, or jedi mind tricks a science fition work has...it all comes down to how the story is used to help the audience explore some segment of actual human nature. The science should be there to compliment the characters, not overtake them. What the hell good is a story if it does not give you a new perspective on your own existence/nature? If you want to strictly predict future technologies, that is what essays and doctoral thesis' are for. Sci-Fi is an opiate for the masses? Perhaps, but you can apply that label to many different genres of film and literature.
I always thought the phrase, "science fiction" was pretty self-explanitory myself. Why in the world would you want to limit authors to only using current science? Let's just assume for a second that we do know everything and our current model of the universe is 100% accurate and complete (which is such a laughable statement in itself), wouldn't it be more fun to escape into a different universe, one where FTL travel is possible, one where anything is possible? That's the point of fiction. Science fiction wasn't meant to be a rehash of your college physics book with a storyline thrown in, it was meant to be fun.
The whole reason interstellar travel gets ruled out is that it takes too long. But, what if humans could live for 5,000 years. Then, taking a trip to another planet would certainly be within reach.
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What exactly is the problem with what he said?
Are you saying that people who believe in religion don't use it as a basis for a positive outlook on life?
Or are you saying that people who have faith in a religion or something similar should not be called 'faithful'?
Or are you saying that believing that in the future, we will live in an egalitarian society without poverty is somehow fundamentally different than believing that the universe was created/is guided by a benevolent, omnipotent entity?
Or have I missed something? I'm just curious.
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Science fiction originally was science first and fiction second - look at the Grand Masters of Science Fiction, the Big Three - Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert Anson Heinlein. All three of them wrote SCIENCE fiction. You have to look for it, but it still exists today. The problem with the science fiction world today is that too many people have grown up with Star Wars and Star Trek - the former is a technological fantasy and the latter is more speculative fiction than science fiction. Science fiction, unfortunately, has become a catch-all genre - if it doesn't have swords and serpents and isn't set in a relatively modern era, then it MUST be science fiction. Especially if it has technology. To get off of my personal soap box and address the topic, I do believe that it has become the opiate of the geek masses - it's both escapist and self-gratifying at the same time. It provides an escape, through the halo of Trekkie popularity, where one can be a 'cool' person. I mean, what else is a genius, a wizard, or a superhero than a glorified techie? Furthermore, by reading something that professes to be vaguely scientific and speaks of a greater future built by geeks, it can give people a purpose in life. Of course, there are a lot of geeks (myself included) who would rather just read a book than go outside or do anything else. Not quite escapist, but definitely a distraction from other things. In my opinion, though, the saddest thing about the science fiction genre at the moment is its bleak, dystopian outlook. It doesn't seem like people think there's much to look forward to nowadays.
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I don't beleive he's saying that a large portion of people only find life worth living because of some geek, sci-fi fiction universe. At least not in that pitiful perspective that you can read it as. I believe what he's saying is that it is human nature to wonder about the unknown, and we find that teasing our imaginations of the unknown through fictional stories and universes like "Star Trek" and the like, satisfy a large part of our wonder despite being highly unplausible. Not only because of thier ability to paint a potential future for mankind, but also paint a positive one.
So what exactly is wrong with hoping that a future of peacful space travel and exploration that does not involve wanton destruction, prejudice and war (all things currently and constantly plaguing our race on this earth), is a bad thing? That thought alone *does* allow me to be a bit happier in life, because if I look around me right now, there aren't a whole lot of things our people are doing to making life better for everyone as a whole.
If you take a gander at the world today you can't help but see the damage the human race brings on itself and it's environment. If you see optimistic things though the extincting of animals, controlling populace through fear and war, and the growing of individual goverments world-power over controlled medicines, unhealthy food production and inequality in living conditions, then *your* opiate is to lie to yourself.
I hate the word "mundane" to start with, as sf fans have warped the meaning of the word to indicate those who have little vision or imagination, so I'm already biased against this "movement." Taking an objective step back, I still think it's full of crap. It's possible to play with the entire universe and stay within the realm of known science, which is something I try hard to do myself. I've even been funded by the National Science Foundation to edit an anthology to be used in conjuction with astronomy classes.
