Hard SF Movies List
Tweek
science fiction." This means that the story is based around man and
technology, in a plausible world based on the known laws of science. For the
purposes of this list, ignore anime like Ghost in the Shell.
I'll start it off:
HARD SF MOVIES
1. 2001
2. Blade Runner
Questionable Entries:
The Matrix series
The Abyss
Total Recall
The Terminator
czf
news:TVLsb.1284$ge.5...@read2.cgocable.net...
> Please list any movies you are aware of that fit into the category "hard
> science fiction." This means that the story is based around man and
> technology, in a plausible world based on the known laws of science. For
the
> purposes of this list, ignore anime like Ghost in the Shell.
>
> I'll start it off:
>
> HARD SF MOVIES
> 1. 2001
> 2. Blade Runner
3. Equilibrium
4. Solaris
czf
> science fiction." This means that the story is based around man and
> technology, in a plausible world based on the known laws of science. For
the
> purposes of this list, ignore anime like Ghost in the Shell.
>
> I'll start it off:
>
> HARD SF MOVIES
> 1. 2001
> 2. Blade Runner
3. Equilibrium
4. Solaris
czf
> science fiction." This means that the story is based around man and
> technology, in a plausible world based on the known laws of science. For
the
> purposes of this list, ignore anime like Ghost in the Shell.
>
> I'll start it off:
>
> HARD SF MOVIES
> 1. 2001
> 2. Blade Runner
3. Equilibrium
4. Solaris
Sebastian Doyle
"czf" <rac...@deckards.piano> wrote in message
news:9XOsb.138067$mZ5.950528@attbi_s54...
6. Contact
Both crappy movies though. I haven't seen Equilibrium.
czf
news:bp0o58$krb$1...@lust.ihug.co.nz...
Why crappy? I thought Gattaca was brilliantly filmed. Contact had a slow
pace and an unnecessary love interest, but it wasn't all bad.
I think you'll like Equilibrium.
Justin Bacon
>Please list any movies you are aware of that fit into the category "hard
>science fiction." This means that the story is based around man and
>technology, in a plausible world based on the known laws of science. For the
>purposes of this list, ignore anime like Ghost in the Shell.
>
>I'll start it off:
>
>HARD SF MOVIES
>1. 2001
The monoliths look a bit too much like "magic tech" to me. They certainly don't
seem to operate according to the known laws of physics. I haven't read the
book, so it's possible the book qualifies. But the movie, by itself, doesn't
appear to.
>2. Blade Runner
Doesn't BLADE RUNNER have flying cars?
>The Matrix series
No. For reasons repeated multiple times, troll-boy.
>The Abyss
Yes.
>Total Recall
No. The alien tech used for the movie's resolution is neither explained nor
plausible.
>The Terminator
Time travel contradicts the known laws of science. So, no, this is is not hard
SF.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Justin Bacon
>5. Gattaca
Yes. That would qualify as hard SF.
>6. Contact
Has FTL. Clearly not hard SF.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
czf
news:20031113160846...@mb-m11.aol.com...
> Tweek wrote:
> >Please list any movies you are aware of that fit into the category "hard
> >science fiction." This means that the story is based around man and
> >technology, in a plausible world based on the known laws of science. For
the
> >purposes of this list, ignore anime like Ghost in the Shell.
> >
> >I'll start it off:
> >
> >HARD SF MOVIES
> >1. 2001
>
> The monoliths look a bit too much like "magic tech" to me. They certainly
don't
> seem to operate according to the known laws of physics. I haven't read the
> book, so it's possible the book qualifies. But the movie, by itself,
doesn't
> appear to.
I think the "plausible" part needs to be heavily shaken in order to colour
the litmus properly on any of these films. In 2001, I think that man's
technology is completely plausible. But the monolith is not man's
technology, so it doesn't have to fit into the mould.
> >2. Blade Runner
> Doesn't BLADE RUNNER have flying cars?
Yes, they are called spinners. And they are a theoretical possibility. And
we are probably more capable of producing spinners before we perfect the
science of creating replicants. And the author of the book on which this
was based "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", Philip K. Dick, dealt
heavily with man, technology, sociology, philosophy. I think he does an
admirable job of presenting the plausible.
> >The Matrix series
> No. For reasons repeated multiple times, troll-boy.
The Matrix? Almost. The sequels? I agree with the statement, but not the
nickname ;-)
> >The Abyss
>
> Yes.
Hmm. What was the name of the other underwater sf film where the crewmates
drank russian vodka that was tainted with a genetic modifier? Ah,
Leviathan. I think that one was more hard sf than the Abyss.
> >Total Recall
>
> No. The alien tech used for the movie's resolution is neither explained
nor
> plausible.
I agree about the film. The original short story on which this is based is,
however, completely plausible. "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale", by
Philip K. Dick.
> >The Terminator
>
> Time travel contradicts the known laws of science. So, no, this is is not
hard
> SF.
I've been studying up a bit on quantum physics, so I'd be hesitant to rush
in with a bold statement. Again, "plausible". Try Crichton's TimeLine or
Clarke's The Light of Other Days.
czf
> Sebastian Doyle wrote:
> >5. Gattaca
>
> Yes. That would qualify as hard SF.
That would qualify what we are attempting to do in the next decade. It's
not only hard SF, it's real life.
> >6. Contact
>
> Has FTL. Clearly not hard SF.
Forgive this acronym challenged poster. FTL? Faster than light?
I'm sorry. I guess I'm carrying an extra heavy "plausible" shaker tonight.
;-)
vze2...@mail.verizon.net
Justin Bacon wrote:
> Sebastian Doyle wrote:
> >5. Gattaca
>
> Yes. That would qualify as hard SF.
>
> >6. Contact
>
> Has FTL. Clearly not hard SF.
No, because the FTL travel was based on wormholes, a genuine physics
concept (in fact, Kip Thorne was motivated to come up with the concept
of traversable wormholes after being contacted by Carl Sagan, who needed
a believable method of FTL travel for his novel 'Contact').
--
Jesse Mazer
http://www.jessemazer.com
Tweek
: Tweek wrote:
: >Please list any movies you are aware of that fit into the category "hard
: >science fiction." This means that the story is based around man and
: >technology, in a plausible world based on the known laws of science. For
the
: >purposes of this list, ignore anime like Ghost in the Shell.
: >
: >I'll start it off:
: >
: >HARD SF MOVIES
: >1. 2001
:
: The monoliths look a bit too much like "magic tech" to me. They certainly
don't
: seem to operate according to the known laws of physics. I haven't read the
: book, so it's possible the book qualifies. But the movie, by itself,
doesn't
: appear to.
It was Arthur C Clarke who said "Any technology sufficiently advanced beyond
our own will be indistinguishable from magic."
vze2...@mail.verizon.net
czf wrote:
> "Justin Bacon" <tria...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:20031113160846...@mb-m11.aol.com...
> > Tweek wrote:
> > >Please list any movies you are aware of that fit into the category "hard
> > >science fiction." This means that the story is based around man and
> > >technology, in a plausible world based on the known laws of science. For
> the
> > >purposes of this list, ignore anime like Ghost in the Shell.
> > >
> > >I'll start it off:
> > >
> > >2. Blade Runner
>
> > Doesn't BLADE RUNNER have flying cars?
>
> Yes, they are called spinners. And they are a theoretical possibility.
In what sense? What actually kept them in the air? I seem to remember that they
used jets in their initial takeoff--as long as they weren't based on
antigravity or something, that seems OK.
> >The Terminator
> >
> > Time travel contradicts the known laws of science. So, no, this is is not
> hard
> > SF.
Nope, backwards time travel is allowed by general relativity, although many
physicists think that a future theory of quantum gravity like string theory
will end up ruling out these solutions (see
http://makeashorterlink.com/?Q1D923886 for more). In any case, the way time
travel would work in GR definitely doesn't match the way it worked in the
Terminator movies--it wouldn't involve dematerializing from one spot and
rematerializing in another, and it should be impossible to travel back to a
date before the time machine was created.
>
>
> I've been studying up a bit on quantum physics, so I'd be hesitant to rush
> in with a bold statement. Again, "plausible". Try Crichton's TimeLine or
> Clarke's The Light of Other Days.
Crichton's TimeLine uses a lot of technobabble borrowed from actual work in
quantum computing, but nothing in quantum physics justifies the idea that it
would be possible to travel between parallel universes, even in the many-worlds
interpretation of quantum mechanics. Clarke's book is slightly more plausible
since it uses wormholes, but the idea that you could open up a wormhole to an
arbitrary point in space and time isn't based on any known physics, nor is the
idea that you could only use them to see the past but not the future.
Robert St. Amant
> Please list any movies you are aware of that fit into the category "hard
> science fiction." This means that the story is based around man and
> technology, in a plausible world based on the known laws of science. For the
> purposes of this list, ignore anime like Ghost in the Shell.
Just for the sake of discussion:
Jurassic Park
Cube
Brave New World
Death Race 2000
Mad Max
Fahrenheit 451
Outland
eXistenZ
The Thirteenth Floor
All sort-of SF, though most fit into other genres as well.
--
Rob St. Amant
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~stamant
Reverend Lovejoy
> Sebastian Doyle wrote:
> >5. Gattaca
>
> Yes. That would qualify as hard SF.
>
> >6. Contact
>
> Has FTL. Clearly not hard SF.
The novel, IIRC, also left off with the revelation that "God" has inserted a
message into the value of Pi. Not exactly hard sf there. Though this was
left out of the movie, so I don't know if you want to consider it.
--
"I remember another gentle visitor from the heavens, he came in peace and
then died, only to come back to life, and his name was E.T., the extra
terestrial. I loved that little guy."
- Reverend Lovejoy, The Simpsons
Reverend Lovejoy
>
> Time travel contradicts the known laws of science. So, no, this is is not
hard
> SF.
Minor nitpick there - there's actually no known law of physics that outright
makes Time Travel (into the past) impossible. Perhaps it's not achievable,
but there's nothing wrong with it in of itself. You could however complain
about the movies total lack of internal consistency with regards to how time
travel works, and there is a bit of "impossible physics" in some of the
action sequences.
Reverend Lovejoy
news:lpnr80b...@haeckel.csc.ncsu.edu...
Of that list Jurassic Park is the only one (that I've seen) that comes close
to Hard SF. Only because strictly speaking it's not impossible - the
implausibility however is off the scale.
Simon Spiegel
the term 'known laws of science' is - in the end - very vague. As the
previous posts show, we just end up discussing whether time travel, FTL
and similar stuff is possible or not. Most of us are simply not
competent to seriously discuss these things, and even if some are,
what's the point of discussing something even specialists disagree
about? I read articles which tried to explain why time travel could be
possible, and some which denied the fact. And there are even others that
say that it is theoretically possible while not plausible since it would
consume the energy of complete suns. Would you consider something like
this plausible? In the end we're not dealing with 'hard scientific
facts' anymore but with questions of belief.
vze2...@mail.verizon.net
Simon Spiegel wrote:
> This question leads to a rather pointless and endless discsussions since
> the term 'known laws of science' is - in the end - very vague. As the
> previous posts show, we just end up discussing whether time travel, FTL
> and similar stuff is possible or not. Most of us are simply not
> competent to seriously discuss these things, and even if some are,
> what's the point of discussing something even specialists disagree
> about? I read articles which tried to explain why time travel could be
> possible, and some which denied the fact. And there are even others that
> say that it is theoretically possible while not plausible since it would
> consume the energy of complete suns. Would you consider something like
> this plausible? In the end we're not dealing with 'hard scientific
> facts' anymore but with questions of belief.
Not really. There is no question that Einstein's theory of general relativity
does predict it would be possible to travel through time in certain
circumstances, the questions are just about whether it would be remotely
practical to implement these solutions in the real world, and whether a future
theory of quantum gravity, which is hoped to eventually replace general
relativity in the same way GR replaced Newtonian gravity, will still allow time
travel. These are all scientific issues, not "questions of belief".
Justin Bacon
>In 2001, I think that man's
>technology is completely plausible. But the monolith is not man's
>technology, so it doesn't have to fit into the mould.
Yes. If you eliminated the monoliths and simply told the story of the HAL-9000
computer's insanity, you'd have a rock hard SF story.
>> Doesn't BLADE RUNNER have flying cars?
>
>Yes, they are called spinners. And they are a theoretical possibility. And
>we are probably more capable of producing spinners before we perfect the
>science of creating replicants.
Good enough. I couldn't remember the mechanism for the flying cars. That seems
fairly hard to me, then.
>> No. For reasons repeated multiple times, troll-boy.
>
>The Matrix? Almost.
Well, it gets its science and its technology egregiously wrong. And it's got
magic prophecy. That's pretty far off the target when it comes to hard SF.
>Hmm. What was the name of the other underwater sf film where the crewmates
>drank russian vodka that was tainted with a genetic modifier? Ah,
>Leviathan. I think that one was more hard sf than the Abyss.
I haven't seen LEVIATHAN. But I can't think of anything in THE ABYSS which
would disqualify it as hard SF. Are you thinking of anything in particular
which would disqualify it?
>I agree about the film. The original short story on which this is based is,
>however, completely plausible. "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale", by
>Philip K. Dick.
Agreed.
>> Time travel contradicts the known laws of science. So, no, this is is not
>hard
>> SF.
>
>I've been studying up a bit on quantum physics, so I'd be hesitant to rush
>in with a bold statement. Again, "plausible".
