Science Fiction Newsletter - Feb 2012

For a full list of previous issues, go to: "Science Fiction Newsletter - Archives" 

February 1, 2012

Editor: EarlyHours-A Vigilante Ranger
Co-Editor: D. R. Prescott






1. About this Newsletter
2. Letter from the Editor
3. Special Feature
4. Editor's Picks
5. Ask & Answer

What is Reality?

         Not to open a can of worms, but... what is reality? I'm surprised that nobody ever asked that question before . But seriously, this is a subject that has permeated our genre since the beginning, and has been the topic of countless science fiction novels and movies. As far as definitions go, the Oxford English Dictionary defines reality as the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. And the real source of all knowledge, the Wikipedia, adds this: ...reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible. A still more broad definition includes everything that has existed, exists, or will exist. No wonder the topic is so prevalent in the science fiction genre. This opens up a lot of territory for our settings and plots, and provides a great framework for introducing unexpected twists in our stories.

         This month's Letter from The Editor takes a look at comparative reality in the science fiction literature and cinema. The Special Feature contributed by D. R. Prescott , presents an interesting take on the nature of consciousness and reality. Is the Universe conscious? Maybe the evolution of sentience is the process by which the Universe becomes aware of itself. Needless to say, this is a subject that asks more questions than it answers!

"Everything you can imagine is real." Pablo Picasso

"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination." John Lennon

Simulated and Virtual Realities

         The simulation of reality is a familiar topic to science fiction writers. The assumption is, first of all, that reality could be simulated, to a degree indistinguishable from "true" reality. As writers, we attempt to suspend our readers' disbelief by presenting ideas in (remotely) plausible ways. As such, a current theme is computer simulation of reality. Another idea is alien mind control. Or how about sentient machines using computer simulation to enslave all humans? Oh wait... that's The Matrix.

         In our stories, our simulated reality could contain conscious minds, which may or may not be fully aware that they are living inside a simulation. This is not the same as what we refer to as virtual reality. In virtual reality, participants are never in doubt that what they are experiencing is not "real." In a simulated reality, by contrast, it would be hard or impossible for participants to separate their experiences from "true" reality. In the science fiction literature, sometimes the lines between virtual and simulated reality are blurred (imagine that). With that in mind, so to speak, below are a few examples from our favorite genre. As usual, the list isn't exhaustive, so post your own examples at the "Science Fiction Newsletter Forum" !

1641: An early reference to the "mind control" type of reality simulation is Rene Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy, where he hypothesizes the existence of an "evil demon," who presents a complete illusion of an external world, including other minds, to Descartes' senses. The evil demon also gives Descartes a complete illusion of his own body, including all of his bodily sensations, when in fact Descartes has no body.

1941: They, by Robert A. Heinlein, is a short story that focuses on a man who believes the universe was created to deceive him. The man is confined to a mental institution because he is suffering from this "delusion," but at the end of the story, the reader discovers that his belief is actually true. Unfortunately for the man, however, the truth is ultimately kept away from him.

1959: Time Out of Joint, by Philip K. Dick, presents a story of a man trapped within an artificial reality that resembles small town America in the late fifties. It is disclosed to be a strategic simulation run by a Terran government at war with its separatist lunar colony in 1998.

1973: In Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Breakfast of Champions, Kilgore Trout, an amateur science fiction writer, writes a story that suggests that there is only one human and one God, and the rest of humanity are robots, made to test the human's reactions. Of note, I had a cat once named Kilgore Trout. We called him "Killer." –ed.

1979: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, is a classic that presents the idea that Earth was designed by an alien supercomputer called Deep Thought to find the Ultimate Question to the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything. How many of you know the answer?

1982: Tron – a classic movie where the protagonist, while hacking into a computer game, gets sucked into the mainframe where he has to play the game in a life-or-death manner against simulated characters. The original was better than the sequel, even with the added 3D effects.

1990: Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, was based on the Philip K. Dick story, We Can Remember It for You Wholesale. The character is either a victim of a failed memory implant procedure or a freedom fighter from Mars. He attempts to reverse the corrupt influence of commercial powers, while faced with the possibility that none of the events he experiences are real, and pursuing them could damage his brain.

1998: One of my all-time favorites, The Truman Show, is a movie about a character (Jim Carrey) that unknowingly lives his entire life in a false reality created to make a voyeur television show about him. How do we know this isn't happening to us right now?

2010: Inception is a recent movie by Christopher Nolan, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. In this story, an "extractor" invades dreams to steal information and ideas, but is soon asked to implant an idea into a target's subconscious instead of stealing one. Is a dream a simulated reality?

         The list of stories using the reality theme is virtually endless! Even television shows have used versions of simulated or virtual realities. These include The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Doctor Who, Farscape, Star Trek, The X-Files, and more. Have other examples? Post them at the "Science Fiction Newsletter Forum" !

"Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures." Jessamyn West

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick

Is Real... Real?

By D. R. Prescott

         My science fiction short story titled "What Now?" is about consciousness affecting reality and has been published several times in different venues, including internationally (See it at: "What now?" ). My hero is Rodney Trumball, a theoretical physicist who stumbles upon an idea that changes everything.

         The story took root considering several questions that intrigued me. Is consciousness necessary for reality to exist at all; would the physical universe exist if consciousness had never come into existence? Then again, is consciousness a natural emergent feature of reality beginning its journey at the Big Bang along with the four fundamental forces? That solicits another question, is consciousness sort of a fifth fundamental force destined to emerge from the beginning of time? Finally, is thought a quantum thing?

         Rodney explains it to his boss, "We're all through, Harry. Done. Finished. The cycle's complete." Rod countered calmly. Emerson could not terrorize him, especially now. All the dreams were coming to an end. The real world was not real after all. Emerson's power was of that world and had little to do with the one Rodney unleashed a few hours ago.

         Rodney stumbled upon a trip mechanism that somebody else might also, sooner or later. Had it been there all the time, waiting, lurking in an obscure mathematical corner? Einstein, Dirac, Lorentz, Mandelbrot, Feynman, Tipler, Abraham, many theorists flirted, directly or indirectly, with what consciousness is or is not. Science fiction writers have used the idea of what is conscious, sentient and what is not.

         Orson Scott Card in his award winning book series about Ender Wiggins, Speaker of the Dead. Ender sports a jewel in his ear that communicates with an entity called Jane, an intelligent, conscious entity that survives secretly in the ansible network which makes instantaneous (faster-than-light, if you will) communications across astronomical distances possible. All the Hundred Worlds in this saga are connected by ansibles. This interesting twist on what is alive or not poses the question of whether consciousness might be an emergent quality of nature.

         Compounding the problem is that sentience is a mystery to science, religion, and philosophy. We really do not know what consciousness is or how it started. Scientists are searching for strange things like how neuronal correlates of consciousness (NCC) work. We are not even sure which organisms are truly conscious and which are not. Is a fly conscious, a dog, a bird? A great debate is afoot between opposing views among people who study the relationship of brain activity to specific feelings and sensory stimulation. Is consciousness a result of holistic chemical and electrical interactions or is there more involved? If we cannot define consciousness, it appears unlikely that we can decide where autonomic reflex ends and consciousness begins?

         Some people have suggested that intelligent biological organisms will be replaced by intelligent non-biological entities, like computer simulations and/or emulations beyond current understanding; maybe so, but would such entities really possess consciousness? Is consciousness encapsulated in something like a soul? Is all consciousness linked in a cosmic choreography that one must sufficiently evolve to appreciate? It is very difficult to address if you do not know what consciousness really is. The definitive answer is that we do not know.

         The neat thing about science fiction and fantasy is that we can explore the fringes of human knowledge with abandon. Orson Scott Card introduces us to strange creatures called pequeninos (or piggies for short) on the planet Lusitania. When die they transform into sentient trees with unique ways of communicating with each other and the piggies.

         Quantum physics has challenged our classical understanding of reality. Collapsing wave functions may be a conscious act. Schrödinger's cat is neither dead nor alive, until we open the box and collapse the wave function. Taking that rather dramatic and disturbing notion further, is it possible that we are no more than a collection of thoughts immersed in some super computer?

         One final question to stir the solipsism stew, do you really exist?

"Everything you know is wrong." Firesign Theater

"Are you really sure that a floor can't also be a ceiling?" M.C. Escher

Short Stories:

ID: 1841490   (Rated: 18+) Legacy 2022  Robert Taylor tries to escape the artificial reality in which he finds himself, by Faustus42

ID: 1672780   (Rated: 18+) Full Circle  A dying man is given a second chance by his double from a parallel universe by Ace Corona

ID: 1816720   (Rated: 13+) The Gospel According to Izzy Schwartz  This is not a politically correct version of creation of the internet. by Smiling Jack

ID: 1693847   (Rated: E) A Personal Mission  Life is virtual choices; growth is not excluded from the list. We choose our evolution. by Half Time Break

ID: 1688181   (Rated: E) Virtual Becomes Reality  A tiny virtual reality sci-fi story. by bbueno

ID: 1458122   (Rated: 13+) Virtuality  Online, you can be whomever you want to be Flash Fiction by Hyperiongate

ID: 1708135   (Rated: 18+) Three Strikes  Can a radical new treatment cure sociopathic criminals like 'The Little Darling Killer"? by gooseman

ID: 1558051   (Rated: 13+) The Replicator  A man must escape a virtual world that destroys the old life around him. by Kory McGaughey

