On 5 Maj, 16:11, Remus Shepherd <re...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Tue Sorensen <sorenson...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > Star Trek included. Star Trek
> > features a lot of imagined physical phenomena ("anomalies" - a new one
> > every week!), but they virtually always save the day by being
> > rigorously rational, and having confidence in their scientific
> > knowledge. Star Trek actually presents an amazingly scientific world
> > view, most of the time,
>
> I'm curious how you define 'scientific worldview', because I wouldn't
> have said that Star Trek represents one. I'm not even sure you can say
> that Star Trek has a logical worldview, because the illogical humans
> always win and usually by sheer luck.
What do you mean, illogical humans? The vast majority of the dialog is
mind-blowingly rational! And in a way that includes human ideals and
values, rather than just being "pure logic" (which isn't truly
applicable to human beings, anyway). But let me point out that I am
talking about the new Trek shows, not TOS. TOS had its virtues, but
its scientific attitudes as well as human ideals were much messier and
undefined than they became with TNG.
A scientific world view is one which understands everything
scientifically. And a proper scientific attitude is one that
understands that all the things we can't explain now (such as
consciousness) will eventually be explained by science. Hence, a good
SF story based on a scientific world view will accept that
*everything*, incl. all human emotions and such, function by
scientific laws. Even ethics, morals and social organization can to a
great degree be shaped according to the scientific knowledge of human
nature.
> > So that's my view: a scientific *attitude* is even more important that
> > featuring specifically scientific (technological, mathematical,
> > whatever) content. So for me the entire hard and soft categories are
> > extremely fuzzy. I guess I would describe sci-fi with a poor
> > scientific attitude and/or poor scientific content as "soft". This
> > would include time-travel and other silliness, which is blatantly
> > disregarding basic scientific tenets and hence often ought to be
> > described as fantasy.
>
> See, this is the kind of definition with which I cannot agree. It
> categorizes _The Compleat Enchanter_ and _Perdido Street Station_ as
> hard sci-fi, because the characters in those stories deduce and follow
> strict logical rules about how their magic works. I don't care if you
> have a story-consistent reason for allowing a character to fly whenever
> he's in danger -- that's *not* science fiction.
If it's magic, then it's not science, and not science fiction. If
magic works by strict logical rules, that simply means it's a good
fantasy story; a story where things make some degree of sense (which
it often doesn't in fantasy). But of course that doesn't make it
science fiction, since a world of magic is not based on a scientific
world view.
> The attitudes of the characters are not what separates 'hard' and
> 'soft' sci-fi stories, to me. It's the attitude of the author that
> matters. Authors either say, "Accept this and I will tell you a story",
> or "Here's what could happen and I'll tell you how and why." Those
> are the defining differences, IMHO.
Absolutely. It's the attitude of the author. The established world
view of the overall premise, as determined by the author. The Haldeman
quote I started with does say the characters, but in this I'm pretty
sure case he means the characters' attitude as endorsed by, and being
representational of, the author's. Of course many characters have
different attitudes from the author's, but he must be talking about
the main characters/protagonists, who represent the ontological thrust
of the story; the characters whose views are ultimately the author's
because their conduct drives the author's message with his work; i.e.
the story's good guys.
- Tue
|