Please remember that the entirety of the standard was "a plausible world based
on the known laws of science". Time travel, as depicted in THE TERMINATOR, is
simply not plausible according to the currently known laws of science (or the
known laws of science in 1984).
JB
Justin Bacon
>: The monoliths look a bit too much like "magic tech" to me. They certainly
don't
>: seem to operate according to the known laws of physics. I haven't read the
>: book, so it's possible the book qualifies. But the movie, by itself, doesn't
>: appear to.
>
>It was Arthur C Clarke who said "Any technology sufficiently advanced beyond
>our own will be indistinguishable from magic."
By that logic THE LORD OF THE RINGS is hard SF. Shut up, Tweek.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Justin Bacon
>No, because the FTL travel was based on wormholes, a genuine physics
>concept (in fact, Kip Thorne was motivated to come up with the concept
>of traversable wormholes after being contacted by Carl Sagan, who needed
>a believable method of FTL travel for his novel 'Contact').
Sagan invokes wormholes, but the effects of wormhole travel in the movie do no
match the theory of FTL wormhole travel (the time involved, specifically,
doesn't match theory). Then there's the fact that the radio signal terminates
immediately upon Ellie's return -- which either indicates 26 year prescience of
the EXACT MOMENT Ellie would make her trip, or it indicates a form of
manipulating radio waves which is not supported by any known laws of science
I'm familiar with.
If I were to rank works on a continuum, CONTACT would be about as close to hard
SF as you could get without actually being hard SF.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Justin Bacon
>The novel, IIRC, also left off with the revelation that "God" has inserted a
>message into the value of Pi. Not exactly hard sf there. Though this was
>left out of the movie, so I don't know if you want to consider it.
That gets fuzzy, and probably requires a more rigorous definition of hard SF
than Tweek has offered.
The concept that some form of sentient force created the universe and left
messages buried in immutable constants doesn't actually violate the known laws
of science. (We don't know what triggered the creation of the universe.) I
would say that this would NOT remove a work from the body of hard SF.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Justin Bacon
>Jurassic Park
The handling of chaos theory is moronic, but doesn't actually impact the world
in which the novel takes place. So, yes, I would qualify that as hard SF.
(Yeah, there are technical difficulties with actually drawing DNA from
amber-caught mosquitoes. But I don't think they're sufficient to remove the
work from the domain of hard SF.)
>Cube
I would actually quibble with this one being defined as "science fiction".
I'm not familiar enough with the rest to comment.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Simon Spiegel
Well, exactly. The answer to the question "whether it would be remotely
practical" is nothing that can be answered - at the moment - with certainty.
Simon Spiegel
Justin Bacon wrote:
> CZF wrote:
>
>>In 2001, I think that man's
>>technology is completely plausible. But the monolith is not man's
>>technology, so it doesn't have to fit into the mould.
>
>
> Yes. If you eliminated the monoliths and simply told the story of the HAL-9000
> computer's insanity, you'd have a rock hard SF story.
Is it? For one, the question whether an AI with the capabilites of HAL
is possible is still up to debate. Second, an issue many sf stories
ignore is that even the use of a computer in space is a problem. Most of
the computer technology used aboard of space shuttles and the like is
very primitive since the hard radiation of outer space makes the use of
complex computer a very risky thing. There's still a lot of good old
electro-mechanics in space flight, because pure electronics can be
distorted by the radiation.
>>I agree about the film. The original short story on which this is based is,
>>however, completely plausible. "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale", by
>>Philip K. Dick.
I didn't know that anything remotely related to the memory manipulating
technology used in the story exists. Or that there's even a hint that we
might discover something like this one day. Of course, it's a nice idea
to speculate about, but it's far from plausible.
Justin Bacon
>> Yes. If you eliminated the monoliths and simply told the story of the
HAL-9000
>> computer's insanity, you'd have a rock hard SF story.
>
>Is it? For one, the question whether an AI with the capabilites of HAL
>is possible is still up to debate.
But we do, in fact, know that sentient/sapient intelligence is possible. As my
evidence, I offer this post. People who argue that AI is impossible are very
funny people.
>Second, an issue many sf stories
>ignore is that even the use of a computer in space is a problem. Most of
>the computer technology used aboard of space shuttles and the like is
>very primitive since the hard radiation of outer space makes the use of
>complex computer a very risky thing. There's still a lot of good old
>electro-mechanics in space flight, because pure electronics can be
>distorted by the radiation.
I don't think the precepts of "better radiation shielding" or "redundant
computer design" are in contradiction to known laws of science. We do, in fact,
know that sentient/sapient intelligence can exist in space because, of course,
we've gone there. For all we know, HAL is actually an organic computer.
>>>I agree about the film. The original short story on which this is based is,
>>>however, completely plausible. "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale", by
>>>Philip K. Dick.
>
>I didn't know that anything remotely related to the memory manipulating
>technology used in the story exists.
Hard SF is not limited to what is technically possible today, it is limited by
what is possible according to the known laws of science. We do, in fact, know
that memories can be created and erased in the human brain. It happens all the
time. We may never overcome the technical challenges in artificially
manipulating the creation and destruction of human memories, but it remains a
hard SF concept.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
czf
> Hard SF is not limited to what is technically possible today, it is
limited by
> what is possible according to the known laws of science.
This is *exactly* what I was trying to (poorly) express in my posts.
If the concept is based upon an evolution of an existing scientific fact,
then you get the "plausibility" factor.
Simon Spiegel
> Simon Spiegel wrote:
s.
>
>
> Hard SF is not limited to what is technically possible today, it is limited by
> what is possible according to the known laws of science.
If you consider everything that is somehow theoretically possible as
hard sf, then almost everything is sf. Because it also theoretically
possible - although not very likely - that physics as we know it today
will be replaced one day by something completely else; just as
Einsteinian physics replaced Newtonian. Again, I don't consider it very
likely but there's no way that you can rule out the possibility that it
could happen one day. It happened before in the history of science and
it could happen again. Where do you draw the line? You can't.
Justin Bacon
>Justin Bacon wrote:
>> Simon Spiegel wrote:
>> Hard SF is not limited to what is technically possible today, it is limited
by
>> what is possible according to the known laws of science.
>
>If you consider everything that is somehow theoretically possible as
>hard sf, then almost everything is sf.
It's a good thing I didn't say that, then.
>Because it also theoretically
>possible - although not very likely - that physics as we know it today
>will be replaced one day by something completely else; just as
>Einsteinian physics replaced Newtonian.
That is, in fact, very probable. We *know* there are holes in our current body
of scientific laws.
But there's a reason why I didn't say "Hard SF is limited by what is possible".
The last part of that sentence ("according to the known laws of science") is,
in fact, the essential part of the definition.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Justin Bacon
> science fiction." This means that the story is based around man and
> technology, in a plausible world based on the known laws of science. For the
> purposes of this list, ignore anime like Ghost in the Shell.
Culling from the thread as a whole, we seem to have the following
movies on the list:
HARD SF:
1. Blade Runner
2. The Abyss
3. Gattaca
4. Jurassic Park
NEARLY HARD SF:
1. 2001
2. Solaris
3. Contact
NOT HARD SF:
1. The Matrix series
2. The Terminator series
3. Total Recall
4. Equilibrium
5. The Thirteenth Floor
I just watched RED PLANET for the first time and it looked pretty hard
to me. There are some minor quibbles (solar flares probably can't
cause that much damage; the biochemistry and origins of the bugs are
never explained and may be improbable), but I'd be pretty comfortable
classifying it as hard SF.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Tweek
You're an idiot.
Justin Bacon
...says the man who believes that magical, unexplained technology has a place
in hard SF.
I find context to be very enlightening for statements like this.
Or, in other words: Shut up, Tweek.
JB
Simon Spiegel
> Simon Spiegel wrote:
s.
>
>
> Hard SF is not limited to what is technically possible today, it is limited by
> what is possible according to the known laws of science.
If you consider everything that is somehow theoretically possible as
hard sf, then almost everything is sf. Because it also theoretically
possible - although not very likely - that physics as we know it today
will be replaced one day by something completely else; just as
Simon Spiegel
> But there's a reason why I didn't say "Hard SF is limited by what is possible".
> The last part of that sentence ("according to the known laws of science") is,
> in fact, the essential part of the definition.
Could you please explain the difference between "theoretically possible"
and "according to the know laws of science?" It is a often described
fact that science doesn't evolve linearly. There are jumps and breaks
and paradigmatic changes. Just read Thomas S. Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend.
It is a "known law of science" that we simply cannot foresee how science
will evolve.
The difference you try to make is IMO completely artifical and arbitrary
and doesn't match with contemporary theory science (="known laws of
science").
Tweek
place
: in hard SF.
It certainly does if it belongs to a race of unknowable aliens who have been
monitoring us since the dawn of man.
Kevin Reilly
>I haven't seen LEVIATHAN. But I can't think of anything in THE ABYSS which
>would disqualify it as hard SF. Are you thinking of anything in particular
>which would disqualify it?
I can't speak for the original poster, but I've never been comfortable
with the whole rapid decompression thing at the conclusion ("They must
have done something to us.")
It's a deus ex, and IMO puts the movie outside of hard SF. It might fall
into the same advanced-technology-as-magic category as 2001's monolith,
but that's debatable.
Even the water manipulation plot with the tidal waves is pretty far
fetched but since that's purely alien technology I think it's
forgivable. But the surfacing sequence involves chemical manipulation of
human bodies in real time which to me feels more like fantasy than SF
regardless of how advanced the alien tech might be.
YMMV.
--
Kev
__________________________________________________________________________
"Tuna biting off Washington coast."
Newspaper headline
Justin Bacon
>Could you please explain the difference between "theoretically possible"
>and "according to the know laws of science?" It is a often described
>fact that science doesn't evolve linearly. There are jumps and breaks
>and paradigmatic changes. Just read Thomas S. Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend.
>It is a "known law of science" that we simply cannot foresee how science
>will evolve.
You're interpretation of the phrase "known laws of science" is bizarrely wide.
Narrow it back down to the common reading.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Justin Bacon
>I can't speak for the original poster, but I've never been comfortable
>with the whole rapid decompression thing at the conclusion ("They must
>have done something to us.")
Hmm. Yes. Good point.
>But the surfacing sequence involves chemical manipulation of
>human bodies in real time which to me feels more like fantasy than SF
>regardless of how advanced the alien tech might be.
Well, nanotech could probably do it without too many problems. But, yeah, its
still pretty improbable.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Simon Spiegel
Justin Bacon wrote:
What is the "common reading?" Why not include theory of science into the
"known laws of science." You're accusing me of interpreting it bizarrely
wide, and I think that I'm just being consequent while your narrowing
down is completely arbitrary.
What is the difference between "theoretically possible" and "according
to the known laws of physics". Where do you draw the line and based on
what grounds?
Justin Bacon
>What is the difference between "theoretically possible" and "according
>to the known laws of physics". Where do you draw the line and based on
>what grounds?
It's "theoretically possible" (using your definition of "theoretically
possible") to jump in a rocket, slam on the throttle, and hit FTL speeds.
According to the laws of science as we know them today (i.e., general
relativity) that's not possible.
I'm not sure why you're having difficulty grasping this concept.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Kristine
>Tweek wrote:
>>Please list any movies you are aware of that fit into the category "hard
>>science fiction." This means that the story is based around man and
>>technology, in a plausible world based on the known laws of science. For the
>>purposes of this list, ignore anime like Ghost in the Shell.
>>
>>I'll start it off:
>>
>>HARD SF MOVIES
>>1. 2001
>
>The monoliths look a bit too much like "magic tech" to me. They certainly don't
>seem to operate according to the known laws of physics. I haven't read the
>book, so it's possible the book qualifies. But the movie, by itself, doesn't
>appear to.
>
>>2. Blade Runner
>
>Doesn't BLADE RUNNER have flying cars?
>
>>The Matrix series
>
>No. For reasons repeated multiple times, troll-boy.
>
>>The Abyss
>
>Yes.
Yeah, that's what I thought too. The only thing in it that doesn't apply to the criteria given is
the aliens. Without the aliens it aint a sci-fi movie.
K ~ one of my favourites too 8^))
Simon Spiegel
Because you draw the line at a completely arbitrary point. I think it's
funny that you're so interested in scientific accuracy bu that you, on
the other hand, completely refuse to reflect on the theoretical
foundations of the whole business of science. You can't have one without
the other.
Justin Bacon
>> I'm not sure why you're having difficulty grasping this concept.
>
>Because you draw the line at a completely arbitrary point. I think it's
>funny that you're so interested in scientific accuracy bu that you, on
>the other hand, completely refuse to reflect on the theoretical
>foundations of the whole business of science.
I'm going to try this one more time, Simon, and them I'm going to conclude
you're either inherently or deliberately obtuse.
There is currently a body of accepted scientific theory. This is stuff like
general relativity and quantum mechanics: It's been backed up by repeated
observation and is accepted as being the most accurate model of the way the
universe works by the vast majority of the scientific community.
This body of accepted scientific theory could be utterly changed tomorrow.
(Well, actually, probably not. It would take awhile for a new theory to be
backed up by observation and accepted by the scientific community as a more
accurate model of the way of the universe works. But certainly, a more accurate
model could be invented tomorrow.) But until it *is* changed, it remains the
most accurate model of the way the universe works we know of.
This body of accepted scientific theory is what the non-obtuse person
understands the phrase "the known laws of science" to mean.
