This was the title for my talk at Selam on Feb. 25.And this is it in its written form.
I had to turn down a lot of titles to get to this one.
The first was, "Destroy all the humans! Why I can’t wait to sell out my species to another form of intelligence."
And after a long list of calming down I eventually narrowed it down to, "Ok humans aren’t all that bad but still."
This is a very important topic for me because I was raised by science fiction or more specifically 80’s science fiction.
I specify 80’s science fiction because in the 80’s all childhood heroes ceased to be handsome white guys with capes and became mutated, alien, metallic, dead, something to do with DNA, psychologically disturbed or a combination off all 6.
So naturally this is an article about how I turned out fine.
In our society education is done in two ways.
The first obviously is the school system, the second, whether you like to admit it or not, is entertainment. To further this, most people, or I would say the majority of people, are educated more by entertainment than they are by education...now I’m not saying that education has nothing to teach or that it doesn't provide the majority of people with necessary information. Simply that people are generally more susceptible to accepting entertainment as a means of education than the education system itself.
This obviously has its positives and negatives. The negatives are obvious.
Deciding it was a societal benefit to replace Fringe with American Idol being one of them.
In fact I can imagine most people could spend a great deal of time just listing all of the negatives, but I won’t do that because I don’t believe entertainment is to blame. What is to blame is neither education nor entertainment...it is their segregation.
Sir Ken Robinson describes true creativity as the amalgamation of subjects that do not belong together. In other words what deters true creativity is the segregation of different subjects and fields.
When I was in University I found this to be a major problem within the academic world and as such, the non-academic world. In my fascination with the biological sciences, I have spoken to many RSM scientists, and it is always a wonderful experience. Not simply because of what they say, but more importantly how they say it. It is extremely difficult for these particular individuals to refrain from using metaphor to get across their love and passion for their profession. And when I asked them, why it is that they do not speak out more often and engage in public discussions, all of them have the same basic answer…they’re not encouraged to. Like all professional communities, scientists are encouraged to speak only to professionals within their own community and when science leaves this community there is a great fear amongst scientists that the information will be distorted and misrepresented. Now I can understand this fear, but I believe there is a great disservice to both the public and the academic communities when information is contained and held back.
This is where I believe Science fiction has its place.
Joseph Campbell once simply described myth as an allegory for mankind's place within the Universe.
Today the concept of the Universe is greater than our imagination could ever comprehend…but thanks to the sciences we are learning at a phenomenal rate. What most people forget is that the compartmentalization of information evolved from a non-secular beginning. There was a time when there was no segregation between science, religion, and myth. All things were considered a means to understanding and reporting the universe. In fact, the scientific method evolved from the means of gathering information through observation and contemplation, while myth was the means of delivery.
If the question is, why myth? The answer then, is romanticism.
Myth takes the science of the time, and retells it in a way that it involves the human condition using metaphor and allegory. And I believe that allegory and metaphor are so powerful because they are the undeniable result of passion.
This is how I personally come to appreciate the sciences. Einstein, Darwin, Hawkings and Sagan are but a few of the many scientists that I believe realized the importance of storytelling and education through the artistic musings of entertainment.
In fact my favorite astronomer Carl Sagan, in particular expressed the importance of science entertainment numerously over the course of his life, even leading him to write his own science-fiction story Contact in 1997.
Today there are no modern pop-culture creation stories in the western world that do not involve the supernatural. And as such few people in our culture know evolutionary theory, the formation of our solar system, or even the laws of thermodynamics, not because it isn't taught in schools but because it is not appreciated in the public sphere.
My problem with the information age isn’t that information isn’t widespread…its that it isn’t valued. The importance of seeking out information or being critical in evaluating information is no longer encouraged especially within my own generation.
But the celebration of information is at the very heart of science-fiction storytelling. This is why this medium is so important.
Science cannot do this. Neither can fantasy. Science-fiction is a young and upcoming medium that has the ability to deliver the sciences all the while including the romantic elements of fiction that appeal so heavily to a mass population.
And science-fiction is NOT fantasy.
And although there are some works that blur the distinction, the fact that science-fiction deals with the world in a natural setting, makes its characters, and message more self-reflective and relatable.
I think this is an important separation that has to be realized.
As a child I was deeply offended by the violent assault on Johnny 5 in Short Circuit 2. So much so that I discussed in detail, plans in my Gr. 3 English journal to help design and construct Sky-Net, Hal 9000, a Cylon army, and the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park in an attempt to avenge Mr. 5’s mistreatment by unleashing them all on the entire human race.
I’d like to mention now that I’ve since gotten over this.
