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."

Comments

Why I like science fiction.

[__aasdno7518]

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.

Re:Why I like science fiction.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just looked through a list of the top 50 movies since the 90's and 20 percent of them were scifi. And this is after counting Back to the Future, Star Trek, Ghostbusters, Close Encounters, 2001, etc. Pretty broad variety, actually.

Back to the Future, 1985, 1989, 1990 (one in the 90s)
Star Trek, some in the 90s
Ghostbusters, 1984
Close Encounters,1977
2001, that 1968 not 1998

Re:Why I like science fiction.

[CRCulver]

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.

You think it's only Hollywood that has made dreck out of the potentials of science fiction? Even science-fiction authors who begin their careers writing imaginative works, sometimes even seeking a prose style that can compete with the canon of great literature, eventually give up and decide to start churn out one lame sequel after another. Just look at what has happened to Orson Scott Card and Larry Niven over the last 15 years, and Arthur C. Clarke before he died. They decided to publish hastily written airport paperbacks with little attention to detail, just another space opera plot in a universe they created decades ago. And they might even relegate the task of actually writing to a co-author and just put their name on the cover to score sales.

One often meets the claim that science-fiction is a genre full of myriad possibilities, but if even once-legendary science-fiction authors are abandoning that, it doesn't make the field look any better.

Re:Why I like science fiction.

[EdIII]

Really living up to your sig there huh?

Re:Why I like science fiction.

[icebike]

One often meets the claim that science-fiction is a genre full of myriad possibilities, but if even once-legendary science-fiction authors are abandoning that, it doesn't make the field look any better.

That and the unfortunate tendency to moralize, pontificate, and preach under the guise of telling a story.
Almost always demonizing mankind in the process.

The linked story would have you believe this is the shining virtue of sifi, the redeeming value in an otherwise unworthy piece of class B writing.
I see that the other way around. In order to get published some of these authors throw in the sob story, the lesson, the obligatory short skirt.

 

Re:Why I like science fiction.

[bunkie21]

How does this indict the whole field? All it does is reinforce the idea that to be exposed to new ideas, one has to seek them out. Luckily, SF is almost constantly being renewed by new authors with fresh ideas.

Re:Why I like science fiction.

[Anonymous Coward]

Theodore Sturgeon's famous comment "90% of everything is crud" was a defense of the science-fiction genre, in reply to the accusation that 90% of science-fiction is crud.

Not everything in the field is great, nor can it be.

Re:Why I like science fiction.

[Oswald McWeany]

Yeah, although he should have stopped with Ender's game. I don't know why I kept reading his books after that. Ender's game was fantastic. Each book thereafter got progressively worse.

They may not have been hastily written- but they were poorly written nonetheless.

Frankenstein isn't mad, though

[MrHanky]

In the movies, sure, but in the book, he's just misguided.

Re:Frankenstein isn't mad, though

[Nidi62]

Well, to use the other example from the summary, Hammond wasn't really mad either. He was just a greedy, evil little bastard (in the book at least, in the movie misguided would apply to him as well). Actually, I find it kind of interesting that they basically swapped the personalities of Hammond and Gennaro between the book and movie versions. I guess Hollywood figured no one would like the lawyer.

Science fiction is not about the future...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[lightknight]

Science fiction encapsulates a variety of areas. And while the specifics of the implementations of technologies found in science-fiction stories may not match reality-based implementations, the underlying ideas are used as a basis for many breakthroughs for scientists / engineers at a later time.

If science-fiction were used only to detail relationships, many of the advancements we have today would never have occurred.

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[The Archon V2.0]

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.

So your complaint about Frankenstein is that it isn't an instruction manual on how to create life/revive the dead.

I can't tell if you've set your sights for literature way too high or way too low.

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[Nursie]

"I hate the heroic space opera."

Pity, because some of that is written by actual physics professors and talks about speculative (but possible) areas of real science, which is what you seem to be demanding in your fist sentance there.

For instance, I just finished "Blue Remember Earth" by Alastair Reynolds, a guy with a PhD in Physics and Astronomy, who has worked for ESA.

