Six Minutes To Touchdown
I was using StumbleUpon earlier and I came across this fascinating video that explains what happened in the last six minutes before the Spirit Rover landed on Mars (which translates to how all our probes end up getting to the Red Planet’s surface). Think of it this way: how do you get a big metal bucket to slow down from 12,000 MPH to 1 MPH in the few minutes after it hits the atmosphere of another planet?Enjoy! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
A Little Time Travel Goes a Long Way (Or Something Like That)
If Philip K. Dick had failed to represent the true confusion of hallucinogenic drugs and the reality/unreality dichotomy in any of his other works, those very ideas are firmly planted within Lies, Inc. Not only is there direct mention of an LSD trip—and it should be noted that it is forced upon Applebaum, rather than being a choice—but the novel lends itself to utter confusion by presenting a narrative structure that folds in upon itself like a confusing time paradox. Perhaps looking at the Terminator films and trying to contemplate—without having one’s head explode—the endless time dilation created by the father of John Conner somehow managing to go back in time and take part in the conception of the “hero of Mankind” would give us some understanding of the confusing and illusive nature of this novel. How exactly can Applebaum exist in Terran space—on his ship, the Omphalos—and yet still manage to take a Telpor trip across light-years of empty space to Whale’s Mouth? The confusing part is that the idea of time travel is so vaguely represented that the audience is left wondering that very question without a true answer. Unlike the Terminator films, the book doesn’t hinge on the time travel idea; time travel is all but nonexistent, with a single mention of a device given to Applebaum that vaguely refers to time, but is never made exactly clear. In fact, Applebaum cuts off the UN official before said official can finish his sentence—“It’s a time-warping construct that sets up a field which coagulates the…” (193). We’re left to wonder what that exactly means. How does it warp time? To warp something can mean a variety of things. Shall we go through the different connotations? I think so: Firstly it can mean to bend or twist time out of shape. If we think of time as a flat line, this would mean bending it so it becomes a curve. But what does this mean for time? I haven’t a clue. This is all theoretical—the idea of bending time, or, for that matter, dealing with time in any other way than its linear form is simply unapproachable for someone, like myself, who lacks the scientific knowledge as those who make a living researching such things. Then there is the idea of bending or turning time from its natural or true direction. This might make more sense, since, in theory, Applebaum is existing in two places at once, but the prior place (which happens while he is out in space on the Omphalos) is the true timeline ending where his return to Terra (Earth) involves his manipulating time to somehow prevent Holm from getting caught up in the lie that is Whale’s Mouth—that it’s a peaceful, loving place that everyone wants to go to, a theme very close to Dick (false advertisement). But by looking at it this way also means we’re left with a blindingly confusing paradox. We know by the end of the novel that everything he has done while fiddling with time results in absolutely nothing changing (except that he somehow gets stuck on Whale’s Mouth with a strange condition that gives him permanent hallucinations). But, wouldn’t Applebaum, in theory, become aware of the fact that he is on Whale’s Mouth? Or is that information hidden? This is probably why time travel novels these days are generally avoided. The confusion created by trying to contemplate how it could possible work without completely discombobulating the framework of linear time is generally too much. After all, how are we supposed to apply logic to the cyclical argument in the Terminator universe? The last way of seeing time is not all that different from the second, except it touches upon the idea of the real and the unreal in relation to the truth. If time can be distorted from the truth, if it can be manipulated in such a way that it no longer represents our understanding of what it is, then it also ceases to exist altogether. Time is constant. Einstein made it clear that we can’t fiddle with it. Time is always moving at the same speed, always moving forward. For one to actually make time no longer itself would be breaking boundaries, much like in the novel. Applebaum is in two places at once, except he’s not. The one going to Whale’s Mouth is a future Applebaum going back in time, while the one on the Omphalos is the present Applebaum, who falls off the map for a short while as we learn about the exploits of Future Applebaum. This is a problem because it simply goes against the truth of things. Future Applebaum isn’t exactly unknown to the folks of Whale’s Mouth, or the Hoffman folks either. In fact, they are well aware that he is going to Whale’s Mouth to stir things up. Yet they also are fully aware that he is supposed to be on the Omphalos. Trying to think about this is simply staggering. He’s in two places at once, manipulating time in one existence while being unaware of it in another, or seemingly unaware. This is why very few people argue with the inherent problem of the Terminator Paradox. To do so spells certain mental breakdown. Perhaps this is why man created religion: it’s a way of forgetting that we don’t know anything at all about the universe and by creating a God that simply exists we don’t, in theory, have to make the inference that there has to have been something that created God, the Universe, and Everything. Certainly the number forty-two fills this same void. Moving beyond the time paradox we get an even stranger taste of reality. Applebaum’s LSD-induced psychotic hallucinations bring out the question of whether or not his trip (no pun intended) was real at all. If his influence there was nonexistent to the Present Applebaum, then it might be possible to assume that he may never have gone there at all. The Telpor could very
