Talking SF until everyone’s eyes glaze over

[Hypoxia]

And my (wordy) take is, human consciousnesses with near-infinite capacity can sense patterns with no 'real' existence. We sense stuff and organically organize it in our own heads.

Bad stuff happens? Blame:

• deities
• the stars
• original sin
• bad karma
• evil or indifferent spirits
• spells cast by witchy neighbors
• improper rituals (insufficient / invalid / sloppy sacrifices, flubbed prayers, etc)

Don't blame:

• OCD, other disorders
• bad food/drink/drugs
• statistical reality
• brainwashing
• faulty logic

So, Hypoxia's 7th Law: The supernatural is whatever we can fantasize.

Build castles in the air, then move in. Be sure to document the experience.

 

[MetaBob]

human consciousnesses with near-infinite capacity can sense patterns with no 'real' existence. We sense stuff and organically organize it in our own heads.

Ah, but it doesn't always work that way in real life. Any number of things our species once considered supernatural were just things we didn't understand yet.

Comets. Eclipses. "Guest stars." (Novas and supernovas.) Plagues. All of these and many more were things no one understood, once, and so were attributed to "supernatural" causes.

And yet, as Agatha Christie so succinctly put it:

The supernatural is only the natural of which the laws are not yet understood.

I, and many others, know that Arthur Clarke said the same in different words, from a different perspective.

Are you willing to categorically state that there are no more phenomena currently considered "supernatural" or "magic" by some that we simply don't understand yet?

I'm not. I think our species still has a very large amount to learn.

Hypoxia's 7th Law: The supernatural is whatever we can fantasize.

Well, we *could* do that. But I think it misses the point, and is thus hardly a "law" at all.

 

[Hypoxia]

Are you willing to categorically state that there are no more phenomena currently considered "supernatural" or "magic" by some that we simply don't understand yet?

Of course not. But I trust physics more than mysticism to explain (show relations of) observable reality. The "ghost in the machine" is likely a bug.

Will more basics be found beyond gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear forces? With new instruments and notions, maybe. Will we ever really understand the universe? Likely not, but we'll keep looking. (Unless human extinction.) Will psi be established as real? Many tests so far, without reliable results -- and success here would be a multi-Nobel career booster, so searches will continue.

I like to cite a long-term experiment on the effectiveness of prayer. Millions of British subjects over the last half-millennium have regularly prayed for their monarch's health. Have UK sovereigns outlived the British population? Nope. Maybe they addressed or formatted the prayers wrong. Oops.

Yes, as long as we keep looking, we'll find stuff, explain stuff, exploit stuff. Capitalist exploitation, there's the flag! Psychology was a woo-woo subject till merchandisers found they could manipulate possible customers. Dowsing and astrology are still woo-woo -- if they could be profitable, studies would be corporately subsidized, as college psych departments were a century ago.

Yes, some stuff will be unknown last year, verified and prototyped this year, and on WalMart shelves next year. Demon- or spell-powered batteries? Naw. Via an implant, mentally directing a battery to wirelessly recharge? Maybe. But is that supernatural enough?

 

[NotWise]

OK, my eyes are glazing over.

 

[MetaBob]

Will more basics be found beyond gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear forces? With new instruments and notions, maybe.

Not maybe. Definitely. Quantum Mechanics has been a thing for just about 100 years. Even Einstein didn't like it, at first. He spent his last 30 years working on a GUT, which is little closer now than then. Kepler and Newton spent at least as much time on what some (including me) might call mysticism now as they did on the important stuff. They just didn't have the perspective to know. Do we? String Theory *may* be real, despite how woo-woo it might sound to some. Quantum entanglement, the list goes on.

I have always thought, since my physics major days, that at some level subatomic physics is more like metaphysics than physics. It's one big reason I chose this handle. It is virtually impossible to visualize with analogy to the world we perceive with our five senses what's going on in multi-dimensional theoretical (but mathematically provable) spacetime, but despite our lack of intestinal understanding, it's still going on all around us, all day every day. Multiverses? Time as an arrow? I don't know. No one does for certain. Scientifically testable theories come and go. Does that mean it's not real?