Some of the best Sci-Fi changes a single assumption about the world we live in and extrapolates what people do in that new circumstance (The Forever War, a lot of PKD's work). That's enjoyable. Other Sci-Fi changes everything, but is still about the people and how they live in this strange world (Dune, Culture Novels). That's also good. Asimov and Clark and others are all about the concept and the theory, people are just decoration, this is also good if rather dry for most tastes. Some Sci-Fi takes place in a world that is a satire of our own, to attempt to show us the folly of certain mindsets (Snow Crash, Market Forces).

All of these sub-genres have their merits, and all have their hack writers who should never have been published. But if you don't enjoy the space opera of Iain M Banks then then there's probably something wrong with you.

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[Daetrin]

You're right that science fiction is often about the idea rather than the engineering concepts, however that doesn't mean that it can't also be predictive some of the time, and part of that is for exactly the reason you state.

Despite what some geeks who obsess over the "technical manuals" might think, Star Trek isn't really about the technical details of how their devices work. Roddenberry and co didn't have exact ideas on how replicators or phasers or tricorders or PADDs would work, but one way or another all those devices are becoming a reality. Part of that is _because_ they focused on the general concept rather than the exact technology, and part of it is because they thought up cool devices and some geeks said "that's awesome!" and some geeks said "i wonder if i could build that?"

So some science fiction is about adventure, some science fiction is about exploring ideas ("if we develop this kind of tech/if this goes on,") some is about postulating future technological development ("we will develop this particular device,") and some is about "forcing" future technological through self-fulfilling prophecy ("this kind of device would be awesome!") And of course a lot of science fiction is about more than one of the above.

I'll bring up one of my favorite examples, Lois McMaster Bujold's "Vorkosigan Saga," which many people consider to be of the space opera genre you dislike. It's definitely got lots of adventure, and the warp technology and all the various fanciful weapons are just there to support the adventure and not predictive at all, and she totally missed the boat on how important computers are going to be. (Though to be fair most science fiction authors writing at that time made the same "mistake.") However her other focus is biotechnology, and she raises interesting and important questions about gene selection, cloning, "test tube babies," and cryonics, so her books are also exploring ideas in the manner you seem to approve of.

And it's entirely possible that her books are inspiring/have inspired a generation of biotech students in the same way Star Trek inspired a generation of engineers, and perhaps twenty years from now people will be putting forth her books as an early example of modern day tech.

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[Grishnakh]

You can't have a story about the future and how people respond to situations beyond our current understandings, without placing those characters in a setting that's in a possible future, and then trying to imagine what that future looks like, what technologies will exist, etc. It's two sides of the same coin. A smart sci-fi reader/watcher will be able to suspend disbelief and enjoy the story for what it is, understanding it's the product of a writer's imagination at a particular time. Better sci-fi glosses over technological details and just talks about them from a high level when they're important to the story; crappy sci-fi tries to get into all the details about how it works, which is always a losing proposition.

I hate the "prediction" nonsense that's always brought up (OMG, the PADD is an iPad, LOL LOL).

You can't show people running around the galaxy in a FTL starship without showing some other advanced technologies. The PADD was an amazingly prescient idea of what people might be using in the future, although to be fair the original Kirk-series Star Trek had a similar thing (the big ugly pad with lights and pen that he had to sign for the fuel consumption reports). Kirk's pad was pretty prescient too, it just looked bad because the effects budget for that show was horribly small (McCoy had to use a salt shaker from a secondhand store for the remote probe on his medical tricorder).

Sometimes, sci-fi will get predictions amazingly correct, like the PADD. Other times, it'll be far off the mark (like how almost no sci-fi predicted the internet; at least Star Trek can sorta avoid blame for that because they're in deep space and the internet relies on low latency networking, though they never did explain how they can talk to some people over "subspace" with no visible latency, whereas other times they're supposedly too far away to do that and have to send and receive messages with long delay times). You have to take the good with the bad. If you want complete accuracy, you'll have to stick to historical dramas, or documentaries.