It is theoretically possible that the "known laws of science" will be different
next year. But that theoretically possible change in accepted scientific theory
has nothing to do with an accordance to the known laws of science as they exist
today. Quite the opposite: Such a theoretical revolution/improvement with our
understanding of the way the universe works would explicitly NOT be in
accordance with the known laws of science as they exist today.
Get it?
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Simon Spiegel
Justin Bacon wrote:
I get that theory of science is not part of science for you, that you
have to back out an important part of our understanding of how science
works to get at your definition of "known laws of science." If you're
happy with that, good for you. IMO it's inconsequent. You build up a
completely artifical boundary to get your little field of hard sf.
The term "hard sf" never made sense to me, I never understood what it
was good for. For one I think it's really strange that "hard scientific
facts" suddenly are part of a discussion of art. What's the point if
only an expert in quantum physics is able to judge whether a story or
film belongs to a certain genre? Second, I think it's very funny that
exactly those people who are so much after scientific accuracy refuse to
accept that we simply cannot predict how science will evolve and that
therefore the whole discussion of what will be possible or not is
futile. Anyway, what's the point of discussing these things? It's a sign
of a quite poor understanding of fictional arts, if the quality of
fiction depends on the repetition of scientific facts.
Doug
Simple: you draw the line at things you know are impossible.
Everything else is up for grabs. You can't, for instance, pour sand
into your car's gas tank and expect it to run, but FTL and time travel
might be possible. Until proven otherwise, they should be allowed
into the genre.
A quote I posted yesterday to rec.arts.sf.written, but applies here as
well:
"...if someone had written a story before 1938 in which the explosive
power of ten thousand tons of TNT was produced simply by banging two
pieces of metal together, it would have been pure fantasy. Anyone
with the slightest knowledge of chemistry or physics would have known
that the idea was utterly ridiculous.
"But when _Astounding Stories_ printed just such a tale in its
March 1944 issue -- to the consternation of the FBI -- it was
hard-core SF, because uranium fission had now been discovered. And in
August 1945, of course, fiction became history.
"To give a more benign example, today's pocket calculators,
holding in their memories the equivalent of entire libraries of
mathematical tables, would have appeared utterly impossible to any
pre-1950 scientist. They provide an excellent demonstration of
Clarke's well-known third law: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology
is indistinguishable from magic.'"
Arthur C. Clarke's essay "Aspects of Science Fiction" in his book
_Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!_
Doug
Doug
I include THE ABYSS in the hard SF list because of nanotechnology.
The character Lindsey even says something to that effect: "They must
be able to control water on a molecular level." That comment, plus
the evidence in the film, leads me to the basic conclusion that the
alien tech is based largely on a massive application of
nanotechnology. SF literature that deals with nanotechnology has
similar scenes, so it's pretty straightforward as far as I'm
concerned.
Doug
vze2...@mail.verizon.net
Simon Spiegel wrote:
I think virtually nobody would call the sort of "theory of science" you're talking
about to be part of science--after all, the field is often called "philosophy of
science" or "history of science", and neither history nor philosophy are scientific
fields. The few that did call it a science would presumably agree that it's a "soft
science" like anthropology rather than "hard science" like physics or biology. In
any case, Kuhn's theory of paradigm shifts is not a very *good* theory of science,
in the sense that it isn't an accurate description of how consensus shifts in
science actually occur. Also, virtually every scientific "revolution" I can think of
has absorbed the previous theory as a special case rather than simply said the
theory was wrong, like how relativity reduces to Newtonian physics in the
low-velocity limit.
--
Jesse Mazer
http://www.jessemazer.com
Simon Spiegel
vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
> I think virtually nobody would call the sort of "theory of science" you're talking
> about to be part of science--after all, the field is often called "philosophy of
> science" or "history of science", and neither history nor philosophy are scientific
> fields. The few that did call it a science would presumably agree that it's a "soft
> science" like anthropology rather than "hard science" like physics or biology. In
> any case, Kuhn's theory of paradigm shifts is not a very *good* theory of science,
> in the sense that it isn't an accurate description of how consensus shifts in
> science actually occur. Also, virtually every scientific "revolution" I can think of
> has absorbed the previous theory as a special case rather than simply said the
> theory was wrong, like how relativity reduces to Newtonian physics in the
> low-velocity limit.
Again, I think it's funny that a genre which is supposed to be about
science should not reflect the philosophical grounds science itself is
based on.
As for Kuhn, although I don't agree with your judgement he's definitely
not the only one whose theories go in that direction. And just look at
scientists working in different fields trying to talk to each other and
see how much problems to have in understanding each other. You see
Kuhn's paradigm in live action.
And I still see to fail to use of this distinction, especially if I look
at the discussions going on here. What's the whole point of
distinguishing hard sf?
Doug
> "Tweek" <no...@jose.com> wrote in message news:<TVLsb.1284$ge.5...@read2.cgocable.net>...
> > Please list any movies you are aware of that fit into the category "hard
> > science fiction." This means that the story is based around man and
> > technology, in a plausible world based on the known laws of science. For the
> > purposes of this list, ignore anime like Ghost in the Shell.
>
> Culling from the thread as a whole, we seem to have the following
> movies on the list:
>
> HARD SF:
> 1. Blade Runner
Definitely not. The spinners are plainly impossible, as is the
holographic photograph.
> 2. The Abyss
Absolutely hard SF, as I mention in another post.
> 3. Gattaca
Probably, yes, but I only watched it once and would need a refresher
to definitely say so.
> 4. Jurassic Park
Absolutely NOT. Even if it were possible to resurrect dinosaurs using
multiple-millions-of-years-old DNA (given what we know of how DNA
disintegrates over time, it's virtually impossible to find any that's
useful, no matter how it's preserved), the fact that they used frog
DNA to substitute for the sequences that were missing is preposterous.
They might as well have used the DNA from cats or cabbage.
> NEARLY HARD SF:
> 1. 2001
Nearly, although there are mistakes, such as the moon's gravity.
> 2. Solaris
Probably, but there really isn't enough information to go on, so this
one is a judgement call. Even though I really enjoyed Soderbergh's
SOLARIS (the real spiritual successor to Kubrick's 2001), the lack of
an explanation for the goings-on keeps it from being hard SF in my
book.
> 3. Contact
Nope.
> NOT HARD SF:
> 1. The Matrix series
> 2. The Terminator series
> 3. Total Recall
> 4. Equilibrium
> 5. The Thirteenth Floor
>
> I just watched RED PLANET for the first time and it looked pretty hard
> to me. There are some minor quibbles (solar flares probably can't
> cause that much damage; the biochemistry and origins of the bugs are
> never explained and may be improbable), but I'd be pretty comfortable
> classifying it as hard SF.
I can't. Unlike THE ABYSS, where there's a possible explanation for
what's happening, there's no similar out for this film. The ecosystem
as presented is ridiculous, and identifying the heatbugs as nematodes
is just a basic error. (Actually, a form a of alien nematodes would
be a plausible explanation, but the critters as presented are NOT
nematodes -- they're more like robust cockroaches. And possibly the
ancestors to the giant bugs of the film version of STARSHIP TROOPERS.)
Hard SF So Far Not Mentioned:
THRESHOLD (1980) -- My all-time favorite science fiction movie, with
plausible tech.
THE ROAD WARRIOR -- Sure the BDSM car gang is silly, but not
impossible. Part of the "cautionary tale" sub-genre of science
fiction and perfectly valid in my estimation.
1984 -- Another cautionary tale, but certainly plausible.
THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER -- Even though the book is an order of
magnitude better than the movie, the premise remains the same, and the
submarine Red October is a plausible science fictional vehicle.
BRAVE NEW WORLD -- Again the book is better than the various filmed
versions, but it's still solid.
DARK CITY -- Although I would change some of the editting choices,
it's a throwback to Golden Age-style science fiction.
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND -- The original, not the Special
Edition.
WAR GAMES -- Liberties were taken with the voice of WOPR, but that's
purely a cinematic device. It's rare to see such a
thoroughly-realized character as David Lightman, who constantly falls
back on his tech-centered abilities to solve his problems. (When he
escapes from the locked room, for instance, it's through the use of
gadgetry rather than brawn.)
COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT -- Along the same lines of War Games and
HAL from 2001, and can be viewed as the backstory for the Terminator
films.
Doug
vze2...@mail.verizon.net
Simon Spiegel wrote:
> vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
>
> > I think virtually nobody would call the sort of "theory of science" you're talking
> > about to be part of science--after all, the field is often called "philosophy of
> > science" or "history of science", and neither history nor philosophy are scientific
> > fields. The few that did call it a science would presumably agree that it's a "soft
> > science" like anthropology rather than "hard science" like physics or biology. In
> > any case, Kuhn's theory of paradigm shifts is not a very *good* theory of science,
> > in the sense that it isn't an accurate description of how consensus shifts in
> > science actually occur. Also, virtually every scientific "revolution" I can think of
> > has absorbed the previous theory as a special case rather than simply said the
> > theory was wrong, like how relativity reduces to Newtonian physics in the
> > low-velocity limit.
>
> Again, I think it's funny that a genre which is supposed to be about
> science should not reflect the philosophical grounds science itself is
> based on.
>
> As for Kuhn, although I don't agree with your judgement he's definitely
> not the only one whose theories go in that direction.
He's very trendy in certain circles, but again, the idea of radical paradigm shifts that
are complete breaks with past theories (which admittedly is a bit of an exaggeration of
Kuhn's actual theories--Kuhn once announced to a conference discussing his ideas, "One
thing you have to understand. I am not a Kuhnian!"--but it's how he's often interpreted
in the popular press, and it seems to be how you are interpreting him here) really has
very little precedent in the history of science.
In the few cases where there have been such radical breaks, the older theory is almost
always one that was not supported by much actual evidence, but just by common wisdom or
lack of a better alternative, like the pre-Darwinian idea of special creation by God or
geologist's insistence that the continents did not drift. In each of these cases, it was
mainly just the lack of a plausible natural mechanism that could lead to acceptable
alternatives that led to their widespread acceptance, not much actual evidence. I
challenge you to think of any historical examples where there was a theory that was
widely accepted because of a large body of positive evidence that seemed to support it,
but then it was completely replaced by a new theory (as opposed to absorbed by a new
theory in which the old theory was a special case, like relativity vs. Newtonian
mechanics).
> And just look at
> scientists working in different fields trying to talk to each other and
> see how much problems to have in understanding each other. You see
> Kuhn's paradigm in live action.
>
> And I still see to fail to use of this distinction, especially if I look
> at the discussions going on here. What's the whole point of
> distinguishing hard sf?
Basically, hard SF is just supposed to be compatible with *current* scientific theories.
Do you think there is a problem judging whether this is true of a given fictional
technology or not? For example, does the fact that we might conceivably someday discover
a way to exceed the speed of light by continuous acceleration make it any less obvious
that a story involving this sort of FTL would not be compatible with current physics?
Would you have any problem judging whether or not this is compatible with current physics
or not?
Kevin Reilly
>tria...@aol.com (Justin Bacon) wrote in message news:<ead87502.031114
>2007.3...@posting.google.com>...
>> 3. Gattaca
>
>Probably, yes, but I only watched it once and would need a refresher
>to definitely say so.
The problem with Gattaca is not its cautionary tales of genetic
manipulation; those elements are definitely hard SF. But the movie is
presented in a very stylised way that includes, among other things,
people being launched into space aboard what appear to be small single-
stage chemical rockets.
It's a great film, and personally I think the creators made the right
choice with the visual elements -- they give the whole production a
'golden age' look. But surely those same stylistic choices must condemn
it to a place well outside hard SF in the same way that Blade Runner's
flying cars do?
--
Kev
__________________________________________________________________________
"Quarter of a million Chinese live on water."
Newspaper headline
vze2...@mail.verizon.net
Doug wrote:
> tria...@aol.com (Justin Bacon) wrote in message news:<ead87502.03111...@posting.google.com>...
> > "Tweek" <no...@jose.com> wrote in message news:<TVLsb.1284$ge.5...@read2.cgocable.net>...
> > > Please list any movies you are aware of that fit into the category "hard
> > > science fiction." This means that the story is based around man and
> > > technology, in a plausible world based on the known laws of science. For the
> > > purposes of this list, ignore anime like Ghost in the Shell.
> >
> > Culling from the thread as a whole, we seem to have the following
> > movies on the list:
> >
> > HARD SF:
> > 1. Blade Runner
>
> Definitely not. The spinners are plainly impossible, as is the
> holographic photograph.
How can they be impossible when it's never explained how they work? They could have hidden turbines or jets.
As for the 3D photo, what specifically is impossible about that? A number of types of 3D displays exist today.
> > 4. Jurassic Park
>
> Absolutely NOT. Even if it were possible to resurrect dinosaurs using
> multiple-millions-of-years-old DNA (given what we know of how DNA
> disintegrates over time, it's virtually impossible to find any that's
> useful, no matter how it's preserved), the fact that they used frog
> DNA to substitute for the sequences that were missing is preposterous.
> They might as well have used the DNA from cats or cabbage.
Agreed about DNA decay making the story basically impossible, but I'm not so sure about frog DNA. If it was
just a few missing proteins here and there, then frog DNA (or cat DNA, or any other vertebrate DNA) might
substitute just fine. The proteins that make jellyfish glow in the dark still work fine when transplanted into
rabbits, for example.
> Hard SF So Far Not Mentioned:
>
> DARK CITY -- Although I would change some of the editting choices,
> it's a throwback to Golden Age-style science fiction.
