Machines

In haste between social engagements, no time to find quotes, but:

in The Infinite Voyage, Poul Anderson argues that human beings must explore space because machines cannot cope with the unforeseen;

however, in Genesis, written much later, he describes self-conscious AI's exploring space;

now I read that AI will soon be incorporated into military technology so that self-directing weapons systems will decide who and what to attack;

seemingly every country buys the latest high tech weaponry.

Is it too much to ask that even one government might give an international moral lead by announcing, "We will stop buying new weapons and will instead invest only in life-enhancing technology?"

Think what humanity could achieve with existing technology if none of it were to be used destructively. Will there be a change inside human beings, as in HG Wells' In The Days Of The Comet or in Anderson's Brain Wave? I do not expect it. So will there instead be a change in power relationships such that public priorities significantly shift away from continued prosecution of current conflicts?

Three Novels

Reading Eon by Greg Bear has led to a reconsideration of In The Days Of The Comet by HG Wells and of Brain Wave by Poul Anderson. We need more science fiction about changes to human nature.

I do not have a copy of In The Days Of The Comet but would like to reread the passages in which the first person narrator interprets and explains the psychophysical effects of the cometary gas that had entered the Terrestrial atmosphere.

Although I had previously discussed Brain Wave, I have found significant details in the text that I had not noticed before. Anderson imagines a single change inside individual human beings, then deduces the effects on civilization.

"The change in human nature and human society which this would bring about was beyond even his imagination."
-Poul Anderson, Brain Wave (London, 1977), p. 137.

There is a "Mystery" in Eon which I will post about when I have has a night's sleep and maybe done a few other things - although my impression is that it remains a bit too abstract and mysterious for a work of hard sf.

Inner Change

I propose to revisit a conceptual connection that I recently drew between:

In The Days Of The Comet by HG Wells;
Brain Wave by Poul Anderson;
Eon by Greg Bear.

These three science fiction novels describe not mere technological innovations but also a psychological transformation or a change in "human nature." I emphasize this phrase because I fundamentally disagree with the way that it is often used, to imply that human beings are basically and unchangeabley selfish. On the contrary:

our species is differentiated by the fact that it actively changes its environment and has changed itself in the process, in fact has brought itself into existence by cooperating and communicating;

people often act compassionately, generously and hospitably - this is equally our "nature";

because we are social beings, many of our actions are neither selfish nor altruistic but are expressions of a common interest - you and I are doing this now by agreeing the meanings of English words in order to communicate.

"Human nature" can and does change. Future psychological changes are an appropriate subject for science fiction. In a Michael Moorcock novel, an alien visiting Earth in the distant future expects his message that the universe is about to end to perturb human beings. He does not realize that they are in full control of their emotions. His apocalyptic speech is a social disappointment. A man who has returned from a temporal journey to the twentieth century gradually realizes that no one back then was playing a role: when they looked old, they were old etc.

In a recent post, I said that Brain Wave describes an increase in intelligence whereas the other two works describe control of emotions by intelligence. But this second change is in Brain Wave also. More later.

Comets And Strange Spaces

(Coincidence: while mentally drafting this article referring to comets in Wells and Verne and to Brain Wave by Poul Anderson, I read the following sentence in another work by Anderson:

("Yes, we have to ride the comet..." (1) )

I do not currently plan to reread In The Days Of The Comet by HG Wells so I am relying on memories from a single reading decades ago (Addendum: However, see here.) (But I have a good reason to mention it here.) First, the title is misleading. It suggests maybe a comet causing alarm by passing near the Earth if not also causing damage by hitting the Earth?

(Parenthetically, I have yet to read Jules Verne's bizarre but fascinating-sounding account of people ascending by balloon (?) to join a comet for a trip around the Solar System, then returning safely to Earth (Addendum: However, see here), but I think I remember it from a Classics Illustrated comic book adaptation.) (The googled comic book cover seems to confirm the balloon.)

Wells' novel is not really about a comet. The comet serves only to introduce into the terrestrial atmosphere a gas or vapor that affects human brains, enabling them to harmonize reason and emotion. Thus, two men still love the same woman but they now openly and honestly compete for her instead of trying to do each other down. And, in the new world after the Comet, she has relationships with both of them.

Global psychological harmonization enables everyone to cooperate in rebuilding society on a rational and humane basis: a revolution but from within each psyche, not resulting from external conflicts. Unfortunately, highly implausible. Let's imagine that the entire galaxy enters a space where all beings are enlightened like the Buddha...

Wells fails in one respect. Before the Comet, his central character argues with a dogmatic and unsympathetic clergyman but, after the Comet, Wells does not show us the changed clergyman.

Science fiction writers imagine external changes of location (to the Moon, from Mars) or of technology (aircraft, spacecraft) etc but rarely internal changes like this psychological revolution which brings us to Poul Anderson's first novel, Brain Wave, which I am just about to reread. Earth enters a space where everyone's intelligence is enhanced, enabling them to cooperate in rebuilding society on a rational and humane basis...

It is a truism that sf writers follow Wells but here is perhaps a less recognized example.

(1) Anderson, Poul, Starfarers, New York, 1999, p. 464.