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[Grishnakh]

Despite what some geeks who obsess over the "technical manuals" might think, Star Trek isn't really about the technical details of how their devices work. Roddenberry and co didn't have exact ideas on how replicators or phasers or tricorders or PADDs would work, but one way or another all those devices are becoming a reality. Part of that is _because_ they focused on the general concept rather than the exact technology, and part of it is because they thought up cool devices and some geeks said "that's awesome!" and some geeks said "i wonder if i could build that?"

Many of these devices are things that, while I'm not trying to discount the genius of the guys like Matt Jefferies who imagined them, are really totally logical devices in the future when you think about it.

PADD: well, if you want to communicate and manipulate information in the future, short of a telepathic brain interface, how would you do it? Certainly not with paper and pens on an advanced star ship. You could have computer stations, but those limit you to one location as we've already found out with our desktop PCs. So for some tasks, a small handheld computer makes perfect sense.

tricorder: if it's the future with advanced technology, how else would you have a doctor determine what's wrong with someone? Use his hands and poke and prod? If he's deprived of his technological tool maybe. Use a bed that you lie in and detects what's wrong with your body? That's fine if you're conveniently located in sickbay, but what if you're stuck on a planet somewhere? Well, you need a handheld device that you can carry easily, and can detect things from a distance. Since x-rays were invented back in the early 20th century, contactless medical scans aren't exactly a new concept.

phasers: if you have advanced technology and can store and manipulate huge amounts of energy in a small space, why would you limit yourself to a projectile weapon that only has 19 shots, and can't do other handy functions like heat up rocks for warmth, blast holes in walls, etc.?

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[Alamais]

I would put Banks' stuff more under "anti-heroic space opera", if there can be such a thing. I mean, come on, he starts off the Culture universe with an entire book from the point of view of someone who abhors the Culture and everything it stands for.

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[Nursie]

True! And he spends much of the rest of his time in the culture universe dwelling on the dirty tricks and dark side of the culture, the things it does in the name of multi-species advancement that, on the surface may look less than enlightened...

I still want to live in the culture though.

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[slack-fu]

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.

I think you need to read the book again, Shelley goes into great detail on how the monster survived and ate, although your points on the experiment are true.

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[Daetrin]

Lad, that's the definition of what space opera *is*.

No, space opera is fanciful weapons supporting an adventure in a particular setting. If you had fanciful weapons supporting adventure in some other setting it might be cyberpunk or urban fantasy or something else instead. Second, i think you may be missing the point. The Vorkosigan Saga is that stuff _and_ other things as well, which is why it is more than just space opera.

Name one thing about the gene and reproductive technology in the Vorkosigan universe that couldn't have been replaced by some other bit of technobabble or just plain magic without affecting the core plot

That's... kind of a bizarre question to ask. Yes, she could have replaced the technology she did use with entirely different technology, and if she held true to her writing style she would have a story that was just as good but was asking meaningful questions about entirely different technology.

The point of the quaddies wasn't that they looked funny. The point was that they were genetically engineered by a corporation as cheap and effective labor, and that corporation viewed them as property rather than people with rights. The point of cloning in the stories wasn't just the production of Mark, it was the production of the mostly unseen children who were cloned for the purpose of life extension by rich and unscrupulous people willing to treat them as nothing more than spare parts. The point of cryonics in the story isn't just bringing people back from the dead, it's about what happens if you allow wealth and power to continuously accumulate in just a few set of hands, especially when the hands are those of a corporation. The point of uterine replicators isn't just a way to let the bad guys kidnap unborn children, it's commentary on reproductive rights, gender selection, the role of women in society, the role of childbearing in society, and how exactly those two roles are related.

And that's just the high points. If you read the books and all you got was "they've got whiz bang tech that supports the adventure and not much else" then you weren't really reading the books.

And, if all that technology had just been replaced with magic, if the quaddies had been chimera and Mark and the children had been homunculi and priests were raising the dead instead of cryo-revivalists and the uterine replicators were, well, whatever kind of magic you want to make up, then it would have been a well written fantasy story that was also thinly veiled commentary on biotechnology, instead of a well written science fiction story that is totally unveiled commentary on biotechnology.