Ten SF Technologies/Ideas I Think Will Come True
Science fiction has been criticized over the years for failing to provide us with all those glorious inventions and ideas we remember from the Golden Age (and after). Let’s face it, a lot of those inventions and ideas will never happen and some are actually being debated right now. Of those hundreds of inventions and ideas, which ones are a sure thing, either soon or in the distant future? Here’s what I think (in no particular order): The SingularityMostly I’m referring to the creation of an artificial intelligence at the human level. Still, I believe there will come a point when the Singularity, across the board, will happen. Technology will reach a point where it can’t be stopped, sort of like the Industrial Machine. I don’t mean we’ll have a world like in The Matrix where machines have turned us into little puddles of energy to be sucked up and what not. I just mean that we won’t be able to stop technology from continuously progressing, no matter what we do. You might find that a silly notion (why would we care if technology just keeps going?), but there will come a time where some technologies will hit a point they shouldn’t cross…and they will cross it. AliensYes, we will discover aliens. I don’t know if they will be intelligent, but I don’t doubt that at some point in the next few hundred years we will have discovered proof of alien existence. And yes, little microbes count. Near-light EnginesNo, I don’t think we will ever get FTL drives. I think Einstein might be right on that part. We may be able to use wormholes or some other mode of travel that manipulates the fabric of space, but I’m going to be realistic here. I do think we will get Near-light Engines (or NLDs–near-light drives–if you will). This is a very vague description, but basically what I mean is the ability to reach speeds significantly faster than what we have now so that trips between stars might not be so completely outrageous. Granted, trips will still take years, but in the future that might not be such a big deal. If a trip takes you ten years it may very well be worth it. Genetic Manipulation, etc.I have no doubt that in the relatively near future (maybe 100 years or so) there will be significant advances in medical technology, the result of which will be extremely long lives, easy methods to creating new organs, and most likely significant genetic tampering (though I imagine there will be controls for this). Basically, I think we’ll be doing just about everything possible with the human body from making it live longer to making it stronger against viruses and infections. My hope, though, is that we don’t get the point where we are creating supersoldiers or genetically “superior” individuals. Human diversity is a necessity. Space Stations/HotelsNot I.S.S., but a real station. You know, like you see in the movies with people walking on the walls and actually doing things other than floating around in a giant metal can. I think we’ll definitely have these things. Some of them will likely be military facilities. As the military becomes more involved in space it will be a necessity to have first-response units in space, not to mention a presence there to protect space tourism. It sounds like, gasp, science fiction, but with Virgin Galactic getting very close to turning space travel into a tourist trade it’s not that unlikely that we’ll have hotels and big stations in the future. Solar Power (on a massive scale)I think this will likely become viable first as a ground-based option and then as a space-based option. The thing is that people have to be willing to pay for these things. Solar power isn’t cheap (it’s not grossly expensive either), but in the long run it is a better solution that fossil fuels and other sources. The sun is free, after all. So let’s get on top of it. Yes, we might have to pay a bit more for it, but think about it in the long run? When we pay off the loan that would be used to make it, can you imagine prices dropping drastically? Yeah. But we might have to wait a while for that to happen, or wait until folks can make it more financially desirable. I can’t wait for that space-based facility though! Solar power 24/7. Fusion PowerThis is a long way off, but I think we’ll have it in a viable form in the future. It may or may not coincide with Solar Power (which might be beneficial if you think about it). We’re getting remarkably close to it now. Maybe in the next fifty years, or maybe longer. The fact that scientists are seriously testing and dealing with the concept, and getting useful data from doing so, suggests that this will be a real possibility at some point in the relatively near future. I don’t know what the result will be, though. Maybe it will be mostly good things, but that’s what they thought about nuclear power too, remember? Intelligent RobotsI, Robot, had it right, and perhaps so did The Matrix, though on a much darker scale. Obviously if I’m right about the whole AI thing, then it would be applied to robots, in some fashion. I don’t know if robots will become evil man-killers (perhaps we’ll be smart enough to consider this possibility and put in safeties to prevent it), but I do believe we will have walking, talking, thinking robots that may very well integrate into society on a higher level than we might suspect. I don’t know if we will treat them as human, but most likely you can expect some backlash from the human community. Who knows where it will go? Regardless, robots are becoming more complex now and will be so complex in the future that they might be considered on par with human beings, or better in some
Do Other Star Systems Need Protection From Earth Life?
