Antithesis: In the Ransom Trilogy, Volume III, That Hideous Strength, by CS Lewis, "man remaking himself with science" means some men using science to gain total control of all other men and, since Lewis was a Christian, the human controllers turn out to have demonic controllers.
Synthesis?: Hard sf writers like Poul Anderson and James Blish show human beings continuing to use science for good or ill but usually without the apocalyptic outcomes prophesied by Wells or Lewis.
In fiction, any outcome is valid if the author can make it plausible. However, Wells and Lewis did not merely speculate but propagandized.
Any purportedly anthropocentric fictional future is not theocentric, therefore, according to Lewis, is demonic. For this reason, he would have continued to dislike most sf, e.g.:
in Blish's Cities In Flight, after a cosmic collision, human survivors create new universes from their own bodies;
in Anderson's Genesis, post-organic intelligence replaces, then re-creates, humanity;
in both of these future histories, humanity and/or its technology controls the future.
Read Wells, Stapledon, Lewis, Blish and Anderson in that order and see what you think.
Next, we will differentiate hard sf as represented by Poul Anderson, from soft sf and, more specifically, from Lewis's anti-science fiction. I have just coined that phrase but I think that it is appropriate.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Welcome back!
Instead of the extremes proposed, in different ways by Wells and Lewis, I think the scenarios advocated by Anderson, Blish, Pournelle, Stirling, etc., to be more likely. The scientific method, and the knowledge gained thereby, will be used for both good and evil, wisely or foolishly. It's simply how real people have behaved!
Ad astra! Sean
"for good or will"
I take that the 'w' is a typo.
As for humanity remaking itself.
I see no evidence for omniscient entities, certainly humans are not omniscient, so a great deal of caution is required, which is why I like the 'Heinlein solution' to the ethics of genetic engineering.
Heinlein solution - couples pick which of the genetic alleles they naturally have to go into the child they conceive. Eg: if they are carriers of cystic fibrosis they pick the sperm or ova that don't have that gene.
BTW somewhere in Olaf Stapledon's "Starmaker" there is mention of a species that wrecks itself by insufficiently cautious genetic engineering.
Kaor, Jim!
I think it's plain Paul meant to write "for good or ILL."
I have some doubts parents will always use the "Heinlein method." If/when cloning and genetic engineering becomes practical, many might be content causing cancers and other ills. Or for picking the preferred sex of a child. Or childless people will have themselves cloned, as one means of having children, as we see Duke Edwin thinking of doing in A STONE IN HEAVEN.
Ad astra! Sean
Jim,
Thanks for the correction.
Paul.
Post a Comment