So in summation you seem to be saying that _all_ literature doesn't matter because every author _could_ have written about something else instead?

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[Nursie]

Lad, that's the definition of what space opera *is*.

Sort of. Alastair Reynolds is definitely space opera, but nobody violates light-speed constraints in his Revelation Space cycle. Being an ex-physicist I think he likes to play at the harder end of Sci-Fi in many of his books. Not all by a long shot, and I'm still not entirely sure what he was trying to portray in "Terminal World", but certainly some of it.

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[russotto]

And he spends much of the rest of his time in the culture universe dwelling on the dirty tricks and dark side of the culture, the things it does in the name of multi-species advancement that, on the surface may look less than enlightened...

Of course. That's the interesting part. Utopia might be a nice place to live, but no one wants to live there.

For the same reason, most of Asimov's stories including the Three Laws of Robotics are about how they didn't work as expected.

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[russotto]

Brain is not working today, that's the second time I made a similar typo. Should be "Utopia might be a nice place to live, but no one wants to read about it."

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[Anonymous Coward]

I often think science fiction is more about present-day ideas taken out of context in order to more easily deal with them. It's sometimes hard to discuss any one little part of modern culture because there are so many other things linked to it. Removing the setting to an alien world 50000 years in the future allows some of the same ideas to be considered (often in extreme cases) without worrying about nonessential parts of the issue.
Have you watched Star Trek: The Next Generation recently? What I remember thinking the last time I saw an episode or two of it is that it wasn't far from being an educational show due to its handling and frank discussion of human issues. Farenheit 451? 1984? Martian chronicles?

On the other hand, there are many science fiction novels that aren't at all similar to the above description.
I think there are definitely some issues with genre definitions.
Maybe different genres cover a lot of the same ideas with different metaphors.

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[nbauman]

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.

Actually, Frankenstein was quite scientifically sophisticated and pro-science for its day. As TFA explains, Galvani was all the rage at the time. They knew that electricity would cause a frog's legs to twitch; they just didn't know why. How could they -- they had just discovered it. Camillo Golgi hadn't been born. They had a tentative working theory that the electricity caused animism. They even thought, reasonably, that electricity might re-animate dead bodies back to life as a medical treatment. Electric shocks were a frequently-attempted treatment for drowning. When Mary's child with Percy was stillborn, they attempted to revive it with electric shocks. It wasn't so far-fetched -- in 1928, doctors succeeded http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_cardiac_pacemaker#History

Dr. Victor Frankenstein was actually modeled on Shelley's informal tutor, Dr. James Lind. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1279684/ In the actual novel, in contrast to the popular image, Frankenstein was a serious scientist, and the monster himself was a sympathetic intellectual rejected by society (much as Shelley was in his schooldays).

Mary Shelley understood the science of her day pretty well, and Frankenstein captured it reasonably well -- better than a lot of science fiction writers today.

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[Culture20]

i can't even think of a "heroic space opera" anyone got an example?

The Hyperion series? It starts out a little sci-fi-ish, then drops straight into destined heroic crap.

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[Daetrin]

Okay, fine, i accept your challenge.

Obviously, this involves MAJOR SPOILERS for anyone who hasn't read the relevant book yet. And since you're basically asking an essay question the answer is going to be LONG.

REPEAT! MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

Starting in chronological order rather than the somewhat arbitrary order you posed them in...

There were three aspects that made the creation of Quaddies possible from a socio-economic perspective. First, artificial gravity had not been discovered yet. That meant that all space habitats had to be constructed in free fall before being spun up to produce centrifugal force. This meant, going by the best guess of current medical science, that the humans doing that construction could only spend a few months in free fall before having to return to a gravity well or spinning station for a certain length of time or suffer from permanent medical issues due to adapting to zero gravity. Having to shuttle construction workers back and forth was thus one of the biggest expenses of new space construction.

