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Science fiction and predictions, II

Sat, 30 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0200

Tags: Quotes, Science fiction

"Science Fiction: Its Nature, Faults and Virtues", Robert A. Heinlein

Are the speculations of science fiction prophecy? No.

On the other hand, science fiction is often prophetic. There was once a race track tout who touted every horse in each race, each horse to a different sucker. Inevitably he had a winner in every race�he had extrapolated every possibility. Science fiction writers have "prophesied" (if you will excuse a deliberate misuse of the word) so many things and so many possible futures that some of them must have come true, with sometimes rather startling accuracy. Having bet on all the horses we can't lose. But much has been made of the "successful prophecies" of science fiction�the electric light, the telephone, the airplane, the submarine, the periscope, tanks, flamethrowers, A-bombs, television, the automobile, guided missiles, robot aircraft, totalitarian government, radar�the list is endless.

The fact is that most so-called "successful prophecies" are made by writers who follow the current scientific reports and indulge in rather obvious extrapolation of already known fact.

"Sci-fi special: Stephen Baxter", Stephen Baxter

It�s true that many of the old dreams of science fiction have been fulfilled, or bypassed. And it does feel as if we�re living through a time of accelerating change. But science fiction has � rarely � been about the prediction of a definite future, more about the anxieties and dreams of the present in which it is written.

Italics added by me. This is part of a series, part 1 is from 2015. If you are aware of any other interesting quotes on this topic, say from Verne, Wells... Please let me know.

Science fiction and predictions

Fri, 29 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0200

Tags: Quotes, Science fiction

"How America�s Leading Science Fiction Authors Are Shaping Your Future", Eileen Gunn

But the task of science fiction is not to predict the future. Rather, it contemplates possible futures. Writers may find the future appealing precisely because it can�t be known, a black box where �anything at all can be said to happen without fear of contradiction from a native,� says the renowned novelist and poet Ursula K. Le Guin. �The future is a safe, sterile laboratory for trying out ideas in,� she tells Smithsonian, �a means of thinking about reality, a method.�

"Predicting the Present", Diane Coutu

Science fiction author Frederik Pohl said that sci-fi writers don�t predict the automobile�they predict the traffic jam.

That�s a really interesting position for him to take, because I don�t think that science fiction writers predict the future. Science fiction has always been about the present, even when it�s dressed in futuristic trappings. We write stories that try to address the effect of technology on society and vice versa. Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, was not predicting that in the future we would all build men out of corpses and animate them with lightning. Her point was that we might become technology�s servants rather than its masters. She wasn�t really being predictive. She was worrying about the present.

"Introduction" (not sure to what), Ursula K. Le Guin

Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.

Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge); by clairvoyants (who usually charge a fee, and are therefore more honored in their day than prophets); and by futurologists (salaried). Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying.

"Science Fiction Predictions: Truth or Misconception? (Part 1)", John DeNardo

Asimov was a scientist and a writer, and even though his scientific background informed his fiction, making accurate predictions in science-fiction stories is not what sci-fi is about. In fact, it's a common misconception that science fiction attempts to predict the future. It's an easy assumption to make; science is a relatively strict discipline, after all, and anything associated with it must therefore be rooted in facts and evidence. Well, yes, that's true, but just because science fiction is a literature that leverages science doesn't mean it has to ignore the rules and demands of fiction, nor the whims of the person writing it. The simple truth is that predicting the future is not what science-fiction writers set out to do.

A writer's main focus is on writing a story. Stories are set in the future because it's a great way to remove readers from the familiarity and comfort of "now" and give them the unique perspective of someone looking in from the outside. Literature even has a fancy name for this: cognitive estrangement. It forces you to question what you are seeing in a story even though, more than likely, it is merely a reflection not of the future, but of today. Setting the story in the future is a convenient and illustrative way of making you, the reader, an outside observer. In other words, science fiction forces us to look at ourselves through the eyes of others.