That’s the question asked and answered by New Scientist. It’s an important question to ask, not only because we may contaminate potentially important ecosystems on the planets in our own solar system, but we could have a negative impact on any life, microbial or otherwise, that we might find in our long journey to discover other Earths out in the cosmos. But worrying about potentially harming alien organisms isn’t nearly enough. In fact, it falls short of the mark. While we should definitely be concerned about bringing bacteria and the like to other planets (presumably by accident), we also need to consider what is the biggest Earth-based life form that aliens need protecting from: us. That’s right, Homo Sapiens sapiens. The most dominant species on the planet Earth and also one of the most destructive. Known for high intelligence, advanced technology, and a propensity for complex social structure involving religion, cultural hierarchy, and a variety of other social things (we specially have a lot of good mythology). There is certainly a lot of concern about human involvement in the NS article, however it gives you the simplistic, immediate version of it. Microbial infections would be directly due to human involvement and there is good reason to be concerned that such an infection could have drastic, if not deadly (on the apocalyptic scale) effects on an alien ecosystem. But there is more to this question than how we can accidentally hurt extraterrestrial life. What about humans themselves? Humans are dangerous. Let’s face it. Curiosity is our downfall. We design powerful weapons that can devastate an entire planet if we become stupid enough to use them. Likewise, we have the desire for knowledge and constantly push the fold as we attempt to find new ways to deal with what frightens us most as a species: death. By far the most disturbing aspect of humanity is how humans treat fellow humans, and even how humans treat animals. The greatest concern, then, for space travel and meeting new lifeforms is how humanity will choose to deal with alien beings. Historically we have not been at all kind to our fellow human beings. Just in recent history I can think of African slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, the slaughterings in Darfur, the Civil War, the Japanese slaughters in China during WW2, the Holocaust, Stalin’s Purges, and countless cases of rape, torture, and abuse (against adults and children). Even when we’re not causing the death of the innocent, or even, to a certain extent, killing those who are not innocent in a manner that is unnecessary, there are plenty of instances where we are incapable of treating each other with at least a marginal level of equality. Discrimination is rampant, controlled by faulty, corrupt governments or supported by religious doctrine. Who can and cannot have something has in the past been determined by skin color or recently by sexual orientation. Being different is simply unacceptable in human society. And what about the animals? Animals have it worse than humans do, for the most part. Many of them are kept in cramped pens and slaughtered without the benefit of painless dead–often times they are slaughtered in a brutal way, without compassion or care that they too can feel pain and fear. Rats, mice, rabbits, other rodents, and even members of the Great Ape family, of which we are a part of, are subjected to medical testing, serving to provide us the apparatus needed to produce the appropriate medicines for what ails us as human beings (something of note to mention here is that much of this same research on the medical end has helped us to help animals as well, though the animals in question might not care about that at all). Zoos across the country frequently put animals in enclosures too small and inappropriate for a particular species. If that isn’t a concern, then the idea that animals are kept in cages for our entertainment, while systematically being destroyed by human encroachment on their habitat, or excessive human hunting, should be. What does this say about how we will treat alien lifeforms? Let’s be realistic about this, for lack of a more efficient way to see things. It is, in theory, inevitable that we will find alien life. Such life will probably have similarities to us in the same way that animals have similarities. Whether we find intelligent life is entirely up to speculation, but I do believe we will encounter conscious life, if not in my lifetime, then in the next two to three hundred years. That sounds like a long time, but we have to consider now, while we are still capable of seeing the future, what to do if and when we meet these alien creatures. People will be clambering to do medical testing, to string them up on the wall for examination, to stick them in cages for the amusement of the masses. Anyone who suggests this isn’t something we are capable of doing is blind to the reality of how we really are as human beings. But it doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to ignore what is a probability in the future by refusing to discuss the possibility. By the time human beings determined that we were treating animals wrongly it was already too late. We can’t bring that same fate to creatures of other worlds, especially if such creatures are not as technologically advanced as we are. In Star Trek they have a prime directive, a rule that attempts to govern the manner in which Federation ships deal with new civilizations and new intelligent species (and probably lesser-intelligent beings as well). As silly and ridiculous as such a thing might sound, we need a prime directive of our own. Barring disaster, we will be moving into the stars to seek out new planets, new homes to send our bloating population. We have an obligation as a race of beings who will be capable of interstellar