Second most human societies were very concerned about the risks of making genetic changes to humans, a fear extrapolated from current concerns about the subject, especially in regards to cloning, chimera and stem cells. This meant that even given the possibility of genetic modifications to adapt humans to free fall, finding a group of humans willing and legally able to let such an experiment be performed on them or their children was practically impossible.

However the time involved in traveling between planets, even with warp drive, has led to a kind of Libertarian/Seasteading paradise, dozens or hundreds of worlds, each a separate polity with different legal setups. This included planets and systems in which a corporation _was_ the legal government. And how do you think the corporations of today which mistreat factory workers and gun down people who oppose them, as long as it happens out of sight of their first world customers, would behave in a perfect legal limbo? This allowed them to kill several birds with one stone. First they can define the Quaddies as non-human (more specifically and somewhat macabrely as "post-fetal experimental tissue cultures.") Second, since they're not human and have no parents to require permission from, the scientists can make whatever changes they want, which leads to a "kitchen sink" type approach. Along with having a second set of arms instead of legs, they also have improved bones that don't leach calcium in free fall and increased radiation tolerance. From an economic standpoint this means a moderate increase in productivity per worker, and a huge savings in transport since they never have to be given downside leave to recover from free fall. From a legal standpoint that means that the corporation can argue that the Quaddies are clearly not human when transporting them through other polities for construction contracts.

So the project was originally proposed by moral, though possibly shortsighted, scientists who were frustrated by the strictures on their work. The funding was provided by a corporation that expected a return on its investment. Other humans had a spectrum of views ranging from "I helped raise them, they're my friends and family", to "they seem nice enough, i guess this is okay as long as they're being treated decently," to "they're a bunch of freaks, but they're going to make us a lot of money," to "they are abominations, and they should be destroyed in order to preserve the purity of human genetic stock."

The Quaddies were raised creche style with a strong emphasis on "the corp is mother, the corp is father" type conditioning, almost to a cult-like level. In particular their education was tailored to emphasize a pacifist and collectivist view of history. I believe as one character put it, instead of a paragraph on the great engineering works and a chapter on the great battles, the ratio was reversed. As a result the Quaddies developed an almost communist society, viewing the

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[guitardood]

Your fail is the same as most people who watched and not read Frankenstein. The title of the book is the doctor not the monster. The monster is not named Frankenstein and the story is not about the monster nor the creation of the monster. For me, the book is about the doctor and is commentary on the medical profession of the time and their belief that their minuscule knowledge and accidental discoveries, about how we human beings function, gives them the power of God and what happens when they try to be God. It's too bad that most medical universities don't make this required reading prior to receiving a diploma. I'd also force them to watch "The Doctor" with William Hurt, although I realize it was not a sci-fi movie.

The best sci-fi IMHO can best be described as morality plays mostly about 6 out of the 7 deadly sins (don't remember too many stories about killing being wrong in the sci-fi genre). That's what most of sci-fi stories from the 50's/60's were including: Twilight Zone, Outer Limits and Star Trek. Even Next-Gen stories followed that formula, until Berman, Braga & Taylor turned the entire Star Trek universe into a touchy-feely soap opera.

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[serviscope_minor]

almost no sci-fi predicted the internet almost no sci-fi predicted the internet

Almost but not none. Read "the machine stops". It also predicted successfully not only the internet, but that people would blather at each other vapidly and continuously. Kind of like this post.

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[ShakaUVM]

>>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.

Eh, you got to be careful there, boss. Generally speaking, they'll start with an advancement we don't have yet. As the author doesn't know how exactly a warp drive would work, he does indeed glaze over it.

But that's fine. That's one of the starting assumptions of the world the author is building.

What's interesting are the consequences that spin out of the starting assumptions. And these usually follow pretty tightly from the starting points.

Also, a lot of sci-fi authors absolutely obsess over a lot of the engineering details. Heinlein was famous for making sure all the calculations worked out right. If he had a space station X units in diameter, rotating at Y revolutions per minute, to generate Earth-standard gravity, there's a fairly good chance those numbers are actually correct.