I teach this stuff. I live this stuff. I'm a working scientist and a published science fiction writer, a big believer in the positive power of science and the positive power of fiction to educate, illuminate, and enlighten.
Sure, write some "mundane" science fiction, but don't pretend it's intrinsically better than anything else. Do recognize you've put yourself in a box that will limit the stories you can do, and will eliminate some perfectly wonderful stories containing very good hard science. I have to say I pretty much agree with Ian McDonald here in his criticisms.
If Ryman wants to be such a "realist" and limit himself to what is known, he and similarly-minded people should probably write mainstream and forget the future entirely. His guesses are going to be as unlikely as aliens visiting us tomorrow, and he's foolish to think otherwise. Robert Heinlein, a visionary writer to be sure, had his characters using slide rules as they flew from planet to planet. While I think we can still use some thoughtful stories about near-future cloning, I think elevating such tales above and beyond those extropolating into a future where interstellar travel is possible is clearly hubris.
My personal manifesto is to use only known science, or new science that doesn't violate known science. I enjoy fantasy as much as anyone, but it does irk me when writers don't understand enough science to write science fiction. Star Wars is a fantasy, and a good one, but it's not science fiction.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
Quite a bit of science fiction has been written using accepted science without a present day earth setting. Possible settings include very large spacecraft that travel slower than light, future post-alien conquered earth, and non-earth planets. I refer you to Gene Wolfe and Octavia Butler as examples of authors who, while not shy to move away from accepted science (let's ignore the works with telepaths in them for these purposes, though) present works which can stand very well apart from improbable science/technology while still avoiding present day earth settings.
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I seem to remember that one Arthur C. Clark has been officialy recognized as the "inventor" of the satelite concept...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._C larke
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And yes, he has a first class degree in mathematics and physics at King's College, London...
Lets see, hmm, yes it was in a sci-book.
I agree with having "knowledgeable" people writin sci-fi, but I also remember all I read about nuclear fusion and now I see it made available(ok, in actual testing and producing actual electricity) in a breadbox sized box...
What I really like about sci-fi is that sometimes you see In Real Life situations or Technologies that you already read about, already had a time to dream or think about or appreciate the implications and possibilities of something that is, for the rest of the world, new.
Lets take fusion and/or betavoltaics... (both recent
Now take everything you ever read on fusion, interstellar travel, cheap energy everywhere, human facilities and the such...
I already have 3-4 marketable products popping in my head just from the fact I have a possibly durable, cheap and transportable energy source...
On another subject, lets take solar sails.
I'm sure I read about them in some 50's scifi books.
They're launching the first one in 1 day, 18 hours, and 35 seven minutes as of now...
http://www.planetary.org/solarsail/
I always thought that books, and sci-fi books moreover, were made to make me think and dream.
And nowaday, wherever I look, I see the sci-fi from the past in everyday use, and some more sci-fi being announced as coming soon (sic)...
Well, at least I'm more ready than the rest if just because of that. And so are you 8)
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I agree very much with your first point. However, FTL is more of a fantasy than most other science-based predictions one can make, so I must disagree with your second point. There are some creative ways to cheat on it, but our current ideas make it impossible to accelerate ourselves faster than the speed of light. It really is impossible, in the true definition of the word, if special relativity, a very well-tested theory, is correct.
A good, creative writer can work within that constraint, and still have interstellar travel, aliens, and the like. Special relativity also provides you with time dilation, which makes light speed irrelevent to passangers onboard a relativistic ship. If you could travel at lightspeed, to you, no time would pass and you could travel anywhere instantaneously.
It's also important to note an often-overlooked fact associated with FTL. If you can go FTL, relativity says you can travel backward in time and violate causality. I'd be interested in seeing a story with FTL travel that actually handled time correctly. [Gregory Benford's excellent Timescape does this by using tachyons to communicate through time, and the Mundanes actually claim this book as one of their own, which I find amusing since it would seem to violate their manifesto.]
