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The Science Fiction Effect
Harperdog writes "Laura Kahn has a lovely essay about the history of science fiction, and how science fiction can help explain concepts that are otherwise difficult for many...or perhaps, don't hold their interest. Interesting that Frankenstein is arguably the first time that science fiction appears. From Frankenstein to Jurassic Park, authors have been writing about 'mad scientists' messing around with life. Science fiction can be a powerful tool to influence society's views — one scientists should embrace."
I agree with just how important science fiction is in the long run. It's a shame that it's scoffed at as just being about bug eyed monsters and little green men..It's also such a shame so much science fiction spewed out by Hollywood is just the same tired old plots over and over again. Science fiction says so much and can be as compelling and moving as other forms of fiction.
Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh c.2150 B.C.
In the movies, sure, but in the book, he's just misguided.
When they use fiction as some kind of engineering textbook?
I've never liked the idea of science-fiction being the genre of the future, or even of reality as we know it today. Most science-fiction authors, from my experience, have a poor understanding of actual scientific knowledge and, instead, rely on omission of fact to glaze over scientific points of interest. Frankenstein, for example, never exactly explains in concrete terms exactly how the monster was brought to life, or how it survived, or what it ate, or actual and exact process undertaken to reproduce the experiment.
What science-fiction is, for me, is a genre of ideas. It's about how people might deal or respond to situations that are beyond our current understandings. Traveling to other worlds, for example, bringing dinosaurs back to life, or literally searching the cosmos for our origins. It's not about how these things are achieved, but what their effect might be on people who could be living in those times.
One of my favorite stories, for example, is Isaac Asimov's the Last Question. It doesn't get into details about how the computer works, what variables it's considering, or even how humanity is evolving. It merely postulates that, with each generation, technology becomes more accessible and more integrated into our lives. In an ironic twist, it suggests that we begin to become a part of technology to a point where our minds fuse with AI and become a single consciousness.
I hate the heroic space opera. I hate the "prediction" nonsense that's always brought up (OMG, the PADD is an iPad, LOL LOL).
I love how science-fiction suggests how we, as individuals and as a society, can always discover truth if we seek it out. How we can learn to love each other in worlds overcome by strife. How technology remains a means to an end and nothing more. How perception shapes our realities, and so on.
Throughout history there has been a lag between scientific discovery and the mainstream acceptance of the moral conundrums presented by that discovery, from the Earth is round, to xenotransplantation, to current stem cell research and cloning. Our systems of morality and ethics morph at a much slower rate than does scientific theory.
Science Fiction is a fantastic mechanism for exploring the possibilities presented by new technologies, and their ethical repercussions, to say "This is where our science may take us, and are we okay with that?" It allows us to begin adapting our ethics in advance of the technology becoming available.
That which does not kill you, postpones the inevitable.
Kahnnnnnnnnn!
... is indistinguishable from magic.
- Arthur C. Clarke (Clarke's Third Law)
Science fiction can also distort perception of what science is (or will soon be) capable. Some examples that come to mind include interstellar travel and terraforming. This can become problematic when people assume that scientists can make problems go away (climate change) or we can just move to the moon, space stations or beyond to escape the problems that we refuse to confront. When people have been watching all this magic on teevee their entire lives, they can get the wrong idea about how achievable things are in real life (or at least within a useful time frame).
Using sci-fi to expand horizons to what could be possible is all well and good, but too often it's used to say "Well, science says it's possible, so why not?" The difference between fiction and reality is enormous. Time travel is a nice idea, but nobody's going to be traveling backward in time by going FTL (the time travel in Back to the Future isn't caused by going over 88 MPH, for instance). Teleportation is a nice idea, but the reality is more like suicide/cloning (you know, because you're not going to be moving your particles FTL to the destination.
http://earthsquotes.com/viewquote/222564-sopa has all of the answers.
Frankenstein actually has a very interesting history. Mary Shelly wrote the book as a sort of contest among her friends and acquainteces to write the scariest story she could think of. She was inspired by a recent experiment which featured a frog's muscles being stimulated by electricity. It was widely believed at that time that the "esscence of life" was in fact electricity, and that it might be possible to resurrect the dead with large amounts of electrical current. Of course, they were wrong, but Mary Shelly's novel was written primarily to explore the "what-if" of whether a scientist could resurrect a corpse using electricity. It's actually an incredibly important book in that regard, since it was one of the first instances of speculative fiction that wasn't purely religious in nature, and not to mention it is very very well written.
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A problem with scientists embracing science fiction is that so much science fiction warns against scientific progress. Terminator, for example, Short-Circuit, War Games, The Matrix. All of these movies warn against what happens when humans forward technology too far. Frankenstein and Jurassic Park also warn against advances in biology. The same applies to films like I, Robot. The fact is that while science fiction can encourage people to think about science and for some to become interested in science, it's also a huge breeding ground for fear. A lot of sci-fi is about warning people what could happen if we advance too far. Even lighter films like Back To The Future carry a strong "we shouldn't do this" message.