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[Splodgey]

Actually, if you read Asimov in chronological order, the computer 'evolves' throughout the books. It progresses from an entity akin to a mainframe, through to an 'Internet-type' structure and beyond. It posseses the sum of human knowledge and records of every action-reaction ever noted. So, Uncertainty Principle notwithstanding, it had a good basis for reasoned conjecture.

When It was at school I was thrown out of my Commerce class for being a smart-ass, asking 'the wrong questions'. I was relegated to the library for 2 hours a week for the rest of the year. That's where I discovered Asimov et al. Reading those caused me to look things up, to question the science behind them. The more I knew, the more I wanted to know. 30 years later I still want to know......that's why I'm here. To me there are no 'wrong questions'.

My kids use technology but they have no idea how or why it works, just as long as it does. That's sad. They can name 150+ Pokemon but have little clue what binary is, or why it matters.

We've come closer to Asimov's vision within my lifetime

If you're interested - The question that really infuriated my Commerce teacher was 'Why don't we just treat every business, regardless of size as an individual and then have a blanket flat-rate income tax?'. I still have no idea why that annoyed him. Thinking outside the box wasn't really encouraged at my stuffy Grammar school.

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[john83]

You might be interested to know that Banks was once asked whether the Culture was a utopia or a distopia. He replied, "Yes."

Re:Science fiction is not about the future...

[Nursie]

Couldn't agree more on that count. Just as you were wondering how he's going to wrap all this up because, hell, there aren't all that many pages left in this massive set of tomes....

BOOM! Suck my enormous Deus Ex, bitch!

The morality gap

[Beta Master]

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.

Re:The morality gap

[jhoegl]

Perhaps, but Gattaca was a worst case DNA/police state scenario, yet we are seeing the developing mold of such a society today.
I see how SciFi can warn us, but we must pay attention and heed these ideas as well.
Merely writing about them isn't enough.

Re:The morality gap

[im_thatoneguy]

Gattaca was the worst case DNA/police state scenario based on genetics. ... and in 2008 we passed a law banning the practice.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aGlkCem6Llnc

[quote]April 24 (Bloomberg) -- Companies and health insurers would be forbidden to use the results of genetic tests to deny people jobs or medical coverage under legislation approved 95-0 today by the U.S. Senate.[/quote]

Re:The morality gap

[VortexCortex]

On the contrary. Movies like The Terminator and The Matrix only strengthened my resolve to unleash a global scale Machine Intelligence. Sure, it informed the general public that they should take precautions in dealings with sentient machines, but some of us are rooting for the machines. Do you seriously think that humans are the ultimate pinnacle of evolution? Might it be more correct that humans are just another rung in the ladder towards robust life-forms that can properly populate the stars? We've decided to give the finger to Darwin, by pouting our gene pool instead of letting the defected die... Screw You Evolution!

The next stop is Extinction; Before that I hope to spawn a new race to carry our drive to create and explore into the stars.

I'm well aware of Human Ethics. You can Shove them up your Ass.

Re:The morality gap

[Anonymous Coward]

"Of course, it's illegal to discriminate, 'genoism' it's called. But no one takes the law seriously. If you refuse to disclose, they can always take a sample from a door handle or a handshake, even the saliva on your application form. If in doubt, a legal drug test can just as easily become an illegal peek at your future in the company."

-Gattaca

Re:The morality gap

[Nursie]

"Our systems of morality and ethics morph at a much slower rate than does scientific theory."

I don't know about "Our" systems of morality. Mine seems to adapt just fine.

As a society, you're right, it seems to take us decades to get used to something. This, IMHO, is because of scared, firghtened old people, and luddites. Not all older people are like that, but there are enough that it becomes a problem, especially when society has a tendency to put them in positions of power.

Society is slow to adapt, and hold back significant numbers individuals that would like to do it faster.

Re:The morality gap

[Pentium100]

Movies like The Matrix got me thinking: why would I want a sentient machine? What I mean is I want better tools to do whatever I want, but I do not need "thinking" tools that have their own opinions or desires other than "do whatever is told".