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
Relativity does NOT preclude FTL.
:)
It says you cannot travel AT the speed of light. Important distinction there. Subatomic particles can change velocity instantly without acceleration, one day it may be possible for macroscopic objects to hop up to FTL travel, without actually passing through through the "light barrier".
Another potential possibility is the Alcubierre Drive although you'd need a large quantity of negative energy to make this work. (Negative energy is a scientific fact, but not in these quantities... as far as we know (look up the casimir effect))
These theories are far, far in advance of our current abilities, and may well not be achievable - but we simply don't know enough to discard the possibility.
I find it very interesting though that a theoretical physicist has come up with a potential faster-than-light drive that may just be possible, and it appears to be very similar to the "warp drive" used in star trek
This teaches us something about the true value of science fiction.
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But they don't use them for 'time travel', they put them between solar systems, and fly at slow-than-light (with suspended animation and time dilation shortening the trip) to them, go back in time, and continue their flight, arriving mere days after they left the other planet, after a trip that took hundreds of years.
They have to have a comm blackout and autopilot so they don't transmit messages back in time, and people protecting both the uptime and downtime end. And some of the series revolves around what can happen if the rules aren't followed.
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When I saw "Star Wars", I loved it, and I loved Princess Leia. She was so beautiful. At that time, I had this hope that if I just believed in the values of the Jedi, then I could transcend my abusive childhood. This belief was just like a drug. It created a hallucination that was not real.
Later in life, I simply gave up hope. I stopped believing in Jedis and Christianity. I only wanted to die.
For me, science fiction did serve as an opiate that helped me to live throughout my abusive childhood.
As for now, I make sizeable donations to the local child-abuse-prevention organization. These donations help me to deal with the inner child that my father killed.
It really depends on what you're looking for. Science fiction can be divided (very roughly) into "hard" and "soft" SF: the hard being that based only on current science or its closest extrapolations, and soft being more free-ranging, and less concerned with detailed explanation of the science involved. You might also divide it into the "probable" as opposed to the merely "possible."
So, it depends what kind of story you want to tell. Hard SF is often much more restrictive: no galaxy-spanning civilizations, ESP, or conveniently human-shaped aliens. However, it's a wonderful format for exploring in detail the manner in which changes in science and technology change our lives, and teaching the readers more about what our world actually is in a way less boring than a textbook. Soft SF, conversely, is often more focused on the characters than the science. It's not about how the flying car works and what effect it will have on society, but more about how an individual person will interact with their much cooler flying car, and what sorts of adventures they can have with it. Overall the difference is a matter of taste, or the mood of the moment: I personally enjoy both kinds of story immensely.
No matter what the style, however, science fiction always has the same purpose. It's about telling stories that re-introduce us to our world, and inspire a sense of wonder and a new interest in what's around us. Whether you do that by exploring the rise of a flying car industry, or what happens when George Jetson crashes into a tree, doesn't matter so much as the fact that at the end of the story, some kid is going to want to build that car.
"Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself." -Richard Feynman
The whole point of Science Fiction is to be speculative. The question to ask is "what happens if I change the rules?" not "what can I do within these rules?"
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It's the ultimate extension of a safety obsessed communist culture. Life seems good for the ruling class (Starfleet) but for everyone else? Like the workers in Metropolis, they are hidden from view. Pretty much any form of self-improvement except new-agey personal well-being is frowned upon. No one in the federation travels without papers (in fact, there is not enough industry to support heavy starship building. Let alone interplanetary shipping and travel.) Intra-planetery movement is limited as well. Transporter usage is heavily rationed for civillians. (And why should this be the case in a civilization that has the technology to mine the stars for energy?) Unless you're in the ruling class, life is very prison like. It's a prison with glass walls and satin sheets, but it's a prison nontheless.
ST and the world from Minority report are very similar in this approach. After analyzing the situation, I would not want to live in either world, yet people (and i assume the creators as well) believe these societies to be goals for the future. (everyone has the same car? and like soviet russia, car drives you? what's up with that?)