ID: 1601181   (Rated: 13+) A Virtual Life  55 word story by Radler Zpheitor

ID: 1630122   (Rated: 18+) Power of Friendship in a Virtual World   Is it possible to make friends and build lasting relationships in an on-line game? by Braunwyn

ID: 722572   (Rated: 13+) EXILED : Winter's Plight  An exciting fusion of technology and magic. Under contract to Museitup Publishing by DragonMuse

ID: 1610501   (Rated: 13+) Double Trouble  Bad things happens if you should meet your yourself from a parallel universe by Gunny

ID: 1594584   (Rated: GC) Virtual Vixens  Virtual sex. Weekly Quickie Entry (Round 17). by SoCalScribe

ID: 1782021   (Rated: E) analysis of the structure of reality  In-depth analysis of the structure of reailty by blazingvoid

Poetry:

ID: 1792541   (Rated: E) Sorry, I didn't Hear You  It's about how dreamy a person could be, how one could live in another virtual world-lost. by Ellen Granger-away for a while

ID: 1572004 Invalid Item  This item number is not valid. by Not Available.

ID: 1530186   (Rated: E) The Matrix  A short poem about The Matrix by Jonathan Lane

ID: 1637749   (Rated: E) Daily Haiku 19jan10  What season is it in that strange universe? by peach

Guest Editors Wanted!

For upcoming issues of the Unofficial Science Fiction newsletter, I would like to invite subscribers to contribute. We are currently taking a tour of the Solar System, looking for interesting destinations for our stories' characters. Consider writing a "Special Feature," based on this or any other scientific of sci-fi interest you may have. Don't hesitate to contact me anytime if this appeals to you! -ed.

Last month's Newsletter topic was The Sci-Fi Gene, and What We Like About Science Fiction

:

31245bob: "I do believe my first experience in sci-fi TV was in the early 50's watching Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers. And I, like your self was totally hooked for life. In the seventh grade in junior high our weekly reader offered a paper back book club where you could order novels for as little as fifty cents. Once every two weeks I gave up my lunch money to purchase a book authored by none other than Edger Rice Burroughs, Jules Vernes, and others who introduced me to the world of written Sci-Fi. The next step was to write the stuff."

bobneH .. aka.. HoD DuraH : "Good article DR. Intresting that you were into TV Sci-Fi at age 5. Being a bit older, my thing was the Saterday Matinee at our local Movie Theater. At age 5, I was a Movie Critic. I remember asking my older bro. why they didn't turn the camera sideways, and use a fan, so the sparks and smoke from Flash Gordan's space ship would go to rhe rear instead of the sparks falling and the smoke rising. Now, reading my collection of older Sci-Fi, I look for the errors in prediction by Sci-Fi writers. ( a ten story bulding filled with plastic punch-cards, that could find 'almost' any information in mere hours)( "The University was so large they had their own computer) The closest any came to the 'cell-phone' was Dick Tracy's wrist radio/ wrist TV. So be careful what you predict, and don't try 'explaining' future tech. You'll probably get it wrong."

LJPC - the tortoise : "You've done such a great job with the NL this past year, and I sure hope you keep it going during this year. The NL is a great resource for SF writers--I keep all of them in a folder for reference. "What I Like about Science Fiction" was a pleasure to read. It took me back to all the thrilling novels I read as a child (and the ones I still read now). I enjoyed Prescott's article also. I don't remember Capt. Video though. I was more of a Horror fan, watching Dark Shadows, Twilight Zone and Night Gallery. I loved those things when I was young! Thanks for a great Newsletter!!!"

Thank you so much everyone! I really appreciate the feedback from readers. Keep it coming! - ed.

Don't Be Shy! Write Into This Unofficial Newsletter!

Reader feedback and comments is important to the Unofficial Science Fiction Newsletter (USFNL). Much of the Newsletter's content is based on reader feedback and discussion. Feedback can always be sent directly to EarlyHours-A Vigilante Ranger , but to make discussion even easier, a USFNL Forum has been set up. Feel free to post and interact at the Forum; some of the discussion may end up here! And don't forget to add the Forum (below) to your list of Favorites, and post often!

ID: 1703191   (Rated: 13+) Science Fiction Newsletter Forum  Discussion of NL Topics, Reader Feedback, Ask & Answer by EarlyHours-A Vigilante Ranger

Please check out our "sponsor":

ID: 1617315   (Rated: 18+) The Sci-fi Writers Guild  Collaborations, discussions and reviews - Welcome to the Sci-fi Writers Guild by EvilDawg - A Vigilante Ranger!

Thanks for reading, and see you next month!

© Copyright 2012 EarlyHours-A Vigilante Ranger (UN: earlyhours at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
EarlyHours-A Vigilante Ranger has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.