If you are a writer who is setting your story in the future, then one of your jobs has to be making that future noticeably different than the present day. The degree to which you make that future different will obviously vary on how far into the future the story is set. A book set 25 years from now may feature a world that still looks recognizable, but one set a million years from now may look more foreign. The writer needs to come up with story elements to portray that future, be they cool gadgets or creatures, societal norms or unheard-of technologies. All of them are discrete parts that combine together to depict "another world"�something for which science fiction is known.

The difference between predicting the future and a writer including these elements in their stories is subtle. When predicting the future, the focus is on accuracy. Futurists can use historical trends and current situations to extrapolate where technology is heading. They look at current and emerging technologies to support their predictions and make a reasonable projection as to where that technology is headed. Writers can use extrapolation as well, but the focus is not so much on accurately predicting the future as it is on making up a future that serves the story, which is their primary focus. Saying science-fiction writers are predictors of the future is thus a bit of a misnomer. A better way of looking at this is that a futurist predicts the future but a science fiction writer invents it.

Italics added by me. If you are aware of any other interesting quotes on this topic, say from Verne, Wells... Please let me know.

Gears

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Tags: Cory Doctorow, Quotes

From Makers by Cory Doctorow. About friends, who lost each other, and then found each other again.

They were like gears that had once emerged from a mill with perfectly precise teeth, gears that could mesh and spin against each other, transferring energy.
They were like gears that had been ill-used in machines, apart from each other, until their precise teeth had been chipped and bent, so that they no longer meshed.
They were like gears, connected to one another and mismatched, clunking and skipping, but running still, running still.

Reeling and Writhing

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Tags: Lewis Carroll, Quotes

From Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

'When we were little,' the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, 'we went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle--we used to call him Tortoise--'
    'Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn't one?' Alice asked.
    'We called him Tortoise because he taught us,' said the Mock Turtle angrily: 'really you are very dull!'
    'You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple question,' added the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth. At last the Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, 'Drive on, old fellow! Don't be all day about it!' and he went on in these words:
    'Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn't believe it--'
    'I never said I didn't!' interrupted Alice.
    'You did,' said the Mock Turtle.
    'Hold your tongue!' added the Gryphon, before Alice could speak again. The Mock Turtle went on.
    'We had the best of educations--in fact, we went to school every day--'
    'I'VE been to a day-school, too,' said Alice; 'you needn't be so proud as all that.'
    'With extras?' asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously.
    'Yes,' said Alice, 'we learned French and music.'
    'And washing?' said the Mock Turtle.
    'Certainly not!' said Alice indignantly.
    'Ah! then yours wasn't a really good school,' said the Mock Turtle in a tone of great relief. 'Now at OURS they had at the end of the bill, "French, music, AND WASHING--extra."'
    'You couldn't have wanted it much,' said Alice; 'living at the bottom of the sea.'
    'I couldn't afford to learn it.' said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. 'I only took the regular course.'
    'What was that?' inquired Alice.
    'Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,' the Mock Turtle replied; 'and then the different branches of Arithmetic--Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.'
    'I never heard of "Uglification,"' Alice ventured to say. 'What is it?'
    The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. 'What! Never heard of uglifying!' it exclaimed. 'You know what to beautify is, I suppose?'
    'Yes,' said Alice doubtfully: 'it means--to--make--anything--prettier.'
    'Well, then,' the Gryphon went on, 'if you don't know what to uglify is, you ARE a simpleton.'
    Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about it, so she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said 'What else had you to learn?'
    'Well, there was Mystery,' the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the subjects on his flappers, '--Mystery, ancient and modern, with Seaography: then Drawling--the Drawling-master was an old conger-eel, that used to come once a week: HE taught us Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.'
    'What was THAT like?' said Alice.
    'Well, I can't show it you myself,' the Mock Turtle said: 'I'm too stiff. And the Gryphon never learnt it.'
    'Hadn't time,' said the Gryphon: 'I went to the Classics master, though. He was an old crab, HE was.'
    'I never went to him,' the Mock Turtle said with a sigh: 'he taught Laughing and Grief, they used to say.'
    'So he did, so he did,' said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn; and both creatures hid their faces in their paws.
    'And how many hours a day did you do lessons?' said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.
    'Ten hours the first day,' said the Mock Turtle: 'nine the next, and so on.'
    'What a curious plan!' exclaimed Alice.
    'That's the reason they're called lessons,' the Gryphon remarked: 'because they lessen from day to day.'
    This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a little before she made her next remark. 'Then the eleventh day must have been a holiday?'
    'Of course it was,' said the Mock Turtle.
    'And how did you manage on the twelfth?' Alice went on eagerly.
    'That's enough about lessons,' the Gryphon interrupted in a very decided tone.