Ubik, the Miracle Cure For All Your Needs
Here is my response to the novel Ubik by Philip K. Dick for my independent study course. Hope you enjoy it! Philip K. Dick’s fascination with what is real and what isn’t real is inextricably linked to his fictional and non-fictional dealings with aspects of the mind—psychosis and mind-altering drugs especially. The fascinating thing about Ubik is that it is illusive. Who is actually dead? Is it Runciter or Joe Chip? Or are both of them dead? Or perhaps nobody is dead, but they all think they are dead? Dick has taken liberties with the story for a good reason: to give you an ending which defies everything that had happened previously. On the one hand this produces a cyclical effect. If Joe Chip really did die, then at the end Runciter has died as well and the manifestations of Joe Chip in his half-life “reality” are nothing more than markers of what it is to have died—for Joe Chip it works in the opposite, with manifestations of Runciter being bizarre semi-hallucinations. The result is a recycling of the previous theme—of death and not-death—and a return to the beginning of the turning point in the original plot—the explosion on Luna. On the other hand this leaves the reader never quite sure what exactly happened. The ending is nothing short of illusive. The reader is left with those lingering questions about what is going on, but there isn’t any closure. This doesn’t necessarily come as a flaw, but more as a mind-bending moment that any attentive reader would be partially exploding cartoon question marks from their cerebellum. I can’t answer the questions any better than anyone else and the only person who probably can answer the questions—Mr. Dick himself—is no longer with us, since he died in 1982. Perhaps the true answer is meant to remain illusive, or perhaps the answer is hidden in the non-fiction and I have yet to see it. Regardless, the life-and-death themes are fraught with the real and unreal dichotomy. When looking at Dick’s introduction of “half-life”—a sort of suspended animation for the dead where the “soul”, or whatever Dick wishes to call it, is kept rooted on the Earth for past loved ones to peruse like zoo attractions with at least some measurable, though minor, ability to speak up for themselves—there is an impression of two worlds colliding: the real world of tangible, physical beings made of flesh and bone and living in a world of life and death, and the spiritual world, possessed by what would be considered hallucinations or manifestations of quasi-realistic worlds that only exist in the state of the mind. One could look at half-life as a psychosis, except that the characters experiencing the half-life dream world are perhaps fully aware that it isn’t real and that they are in fact dead—or at least they become aware of this fact eventually, depending on the circumstances. But during this point where they are unaware it plays out very much like a psychotic episode. Manifestations and hallucinations of things that normally could never happen are perceived as real. Money doesn’t magically change to the face of your former boss, whom you think is dead, and neither does the world around you regress on the time scale from the 21st century to the early, pre-WW2 20th. Yet to the people who experience this strange happening it is nothing short of real. They experience it as if they were experiencing any normal day. It’s left unclear whether these half-life “realities” are really common place or if they are only due to the influence of Jory—a half-life vampire. If they are only the work of Jory and no half-lifer is capable of existing in spiritual realities, then what is it that a half-lifer does to pass the time? They are caged animals in every way imaginable. They live in makeshift capsules that keep their bodies on ice for as long as the soul can live and, basically, they are trapped that way until someone pulls the plug or their half-life souls degrade and disappear. There must be something more to this life, otherwise who would ever volunteer for it—presumably Jory volunteered and his family keeps tabs to make sure he can continue to consume other half-lifers. Who would volunteer for the life of slavery, to be called up for a “chat” whenever a loved one, or someone with the appropriate contacts and funds, desires it? The novel’s focus on the real and unreal is probably the most important aspect, as mentioned. For Dick there are consistent representations of this dichotomy—such as in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? where Mercer appears as a spiritual guide to Deckard. The jolt for Joe Chip into the world of half-life is so abrupt it remains invisible. We’re not aware of it anymore than Joe is. Runciter’s appearance is nothing more than one of a plethora of oddities that Joe has to figure out. Dick also takes the time to let us know that we’re already in a world of metaphysics by introducing psychics and people with bizarre psionic powers—such as Pat Conley, who can alter the past. And perhaps the ending is yet another attempt to try to tell us that there isn’t really a real, that maybe what we once thought of as the real world of the novel was nothing more than an un-reality. Maybe it’s all just a dream, and an elaborate one at that.