Fun movie, but definitely not hard SF. What would be the hard SF explanation for those injections that change
people's identities, or the psychic "tuning" ability that both the hero and the aliens had?
> CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND -- The original, not the Special
> Edition.
How could the aliens influence Richard Dreyfuss to have visions of the mountain they were planning to land on?
How exactly did that giant mothership hover--antigravity?
Simon Spiegel
vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
>
> He's very trendy in certain circles
Actually, he was very trendy in the 70s and 80s, today, everything that
is trendy comes from France.
but again, the idea of radical paradigm shifts that
> are complete breaks with past theories (which admittedly is a bit of an exaggeration of
> Kuhn's actual theories--Kuhn once announced to a conference discussing his ideas, "One
> thing you have to understand. I am not a Kuhnian!"--but it's how he's often interpreted
> in the popular press, and it seems to be how you are interpreting him here) really has
> very little precedent in the history of science.
I know that there's one big problem with Kuhn's theory. Either you
understand the paradigm shift, as he does in "The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions" as a complete replacement of a body of knowlegde
by something else (including nomenclature and everything). In this case,
I have to agree with you, that there are very few examples of true
paradigm shift. Or you understand it as something less drastic which
constantly happens to a certain degree. In this case you could argue
that Kuhn doesn't really describe anything earthshattering but just the
continuous evolution of science.
I agree that these problems exist, but I see the strenght of his model
(and it is, as everything in science, be they hard or soft, only a model
that helps us to understand reality) in other areas. One is, that Kuhn
nicely shows that science isn't 100% rational after all, that the human
factor is extremely important. That the question of belief and how we
are raised to a certain belief is extremely important. That it is very
difficult for some old acclaimed scientist to accept something
completely new that pops up in his field. That different sciences
develop different paradigms which are, to a certain degree,
incompatible. That much of the work that is done in science, is indeed,
what he describes as "puzzle solving" just filling in little gaps of
what is already known. But the most important thing I learned that it is
wrong to laugh at what people believed 200 or 1000 years ago. We're not
brighter, we just have different paradigms that have to serve other
purposes. And in 200 years from now people will look at us and wonder
how we could believe so much nonsense.
>
>
> Basically, hard SF is just supposed to be compatible with *current* scientific theories.
> Do you think there is a problem judging whether this is true of a given fictional
> technology or not?
In many cases, I do indeed see a problem, since many films don't explain
their nova in detail.
> For example, does the fact that we might conceivably someday discover
> a way to exceed the speed of light by continuous acceleration make it any less obvious
> that a story involving this sort of FTL would not be compatible with current physics?
> Would you have any problem judging whether or not this is compatible with current physics
> or not?
You know what? I simply don't care. And I don't see the benefit of this
differentiation. The inventions and nova of sf are not the point of a
good sf story. They're the means to tell a story. It's fiction we're
talking about. If I want to be educated about science, I'll get a
science book.
John
"Reverend Lovejoy" <pap...@remove-these-words.rpi.edu> wrote in message
news:RLUsb.25019$bQ3....@nwrdny03.gnilink.net...
> "Robert St. Amant" <sta...@haeckel.csc.ncsu.edu> wrote in message
> news:lpnr80b...@haeckel.csc.ncsu.edu...
> > "Tweek" <no...@jose.com> writes:
> >
> > > Please list any movies you are aware of that fit into the category
"hard
> > > science fiction." This means that the story is based around man and
> > > technology, in a plausible world based on the known laws of science.
For
> the
> > > purposes of this list, ignore anime like Ghost in the Shell.
> >
> >
> > Jurassic Park
> > Cube
> > Brave New World
> > Death Race 2000
> > Mad Max
> > Fahrenheit 451
> > Outland
> > eXistenZ
> > The Thirteenth Floor
> >
> > All sort-of SF, though most fit into other genres as well.
>
>
> Of that list Jurassic Park is the only one (that I've seen) that comes
close
> to Hard SF. Only because strictly speaking it's not impossible - the
> implausibility however is off the scale.
>
What's impossible in Mad Max?
Justin Bacon
>I get that theory of science is not part of science for you, that you
>have to back out an important part of our understanding of how science
>works to get at your definition of "known laws of science."
What "important part of our understanding of how science works" am I "backing
out", exactly?
>You build up a
>completely artifical boundary to get your little field of hard sf.
There's nothing artificial about the boundary between "what we know now" and
"what we don't know now".
I'm extending your last chance, Simon. Don't blow it.
>It's a sign
>of a quite poor understanding of fictional arts, if the quality of
>fiction depends on the repetition of scientific facts.
This, BTW, is utter stupidity. It's like claiming that the quality of fiction
depends on a murder being solved because "murder mystery" is a genre of
fiction. The classification of fictional works into genres is completely
orthogonal to quality.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Justin Bacon
>Also, virtually every scientific "revolution" I can think of
>has absorbed the previous theory as a special case rather than simply said the
>theory was wrong, like how relativity reduces to Newtonian physics in the
>low-velocity limit.
Well, Newton completely overhauled large portions of Aristotle. And while you
could argue that the work of Copernicus and (more importantly) Kepler simply
rendered Ptolemy into a special case, I think it would be more accurate to say
that Copernicus and Kepler completely overhaueld Ptolemy.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Justin Bacon
>Simple: you draw the line at things you know are impossible.
>Everything else is up for grabs. You can't, for instance, pour sand
>into your car's gas tank and expect it to run, but FTL and time travel
>might be possible. Until proven otherwise, they should be allowed
>into the genre.
Into the genre of science fiction, yes. But hard SF is a very specific
*sub*-genre of science fiction, and the entrance requirements are higher.
JB
Justin Bacon
>> HARD SF:
>> 1. Blade Runner
>
>Definitely not. The spinners are plainly impossible, as is the
>holographic photograph.
I was basing it on someone noting that the spinners were possible. What
"holographic photograph" are we talking about?
>> 2. The Abyss
>
>Absolutely hard SF, as I mention in another post.
Agreed, based on your quote in the other post.
>> 3. Gattaca
>
>Probably, yes, but I only watched it once and would need a refresher
>to definitely say so.
Basically the only SF elements are manned space flights, genetic analysis, and
genetic testing. Those are all technologies we actually have -- all the movie
postulates is a different infrastructure and society for them. You can't get
much harder. ;)
>> 4. Jurassic Park
>
>Absolutely NOT. Even if it were possible to resurrect dinosaurs using
>multiple-millions-of-years-old DNA (given what we know of how DNA
>disintegrates over time, it's virtually impossible to find any that's
>useful, no matter how it's preserved), the fact that they used frog
>DNA to substitute for the sequences that were missing is preposterous.
> They might as well have used the DNA from cats or cabbage.
Well, they could've used DNA from cats -- it depends on what DNA they were
missing, and what, exactly, they were pulling out and why.
This one still looks like hard SF to me.
>> NEARLY HARD SF:
>> 1. 2001
>
>Nearly, although there are mistakes, such as the moon's gravity.
Note the "nearly hard SF". ;)
>> 2. Solaris
>
>Probably, but there really isn't enough information to go on, so this
>one is a judgement call. Even though I really enjoyed Soderbergh's
>SOLARIS (the real spiritual successor to Kubrick's 2001), the lack of
>an explanation for the goings-on keeps it from being hard SF in my
>book.
Ditto. SOLARIS specifically dropped onto the "nearly" list because of the
unexplained, mystical elements of the movie. Like 2001, all the human tech
looked right to me.
>> 3. Contact
>
>Nope.
Except for the FTL, everything looks good to me.
I agree with most of your other choices. But:
>DARK CITY -- Although I would change some of the editting choices,
>it's a throwback to Golden Age-style science fiction.
Uh. There's a big psychic battle at the end. That pretty much knocks it out
right there.
>CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND -- The original, not the Special
>Edition.
I don't know if I'd really qualify the flight qualities of those spaceships as
as hard SF. What's holding them up?
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
vze2...@mail.verizon.net
Justin Bacon wrote:
I don't know if I'd describe many pre-Newtonian about the universe as "science" in
the modern sense, since most of them were based as much on philosophy as
observation. But yeah, I should amend my statement to only include post-Newtonian
scientific revolutions.
Simon Spiegel
Justin Bacon wrote:
> What "important part of our understanding of how science works" am I "backing
> out", exactly?
Again: the whole philosophical underpinnings of how science, which,
after all, is a human activity and therefore influenced by the specific
historical and sociological situation it takes place in. That's the
whole point about Kuhn's theory. Science is not something outside of
every other human activity, done with 100% objectivity. Different times
have and need different paradigms and science works inside those paradigms.
>
> This, BTW, is utter stupidity. It's like claiming that the quality of fiction
> depends on a murder being solved because "murder mystery" is a genre of
> fiction. The classification of fictional works into genres is completely
> orthogonal to quality.
A little sidetrack question: what, in your opinion, is a genre and how
are they defined. According to what you've said hard sf is a genre that
is definied by scientific by scientific knowlegde and that could change
every day with every new discovery made in science.
Justin Bacon
>> What "important part of our understanding of how science works" am I
>"backing
>> out", exactly?
>
>Again: the whole philosophical underpinnings of how science, which,
>after all, is a human activity and therefore influenced by the specific
>historical and sociological situation it takes place in. That's the
>whole point about Kuhn's theory. Science is not something outside of
>every other human activity, done with 100% objectivity. Different times
>have and need different paradigms and science works inside those paradigms.
Ah, you're one of the poor souls caught in the nonsense of post-modern theory.
You have my condolences.
>> This, BTW, is utter stupidity. It's like claiming that the quality of
fiction
>> depends on a murder being solved because "murder mystery" is a genre of
>> fiction. The classification of fictional works into genres is completely
>> orthogonal to quality.
>
>A little sidetrack question: what, in your opinion, is a genre and how
>are they defined. According to what you've said hard sf is a genre that
>is definied by scientific by scientific knowlegde and that could change
>every day with every new discovery made in science.
Yup. If you write a story in 1900 about jumping in a rocketship and flying to
the stars by accelerating constantly and then decelerating, you might be
writing hard SF. If you write that same story in 2000, you definitely *aren't*
writing hard SF.
It's certainly possible that in the year 2100 that same story might, once
again, be hard SF. But, given our current body of evidence, it certainly seems
improbable.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Simon Spiegel
Justin Bacon wrote:
> Simon Spiegel wrote:
>
>>>What "important part of our understanding of how science works" am I
>>
>>"backing
>>
>>>out", exactly?
>>
>>Again: the whole philosophical underpinnings of how science, which,
>>after all, is a human activity and therefore influenced by the specific
>>historical and sociological situation it takes place in. That's the
>>whole point about Kuhn's theory. Science is not something outside of
>>every other human activity, done with 100% objectivity. Different times
>>have and need different paradigms and science works inside those paradigms.
>
>
> Ah, you're one of the poor souls caught in the nonsense of post-modern theory.
> You have my condolences.
Sometimes it's useful to differentiate a bit, obviously not for you. If
you consider everything from Kant to Wittgenstein, Goodman and Foucault
as the same "nonsense of post-modern theory" you only show your own
ignorance.
> Yup. If you write a story in 1900 about jumping in a rocketship and flying to
> the stars by accelerating constantly and then decelerating, you might be
> writing hard SF. If you write that same story in 2000, you definitely *aren't*
> writing hard SF.
>
> It's certainly possible that in the year 2100 that same story might, once
> again, be hard SF. But, given our current body of evidence, it certainly seems
> improbable.
And what again is the use of this kind of genre definiton? What does it
tell us about the stories it includes? Why not make a genre "sf
featering red haired women". About as useful.
czf
news:20031116220353...@mb-m29.aol.com...
> Doug wrote:
> >> HARD SF:
> >> 1. Blade Runner
> >
> >Definitely not. The spinners are plainly impossible, as is the
> >holographic photograph.
>
> I was basing it on someone noting that the spinners were possible. What
> "holographic photograph" are we talking about?
Deckard uses his ESPER computer to zoom in and out of what appears to be a
two dimensional photograph, the kind you and I would have. Except he is
able to command his ESPER to pinpoint a specific spot, and have it "look"
sideways, around the corner, vis a vis a virtual reality tour. With our
current technology, we can zoom in and out, but we cannot see just what is
behind a subject in the photograph, or what's in the next room from where
the subject is standing. In Blade Runner, Deckard *can* do that.
And the photo of Rachael and her "mother" coming to life and emitting sounds
was a deliberate cinematographic effect, not SF.
vze2...@mail.verizon.net
czf wrote:
> "Justin Bacon" <tria...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:20031116220353...@mb-m29.aol.com...
> > Doug wrote:
> > >> HARD SF:
> > >> 1. Blade Runner
> > >
> > >Definitely not. The spinners are plainly impossible, as is the
> > >holographic photograph.
> >
> > I was basing it on someone noting that the spinners were possible. What
> > "holographic photograph" are we talking about?
>
> Deckard uses his ESPER computer to zoom in and out of what appears to be a
> two dimensional photograph, the kind you and I would have. Except he is
> able to command his ESPER to pinpoint a specific spot, and have it "look"
> sideways, around the corner, vis a vis a virtual reality tour. With our
> current technology, we can zoom in and out, but we cannot see just what is
> behind a subject in the photograph, or what's in the next room from where
> the subject is standing. In Blade Runner, Deckard *can* do that.