Under, but not dead

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Tags: Books, Quotes, Science fiction, Stephen King

If you want a review of Under the dome by Stephen King, I suggest you skip to this one from RevolutionSF (Van Allen Plexico). If however you want a sample of the energetic dialogue, stick around.

"I checked the other shed just to make sure, thought somebody might have moved the tanks --" [said Twitch]
"Why would anyone want to do that?" [said Rusty]
"I dunno, O Great One."
[...]
"Let him sleep. And I'm not going to call him The Wiz anymore. Given how hard he's worked since this shit came down, I thing he deserves better." [said Rusty]
"Ah so, sensei. You have reached a new level of enlightenment."
"Blow me, grasshopper."

Chapter "Madness, blindness, astonishment of the heart", sub-chapter 9 / page 200-201.

Poetry about the body

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Tags: Neal Stephenson, Quotes, Science fiction

From Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson.

The sultan has an Oxford English accent with traces of garlic and red pepper still wedged in its teeth. He speaks for about firteen minutes. The room contains a few dozen living human bodies, each one a big sack of guts and fluids so highly compressed that it will squirt for a few yards when pierced. Each one is built around an armature of 206 bones connected to each other by notoriously fault-prone joints that are given to obnoxious creaking, grinding, and popping noises when they are in other than pristine condition. This structure is draped with throbbing steak, inflated with clenching air sacks, and pierced by a Gordian sewer filling with burbling acid and compressed gas and asquirt with vile enzymes and solvents produced by the many dark, gamy nuggets of genetically programmed meat strung along its length. Slugs of dissolving food are forced down this sloppy labyrinth by serialized convulsions, decaying into gas, liquid, and solid matter which must all be regularly vented to the outside world lest the owner go toxic and drop dead. Spherical, gel-packed cameras swivel in mucus-greased ball joints. Infinite phalanxes of cilia beat back invading particles, encapsulate them in goo for later disposal. In each body a centrally located muscle flails away at an eternal, circulating torrent of pressurized gravy. And yet, despite all of this, not one of these bodies makes a single sound at any time during the sultan's speech. It is a marvel that can only be explained by the power of brain over body, and, in turn, by the power of cultural conditioning over the brain.

Quotes

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0200

Tags: Books, Mike Oldfield, Movies, Music, Olivia Newton-John, Quotes, Science fiction, Star Trek

I include a quote in my signature, changing once every week. And I try to choose quotes, that tells you something about me: my hobbies, my beliefs and so on. If you don't want to wait and send me a letter every week, just to see a new quote, you can cheat and look here. Quotes in italics are now retired.

Music

Olivia Newton-John

And if I close my eyes to the wild silent ruin, then I'm just like everyone else.: -- Olivia Newton-John, Gaia
I can sing one song - you can sing another, doesn't mean I'm wrong, don't let anything get in the way of love.: -- Olivia Newton-John, Gaia

Mike Oldfield

So if you feel a little glum, to Hergest Ridge you should come. In summer winter rain or sun, it's good to be on horseback.: -- Mike Oldfield, "On Horseback"

Others

Angels we have heard on High Tell us to go out and Buy.: -- Tom Lehrer
All you need is love: -- Beatles

Books

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy / Douglas Adams

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.: -- D.Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
The large yellow ships hung in the sky in exactly the same way that bricks don't.: -- D.Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
Duleek: Sudden realisation, as you lie in bed waiting for the alarm to go off, that it should have gone off an hour ago.: -- Douglas Adams, "The Meaning of Liff"