If the quality of science fiction is a function of the state of science at any particular cultural stage, the Old Testament should probably be included.
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It's basically a book about some megalomaniac who clams to have created EVERYTHING, and proceeds to run a never ending experiment where the creations are subject to this being's capriciousness, cruelty and whims.
The source came from an episode that was parodying SG-1 itself but the message was poignant:
Science fiction is an existential metaphor that allows us to tell stories about the human condition. Isaac Asimov once said, "Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinded critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction, its essence, has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all."
Creativity spurs different ways to approach engineering. Or if a new scientific breakthrough occurs, we know what engineering applications it could hold.
God spoke to me
I've been saying this for years. Science fiction is a fantastic platform for social commentary precisely because it can convey complex ideas and thought-provoking situations without being overtly political or directly controversial.
Consider how far ahead of its time Star Trek was in terms of exploring a future in which race was irrelevant during the height of the civil rights movement, as well as all of the possible futures that were envisioned (across all of the series) to explore what might happen if humanity continues down a certain path that many people of the time would identify with. Many of those made some pretty grim predictions. Consider also Isaac Asimov's portrayal of robots in the 1950s... many would recognize some social commentary on race in those stories. Twilight Zone, anyone? Sure, some of those episodes were less thought-provoking than others, but quite a few had a poignant "whoa" moment at the end that is both easy to relate to some aspect of society and also hard to forget. The fact that they're all sci-fi stories just means that the writers have a bit more freedom to set the characters up in scenarios that would otherwise be difficult to believe. It's a built-in suspension of disbelief because, after all, "it's just sci-fi, it's not supposed to be real." Conveniently, it still makes you think.
Sci-fi has been able to get people to think about these things for a long time without slapping them in the face with a righteous sermon, and for that I agree it should continue to be much more widely adopted as a platform for "what if..."
"Before criticizing someone, first walk a mile in his shoes. Then, you'll be a mile away... and you'll have his shoes."
If you can, somehow, remove the necessity of following the conventional rules and mores, you can talk of things that you couldn't otherwise get away with.
Consider Gulliver's Travels. Swift could criticise the establishment without being sent to jail. It wasn't hard for the people of the time to figure out what he meant.
Consider Star Trek. It examined racial stereotypes with impunity. It wasn't hard to figure out which Earthly races were represented by the Klingons and the Ferengi.
Science fiction makes it possible to talk about things that are otherwise very difficult to discuss.
I think the people who see the most scientific, educational value in science fiction tend to be science fiction authors and their fanboys. Science fiction is generally more fiction than science. It's the mythology of our time. Science is anything but.
I think it's worth while to compare and contrast science fiction about biology with science fiction about space. The former consists mostly of cautionary tales: "What disaster will scientists wreak while tampering with the very stuff of life?" The latter is much more positive, all about the new possibilities and challenges travel in space would allow us to explore. I wonder how this affects the public's view of the two areas of research. Interestingly, there was a now mostly forgotten period when there were lots of stories about "space madness"...astronauts being driven mad by entering the heavens. But this has fallen out of favor.
You do get some pro-biology stories, including, ironically enough, Jurassic Park. Despite the constant "man can't control nature" theme running through the book, the "Wow, resurrecting dinosaurs would be so COOL!" factor vastly outweighs it.
The NT/OT, the Koran, Hindu legends, etc... these far predate Frankenstein, and even if you subscribe to one of them as the literal truth, that means the other(s) are science fiction by definition. And then there are the Greek myths, the Norse myths... all featuring technology beyond that of the population (and as we've been told by well regarded recent SF authors, any sufficiently advanced technology is often regarded as magic.) Now, personally, I'd put these in the fantasy realm more often than the SF realm, modern SF is rarely free of fantasy elements these days, and I suspect that when most people say science fiction, they actually mean fantasy... there's little to no requirement for the 1940's vision of scientific extrapolation or theory-based test for reasonableness.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
This made me think of Neuromancer. Every day that goes by, Gibson's future comes closer to reality. I love how he didn't pass judement on his future - it wasn't a dystopia, and it sure isn't pretty, it just is.
"That's either incredibly asinine or the most brilliant troll I've ever read. Not sure which." -Anonymous Coward
God creates raptors. God wipes out all life on earth to eliminate raptors. God creates man, man kills god. Man creates raptors. Raptors destroy universe.
I thought Jurassic Park was more of a cautionary tale that raptors are godless killing machines.
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If you guys haven't been paying attention lately true scifi has been taking a big hit lately.