It doesn't actually look around a corner, it only shifts the perspective by a
slight amount , seeing a part of a mirror that wasn't visible before, and this
part of the mirror reflects something around a corner--so it's not like a
virtual reality tour, such a slight shift in perspective could be explained if
it was a stereoscopic camera, and the computer could smoothly extrapolate
between the left and right image.
vze2...@mail.verizon.net
Simon Spiegel wrote:
> vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
>
> >
> > He's very trendy in certain circles
>
> Actually, he was very trendy in the 70s and 80s, today, everything that
> is trendy comes from France.
>
> but again, the idea of radical paradigm shifts that
> > are complete breaks with past theories (which admittedly is a bit of an exaggeration of
> > Kuhn's actual theories--Kuhn once announced to a conference discussing his ideas, "One
> > thing you have to understand. I am not a Kuhnian!"--but it's how he's often interpreted
> > in the popular press, and it seems to be how you are interpreting him here) really has
> > very little precedent in the history of science.
>
> I know that there's one big problem with Kuhn's theory. Either you
> understand the paradigm shift, as he does in "The Structure of
> Scientific Revolutions" as a complete replacement of a body of knowlegde
> by something else (including nomenclature and everything). In this case,
> I have to agree with you, that there are very few examples of true
> paradigm shift. Or you understand it as something less drastic which
> constantly happens to a certain degree. In this case you could argue
> that Kuhn doesn't really describe anything earthshattering but just the
> continuous evolution of science.
>
> I agree that these problems exist, but I see the strenght of his model
> (and it is, as everything in science, be they hard or soft, only a model
> that helps us to understand reality) in other areas.
Well, a "model" can include conceptual elements that are not essential to making
predictions--for example, Newtonian physics pictures gravity as a mysterious instantaneous
"action-at-a-distance", while general relativity pictures gravity in terms of curved
spacetime. But in most domains, like the solar system, their predictions are almost identical.
> One is, that Kuhn
> nicely shows that science isn't 100% rational after all, that the human
> factor is extremely important.
But was there anyone before Kuhn who would have disagreed with this? At best, some might think
science is perfectly rational in the limit of infinite time, but I think there are few who
disagree that in the short term scientists can be led astray by all sorts of human factors.
> That the question of belief and how we
> are raised to a certain belief is extremely important. That it is very
> difficult for some old acclaimed scientist to accept something
> completely new that pops up in his field. That different sciences
> develop different paradigms which are, to a certain degree,
> incompatible. That much of the work that is done in science, is indeed,
> what he describes as "puzzle solving" just filling in little gaps of
> what is already known. But the most important thing I learned that it is
> wrong to laugh at what people believed 200 or 1000 years ago. We're not
> brighter, we just have different paradigms that have to serve other
> purposes. And in 200 years from now people will look at us and wonder
> how we could believe so much nonsense.
I don't think so--like I said, I can think of virtually no scientific theories since Newton
that seemed to be supported by a lot of positive evidence but which we now think are complete
"nonsense". If can think of some examples, please list them. Going back to my distinction
between conceptual elements and predictive elements of a theory, there may be some conceptual
elements of old theories that now seem silly (like the 'luminiferous aether' which light was
supposed to be a vibration in), so I don't doubt that conceptual elements of current theories
(like the notion of 'curved spacetime') may seem quite silly in 200 years, but I think there
will be few if any major predictive elements of theories that we currently think are strongly
supported by the evidence that will turn out to be complete nonsense. Even though we now know
that Newtonian predictions break down in several domains, modern physics students still spend
a significant amount of time learning classical mechanics, because it's still a very useful
theory in many other domains.
> >
> >
> > Basically, hard SF is just supposed to be compatible with *current* scientific theories.
> > Do you think there is a problem judging whether this is true of a given fictional
> > technology or not?
>
> In many cases, I do indeed see a problem, since many films don't explain
> their nova in detail.
True, there can be ambiguous cases. Still, there are many cases of obvious errors which
disqualify something from being hard SF.
>
>
> > For example, does the fact that we might conceivably someday discover
> > a way to exceed the speed of light by continuous acceleration make it any less obvious
> > that a story involving this sort of FTL would not be compatible with current physics?
> > Would you have any problem judging whether or not this is compatible with current physics
> > or not?
>
> You know what? I simply don't care. And I don't see the benefit of this
> differentiation. The inventions and nova of sf are not the point of a
> good sf story. They're the means to tell a story. It's fiction we're
> talking about. If I want to be educated about science, I'll get a
> science book.
Well, would you see a benefit in distinguishing "historically accurate" historical fiction
from inaccurate historical fiction, like a book where Caesar was childhood pals with Genghis
Khan? If storytelling is all that matters, would it not matter one whit to you whether a
historical novel gets its history right? After all, whatever you say about revisions or
"paradigm shifts" in our understanding of science would be true to some extent of our
understanding of history too, no? And yet I feel very confident that no future discovery will
show that Caesar and Genghis Khan were ever friends, just as I feel very confident that no
future discovery will show that it is possible to travel faster than light just by
accelerating, or that it is possible to build a perpetual motion machine with no external
source of power. Perhaps accuracy in history or in science really makes no difference to you,
but to me it does, although in other contexts I can enjoy stories that are totally
fantastical. I guess it's all a matter of taste.
Andreas Koch
> I get that theory of science is not part of science for you, that you
> have to back out an important part of our understanding of how science
> works to get at your definition of "known laws of science." If you're
> happy with that, good for you. IMO it's inconsequent.
It's pretty simple.
We are talking about "hard science fiction".
If you include "science may be totally different tomorrow" into
"known laws of science", you remove _all_ boundaries for "hard science
fiction". That would make ANY film (including lord of the rings - who
can say if tomorrow some guy will discover the thaumaturgon particle,
invent the magic generator and build some gods?) hard science fiction.
As you can't define a genre without borders, you have to take that
point out to have borders.
--
Andreas
He screamed: THIS IS SIG!
Andreas Koch
A little know gem:
> HARD SF MOVIES
1. Silent Running
czf
news:3FB9518C...@mail.verizon.net...
Hi Jesse,
I do not wish to be unkind, but how do you explain how he was able to zero
in on Zhora asleep in bed?
And I think that you would agree the technology that even allows him to
shift the perspective is something we do not have now, but perhaps could be
"plausible" in the future.
But, if this is your opinion, I respect it; however I do not feel that I can
defer to being corrected - I simply have a different view and opinion, which
I hope you have the good grace to accept.
(can anyone tell that I will go to the ends of the earth to avoid flamewars
;-)
vze2...@mail.verizon.net
czf wrote:
> <vze2...@mail.verizon.net> wrote in message
> news:3FB9518C...@mail.verizon.net...
>
> > It doesn't actually look around a corner, it only shifts the perspective
> by a
> > slight amount , seeing a part of a mirror that wasn't visible before, and
> this
> > part of the mirror reflects something around a corner--so it's not like a
> > virtual reality tour, such a slight shift in perspective could be
> explained if
> > it was a stereoscopic camera, and the computer could smoothly extrapolate
> > between the left and right image.
>
> Hi Jesse,
>
> I do not wish to be unkind, but how do you explain how he was able to zero
> in on Zhora asleep in bed?
Wasn't it just a matter of shifting his perspective on the reflection in the
mirror? A mirror isn't like a painting, it shows a different image depending on
what angle you look at it from. I guess I'd have to watch the scene again to be
sure, though.
> And I think that you would agree the technology that even allows him to
> shift the perspective is something we do not have now, but perhaps could be
> "plausible" in the future.
Sure, but if SF only dealt with devices we build today rather than devices that
are reasonable extrapolations of current technology (more powerful computers,
for example) it wouldn't even be "science fiction".
Anyway, if someone wanted to create a program that smoothly extrapolated
between the left and right image from a stereoscopic camera, I don't think it'd
be very difficult to do today--would it be that different from "morphing" two
images smoothly into one another? Haven't they already built robots that have
two cameras for eyes that use some sort of algorithm to judge the distance of
various objects using the two images?
Simon Spiegel
vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
>
>
> But was there anyone before Kuhn who would have disagreed with this? At best, some might think
> science is perfectly rational in the limit of infinite time, but I think there are few who
> disagree that in the short term scientists can be led astray by all sorts of human factors.
I just read a text by the German econo/sociologist in which he strongly
disagreed. And he was quite a smart guy.
>>That the question of belief and how we
>>are raised to a certain belief is extremely important. That it is very
>>difficult for some old acclaimed scientist to accept something
>>completely new that pops up in his field. That different sciences
>>develop different paradigms which are, to a certain degree,
>>incompatible. That much of the work that is done in science, is indeed,
>>what he describes as "puzzle solving" just filling in little gaps of
>>what is already known. But the most important thing I learned that it is
>>wrong to laugh at what people believed 200 or 1000 years ago. We're not
>>brighter, we just have different paradigms that have to serve other
>>purposes. And in 200 years from now people will look at us and wonder
>>how we could believe so much nonsense.
>
>
> I don't think so--like I said, I can think of virtually no scientific theories since Newton
> that seemed to be supported by a lot of positive evidence but which we now think are complete
> "nonsense". If can think of some examples, please list them. Going back to my distinction
> between conceptual elements and predictive elements of a theory, there may be some conceptual
> elements of old theories that now seem silly (like the 'luminiferous aether' which light was
> supposed to be a vibration in), so I don't doubt that conceptual elements of current theories
> (like the notion of 'curved spacetime') may seem quite silly in 200 years, but I think there
> will be few if any major predictive elements of theories that we currently think are strongly
> supported by the evidence that will turn out to be complete nonsense. Even though we now know
> that Newtonian predictions break down in several domains, modern physics students still spend
> a significant amount of time learning classical mechanics, because it's still a very useful
> theory in many other domains.
We'll talk about this again in 200 years.
>>>Basically, hard SF is just supposed to be compatible with *current* scientific theories.
>>>Do you think there is a problem judging whether this is true of a given fictional
>>>technology or not?
>>
>>In many cases, I do indeed see a problem, since many films don't explain
>>their nova in detail.
>
>
> True, there can be ambiguous cases. Still, there are many cases of obvious errors which
> disqualify something from being hard SF.
If the only thing a film has to offer for discussion is its scientific
accuracy, it can't be a very good film.
>>You know what? I simply don't care. And I don't see the benefit of this
>>differentiation. The inventions and nova of sf are not the point of a
>>good sf story. They're the means to tell a story. It's fiction we're
>>talking about. If I want to be educated about science, I'll get a
>>science book.
>
>
> Well, would you see a benefit in distinguishing "historically accurate" historical fiction
> from inaccurate historical fiction, like a book where Caesar was childhood pals with Genghis
> Khan?
If this constructed meeting between Caesar and Genghis can would lead to
an interesting story, I'd have no problems with it. Of course, I'd see a
problem in justyfying such a construction, but if it's needed for
telling a good story, I'd have no problems with it. With a story like
this we would obviously lead "realistic fiction." I believe the problem
is that you classify sf - or at least hard sf - as some kind of
realistic genre. I don't. For me the difference between sf and fantasy
is mainly a matter of style, not of content.
vze2...@mail.verizon.net
Simon Spiegel wrote:
> vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > But was there anyone before Kuhn who would have disagreed with this? At best, some might think
> > science is perfectly rational in the limit of infinite time, but I think there are few who
> > disagree that in the short term scientists can be led astray by all sorts of human factors.
>
> I just read a text by the German econo/sociologist in which he strongly
> disagreed. And he was quite a smart guy.
Disagreed that science is perfectly rational in the limit of infinite time, or disagreed that
science is not perfectly rational even in the short term? If the latter I have a hard time
believing that you're accurately capturing the nuances of his argument, since it seems too silly
for any smart person to consider.
Does that mean you can't think of a single example of something a typical scientist 200 years ago
would have believed, based on strong positive evidence as opposed to tradition or philosophy or
something, that we would now consider "quite silly"? If few or no such examples exist, that would
be a pretty good precedent for saying there won't be many such examples 200 years from now either.
> >>>Basically, hard SF is just supposed to be compatible with *current* scientific theories.
> >>>Do you think there is a problem judging whether this is true of a given fictional
> >>>technology or not?
> >>
> >>In many cases, I do indeed see a problem, since many films don't explain
> >>their nova in detail.
> >
> >
> > True, there can be ambiguous cases. Still, there are many cases of obvious errors which
> > disqualify something from being hard SF.
>
> If the only thing a film has to offer for discussion is its scientific
> accuracy, it can't be a very good film.
That's a total non sequitur--I said nothing about it being the "only" thing one could discuss about
the film.
> >>You know what? I simply don't care. And I don't see the benefit of this
> >>differentiation. The inventions and nova of sf are not the point of a
> >>good sf story. They're the means to tell a story. It's fiction we're
> >>talking about. If I want to be educated about science, I'll get a
> >>science book.
> >
> >
> > Well, would you see a benefit in distinguishing "historically accurate" historical fiction
> > from inaccurate historical fiction, like a book where Caesar was childhood pals with Genghis
> > Khan?
>
> If this constructed meeting between Caesar and Genghis can would lead to
> an interesting story, I'd have no problems with it. Of course, I'd see a
> problem in justyfying such a construction, but if it's needed for
> telling a good story, I'd have no problems with it. With a story like
> this we would obviously lead "realistic fiction." I believe the problem
> is that you classify sf - or at least hard sf - as some kind of
> realistic genre. I don't. For me the difference between sf and fantasy
> is mainly a matter of style, not of content.