Do Electric Sheep Have Android Dreams?
Yes, that is a clever pun and it’s entirely intentional. I’ve been incredibly unproductive today, mostly because I wrote two essays yesterday (still have two left) and my brain literally just wants to sit around and do nothing. I spent most of today trying to think of a good topic for one of my other essays and finally came up with one. Still, I feel that I’ve fallen away from this blog a little so I thought I’d present one of my earlier essays. This is a reader response, so it isn’t a typical essay (for the record it’s on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick). So, enjoy: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is a trip into the subconscious of one of science fiction’s most renowned authors since the fall of the Golden Age, the Age of Science, and, for the most part, the Age of Sociological SF. Dealing with the overrunning theme of empathy—from a human perspective and from an android perspective—the text reflects some of Dick’s largest concerns with human culture in general. Dick wrote much about the death of the empathic culture in his non-fiction work and often referred to modern society–in his day–as a form of mechanical android devoid of the ability to truly empathize with fellow human beings. During Dick’s life, and particularly when this novel and some of his non-fiction work was written, it seems as though this idea of a dead youth culture–a mechanical youth culture–doesn’t fit. The novel was written in 1968, a year which sits right in the middle of the Vietnam Conflict (the intention here is to avoid using the term “war” since there was no official declaration of war by Congress, which makes the military actions in Vietnam something else entirely, even though the scale was that of a war), and would also have been influenced by the anti-war protests which really dug in around 1965. It would seem that Dick’s personal concern with empathy in his more personal writing is nothing short of a personal opinion. Or perhaps what Dick saw was a different side of the anti-war protests that is often glossed over today—the treatment of the troops. The ultimate question is: what does it mean to be human? Is it only the ability to feel for the self and for others? Are the androids human? It’s difficult to look at the novel and assume some sort of humanity to the androids simply because they are labeled as “androids”, not humans. They are instantly identified not only by the characters–who are human–but also by Dick himself in the narration as something not human. Whether androids are nearly human or not is really irrelevant. What matters is that the relationship between Deckard and the android illegals–Pris, Roy, etc–is entirely occupied with the question of the human. Deckard wonders this question about himself: Is he human if he can feel for the androids? Certainly the arguments Deckard gives for what is and isn’t human makes sense. The androids are cold, almost heartless, a fact which Isidore learns when Pris plucks off all but four of a spider’s legs. There is something strangely inhuman about them beyond the fact that we as readers know they are androids. They react differently and in a lot of ways they are almost like sociopaths. Towards the end of the novel characters like Roy Batty actually begin to call for the death of Isidore even though Isidore is probably the only human being willing to provide some level of support for the androids. Thinking of them as sociopaths–at least to a certain extent, since they are perfectly capable of interacting together, which says plenty about how androids relate to humans–gives a perfect example of the inhuman. Sociopaths are not considered normal in regular society for good reason: they care nothing for the rights of others and are incapable of living by the rules of society. The androids, to a certain extent, are an example of the human “God complex”. The Bible declares that man is made in the image of God and yet the androids are made in the image of man, creations by the hand of humanity in every sense of the word “creation”. Just like with the relationship between God and mankind there is something missing in the relationship between mankind and the androids. Humans are not almighty, limited in scope and vision in comparison to God. The androids are incapable of having the same empathic responses to normal humans–normal humans being those that aren’t tuned in to the mood organ, who actually feel and exist as human beings rather than post-human cyber-entities fixated on mechanical, electronic, and computational control of the nervous system, or any other system within the biological body. They do possess a certain amount of human empathy, just as humans possess a certain amount of God’s creative powers, but it is stunted, as if the growth of that empathy were halted. The androids possess an aggressiveness that moves beyond the human. By the end of the novel the question is answered: androids aren’t human. They can’t be. As sociopaths they lie outside normal society, and the fact that they aren’t known as human and they refuse to call themselves as anything other than androids only adds fuel to the fire. Androids simply aren’t human. But the question still stands about what it is to be human. Deckard is, in some ways, far from human himself. He and his wife tune in to the mood organ every day, dialing the perfect collection of emotions and feelings. Yet it is Deckard’s wife who becomes more human than her husband. Instead of constantly tuning herself into emotions of happiness, she finds out ways to give herself depression. The interesting part about her depression is that it acts out normally, as if it were a real depression. While she has no desire to tune in to a different mode on her mood organ, she doesn’t have