Studios just are not giving in to general audiences anymore. And with the cancellation of great franchises like stargate and firefly its all been a crap shoot.
I suggest everyone please help and support the SciFi Congress and help to revive true scifi and some of the great franchises and series of the last century.
http://www.scificongress.com/
Wait - Did you know this beforehand, or did you actually RTFA? Either way, I'm impressed ;)
I love scifi. But I don't read as much of it as I used to. I love the ABC (Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke) of SciFi. And some of the other notable greats. But I find it harder and harder to find good scifi now days. The truly thought provoking kind. And the kind that gives me some small hope. So much of it is smut/graphic/romp or so apocalyptic, that I find myself missing the stuff I grew up with. Vinge was refreshing. And I've tried, but I just don't really find Stephenson's stuff that compelling.
One man's pink plane is another man's blue plane.
One of IBMs Watson designers said HAL in 2001 inspired him to get into computers and AI / Natural language stuff.
Who would have thought people could learn just by watching. Dang, I coulda had a V8!
Uh oh, I can picture it now:
"Open the pod bay doors Watson!"
"What is, I'm sorry I can't do that Dave?"
Hey.. Science FICTION... it aint real... FICTION... get it? ... Nuff said.. lame You dont correlate it to reality... wow
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
Is chortling in his grave right now ;)
This is something I have experienced myself.
A short story I wrote was entirely fiction based, yet some of the assumptions I made about the technology involved were close enough to the truth that an aerospace simulation company that develops military simulation technology uses the story as a concept model to explain their own simulation technology.
The surprise to me was when they contacted me to let me know. I had never realised just how much I had gotten right until they said "It's a lot closer to the truth than many of us like to admit".
Good SF has a way of taking a complicated technical matter and putting it into contexts that people can understand and relate to - in this respect, SF is more important as a tool for humanity than many other forms of traditional writing.
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
Interesting that Frankenstein is arguably the first time that science fiction appears.
Sure it is, if you discount everything that came before it. I think the Torah and the Rigveda are a few years older, and one could consider them early science fiction.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
What a half-assed, rambling article. How did this ever make it to Slashdot's front page? Someone should teach the author about both composition and science fiction.
Original power here:
I totally agree about tera nova. I think their are so many more well deserving scifi shows out there.
However I think its important to keep an open mind as well.
Alex: Sorry Tragedy, I'm afraid that's not quite correct. . Paul? Paul: What is "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that." ?
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
power/poster
It's a powerful brainwashing technique for sure.
lol@frankenstein being the first scifi book.
Love the movie "Gothic", which tries to recreate the trip with Byron and Percy et al - Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands, and the (sadly late) Natasha Richardson.
The Thomas Dolby soundtrack doesn't hurt.
A lot of time ago I did some schoolwork about mass media and read some essays. Some of them talked about the "Goebbels Effect/Law" (yes, named after the Nazi because he used it a lot): present an old situation as a new one so the public does not relate it with its preconceived ideas.
For example, if I say: "Country X (or the Martians) spends ten times more in military than in education, and a 10% of young are functionally illiterate" many of you would say that this country politic should change. Now if say "USA spends ten times more in military than in education, and a 10% of young are functionally illiterate" (*1) then some of the previous people (specially if you are from the USA, or the USA military/weapon industries) would say "but we really need to spend that much in armament, and if young people don't know how to read it is because they do not want".
This has been exploited through the ages, before SF there were "travel literature" where someone would go into an strange land and describe there the problem of its own (see Gulliver's Travel). Some SF also serves for it, but it is hardly new at all.
*1: Not factual, just a fabricated example.
Why can't
I work among scientists, and of course there are exceptions, but basically: if someone I know loves science fiction books, I guaruntee they do science for a living; if they love science fiction tv shows, there is a good chance they do science for a living; and it is only when we reach movies that it seems to become something with little to do with your work... The fact is: most science fiction literature is written by geeks, for geeks, sometimes about geeks, and sometimes about who geeks want to be.
... one might almost say, the definitive space opera...
Frankenstein isn't science fiction, it's a reactionary allegory illustrating the corruption of society by adopting capitalist theories of property and capital. The call to action is that we return to a more "naturalistic" state. Think of the monster as literal representation of Hobbes' Leviathan.
Star Trek is about 1960s culture transposed into a hypothetical future. In the 1960s the US was at the peak of its imperial power. Social mores were opening up due to this-and-that "liberation". Computers were starting to affect daily life.
But it was more Yogi Berrish the way you said it the first time.
I do get annoyed with the slashdotters whose sole knowledge of sf appears to be from movies and tv shows.
To start, 99.999+% of all science fiction (we'll leave out fantasy, here, if you can manage to comprehend the difference) is *written*, and has nothing whatsoever to do with anything that's ever been filmed. Probably never will be, since a fair bit of it requires actual thought, something anathema to Hollywood.