But this discussion isn't really about whether anyone has a *problem* with stories that are
historically or scientifically inaccurate, it's just about whether it's *useful to distinguish*
between stories that are accurate and stories that are not. No one has claimed that SF stories are
any less good if they are not "hard". You think it doesn't even make sense to distinguish between
novels that are historically accurate and ones that are wildly inaccurate? Do you think it makes
sense to make any distinctions between novels that don't have to do with quality, like mystery vs.
romance? How about fiction vs. nonfiction, do you think that's a useful distinction? If you think
some of these distinctions that have no bearing on the quality of the story are useful but others
(like historically accurate vs. alternate history) are not, please explain what you see as the
difference.
Simon Spiegel
vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
>
> Simon Spiegel wrote:
>
>
>>vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>>But was there anyone before Kuhn who would have disagreed with this? At best, some might think
>>>science is perfectly rational in the limit of infinite time, but I think there are few who
>>>disagree that in the short term scientists can be led astray by all sorts of human factors.
>>
>>I just read a text by the German econo/sociologist in which he strongly
>> disagreed. And he was quite a smart guy.
>
>
> Disagreed that science is perfectly rational in the limit of infinite time, or disagreed that
> science is not perfectly rational even in the short term? If the latter I have a hard time
> believing that you're accurately capturing the nuances of his argument, since it seems too silly
> for any smart person to consider.
Somehow his name slipped through, it was Max Weber I was talking about.
Just saw "Matrix Revolutions" and I'm still so angry about it that I can
hardly type. ;) Anyway, in his eyes science is a perfectly rational
thing with a completely linear development.
> But this discussion isn't really about whether anyone has a *problem* with stories that are
> historically or scientifically inaccurate, it's just about whether it's *useful to distinguish*
> between stories that are accurate and stories that are not. No one has claimed that SF stories are
> any less good if they are not "hard". You think it doesn't even make sense to distinguish between
> novels that are historically accurate and ones that are wildly inaccurate? Do you think it makes
> sense to make any distinctions between novels that don't have to do with quality, like mystery vs.
> romance? How about fiction vs. nonfiction, do you think that's a useful distinction? If you think
> some of these distinctions that have no bearing on the quality of the story are useful but others
> (like historically accurate vs. alternate history) are not, please explain what you see as the
> difference.
The difference is that the question of a genre is suddenly decided by
specialised scientists, neither fictional, artistic or aesthetic
categories count but only scientific ones. That's quite unique IMO, I
don't know any genre that is defined this way. As for the question of
inaccurate vs accurate historical novels. I have never heard anyone
speaking of the genre of the "inaccurate historic novel," have you?
There may be all kind of fantastic stories based on a specific
historical setting, but the division here is between realism and fantasy
(probably what in english is referred to as romance vs novel. I'm not
really sure here, since this distinction doesn't exist in German. But as
far as I understand, novel more or less equals "realistic novel" while
romance includes a certain amount of fantasy).
vze2...@mail.verizon.net
Simon Spiegel wrote:
> vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
> >
> > Simon Spiegel wrote:
> >
> >
> >>vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>
> >>>But was there anyone before Kuhn who would have disagreed with this? At best, some might think
> >>>science is perfectly rational in the limit of infinite time, but I think there are few who
> >>>disagree that in the short term scientists can be led astray by all sorts of human factors.
> >>
> >>I just read a text by the German econo/sociologist in which he strongly
> >> disagreed. And he was quite a smart guy.
> >
> >
> > Disagreed that science is perfectly rational in the limit of infinite time, or disagreed that
> > science is not perfectly rational even in the short term? If the latter I have a hard time
> > believing that you're accurately capturing the nuances of his argument, since it seems too silly
> > for any smart person to consider.
>
> Somehow his name slipped through, it was Max Weber I was talking about.
> Just saw "Matrix Revolutions" and I'm still so angry about it that I can
> hardly type. ;) Anyway, in his eyes science is a perfectly rational
> thing with a completely linear development.
Well, like I said I'd have to see his arguments, it's hard for me to believe any intellectual would
ever use the words "perfectly" or "completely" without qualifying them ;)
>
>
> > But this discussion isn't really about whether anyone has a *problem* with stories that are
> > historically or scientifically inaccurate, it's just about whether it's *useful to distinguish*
> > between stories that are accurate and stories that are not. No one has claimed that SF stories are
> > any less good if they are not "hard". You think it doesn't even make sense to distinguish between
> > novels that are historically accurate and ones that are wildly inaccurate? Do you think it makes
> > sense to make any distinctions between novels that don't have to do with quality, like mystery vs.
> > romance? How about fiction vs. nonfiction, do you think that's a useful distinction? If you think
> > some of these distinctions that have no bearing on the quality of the story are useful but others
> > (like historically accurate vs. alternate history) are not, please explain what you see as the
> > difference.
>
> The difference is that the question of a genre is suddenly decided by
> specialised scientists, neither fictional, artistic or aesthetic
> categories count but only scientific ones. That's quite unique IMO, I
> don't know any genre that is defined this way. As for the question of
> inaccurate vs accurate historical novels. I have never heard anyone
> speaking of the genre of the "inaccurate historic novel," have you?
Both "alternate history" and "secret history" would fit that description to some extent. Anyway, I
didn't specifically say accurate vs. inaccurate historic novel was a difference of "genres", I just
asked whether it's useful to distinguish them. Some people might appreciate that feeling of
verisimilitude that comes with reading a historical novel where all the little details have been
carefully researched and the reader feels like he's really being immersed in the time period. That
doesn't mean such people couldn't also appreciate less accurate historical novels, just not for all the
same reasons. Nor does the fact that they get a special pleasure out of historical accuracy mean that
they would forgive a badly-told story just because it was accurate. The same sort of thing is true of
hard SF. If you find these kinds of feelings incomprehensible then I guess the distinctions shouldn't
matter *to you*, but it's all a matter of taste, and surely you can appreciate that the distinctions
would be useful for those with different tastes.
Justin Bacon
>> Yup. If you write a story in 1900 about jumping in a rocketship and flying
to
>> the stars by accelerating constantly and then decelerating, you might be
>> writing hard SF. If you write that same story in 2000, you definitely
*aren't*
>> writing hard SF.
>>
>> It's certainly possible that in the year 2100 that same story might, once
>> again, be hard SF. But, given our current body of evidence, it certainly
seems
>> improbable.
>
>And what again is the use of this kind of genre definiton? What does it
>tell us about the stories it includes?
It tells us that the authors are attempting to extrapolate/speculate
*accurately* to the best of their abilities.
You may have no use for this. But many people do. Cope.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Simon Spiegel
vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
>
>
> Both "alternate history" and "secret history" would fit that description to some extent. Anyway, I
> didn't specifically say accurate vs. inaccurate historic novel was a difference of "genres", I just
> asked whether it's useful to distinguish them. Some people might appreciate that feeling of
> verisimilitude that comes with reading a historical novel where all the little details have been
> carefully researched and the reader feels like he's really being immersed in the time period. That
> doesn't mean such people couldn't also appreciate less accurate historical novels, just not for all the
> same reasons. Nor does the fact that they get a special pleasure out of historical accuracy mean that
> they would forgive a badly-told story just because it was accurate. The same sort of thing is true of
> hard SF. If you find these kinds of feelings incomprehensible then I guess the distinctions shouldn't
> matter *to you*, but it's all a matter of taste, and surely you can appreciate that the distinctions
> would be useful for those with different tastes.
>
What are we talking about? Genres or questions of quality and taste.
Different things. If you say that it's useful to distinguish accurate
and inaccurate historic novels I understand that as some kind of
classification. I agree that a historic novel full of obvious errors can
diminuish the pleasure of reading it. But this is not a question of
distinguishing different kinds of novels, it's a judgement of quality
IMO. Apart from that, accuracy is IMO much more important in a typical
historical novel than in sf because it is normally told in a realistic
mode, while sf in my understanding is, per definition, told in a non
realistic mode. And to sort out those few examples that do somehow
qualify for being scientificly accurate doesn't make any sense IMO.
vze2...@mail.verizon.net
Simon Spiegel wrote:
> vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Both "alternate history" and "secret history" would fit that description to some extent. Anyway, I
> > didn't specifically say accurate vs. inaccurate historic novel was a difference of "genres", I just
> > asked whether it's useful to distinguish them. Some people might appreciate that feeling of
> > verisimilitude that comes with reading a historical novel where all the little details have been
> > carefully researched and the reader feels like he's really being immersed in the time period. That
> > doesn't mean such people couldn't also appreciate less accurate historical novels, just not for all the
> > same reasons. Nor does the fact that they get a special pleasure out of historical accuracy mean that
> > they would forgive a badly-told story just because it was accurate. The same sort of thing is true of
> > hard SF. If you find these kinds of feelings incomprehensible then I guess the distinctions shouldn't
> > matter *to you*, but it's all a matter of taste, and surely you can appreciate that the distinctions
> > would be useful for those with different tastes.
> >
>
> What are we talking about? Genres or questions of quality and taste.
> Different things. If you say that it's useful to distinguish accurate
> and inaccurate historic novels I understand that as some kind of
> classification. I agree that a historic novel full of obvious errors can
> diminuish the pleasure of reading it. But this is not a question of
> distinguishing different kinds of novels, it's a judgement of quality
> IMO.
Why is it a judgment of quality? To someone who cares only about an entertaining story, whether the book
would be seen as accurate by a professor of history somewhere would be irrelevant. It's only a judgment of
quality to those who care about accuracy. The same is true about hard SF.
> Apart from that, accuracy is IMO much more important in a typical
> historical novel than in sf because it is normally told in a realistic
> mode, while sf in my understanding is, per definition, told in a non
> realistic mode. And to sort out those few examples that do somehow
> qualify for being scientificly accurate doesn't make any sense IMO.
What does "non realistic" mode mean? Maybe not everything about the story is supposed to be realistic, but
the whole point of hard SF is that it tries to be as realistic as possible about coming up with technologies
that seem theoretically possible according to our understanding of science. Why does it make sense to you
that some people might care about historical accuracy in a historical novel but not make sense that some
people might care about scientific accuracy in a sci-fi novel?
Justin Bacon
> Genres or questions of quality and taste.
>Different things. If you say that it's useful to distinguish accurate
>and inaccurate historic novels I understand that as some kind of
>classification. I agree that a historic novel full of obvious errors can
>diminuish the pleasure of reading it. But this is not a question of
>distinguishing different kinds of novels, it's a judgement of quality
>IMO.
You see no difference between an historical novel and an alternate history
novel?
You're sliding up the Kook Meter pretty fast now, Simon.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Doug
While I heartily agree with this last statement, I don't think the
photograph as presented in BLADE RUNNER fits the bill. Sure, it's
possible to invoke the "unexplainable tech" rule (which I often use
for films like CE3K) but in this instance I feel there is enough
information to nudge this scene just over the line into impossible.
The photograph would have to be holographic in nature in order for
Deckard to pull off his visual feat, yet it certainly seems to be a
2-D picture rather than holographic or stereographic. This may be
just a limitation of the then-current special effects, but even in
1981 they could have created a holographic-seeming photograph. (See
the Star Wars films, for instance.)
In the scene, Deckard is able to see around corners and not just shift
his perspective a little bit. (Even that would be hard to justify.)
Also, he has the ability to zoom in without any loss of clarity. It's
perfectly reasonable to speculate that cameras in 2019 will capture
details to this degree, even if it is unnecessary for most
applications. However, the appearance of the photo itself as well as
the blatantly ultra-convenient impact it has on the story makes it
seem more of a plot device than an actual attempt at future tech.
While others may see it as doable, for me it fails the test of
verisimilitude.
Doug
Doug
> Doug wrote:
>
> > >
> > > HARD SF:
> > > 1. Blade Runner
> >
> > Definitely not. The spinners are plainly impossible, as is the
> > holographic photograph.
>
> work? They could have hidden turbines or jets.
In that case, those turbines would have more of an effect on the
surroundings than they do. Similarly, in MINORITY REPORT, the
downwash of the jets would knock people off their feet, but they
clearly have no effect on the live-action environment (as opposed to
the CGI environment). Same thing in BLADE RUNNER.
> > > 4. Jurassic Park
> >
> > Absolutely NOT. Even if it were possible to resurrect dinosaurs using
> > multiple-millions-of-years-old DNA (given what we know of how DNA
> > disintegrates over time, it's virtually impossible to find any that's
> > useful, no matter how it's preserved), the fact that they used frog
> > DNA to substitute for the sequences that were missing is preposterous.
> > They might as well have used the DNA from cats or cabbage.
>
> Agreed about DNA decay making the story basically impossible,
> but I'm not so sure about frog DNA. If it was just a few missing
> proteins here and there, then frog DNA (or cat DNA, or any other
> vertebrate DNA) might substitute just fine. The proteins that make
> jellyfish glow in the dark still work fine when transplanted into
> rabbits, for example.
It's not just a case of using some missing proteins, however, as the
implication is that the use of frog DNA has serious side effects
regarding the dinosaurs' reproductive abilities. Grant even says as
much when they discover the nest of hatched eggs.
> > Hard SF So Far Not Mentioned:
> >
> > DARK CITY -- Although I would change some of the editting choices,
> > it's a throwback to Golden Age-style science fiction.
>
> Fun movie, but definitely not hard SF. What would be the hard SF
> explanation for those injections that change people's identities,
> or the psychic "tuning" ability that both the hero and the aliens had?
Beats me. I'm willing to take it off the list.
> > CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND -- The original, not the Special
> > Edition.
>
> How could the aliens influence Richard Dreyfuss to have visions of
> the mountain they were planning to land on?
> How exactly did that giant mothership hover--antigravity?
Good points. I'm willing to take it off the list, also.
Doug
Doug
Absolutely. So you can't say, for instance, that time travel via
wish-fulfillment is possible (a la SOMEWHERE IN TIME), but using some
form of wormhole might be. (The spherical thinga-ma-jobby seen in the
TERMINATOR films might be just such a thing, especially considering
the effects it has on the environment in T2, where it clips off a
corner of a nearby semi.)
It's all about verisimilitude, and whether what's portrayed _seems_
possible. For me, movies like ALIENS fit this requirement just fine,
but it's certainly a case of individual preference.
Doug
Simon Spiegel
Justin Bacon wrote:
> Simon Spiegel wrote:
>
>>Genres or questions of quality and taste.
>>Different things. If you say that it's useful to distinguish accurate
>>and inaccurate historic novels I understand that as some kind of
>>classification. I agree that a historic novel full of obvious errors can
>>diminuish the pleasure of reading it. But this is not a question of
>>distinguishing different kinds of novels, it's a judgement of quality
>>IMO.
>
>
> You see no difference between an historical novel and an alternate history
> novel?
Who said that? I was talking about a historical novels full of
historical errors, that's something completely different than an
alternate history novel.
Captain Freaky Pants
Simon Spiegel
vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
In my understanding - and I don't think I'm very original or
extraordinary here - sf is defined by taking place in a world different
from ours, some kind of marvelous or fantastic world - depending on your
nomenclature - which is at least in one aspect - this would be the novum
- completely different from the one we live in. The difference to other
marvelous genres like fantasy or fairy tales is, that sf uses
scientific, or pseudo-scientific, language and/or imagery to legitimate
its nova. But this is mainly a question of presentation. The worlds of
sf are, in 95% of the cases, as impossible as those of fantasy. The
"scientific feel" of sf is mainly an asthetic effect with the purpose to
ease the reader's suspension of disbelief. As a reader - or movie
audience - we agree to this setup, but we know from the beginning that
we're not dealing with the world we live in. This is the difference to a
"realist" mode (I know that this term is vague) which takes place in our
world. A historical novel claims to take place in our world, opposed to
sword and sorcery fantasy or alternate history sf. Therefore, obvious
historical mistakes should be avoided.
vze2...@mail.verizon.net
Simon Spiegel wrote:
Not really, no. Different fictional technologies have different levels of plausibility, so the more the author
sticks to plausible technologies, the more scientifically plausible the story as a whole is. If you want to make
the argument that there is some kind of fundamental difference between historical plausibility and scientific
plausibility, you'll have to do better than just making assertions like "all science fiction stories are really
as impossible as fantasy stories". That's not an argument, it's just a contradiction! ;)
Perhaps a better comparison would be plausible vs. implausible alternate history stories. Do you think it is
useless to distinguish alternate histories that evolve plausibly from their point of departure with real history
from alternate histories that are totally implausible, like one where Hitler succeeds in conquering the entire
planet? If you head over to soc.history.what-if you can see plenty of extensive arguments about the plausibility
of various timelines, and professional historians sometimes speculate about the likelihood of various alternative
outcomes. Do you think these debates are totally meaningless?
czf
news:qKO6PzexQmdJQ9...@4ax.com...
> ANDROMEDA STRAIN?
Ah. Another Crichton classic. Read the book. Never saw the movie.
(makes note to self for next visit to Blockbuster)
Simon Spiegel
vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
> Not really, no. Different fictional technologies have different levels of plausibility, so the more the author
> sticks to plausible technologies, the more scientifically plausible the story as a whole is.
And even if some stories are more plausible than others, I don't see
this as a useful way to differentiate genres. As I said earlier, to use
scientific accuracy to differentiate different kind of fiction or work
of arts in general is something quite unheard of.
> If you want to make
> the argument that there is some kind of fundamental difference between historical plausibility and scientific
> plausibility, you'll have to do better than just making assertions like "all science fiction stories are really
> as impossible as fantasy stories". That's not an argument, it's just a contradiction! ;)
The point is that every a story normally signals the genre it belongs
to. I know that Sherlock Holmes will find a "realistic solution" for the
mystery, and that the murder was not commited by a vampire (of course,
this kind of genres mixes exist, but they're normally parodies which
deliberately play with the existing conventions. Or they're genres of
their own with their own conventions). Exactly the same goes for a
historical novel. It is marked as such and therefore I can expect some
level of accuracy. Vampires and aliens in Scott novel would be
considered as a mistake. If I read a John Grisham thriller, I know that
no angel will descend from heavens in the end to save the heor. An
alternate history novel on the other hand is also marked as such.
>
> Perhaps a better comparison would be plausible vs. implausible alternate history stories. Do you think it is
> useless to distinguish alternate histories that evolve plausibly from their point of departure with real history
> from alternate histories that are totally implausible, like one where Hitler succeeds in conquering the entire
> planet?
Is that the plausible or the implausible scenario?
> If you head over to soc.history.what-if you can see plenty of extensive arguments about the plausibility
> of various timelines, and professional historians sometimes speculate about the likelihood of various alternative
> outcomes. Do you think these debates are totally meaningless?
No, I just don't think that it's the business of art - in this case
mainly fiction - to deal with such questions. Or let me rephrase it,
fiction can deal with such question but in the end what counts is not
whether a professional historian considers its speculation to be
plausible, but whether it succeeds as a work of fiction.
vze2...@mail.verizon.net
Doug wrote:
The photograph might have something like a microchip embedded in the paper which contains
additional information beyond what's visible in the paper-and-ink image. And as I said
earlier, he wasn't able to actually "see around corners", he zoomed in on a mirror which
was reflecting a room around the corner, and then he shifted his perspective and got a
somewhat different perspective on that reflected room.
> While others may see it as doable, for me it fails the test of
> verisimilitude.
Fair enough. For me the idea of creating beings from scratch that acquire all the mental
capabilities of adults within four years fails the test of verisimilitude, so I don't
really see the movie as very plausible.
Tweek
czf <rac...@deckards.piano> wrote in message
news:YPxub.241488$Fm2.241355@attbi_s04...
: "Captain Freaky Pants" <n...@x.com> wrote in message
It's a good adaptation.
vze2...@mail.verizon.net
Simon Spiegel wrote:
> vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
>
> > Not really, no. Different fictional technologies have different levels of plausibility, so the more the author
> > sticks to plausible technologies, the more scientifically plausible the story as a whole is.
>
> And even if some stories are more plausible than others, I don't see
> this as a useful way to differentiate genres.
But you do see historically accurate vs. historically inaccurate as a useful distinction? What's the difference? This
is the question you keep failing to answer.
> As I said earlier, to use
> scientific accuracy to differentiate different kind of fiction or work
> of arts in general is something quite unheard of.
And yet using historical accuracy to differentiate different kinds of works of fiction/art is not unheard of? What's
the difference?
> > If you want to make
> > the argument that there is some kind of fundamental difference between historical plausibility and scientific
> > plausibility, you'll have to do better than just making assertions like "all science fiction stories are really
> > as impossible as fantasy stories". That's not an argument, it's just a contradiction! ;)
>
> The point is that every a story normally signals the genre it belongs
> to. I know that Sherlock Holmes will find a "realistic solution" for the
> mystery, and that the murder was not commited by a vampire (of course,
> this kind of genres mixes exist, but they're normally parodies which
> deliberately play with the existing conventions. Or they're genres of
> their own with their own conventions). Exactly the same goes for a
> historical novel. It is marked as such and therefore I can expect some
> level of accuracy. Vampires and aliens in Scott novel would be
> considered as a mistake.
Yup, just like science fiction, where you are supposed to be able to expect some level of scientific accuracy (higher
than fantasy, anyway). But just as with historical novels, there are nevertheless plenty that are in fact quite
innacurate. So it makes sense to you to differentiate historical novels by level of historical accuracy, but not to
distinguish sci-fi novels by level of scientific accuracy? What's the difference?
> > Perhaps a better comparison would be plausible vs. implausible alternate history stories. Do you think it is
> > useless to distinguish alternate histories that evolve plausibly from their point of departure with real history
> > from alternate histories that are totally implausible, like one where Hitler succeeds in conquering the entire
> > planet?
>
> Is that the plausible or the implausible scenario?
Any historian would say it's totally implausible, just by comparing the military and industrial power of the Axis
countries with the entire rest of the world. You can find some interesting essays by an AH fan which deal with the
plausibility of various "more successful Nazis" scenarios here:
http://gateway.alternatehistory.com/essays-set.html
You didn't answer my question, though. Is it useless or useful to distinguish carefully thought-out and researched
alternate history from "anything-goes" alternate history? Or would you just say "it's all fantasy, and anyway the
story is all that matters" and conclude that all discussions of plausibility, like the ones on the website above, are
pointless in AH?
> > If you head over to soc.history.what-if you can see plenty of extensive arguments about the plausibility
> > of various timelines, and professional historians sometimes speculate about the likelihood of various alternative
> > outcomes. Do you think these debates are totally meaningless?
>
> No, I just don't think that it's the business of art - in this case
> mainly fiction - to deal with such questions. Or let me rephrase it,
> fiction can deal with such question but in the end what counts is not
> whether a professional historian considers its speculation to be
> plausible, but whether it succeeds as a work of fiction.
Now you seem to be backtracking, because you agreed earlier that it makes sense that for many people, the accuracy of
a historical novel might contribute to their enjoyment of the novel. I'm not interested in abstract philosophical
statements about what "the business of art" is, I'm just asking whether you can understand why historical accuracy
might for *some people* have an effect on their enjoyment of the story, and if so why you can't seem to conceive that
scientific accuracy might have a similar effect.
And how about accuracy in a crime story? If the detectives' solution to a mystery rests on a piece of trivia that is
actually not true, like "the eyes of a dead corpse record the last image he saw before death", does it make sense to
you that this might affect someone's enjoyment of the resolution? You seem to be acting as though only emotion and
characters and drama are important in deciding what a "good story" is, but plenty of stories also are based on more
intellectual types of pleasures, like seeing a puzzle resolved in a satisfying manner.
czf
news:4lyub.17$w7....@read2.cgocable.net...
Thanks for the additional endorsement. I'll do it!
(OT - this week's roster was Taxi Driver, High Crimes, Instinct,
Dragonheart, and T1 (my son's getting the DVD for Christmas, along with T3.
Mommy's getting the special edition of Brazil ;-)
Tweek
: Dragonheart, and T1 (my son's getting the DVD for Christmas, along with
T3.
: Mommy's getting the special edition of Brazil ;-)
Instinct and Dragonheart are two of the biggest stinkers I've ever seen.
czf
Dragonheart was for my boys, Instinct was for me. I'm a sucker for Anthony
Hopkins. Even if the movie stinks, I have spent two hours watching Anthony
Hopkins. Better than, oh, say, Oprah? (evil grin)
Tweek
:
: Tweek" <no...@jose.com> wrote in message
Yeah, but it's not better than two hours spent raking leaves.
Simon Spiegel
vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
>
> Simon Spiegel wrote:
>
>>As I said earlier, to use
>>scientific accuracy to differentiate different kind of fiction or work
>>of arts in general is something quite unheard of.
>
>
> And yet using historical accuracy to differentiate different kinds of works of fiction/art is not unheard of? What's
> the difference?
No, I don't see it as a useful distinction (if we're talking about
genres that have to be distinguished). I see it mainly as a part of the
conventions of the genres that have to be followed, as a part of the
"suspension of disbelief."
>
> Yup, just like science fiction, where you are supposed to be able to expect some level of scientific accuracy (higher
> than fantasy, anyway). But just as with historical novels, there are nevertheless plenty that are in fact quite
> innacurate. So it makes sense to you to differentiate historical novels by level of historical accuracy, but not to
> distinguish sci-fi novels by level of scientific accuracy? What's the difference?
Because, as we see in the discussion in this thread, there are so few
examples that actually match these critera. And they certainly do not
form any kind of genre tradition. If 95% of a genre simply doesn't care
about scientific accuracy and only uses scientific language and imagery
in the way I described earlier, I would go with this majority. And the
ones you call hard sf just put more emphasis on the use of this
technique, so that the suspension if disbelief even works for a
scientist. Or do you consider all the examples with obviously
implausible nova simply not sf?
> Any historian would say it's totally implausible, just by comparing the military and industrial power of the Axis
> countries with the entire rest of the world. You can find some interesting essays by an AH fan which deal with the
> plausibility of various "more successful Nazis" scenarios here:
>
> http://gateway.alternatehistory.com/essays-set.html
>
Please, don't bother me with this kind of crap.
> You didn't answer my question, though. Is it useless or useful to distinguish carefully thought-out and researched
> alternate history from "anything-goes" alternate history? Or would you just say "it's all fantasy, and anyway the
> story is all that matters" and conclude that all discussions of plausibility, like the ones on the website above, are
> pointless in AH?
Historical plausibility is not an end in itself. Let me give you one of
my favorite novels as an example, "Dr. Faustus" by Thomas Mann. In this
novel Mann reworks the Faust myth, his modern Faust is a composer in pre
WWII Germany who makes a deal with the devil. This story is, of course,
highly implausible, but it still is one of the best description of the
"philosophical climate" of pre WWII Germany and in this respect it
outclasses many well researched and plausible novels. Mann is able to
tell us something about Germany and the reasons for the war although he
tells a story you could call fantasy.