Are you prepared to answer that? It seems like you are, or maybe you're just directing your responses down rather than out.

I'm open to possibility. All of it. The likely more than the (seemingly) unlikely, but I won't close the door on that, either.

 

[Hypoxia]

Multiverses? Time as an arrow? I don't know. No one does for certain. Scientifically testable theories come and go. Does that mean it's not real?

Are you prepared to answer that? It seems like you are, or maybe you're just directing your responses down rather than out.

You already know this so I'll post for others:

• Theory: a testable, usable model supported by the preponderance of data, revised as more data and understandings arrive.
• Testable: Ya gotta be able to to see what happens.
• Usable: The model answers questions and raises yet more.
• Preponderance: Most data, but outliers raise yet more questions. Good.
  -- And also:
• Science: An object-oriented system evaluating observable data and resultant ideas.
• Scientific Method: Rules for manipulating data and evaluations.
• Laws: Equation defining relationships of events and entities.
• Observable: Events and entities that leave some trace.

Do observable mysteries exist? Sure. How about mysteries with no or few traces or patterns, or false-positive patterns (*) our minds conjure? They may exist only as thoughts, with no real-world (**) presence. Is that unripe bell pepper resembling the president a divine or demonic sign? Right. (***)

(*) We've evolved to detect patterns, actual or not. We may or may not see what is or isn't really there, giving a 2x2 "truth table" matrix. Is that only a windblown bush, or a predator prowling? A false positive may keep you alive.

(**) My cynical definition: Reality is whatever bites your ass. If it affects you, it's real, and if not, why fret? Faith in the unreal is itself real if the faithful try to lynch you. But kobolds, fairies, and dryads haven't bothered me. Whew.

(***) Any answer is political. My mouth is shut.
____

Yes, the universe is mysterious, barely examined yet. And yes, assuming we avoid extinction, we'll find much more. But I object to labeling events and entities 'supernatural' with its implication of defying knowable exploration. Why did the mystic (hidden) deity or demon or elemental do what it did? Because it wanted to. How do we probe the un-observable? With fantasy.

But maybe I'm blind. Maybe this overwhelming uni- or multi-verse is filled with magickal entities pulling all sorts of shit for no reason except they WANT to. Maybe concentrated mentality runs things. Or this universe is a computer calculating itself in real-time. Maybe humans will go hive-mind and vanish into the void. That'll seem mysterious -- but beyond natural 'law'?

Sure, I can imagine stuff. It's not real unless unless it bites me. I think I'm safe from the gods I carve. BTW I've written tales with ghosts, gods, less than kindly spirits, etc. I don't expect future science to explain incestuous ghosts possessing their incestuous descendants. Not without consciousness-transferring technology. But then it's not spooky. The magic goes away...
_____

PS: Time as an arrow. Simple logic PROVES the impossibility of humans traveling into the past.

Given: People fuck things up.
Given: Humans traveling to the past would fuck things up.
Given: Curiosity pushes humans past all sensible limits.
Given: A clumsy human would try to observe the Big Bang.
Given: Fucking with the Big Bang would abort our universe.
Thus: If time travel were possible, we would not exist.

 

[Hypoxia]

OK, my eyes are glazing over.

Datura / toloache / Jimson Weed will fire your eyes into an alternate reality. Take cover.

 

[MetaBob]

But then it's not spooky.

OK, assuming you know what I think you're getting at, that's really good.

The magic goes away...

Not as good as the other, but more available, and more (and also dramatically less) germane to the thread. Loved that book.

PS: Time as an arrow. Simple logic PROVES the impossibility of humans traveling into the past.

One need not travel to the past to observe it. That's the world I'm working in, actually, with strictly-ish defined limits.

Logic is not nearly as simple as most people seem to think, btw, but

It's not real unless unless it bites me.

No!

