a couple of days ago I bought a new book of stories of Science Fiction, Worlds to eat, the Fawcett World Library, edited by Damon Knight. In the introduction I found an interesting text on the predictions, then science fiction (not all, almost always about hard science fiction, but also describes a society) is reputed to be prophetic in many ways. I quote (is a translation of the original itself. Take note that it is a text , 1967):
The Science Fiction and the prophecies are two different things. Nobody paid attention to this statement. (This is a prediction, but it is a false prophecy, Type A.) The writers of the day will go directly to ask the authors of Science Fiction how will life in 2000, and a few authors will tell you that we affable libraries computerized clothing available for all purposes, grass, wall to wall in our departments, and so on, as if it were known. But no.
some Demos definitions. A prediction , say, is a statement about the future. A prophecy is a prediction that would be amazing if it became true. If, for example, a fortune hunter, or someone "sensitive", correctly predicts the outcome of all congressional elections in a year elective or the final standings of teams in major league baseball, that should be amazing - and would be a prophecy. (But hold your breath.)
The false prophecies are more common and are broken into five categories:
- A . Predictions of high probability. Example: "The sun will rise in the east tomorrow." (This is the easy way, but no money in it.)
- B . Predictions scatter-gun (do not know how to translate that.) If there is only a limited number of possibilities and you predict all of them, you can not win. (You could not stop losing, but never mind. Follow him reminding people and make them forget the successes and failures. )
- C . Vague predictions. (Because they were used in the Oracle of Delphi.) Make your predictions vague, general, and ambiguous as much as possible, and if something happens that is tailored, you are a prophet.
- D . "Predictions" of things that have already occurred. (Verne's submarine belongs to them.)
- E . Predictions that influence the results. (As if we told a nervous golfer: "Look, Harry. Your attitude is all wrong, you get a bad rap.")
Almost all science fiction predictions belong to these five types. In other words, are false prophecies.
But Cleve Cartmill what happens to that predicted the atomic bomb with such detail that the FBI came to John W. Campbell, the editor who published the story? What about Jules Verne described quite accurately the periscope could not be patented then? Well, both stories are myths. Cartmill's story describes a general and vaguely atomic bomb. The details he gave were wrong. And as Campbell told the FBI: Science fiction writers have used atomic bombs in their stories from The World Set Free by HG Wells (1914). As with the periscope, Verne never mentioned in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea , the Nautilus had none.
Cartmill's predictions have elements of types B and D. For Verne, I think we should add a type F: predictions exist.
Now back to the Type E, which is the most interesting and least understood. Forty years ago and more, science fiction writers used to say "the man on the Moon", and today looks like a stunning prophecy. What they were really saying, are however, was something slightly different and more significant: "Man can reach the moon if strongly desires. "This is a prediction type A, the easy way. But it is also a prediction of type E, and here, finally, we come to something that I think science fiction writers should be justly proud.
What science fiction has been doing for the last forty years is stirring the way people think, making them more skeptical of dogma, get them used to the idea of \u200b\u200bchange, dare to let go for new things. Nobody probably will never know how much effect these stories have had, but it is almost impossible not to have had any effect.
To scientists and engineers of today, who would not like their counterparts in forty years, tend to say "Why not?" instead of "It's impossible!" And then we have airplanes without wings, mammals breathe underwater, three color photographs made from negatives of two colors, and televised images from the moon.
0 comments:
Post a Comment