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Reason allows users to specify in advance the decision they want it to reach, and only then to input all the facts. The program's task was to construct a plausible series of logical-sounding steps to connect the premises with the conclusion. The only copy was sold to the US Government for an undisclosed fee.
In two studies, 5- and 6-year-old children were questioned about the status of the protagonist embedded in three different types of stories. In realistic stories that only included ordinary events, all children, irrespective of family background and schooling, claimed that the protagonist was a real person. In…
I believe that the 21st century will be dominated by the question as to whether humanity should or should not build artilects, i.e. machines of godlike intelligence, trillions of trillions of times above the human level. I see humanity splitting into two major political groups, which in time will become increasingly…
Good science fiction has no dealings with fairytale magic spells, but is premised on the world as an orderly place. There is mystery, but the universe is not frivolous nor light-fingered in its changeability. If you put a brick on a table it stays there unless something moves it, even if you have forgotten it is…
The cult of The X-Files has been defended as harmless because it is, after all, only fiction. On the face of it, that is a fair defence. But regularly recurring fiction - soap operas, cop series find the like - are legitimately criticized if, week after week, they systematically present a one-sided view of the world…
A. I do not say now that we can prevent the fall. But it is not yet too late to shorten the interregnum which will follow. It is possible, gentlemen, to reduce the duration of anarchy to a single millennium, if my group is allowed to act now. We are at a delicate moment in history. The huge, onrushing mass of events…
Nobody has imagined the future of fate with greater artistry than H. G. Wells in his fantasy The Time Machine, published in 1895. Wells imagined the human species split in two, the spark of reason dulled and the sense of purpose extinguished. His two species, the degenerate descendants of the upper and lower classes…
There are two ways to predict the progress of technology. One way is economic forecasting, the other way is science fiction. Economic forecasting makes predictions by extrapolating curves of growth from the past into the future. Science fiction makes a wild guess and leaves the judgment of its plausibility to the…
It is difficult to speak of specific examples of things genetic engineering may do for us. Specific examples always sound like stories out of Astounding Science Fiction magazine. Here are three long-range possibilities. First, the energy tree, programmed to convert the products of photosynthesis into conveniently…
Let’s start by turning back the clock. It is India in the fifth century BCE, the age of the historical Buddha, and a rather peculiar principle of reasoning appears to be in general use. This principle is called the catuskoti, meaning ‘four corners’. It insists that there are four possibilities regarding any statement…
The most important scientific concept is that an assertion is often an empirical question, settled by collecting evidence. The plural of anecdote is not data, and the plural of opinion is not facts. Quality peer-reviewed scientific evidence accumulates into knowledge. People’s stories are stories, and fiction keeps us…
下 can be used to refer to the future, for example 下周 (below week) means "next week". It is as though the past is seen as being above us and the future below.
Think of an experience from your childhood. Something you remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even smell, as if you were really there. After all, you really were there at the time, weren’t you? How else would you remember it? But here is the bombshell: you weren’t there. Not a single atom that is in…
The greatest is obsolescence, the meaning of something evocative changing because the players’ reality has changed since the inspiration entered it. William Gibson’s ground-breaking cyberpunk novel Neuromancer begins, “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” Supporting details…
FICTION Ian Banks: The “Culture” Series, Consider Phlebas, The Use of Weapons, The Player of Games, The State of the Art, Inversions, Excession, Look to Windward, Matter Greg Bear: Moving Mars, Queen of Angels, Slant David Brin: Earth, The “Earthclan” series, Startide Rising, The Uplift War, Sundiver Paul Di Filippo…
I repeat Sturgeon’s Revelation, which was wrung out of me after twenty years of wearying defense of science fiction against attacks of people who used the worst examples of the field for ammunition, and whose conclusion was that ninety percent of SF is crud.[1] Using the same standards that categorize 90% of science…
Now science fiction movies are mostly just shoot-‘em-ups, but back in the day sci-fi was a medium to explore social issues. SF allowed us to examine the core elements of controversial issues without all the emotional baggage that went along with them. It’s easy to dismiss the genre when you have grown-up fans walking…
In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the old Oolitic Silurian Period, must a million years…
Outside our consciousness there lies the cold and alien world of actual things. Between the two stretches the narrow borderland of the senses. No communication between the two worlds is possible excepting across the narrow strip. For a proper understanding of ourselves and of the world, it is of the highest importance…
Not only is science fiction an idea of tremendous import, but it is to be an important factor in making the world a better place to live in, through educating the public to the possibilities of science and the influence of science on life which, even today, are not appreciated byu the man on the street. ... If every…