Second, I note that the author of the piece is an internist, and her focus is on that, not the general field. Many scientists I personally know, or know of, read sf, and some write it, and are well-known.
Third, there's a certain feeling in the column that reminds me of Hugo Gernsback's approach to the field that he created as a genre, that it was a way to teach science and engineering. For example, his mid-1920's "novel", Ralph 124C41+, described by Sam Moskowitz as "a marvelous work of technical prophecy, broken ever few pages by a few words of mediocre plot". You need more than that, these days: back then, you could go out and built some of the latest high-tech things in your garage or kitchen table. Costs a lot more, these days, if you can even find/afford the parts.
Better were folks like the late, lamented Harry Stubbs, aka Hal Clement. We do need more like him.
mark "why, yes, I *have* read all the thousands of books I own"
I respect Verne but also prefer Wells style.
In a sense the difference between the two is why Groundhog Day is a better movie than 12:01.
Very interesting post, have not read the book.
However, I would disagree that those scientists were moral in any meaningful, absolute sense. They sound like pragmatists. Ultimately we are all pragmatists - adjusting and bending our morality (waterboarding is not torture, no organ failure.) as needed or perceived to allow us to pursue our goals and desires.
Here's something to consider - what if it's not "things" that become intelligent? What if intelligence becomes emergent from everyday activities?
Specifically, business. Ever since the first time-and-motion studies and assembly lines, businesses have been trying to codify and standardise best practices for more and more higher level activities. Generally this is in the form of "assistance" to remove the repetitive or redundant wading through raw data or shuffling paper. For example, do you know anyone with a physical "In-box" these days? It's all email - company memos are no longer typed pages, questions get sent and answered globally, etc. Similarly groupware and wikis let people collaborate without time-consuming meetings that get off-track and miss the point anyway. More recently data mining and business intelligence applications have been taking the fuzzy human judgement out of routine decisions. Loan applications are approved electronically in a fraction of the time they used to be, for simple cases.
More and more decision activities are being turned over to software - because they're boring, and because the software does a better job, for the most part (minus a few global stock market crashes as the bugs get worked out). At the same time, lower level activities are still being automated. It's been said that today "all companies are software companies, they just don't know it yet". Many companies get their software packaged from elsewhere - in which case, they're really being run by the software suppliers, they're just going through the motions. Or they don't, and get overtaken by companies which benefit from innovative ideas from all over the planet added to the software.
So when a business software infrastructure has the complexity to make complex decisions better than the people running the company, because it has far more data than a human could process in a lifetime, does it become "intelligent"? If not immediately, how about down the road? If software run companies outperform human run ones, so that the latter go out of business or get bought out, who would notice? Given that humans still get the money and write the announcements and graphically design the web site for other humans.
If that sofware becomes intelligent, then where is the intelligent "machine"? It's spread out across the world, on constantly interchangable machines, storage, networks. Maybe rented from one day to the next, the software might scoot around different servers and companies often enough nobody can tell just where it resides (you know about 90% or your atoms and molecules are replaced annually, but you're still "you").
Intelligent machines may eventually happen, as iPhones with Siri or hospital computers with Watson. But I'm pretty sure intelligence in the form of corporations is inevitable (Charles Stross's book "Accelerando" examines what this type of scenarion might be like - in one case, the main characters negotiate with a Ponzi Scheme in corporation form).
Well for one thing, the claim that there is a god is an SF/fantasy element. It's a claim without any backing in the secular world -- no evidence, etc., so it's either based on outright fantasy or it is based on natural law we don't get, one or the other. Which one is the case, I leave as an exercise for the reader, lol.
Koran: (Qur'an if you really want to be snippy about Romanization, which is sort of pointless, but I digress.) Quoting the Penguin translation by Dawood, sura 56 verses 12- 39: "They shall recline on jewelled couches face to face, and there shall wait on them immortal youths with bowls and ewers and a cup of purest wine (that will neither pain their heads nor take away their reason); with fruits of their own choice and flesh of fowls that they relish. And theirs shall be the dark-eyed houris, chaste as hidden pearls: a guerdon for their deeds... We created the houris and made them virgins, loving companions for those on the right hand..."
That whole life after death thing, not to mention the described life after death existance as flesh-and-blood... yeah, I'm quite comfortable calling that SF/fantasy. As far as we know now, based on every bit of evidence we've been able to gather, you die, you're completely gone. No virgins, no succulent fowl, no visits with supernatural figures. Any other description of the process is an exercise in imagination (to be kind.)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I, for one, welcome our jeopardy-winning-locking-us-out-in-the-cold-depths-of-space overlords.
Kaaaaaaaaaaaaahhn!!!!
People have been lying for effect for thousands of years. It's called authoritization.