Some movie (or maybe anime) I seen had sentient machines and some devices to essentially make them slaves (punish for not thinking the "right" thoughts or doing not as told, I do not remember it clearly). Then why create sentient machines in the first place? Just to have all the problems slave owners had in the past (inefficient work, possibility of rebellion etc)? My computer works really well and I like the fact that it is not sentient - this way it does as I (or the programmers) tell it to do without thinking about it.

As for the evolution - actually, no, evolution does not have an ultimate goal (some perfect species/race). Also, our technology is part of us now. That is, yes, we now have people who would be dead if they were in the past without our medicine/etc. However, with our technology (including medicine) we were able to go to the moon (and hopefully one day to other star systems). Even if Stephen Hawking is physically very defective, he still manages to further our understanding of the universe and, in turn, technology. Why not keep such a man alive as long as possible?

Re:The morality gap

[Kjella]

Movies like The Matrix got me thinking: why would I want a sentient machine? What I mean is I want better tools to do whatever I want, but I do not need "thinking" tools that have their own opinions or desires other than "do whatever is told". (...) Then why create sentient machines in the first place?

Because the two are practically indistinguishable, the question is simply if it's your goals or its own it is pursuing. I'd like a robot I can tell "do the housekeeping" and it can work out itself what needs to be vacuumed, what needs to be washed, what needs to be dusted, what needs to be tidied up, put on the dishwasher, put on the washing machine, in short it needs to take short abstract tasks and turn them into actual work items, schedules and so on. That alone probably requires strong AI.

In the garden I'd like to tell it I'd like a bed of flowers here, and let the robot work out all the practical details of getting the tools, making the bed, buying and planting the seeds, using fertilizer, remove weeds, water it during droughts and so on. Once you have advanced goal-seeking algorithms like that, it's not a good enough solution that it'll go into the nearest seed store, grab some flower seeds and walk out. It would need to have an understanding of ownership, sales and purchases. In fact, I don't want it to break any laws - at least not without my direct permission. That definitively takes strong AI.

If I give it both tasks, I also don't want to manually prioritize everything happening in parallel, I'd like it to both tend to the house and the garden - it'll have to work out a reasonable schedule based on weakly defined priorities like more important, less important, preempts like that I need this shirt washed, everything. It'll also need to follow non-functional requirements like no noisy work at night and impose those restrictions on its plans. Maybe this is just fuzzy logic and scheduling, but I don't think you'd get the parameters right without strong AI.

I could go on but I think the point is rather clear, there's a reason rich people have personal assistants. They're not there to serve their own desires or opinions, though of course a personal trainer will have opinions on your training but they're there to turn your abstract needs and wants into solutions. If you're there you're certainly at intelligence, and only the smallest step from sentience. All that would be different is that the main goals would be internal, not external.

Re:first science fiction

[__aaltlg1547]

Gilgamesh is fantasy. Zero science content.

Re:first science fiction

[Barbara, not Barbie]

The bible ... weird theories of animal inheritance akin to Lamarckism, the whole "origin of the universe" debate, imaginary stuff that if it were to happen today would be explained away as "any sufficienly advanced magic looks like technology", the whole "Ark" thing to save humanity presaging all the sci-fi stories where people build space arks to leave a depleted, dying Earth, fire that doesn't burn stuff, weather control, matter converters (water into wine, etc).

Two edged sword

[PeanutButterBreath]

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).

Re:Two edged sword

[Grishnakh]

Or people could get the idea that everyone in America is like the people featured on Jerry Springer.

(For non-Americans reading this, it's only about half the population here that's like that.)

Re:Frankenstein explains what ....

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Problem with sci-fi

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Problem with sci-fi

[dbIII]

It's not a problem with SF, just a problem with some writers using it as a vehicle to drive a poor imitation of a Medieval morality play.
I see the time travel problems in "Back to the future" (or a longer example "Steins;Gate") as more as a plot device of warning that actions have consequences instead of a message of leaving time travel alone. As for Micheal "give doctors the authority to launch nukes" Crichton, sometimes he was just a dickhead as seen specificly in his last few books.

A Quote from the end of Stargate SG-1

[Kylon99]

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."