 

[JamesMiehoff]

Sci-fi is very sexy - or can be. I recall a line from Heinlein's Friday, when she notices that low-grav is better than any bra, which made me want to move to the moon at once. No bras! Heaven.
I always thought it would be an interesting challenge to write a low-gravity sex scene. Body parts float - fluids drift - how would that all play out?

There was a report, which was immediately denounced as false (by the same NASA publicist that insisted that there have never been animal breeding experiments in space, despite numerous reports published in scientific journals of animal breeding experiments in space) which included descriptions of a device using surgical rubber straps to hold participants together, as well as an inflatable tunnel used to hold the 62 mile high club members together while gaining their club entrance.

James

 

[Hypoxia]

OK, assuming you know what I think you're getting at, that's really good.

Thanks. Paraphrasing: IMHO new technologies aren't supernatural. I like to rant about eyes. What to do when your eyes go bad? A millennium ago, pray or see a witchy herbalist, and go blind anyway. A couple centuries later, see a lens-grinder. More centuries on, apply medications. Now, multiple eye surgeries keep me useful. Did any new techniques seem magical (or devilish) to the uninformed? Sure.

One need not travel to the past to observe it. That's the world I'm working in, actually, with strictly-ish defined limits.

Observation without intrusion? Heisenberg (the other one) shrugs. Hopefully, changes wrought by intruding observers merely spinoff more multiverse strands rather than wrecking our own, which is really the only we're sure of.

I assumed (for fun) your observations of the past had a visual probe extend through time, an intruding periscope or scanning device. But you more likely study physical traces in old materials -- or radio-telescopy charts? Sure, the past is all around us. Fossils; the sky; my 1978 Sinclair digital wristwatch kit. (The ZX-80 came later.)

Logic is not nearly as simple as most people seem to think, btw, but <snip> No!

Logics are as fun and flexible as Play-Doh. I like a 31-fold extension to the Jaina 7-fold logic system.

Original: A statement can be evaluated as maybe true, maybe false, and maybe unknown. That's 2^3-1=7 values, not the 2 of boring binary logic.
Extension: A statement is also maybe trivial and maybe irrelevant, giving 2^5-1=31 possibilities for logical apes to play with. Take THAT, Boole!

Then we have Gray Logic, and Llullian Logic, and... okay, another time.

 

[Fugu_B]

I totally would include Neal Stephenson; imho if he’s not sci-fi I don’t think I understand the genre. Not really a fan, but I’ve read Snow Crash and Seveneves, the first two parts of which are still one of the most compelling and frightening things I’ve ever read.

I’m into old/vintage sci-fi short stories. In addition to the ones everyone’s already added, I’m crazy about Jerome Bixby (doesn’t get any better than “It’s a Good Life”) and Aldis Budrys.

I’m also into old sci-fi, pretty much anything from 1940 to the 60s. I’ve recently been on an HG Wells and Jules Verne kick, mainly to discuss them with my kids who have selected them for school reading. It’s fun experiencing their (writers and kids!) minds work around incomprehensible tech issues.

Most of the popular novelists of the 50s and 60s tested their work in short stories and when the concepts or story lines were well received went on to expand the short into a novel or connect stories and publish collections. It might be valuable for writers to go back and read the short then the novel or novelette.

My favorite old school sci fi novel is “The Space Merchants” by Frederick Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth. (A poster recently discussed a future BK burger, look no further than Space Merchants). Coming in second is a work that feels old school, but isn’t, and that’s “Protector” by Larry Niven.

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

FWIW, Star Wars fits, barely, within Space Opera.

I never got into the Ring Cycle and for the same/similar reasons never got into Star Wars. Seveneves totally should have been two books, the third part was infuriatingly bad.

I’m also into old sci-fi, pretty much anything from 1940 to the 60s. I’ve recently been on an HG Wells and Jules Verne kick, mainly to discuss them with my kids who have selected them for school reading. It’s fun experiencing their (writers and kids!) minds work around incomprehensible tech issues.

Most of the popular novelists of the 50s and 60s tested their work in short stories and when the concepts or story lines were well received went on to expand the short into a novel or connect stories and publish collections. It might be valuable for writers to go back and read the short then the novel or novelette.