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Using slower than light technology, it is perfectly (theoretically) possible to cross the Milky Way in five seconds. Five seconds to YOU that is--the rest of the universe would strongly disagree (probably on the order of many millions of years.)
Or around 100,000 years, give or take. If you're going fast enough to make your time dilation that huge, you're just a hair under light speed.
The problem, of course, is that travel at relativistic velocities is fairly pointless. By the time you get anywhere, everything has changed. You cannot build or maintain a civilization over interstellar distances, outside of a very small volume of space, if limited to light speed comms and slower than light travel.
So, to create an interesting multi-world civilization, sci-fi authors have to "cheat".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive
The first version suffered from some "trivial engineering problems" like being impossible to turn off from the inside and requiring more energy than exists in the universe. It has since been tweaked so that you could do it with nothing but gravity control and some negative-density matter.
The point is, it's FTL and doesn't contradict our understanding of how the universe works.
The line wasn't meant to make geeks look bad. The point of the post was to examine a new challenge to writing science fiction.
Actually, my last line was edited -- I guess because it used a specific religion as an analogy.
My point was science fiction has become a kind of faith that brings about a sense of well being that generates a positive hope for the future - not unlike various religions I guess I shouldn't name.
If the Mundane SF comments about traditional SF are true, they are in reality an attack on this faith. But more to the point, if what the Mundane SF theorists say about the common tropes of traditional SF is true, and most of the ideas are bogus, why not write fiction projecting other positive futures that are more realistic?
Growing up in the 1960s I thought there was a one-to-one relationship between the love of science fiction and a passion for space exploration. I was obviously wrong. Science fictional themes have become almost universal in fiction, movies, games, comics, etc., but interest in space exploration is so low that most politicians say they consider it non-existant.
I think science fiction did influence the early rocket pioneers, and later space scientists, but all of that is in the past. I'm wondering if the Mundane SF people are not asking writers to write stories that will inspire new generations of engineers to work on practical forms of space exploration.
I've read a lot of science fiction, especially about space travel, and none of it strikes me as realistic. The idea of mankind hopping around the galaxy like we take jets around the world today strikes me as real as the promise of living after death and walking streets of gold in paradise.
I was also asking, in a side-ways fashion, does that love of science fiction inspire a religious like belief in certain concepts because we want them to be true. People passionately want to believe in faster-than-light travel. Why?
1) Velocity is a continuous function. In other words, to move faster than the speed of light, one must cross all possible velocities between your current and target velocities. This is a reasonable assumption unless one sees great breakthroughs in physics...
2) You travel entirely within Einsteinian space.
3) You travel in the conventional manner, and your position is a continuous function in three dimensions.
Under these assumptions, FTL is quite impossible. However, if any one of these can be circumvented, special relativity does not apply.
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I think everyone has beliefs that make them feel positive or negative about the world and the future, either for the future of mankind, or for their own future. For some people, the meaning of life might be surfing. For others, it might be making money, or spreading their religious beliefs. I think lots of people have a belief in the future that is inspired by Star Trek or science fiction. I don't know how many that number is, but I'd guess it could be large.
I once was talking with a young woman, about twenty-two, who was gushing about her love of Star Wars. I asked her if she thought the future would be like that. She said no. I asked her if she thought mankind would travel to the stars and she said yes. I asked her what if we can't travel faster than light. She was truly horrified at that idea. She said the future would be boring and depressing if we couldn't travel to the stars.
I said, mankind could still travel to the stars, but it would take years to make the trip. I mentioned generation ships and other science fiction stories about slower-than-light travel.
She said, "that sucks."
The kind of thing you say about Star Trek in the 1960s was even more true in places like the Soviet Union where freedom of speech didn't exist. Someone wanted to comment or criticize was often forced to cover their tracks through the plasuible deniability of science fiction.
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Einstein didn't accept a particular philosophical interpretation of quantum mechanics and reject some other philosophical interpretation. Again, you don't know what you're talking about.