Terry Pratchett

The light was misty and actinic, the sort of light to make Steven Spielberg reach for his copyright lawyer.: -- Terry Pratchett, "Equal Rites"
Time passed, which, basically, is its job.: -- Terry Pratchett, "Equal Rites"
What time�s sunset around here? We normally manage to fit it in between night and day: -- Terry Pratchett, "Mort"

Isaac Asimov

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent: -- Isaac Asimov, "Foundation"
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.: -- Isaac Asimov
The most exciting phrase in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka" (I found it!) but "That's funny...": -- Isaac Asimov

Stephen King

It's a long walk back to Eden, dear, so don't sweat the small stuff.: -- Stephen King, Insomnia
When asked, "How do you write?" I invariably answer, "one word at a time.": -- Stephen King

Other science fiction writers

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.: -- Arthur C. Clarke
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy ?: -- Ursula K. LeGuin

Movies

Star Trek

Without freedom of choice, there is no creativity. Without creativity, there is no life.: -- Kirk, "Star Trek"
Live long ... and prosper.: -- Spock, "Star Trek"
In any case, were I to invoke logic, logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.: -- Spock, "Star Trek"
(When asked why he saved Spocks life) Because the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.: -- Kirk, "Star Trek"

Star Wars

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.: -- Yoda, Star Wars V

Red dwarf

No Silicon Heaven? Preposterous! Where would all the calculators go?: -- Kryten, "Red Dwarf"
Given that God is infinite, and that the Universe is also infinite, would you like a toasted tea cake?: -- Talkie Toaster, "Red Dwarf"

Monty Python's Flying Circus

Always look on the bright side of life: -- Monty Python, Life of Brian
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, Because there's bugger all down here on Earth.: -- Monty Python

When Harry met Sally

When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.: -- Harry Burns, "When Harry met Sally"

Shadowlands

We can't have the happiness of yesterday without the pain of today. That's the deal.: -- Joy Gresham, "Shadowlands"

Simpsons

The truth is not out there: -- Bart Simpson writing on the black board
I will not use abbrev.: -- Bart Simpson writing on the black board
I will finish what I sta: -- Bart Simpson writing on the black board
When you love somebody, you have to have faith that in the end, they will do the right thing.: -- Marge Simpson to Lisa

Other movies

Well, Miss Vale; ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight? I always ask that of all my prey. I just kinda like the sound of it!: -- The Joker
If you want something very badly, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's yours forever. If it doesn't, it was never yours to begin with.: -- Diana, "Indecent Proposal"
That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.: -- Friedrich Nietzsche

Other stuff

Greenpeace

Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realise that we cannot eat money.: -- 19th Century Cree Indian

The holy bible

... thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself ...: -- Leviticus 19:18
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is plantd;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace: -- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Other sources

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.: -- George Orwell
It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.: -- Anonymous
Happiness: The full use of your powers along lines of excellence.: -- John F. Kennedy
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.: -- Donald Knuth
Shift to the left, shift to the right, pop up, push down, byte, byte, byte!
If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.: -- Isaac Newton
In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side with the giants on whose shoulders we stand.: -- Gerald Holton
If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders.: -- Hal Abelson
In computer science, we stand on each other's feet.: -- Brian K. Reid
Call on God, but row away from the rocks.: -- Indian proverb
Trust in Allah, but tie your camel.: --Old Muslim Proverb
Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.: -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
There are only two ways to live your life: One is as though nothing were a miracle, The other is as though everything is.: -- Albert Einstein
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.: -- Albert Einstein
Imagination is more important than knowledge.: -- Albert Einstein
To work is good as long as we remember to live!: -- Anonymous
You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.: -- Galileo
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.: -- Malcolm S. Forbes
It has been said "it is not by amusing oneself that one learns," and, in reply: "it is *only* by amusing oneself that one can learn.": -- Edward Kasner and James R. Newman
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.: -- Teilhard de Chardin
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.: -- Attributed to Benjamin Franklin
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ... --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government...: -- Declaration of independence, Thomas Jefferson