My favorite old school sci fi novel is “The Space Merchants” by Frederick Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth. (A poster recently discussed a future BK burger, look no further than Space Merchants). Coming in second is a work that feels old school, but isn’t, and that’s “Protector” by Larry Niven.

I didn’t know that about mid-century publishing. Just found a pdf of “The Space Merchants”, thanks for the recommendation!

 

[ChloeTzang]

I never got into the Ring Cycle and for the same/similar reasons never got into Star Wars. Seveneves totally should have been two books, the third part was infuriatingly bad.

I didn’t know that about mid-century publishing. Just found a pdf of “The Space Merchants”, thanks for the recommendation!

What about all the James White hospital station stories? I really enjoy those, and the alien medicine. I’d love to work in a hospital like that.

And how about Zenna Henderson and “The People.” I have a couple of books of her short stories and I always wished she’d written more. There’s actually a film of one of her stories.

 

[SimonDoom]

I never got into the Ring Cycle and for the same/similar reasons never got into Star Wars. Seveneves totally should have been two books, the third part was infuriatingly bad.

I like Stephenson but endings are not his strength. I thought the Baroque Cycle just sort of fizzled out after over 1500 pages and three volumes, and I didn't care for the ending of the Diamond Age, either.

 

[NoJo]

My favorite old school sci fi novel is “The Space Merchants” by Frederick Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth.

^^^ Written during the heyday of madmen - brilliant satire

 

[ChloeTzang]

^^^ Written during the heyday of madmen - brilliant satire

Was it Kornbluth that wrote “The Marching Morons” or something like that.

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

What about all the James White hospital station stories? I really enjoy those, and the alien medicine. I’d love to work in a hospital like that.

And how about Zenna Henderson and “The People.” I have a couple of books of her short stories and I always wished she’d written more. There’s actually a film of one of her stories.

Two more authors I’m not familiar with, thanks! I just read speed-read No Different Flesh and it was interesting.

Since I’m a scaredy-cat (seriously; I need the SO to cuddle with me to watch Black Mirror) and most SF I’ve read is dystopian, I’ve never thought “I’d like to live/work in a place like that” haha

 

[MetaBob]

And how about Zenna Henderson and “The People.” I have a couple of books of her short stories and I always wished she’d written more. There’s actually a film of one of her stories.

I actually have the book: Pilgrimage - Zenna Henderson

The film made from it was The People (1972) starring William Shatner and Kim Darby.

Disney ripped it off a couple years later, or actually, another writer named Alexander Key ripped it off and Disney has made several movies based on that ripoff, all including "Witch Mountain" in their title.

 

[MetaBob]

Observation without intrusion? Heisenberg (the other one) shrugs. Hopefully, changes wrought by intruding observers merely spinoff more multiverse strands rather than wrecking our own

A good reminder. Thanks.

I assumed (for fun) your observations of the past had a visual probe extend through time, an intruding periscope or scanning device. But you more likely study physical traces in old materials -- or radio-telescopy charts? Sure, the past is all around us. Fossils; the sky ...

Nah, more like exploiting the postulated holographic properties of anti-de Sitter spacetime, which holds a very large (but not infinite) amount of information, which in my play universe I assume is readily accessible for up to 1/4 million years, and accessible from here up to a few dozen light years away. After that, risks to spacetime integrity accumulate.

Original: A statement can be evaluated as partly true, partly false, and partly unknown. That's 2^3-1=7 values, not the 2 of boring binary logic.
Extension: A statement is also partly trivial and partly irrelevant, giving 2^5-1=31 possibilities for logical apes to play with. Take THAT, Boole!

Then we have Gray Logic, and Llullian Logic, and... okay, another time.

I was thinking more in terms of classical logic: dialectic, truth and fallacy, deductive, inductive, abductive, and analogical reasoning, predicative, conjunctive, disjunctive, conditional/hypothetical, and comparative statements, syllogisms, etc.