Sorry, but I thought that Einstein was awarded the nobel prize for his work on quantum physics (the photoelectric effect), not relativity. At issue was his endorsement of Bohm's pilot wave theory (for which Bohm was awarded his doctorate after the endorsement by Einstine and eventually won the nobel prize) and his rejection of the nondeterminism inherent in the Copenhagen interpretation. So, unless you can prove otherwise, my comment stands. Bohm's approach allows one to hypothesize some level of determinism with regard to quantum physics.
It is also worth noting that in "Physics and Philosophy," Heisenberg seems to shy away from presenting quantum physics as nondeterministic. At several points, he states that one could determine how a quantum effect will manifest if one knew the exact state of every other particle in the universe (including those making up the observer).
Not true. You don't know what you're talking about. It is possible to have a phase velocity greater than c, but that doesn't have anything to do with the group velocity, which is the velocity of the information.
I think either you don't know what you are talking about or you are more likely misunderstanding me. Look into the experiements re: superluminal connections in Switzerland. Similar experiments have been done using electrons too. The problem is that, since the light is travelling opposite directions down a fiberoptic line, the shift in polarity would have to effect the other stream. Since both streams are each moving away from the central point (in opposite directions) at c, the "information" regarding the polarity must be "transmitted" (if indeed the term applies as I think it does not) such that it "travels" faster than the speed of light. I think it is more likely that something similar to quantum tunneling occurs instead.
Some present approaches to quantum encryption look eerily similar to these experiments. I side effect may be instantaneous communication, though since we are dealing with distances where cabling is possible, c introduces far less lag time than the equipment so the boost in signal speed is probably not to be noticed.
A more promising approach might however be the use of phase-locked electrons. Such a "wireless" approach might allow, say, interplanetary probes to receive and transmit information in real time without having to wait for the light to go back and forth. However, this poses much greater engineering and physical challenges.
If one holds with a simple, deterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics, FTL pilot waves are indeed required to explain superluminal connections.... Otherwise you have no way to acocunt for a variety of observed quantum phenomina, particularly those observed in Bern in the polarity experiments.
Personally, I don't much like the pilot wave theory, and I don't think it adequately explains superluminal connections so I agree with you regarding its relevance. The above is mostly playing devil's advocate. Also Bohm's theories seem to violate William of Occam's famous quote known as Occam's Razor: "One should not needlessly multiply entities."
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Maybe "has become" -- I don't read modern SF -- but it wasn't always like that. It seems to me that there were always parallell tracks in the genre. The techno-optimistic stuff that was intended to educate and to promote science and engineering, and on the other hand the more gloomy stuff. Nuclear holocaust in particular has been a big theme in SF ever since 1946 -- see Theodore Sturgeon's Thunder and Roses, for an early example.
Growing up in the 1960s I thought there was a one-to-one relationship between the love of science fiction and a passion for space exploration. I was obviously wrong.
No, SF readers were supposed to think like that back then.
I think science fiction did influence the early rocket pioneers, and later space scientists, but all of that is in the past. I'm wondering if the Mundane SF people are not asking writers to write stories that will inspire new generations of engineers to work on practical forms of space exploration.
If they do (and I think you're right) then they are trying to revive the "hard SF" idea, where the genre is supposed to be in touch with real science and engineering. I have no problem with that.
But that's not the same as saying that writing that doesn't fit into the manifesto is just "harmless fun". Of all the best SF I've read, most have not met the manifesto's criteria. They have simply used classical SF premises as a tool to present a good story. And yet, most of them are definitely not just harmless fun.
It doesn't always predict eventual triumph. There's plenty of SF about a post-apocalyptic setting where humanity is on the way out, or just dark hopeless futures. I've just read Dick's "Second Variety" (very good short story, with nothing that could be described as science) and am working my disordered way through Reynolds' revelation space series, which although it finishes on a high note for the moment has humanity's extinction being inevitable in another billion years or so, and a sort of epilogue about having to flee again.
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