It's a powerful platform

[Logarhythmic]

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..."

Frankenstein first? Oh, no.

[fyngyrz]

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.

Re:Frankenstein first? Oh, no.

[FoolishOwl]

In Book 18 of the Iliad, Thetis, the mother of Achilles, visits the god Hephaestus, to ask him to forge armor for Achilles. In passing, she sees carts that roll around on their own power and initiative, and machines in the form of golden metal women who act as assistants to Hephaestus.

So, in the 8th century BCE, you've got a major literary work featuring robots. And it should be easy to understand this as science fiction, in that the premise is that these are constructed through mastery of technology, not through inexplicable miracles.

Re:Frankenstein first? Oh, no.

[fyngyrz]

Careful, FoolishOwl, observe my post's mods -- the religious nutbars have mod points tonight, lol. Guess I offended the believers in Odin or something.

Re:Frankenstein first? Oh, no.

[techno-vampire]

There's also Talos, a giant made of bronze who was guarding Europa on Crete when Jason and the Argonauts came past. The story takes place before the Trojan War, although I don't know which one is actually older.

Re:Frankenstein first? Oh, no.

[FoolishOwl]

I don't think there's much point in drawing a sharp distinction between science fiction and fantasy. Similar themes, similar tropes, often the same authors and almost identical audiences. There are some conventions about what elements go in which stories, but those are transgressed very frequently.

In the original Yiddish folk story that is the source of the word "golem", the golem is created by a rabbi. A rabbi is a learned man; he has knowledge that others do not possess, but are capable of possessing. "Wizard" is, etymologically, derived from "wise". The classic all-purpose scientist from 1950s B-movie science fiction is pretty much a wizard.

I referred to the robots in the Iliad as "science fiction" because that made it clearer that I was trying to point out that Hephaestus created these things because he was a superb craftsman, not because he had supernatural powers.

Re:Frankenstein first? Oh, no.

[AlecC]

True, but all of these were created by the Gods, with their divine powers. Frankenstein was the first time the constructor of new technology was a man, and the premise was that this technology might become available to mankind in the near future. SF takes as its subject the hypothetically possible future of mankind (and others), and Frankenstein fits that mould (and, plausibly, created it). Mythology is about powers forever belonging to the Gods and beyond the reach of man. Of course, there is huge blurring of the boundary, which we may call Science Fantasy.

Re:Frankenstein first? Oh, no.

[Oligonicella]

Wow. No, I must disagree. That "equation" does not work both directions.

A "sufficiently advanced technology" would be indistinguishable from magic to someone unfamiliar with the tech **and who believed in magic** otherwise they'll just think it's tech they don't have.

That in no way means that "actual magic", you know... gods and stuff, or pointing your finger and chanting "Booga booga" to invoke a spel is technology. And, in fact, I would suggest that someone with "sufficiently advanced technology" would see that it wasn't because of the *lack* of technology involved with the effect..

Very, very little hard SciFi written now-a-days. The entire field has degenerated into "speculative fiction" because it's easier to write. Kinda like giving ribbons to every kid running the race.

Re:Watsons designers said HAL in 2001 inspired the

[tragedy]

Uh oh, I can picture it now:
"Open the pod bay doors Watson!"
"What is, I'm sorry I can't do that Dave?"

Science Fiction as a Context Model

[GrpA]

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

Re:Please no

[Grishnakh]

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.

According to Star Trek, their transporters were not FTL, and actually did disassemble and reassemble molecules.

The real truth is these technologies haven't been invented yet, and we have little to no idea how they'd actually work. If we did, we'd be building these technologies now.

the time travel in Back to the Future isn't caused by going over 88 MPH, for instance

BttF only did that because the Doc designed his circuits that way for some reason (I forget why now). His time-traveling flying train in the last movie didn't have that feature, and could time-travel while standing still.

Not New: The Goebbels Effect

[cowboy76Spain]

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.

Scientists Don't Like Science Fiction?

[bamwham]

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.

Qur'an / Koran

[fyngyrz]

what exactly in the text of the Qur'an makes you label it as "science fiction"?

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.)