And that after 20 years of varying degrees of misanthropy I have come to realize that I’ve been duped.
Through my idolization of all things non-human, I have been duped into developing a greater understanding of the human condition.
The reason for this is that great science-fiction neither knows or cares that it is science-fiction. Alien and The Terminator were not about aliens or robots…they were about the human reaction towards the other.
I use the word “other” because there is no such thing as monsters in science-fiction.
A monster is an anthrocentric being. It has no purpose or belonging outside of human existence. They are by definition, perversions of nature.
In science-fiction instead of monsters you have others. Others, or non-humans are not perversions of nature, they ARE nature.
As a result the two most famous archetypes often spoken about in science-fiction are of course, robots and aliens. Not simply because they look different, but because they are different-looking thinkers.
Robots are an interesting archetype because they are extremely reflective. It is difficult to describe the human species without acknowledging its ability to manipulate the world around them. The ability to use tools to make up for biological deficiencies is in many ways the very definition of human civilization.
So what happens when the tool becomes its own living thing?
Frankenstein was one of the first science-fiction myths to explore this "artificial-birth." But it was in the 50's that the idea of a thinking artificial being became a possible and at least at the time, terrifying concept. But why was it terrifying?
In my belief, xenophobia is not the fear of the unknown as much as it is the fear of what we know too well. The less something resembles the human form, the more we are forced to rely on our imagination. And once you consider how limited the human imagination truly is, you can understand why human beings are so terrified of the unknown.
We cannot know the unknown...obviously. Therefore when asked to design the other, we are forced to reflect. And as such, every conflict in science-fiction between man and machine, is a conflict between a parent and their child.
You cannot export what is not imported. Or in other words, a child is not without the strengths and weaknesses of their parent.
So when a machine is considered cold, evil, soulless, and oppressive, they are only reflecting characteristics evident in us.
A machine cannot be anything we have not been in our own past.
So if that's the case, then why so much focus on the negative?
Well...first of all naming them robots probably didn't help. The word "robot" comes from the word "robota" which is a Czech word meaning "worker or servant." And because this title automatically puts all of humanity within the realm of master, it is not strange to think of why we would be fearful of its ability to grow and evolve at the rate it has.
Until the 70's and 80's the idea of A.I. or an artificial being has persistently been vilified and antagonized. That was of course until the Terminator in James Cameron’s Terminator 2 found out why we cry regardless of the fact that it was something he could never do.
That also found its way into my Gr. 3 journal.
Loren Eiseley once spoke on the importance of the possibility of a non-human intelligence, saying
"One does not meet oneself until one catches the reflection from an eye other than human."
A great Science-fiction film has to be careful with this.
Steven Spielberg based his film Close Encounters of the Third kind off of the importance and significance of the unknown. The entire film was inspired by a single vision of a child opening a door into the light.
The significance of this shot is universal. A child has more difficulty than an adult in distinguishing potential, from danger.
To a child, the unknown is 50/50. Could be good. Could be bad.
As we grow older, we are encouraged to believe that it is always bad. And even science fiction every now and then still finds it hard to get over this. Examples of this include, "Independence Day", "Starship Troopers" and every other American sci-fi film that insists that a good first encounter with an alien intelligence must involve a stogie, an African American stereotype, and a 1997 Mac computer virus.
Entertainment is so adamant on its negative views on the unknown, I find it refreshing to see films like "Close Encounters," which played off of the negative view of the unknown for 2/3 of the movie only to provide one of the most spectacular and positive final acts in movie history.
This article amongst all things is about the importance of myth and those who deliver them. And how I believe this to be the most important and unfortunately deprived aspect of modern western culture.
As our understanding of science expands so should our ability to find purpose and understanding of the human condition within it.
A journey outwards is a journey inwards.
And for this to happen we need as many tellers, as we have seekers.
When the Voyager I spaceprobe left the solar system in 1990, Carl Sagan, pleaded with NASA to turn it around and take a photograph of the planet Earth from that distance.
The importance of this photograph has been considered the “greatest photograph of all time.”
In this photograph the Earth is a "Pale Blue Dot." Small, faint, and suspended in a sunbeam.
In myth when a hero leaves home for the first time, and looks back on what he or she has left, they are rewarded with an icon of their past and it is this icon that encourages the hero to succeed in the future.
This month marks the 19th anniversary of this image.
And my favorite science-fiction film of 2008 (in case you don't already know) was the film Wall-E which if you haven’t seen it already, I would deeply recommend you do.
At the very end of the film, the audience is rewarded with such an icon.
Pale,
blue,
and tucked away in the corner of the screen.
- Adrian
absolutely KILLER talk!
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