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

I actually have the book: Pilgrimage - Zenna Henderson

The film made from it was The People (1972) starring William Shatner and Kim Darby.

Disney ripped it off a couple years later, or actually, another writer named Alexander Key ripped it off and Disney has made several movies based on that ripoff, all including "Witch Mountain" in their title.

I never knew Witch Mountain was based on/stripped from her story. I loved “Witch Mountain” and “Race to Witch Mountain” as a kid haha

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

Was it Kornbluth that wrote “The Marching Morons” or something like that.

Yes, it's probably Kornbluth's best-regarded solo story, with "The Little Black Bag" also in the running. He was very prolific, and his death in 1958 at the age of 34 probably deprived the field of some great work.

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=5116173&page=submissions

 

[ChloeTzang]

Yes, it's probably Kornbluth's best-regarded solo story, with "The Little Black Bag" also in the running. He was very prolific, and his death in 1958 at the age of 34 probably deprived the field of some great work.

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=5116173&page=submissions

Ah ha. I read it once and it stuck in my memory’s more or less. Going to have to track it down now and read it again.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Sorry about miscounting Clarke's Laws.

Fun, but misleading. My take: Entities may exist, as far superior to humans as we are to ants. But that doesn't make such superiors 'gods'. Have you created any ants lately?

We know intense religious feelings signal certain brain ailments -- the 'natural' aspect of supernatural awe. I witnessed writhing horrors in my last hospital stay. My eyes relaxed a bit... and tendrils crawled from ventilators. *Things* scuttled along the walls. The ceiling tiles crawled. I focused more closely... and everything normalized. Then a nurse arrived with more painkillers. I awoke to visions. Yikes.

Anyway, we can create all the fantasies we like. Link them to some reality if we wish. Erotic tentacle monsters FTW!

I meant writing an updated INFERNO featuring current prominent people. Which contemporary scumbags and shitstains should be sent to which lower levels? Won't naming them be fun?

Yeah that happened to me when I was in SICU ( Surgical Intensive Care Unit) after my heart surgery. All kinds of silly shit was crawling on the walls and flying by the windows. Funny thing was, none of it was something I would be afraid of. I just watched as they, bugs, lots and lots of bugs, crawled all over everything and everybody. They were giving me some good shit in their.

 

[Hypoxia]

Math logic: 1+1=3 for large enough values of 1. That tests as "maybe true," too.
_____

Alas, how could I neglect Zenna Henderson? Or Judith Merril (a Kornbluth collaborator), Leigh Brackett, and (later) Kage Baker, Lois McMaster Bujold, C. J. Cherryh?

James White and Alan Nourse (MDs) wrote fine medical SF (but forget Robin Cook and Michael Crichton); and we possess Nourse's classic pocket guide to outdoors medicine. Don't setup camp without it.
_____

Hey, another sub-theme: Which SF&F writers have impacted the outside world beside inspiring remunerative films or religions?

NASA engineers copied Doc Smith's spaceship controls. Heinlein invented waldoes and waterbeds and inspired too much libertarian crud. Clarke posited geosynchronous satellites. Vernor Vinge predicted cyberspace, the singularity, ubiquitous surveillance, and a walking library building (not yet constructed.)

Some working scientists wrote SciFi. JBS Haldane premiered "primordial soup" for evolution. Leo Szilard designed A-bombs. Norbert Weiner invented cybernetics. Too bad Admiral Grace Hopper, Marie Curie, and Ada, Lady Lovelace didn't write speculative fiction, hey?

 

[vanmyers86]

This thread also got me thinking about some superb short sci-fi stories. In my original Christmas bag of books was an anthology called "Tomorrow, The Stars," which I still own decades later. I have been thumbing through it tonight and enjoying some old favorites - Vonnegut's "The Barnhouse Effect," the creepy "Absalom" by Henry Kuttner, "Survival Ship" by Judith Merril with its lovely twist at the end. The genre really gave us some wonderful stories - "Nightfall," as others have pointed out, and "The Ugly Little Boy" (which still touches my heart), "If This Goes On -" by Heinlein...
I could go on and on.