> Now you seem to be backtracking, because you agreed earlier that it makes sense that for many people, the accuracy of
> a historical novel might contribute to their enjoyment of the novel. I'm not interested in abstract philosophical
> statements about what "the business of art" is, I'm just asking whether you can understand why historical accuracy
> might for *some people* have an effect on their enjoyment of the story, and if so why you can't seem to conceive that
> scientific accuracy might have a similar effect.
Again, accuracy is not an end in itself. Every genre has its own
conventions you have to follow.
vze2...@mail.verizon.net
Simon Spiegel wrote:
> vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
> >
> > Simon Spiegel wrote:
> >
> >>As I said earlier, to use
> >>scientific accuracy to differentiate different kind of fiction or work
> >>of arts in general is something quite unheard of.
> >
> >
> > And yet using historical accuracy to differentiate different kinds of works of fiction/art is not unheard of? What's
> > the difference?
>
> No, I don't see it as a useful distinction (if we're talking about
> genres that have to be distinguished).
I already said I wasn't talking about "genres". I'm just asking if it's a useful distinction. "Useful" in the sense that
if you described the degree of historical accuracy in a book, some people (not necessarily you) might find that helpful in
making a decision about whether or not they wanted to read it or not.
> I see it mainly as a part of the
> conventions of the genres that have to be followed, as a part of the
> "suspension of disbelief."
But surely the context matters? If I know the author is not *trying* for historical accuracy, and is in fact intentionally
putting plenty of anachronisms in a book, then those anachronisms may not break my suspension of disbelief. On the other
hand, if I'm reading a book where clearly the author is trying to make things as accurate as possible but then I spot a
major mistake, that can break my suspension of disbelief. "Hard SF" and "Soft SF" are similar statements about context,
about what the reader/viewer should expect--most people don't really care about the scientific implausibility of Star
Wars, for example, because clearly it's self-consciously meant to be part of a much more "pulpy" tradition of science
fiction than, say, 2001.
>
> >
> > Yup, just like science fiction, where you are supposed to be able to expect some level of scientific accuracy (higher
> > than fantasy, anyway). But just as with historical novels, there are nevertheless plenty that are in fact quite
> > innacurate. So it makes sense to you to differentiate historical novels by level of historical accuracy, but not to
> > distinguish sci-fi novels by level of scientific accuracy? What's the difference?
>
> Because, as we see in the discussion in this thread, there are so few
> examples that actually match these critera.
That's mainly because people are discussing movies rather than books. There are a lot more books that have a great deal of
care put into getting the scientific details as accurate as possible.
The same is true of historical movies vs. historical books, actually. How many historical movies have you seen that really
seem to be striving to get all the details as accurate as possible? You could probably count the number on one hand. So
no, if the percentage that match the criteria is your only argument about why historical accuracy is different than
scientific accuracy, your argument doesn't hold water.
> And they certainly do not
> form any kind of genre tradition. If 95% of a genre simply doesn't care
> about scientific accuracy and only uses scientific language and imagery
> in the way I described earlier, I would go with this majority. And the
> ones you call hard sf just put more emphasis on the use of this
> technique, so that the suspension if disbelief even works for a
> scientist.
Well, if the suspension of disbelief works on a scientist, I'd say it's obvious they're going a lot further than just
using meaningless scientific-sounding technobabble. Are you simply asserting that the standards of scientific accuracy in
hard SF are totally superficial, but the standards of historical accuracy in historical novels are not superficial? Is
that where you think the difference lies? If so, how did you come to this conclusion? Do you read a lot of hard SF novels?
Are you trained in any particular area of science?
> Or do you consider all the examples with obviously
> implausible nova simply not sf?
What do you mean by the word "nova"?
> > Any historian would say it's totally implausible, just by comparing the military and industrial power of the Axis
> > countries with the entire rest of the world. You can find some interesting essays by an AH fan which deal with the
> > plausibility of various "more successful Nazis" scenarios here:
> >
> > http://gateway.alternatehistory.com/essays-set.html
> >
>
> Please, don't bother me with this kind of crap.
"Crap?" Should I take your hostile reaction to mean you think it is indeed pointless to discuss the plausibility of
histories that didn't happen? Do you think historians who take the time to consider such questions (Niall Ferguson, for
example) are wasting their time?
> > You didn't answer my question, though. Is it useless or useful to distinguish carefully thought-out and researched
> > alternate history from "anything-goes" alternate history? Or would you just say "it's all fantasy, and anyway the
> > story is all that matters" and conclude that all discussions of plausibility, like the ones on the website above, are
> > pointless in AH?
>
> Historical plausibility is not an end in itself.
Strawman. I never said it was an "end in itself", and in fact I took pains to emphasize that it wasn't. Perhaps you should
reread this section of my earlier post:
"Some people might appreciate that feeling of verisimilitude that comes with reading a historical novel where all the
little details have been carefully researched and the reader feels like he's really being immersed in the time period.
That doesn't mean such people couldn't also appreciate less accurate historical novels, just not for all the same reasons.
Nor does the fact that they get a special pleasure out of historical accuracy mean that they would forgive a badly-told
story just because it was accurate."
> Let me give you one of
> my favorite novels as an example, "Dr. Faustus" by Thomas Mann. In this
> novel Mann reworks the Faust myth, his modern Faust is a composer in pre
> WWII Germany who makes a deal with the devil. This story is, of course,
> highly implausible, but it still is one of the best description of the
> "philosophical climate" of pre WWII Germany and in this respect it
> outclasses many well researched and plausible novels. Mann is able to
> tell us something about Germany and the reasons for the war although he
> tells a story you could call fantasy.
See the bit where I said "that doesn't mean such people couldn't also appreciate less accurate historical novels, just not
for all the same reasons." Less accurate historical novels could still have many merits (Shakespeare's historical plays
weren't all that accurate, for example), it's just that that "feeling of verisimilitude" I mentioned above wouldn't be one
of them.
>
> > And how about accuracy in a crime story? If the detectives' solution to a mystery rests on a piece of trivia that is
> > actually not true, like "the eyes of a dead corpse record the last image he saw before death", does it make sense to
> > you that this might affect someone's enjoyment of the resolution? You seem to be acting as though only emotion and
> > characters and drama are important in deciding what a "good story" is, but plenty of stories also are based on more
> > intellectual types of pleasures, like seeing a puzzle resolved in a satisfying manner.
You didn't address this part. Do you agree that for certain types of stories, the pleasure might be more intellectual and
depend on the reader's background knowledge (of history, science, crime-solving techniques, whatever) rather than being
based on more universal human feelings and drama?
Simon Spiegel
vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
> I already said I wasn't talking about "genres". I'm just asking if it's a useful distinction. "Useful" in the sense that
> if you described the degree of historical accuracy in a book, some people (not necessarily you) might find that helpful in
> making a decision about whether or not they wanted to read it or not.
Well, I'm talking about genres. I have been all the time. If "hard sf"
isn't a genre name, what should it then be? You, as an individual can
make any kind of distinction, but scientific accuracy is, in this regard
as good as distinction, as having a dog appear in it.
>>>Yup, just like science fiction, where you are supposed to be able to expect some level of scientific accuracy (higher
>>>than fantasy, anyway). But just as with historical novels, there are nevertheless plenty that are in fact quite
>>>innacurate. So it makes sense to you to differentiate historical novels by level of historical accuracy, but not to
>>>distinguish sci-fi novels by level of scientific accuracy? What's the difference?
>>
>>Because, as we see in the discussion in this thread, there are so few
>>examples that actually match these critera.
>
>
> That's mainly because people are discussing movies rather than books. There are a lot more books that have a great deal of
> care put into getting the scientific details as accurate as possible.
There are also LOTS of book which do not care at all.
> The same is true of historical movies vs. historical books, actually. How many historical movies have you seen that really
> seem to be striving to get all the details as accurate as possible? You could probably count the number on one hand. So
> no, if the percentage that match the criteria is your only argument about why historical accuracy is different than
> scientific accuracy, your argument doesn't hold water.
I think you didn't really understand what I was saying. I said
historical novel and sf are insofar completely different as they are set
up in different worlds. Since the historical novel takes place in our
world, there are more realistic conventions to be followed. As simple as
that. Some sf might succeed in giving the illusion that it takes place
in our because it relies so much on "scientific facts". The majority
doesn't. But they're both sf.
> Well, if the suspension of disbelief works on a scientist, I'd say it's obvious they're going a lot further than just
> using meaningless scientific-sounding technobabble. Are you simply asserting that the standards of scientific accuracy in
> hard SF are totally superficial, but the standards of historical accuracy in historical novels are not superficial?
No.
>>Or do you consider all the examples with obviously
>>implausible nova simply not sf?
>
>
> What do you mean by the word "nova"?
The plural of "novum".
>
>
>>>Any historian would say it's totally implausible, just by comparing the military and industrial power of the Axis
>>>countries with the entire rest of the world. You can find some interesting essays by an AH fan which deal with the
>>>plausibility of various "more successful Nazis" scenarios here:
>>>
>>>http://gateway.alternatehistory.com/essays-set.html
>>>
>>
>>Please, don't bother me with this kind of crap.
>
>
> "Crap?" Should I take your hostile reaction to mean you think it is indeed pointless to discuss the plausibility of
> histories that didn't happen? Do you think historians who take the time to consider such questions (Niall Ferguson, for
> example) are wasting their time?
I just wont waste my time with stuff written by "an AH fan," no matter
what he writes.
> "Some people might appreciate that feeling of verisimilitude that comes with reading a historical novel where all the
> little details have been carefully researched and the reader feels like he's really being immersed in the time period.
> That doesn't mean such people couldn't also appreciate less accurate historical novels, just not for all the same reasons.
> Nor does the fact that they get a special pleasure out of historical accuracy mean that they would forgive a badly-told
> story just because it was accurate."
Yep, they might. But, as I much as I don't see "hard sf" as a genre on
its own, I don't see different levels of historical novels. If a novel
pretends to take place in our world and has obvious errors which are
also recognized by a non-historian, it's just badly done. But it doesn't
cease to be a historical novel. The same for sf. It's not that easy to
use the techniques I described in a satisfying way.
>>Let me give you one of
>>my favorite novels as an example, "Dr. Faustus" by Thomas Mann. In this
>>novel Mann reworks the Faust myth, his modern Faust is a composer in pre
>>WWII Germany who makes a deal with the devil. This story is, of course,
>>highly implausible, but it still is one of the best description of the
>>"philosophical climate" of pre WWII Germany and in this respect it
>>outclasses many well researched and plausible novels. Mann is able to
>>tell us something about Germany and the reasons for the war although he
>>tells a story you could call fantasy.
>
>
> See the bit where I said "that doesn't mean such people couldn't also appreciate less accurate historical novels, just not
> for all the same reasons." Less accurate historical novels could still have many merits (Shakespeare's historical plays
> weren't all that accurate, for example), it's just that that "feeling of verisimilitude" I mentioned above wouldn't be one
> of them.
Different genres with different conventions. A historical novel needs a
certain accuracy because it takes place in our world. Sf doesn't. But
also in the historical novel, the main interested cannot lie in the
historical details. If you're interested in that, you better read a
history book.
>
>
>>>And how about accuracy in a crime story? If the detectives' solution to a mystery rests on a piece of trivia that is
>>>actually not true, like "the eyes of a dead corpse record the last image he saw before death", does it make sense to
>>>you that this might affect someone's enjoyment of the resolution? You seem to be acting as though only emotion and
>>>characters and drama are important in deciding what a "good story" is, but plenty of stories also are based on more
>>>intellectual types of pleasures, like seeing a puzzle resolved in a satisfying manner.
>
>
> You didn't address this part. Do you agree that for certain types of stories, the pleasure might be more intellectual and
> depend on the reader's background knowledge (of history, science, crime-solving techniques, whatever) rather than being
> based on more universal human feelings and drama?
If the main interest really lies in that, I simply wouldn't call it
literature. If a crime story is only focused on the puzzle solving and
nothing else, I don't find it to be very interesting. It's some kind of
paraliterary genre for a certain in-group, written and read by people
who are interested in a special field. Although you don't want to
discuss this: literature is not about scientific and historical
accuracy. They're just means to tell a story.
vze2...@mail.verizon.net
Simon Spiegel wrote:
> vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
>
> > I already said I wasn't talking about "genres". I'm just asking if it's a useful distinction. "Useful" in the sense that
> > if you described the degree of historical accuracy in a book, some people (not necessarily you) might find that helpful in
> > making a decision about whether or not they wanted to read it or not.
>
> Well, I'm talking about genres. I have been all the time. If "hard sf"
> isn't a genre name, what should it then be?
That seems like a pointless semantic debate to me. And I already said several times I wasn't talking about genres, just whether
the hard SF/soft SF distinction was useful or not.
> You, as an individual can
> make any kind of distinction, but scientific accuracy is, in this regard
> as good as distinction, as having a dog appear in it.
And why is "a story involving a crime" any better a distinction than "a story with a dog in it?" I'd say it's just because more
people would care about the overall form and setting of the story than would care about a trivial detail like whether a dog
appears in it. Similarly, there are a lot more people who care about historical/scientific accuracy than care about if there's
a dog in the story. So, these are useful distinctions.
>
>
> >>>Yup, just like science fiction, where you are supposed to be able to expect some level of scientific accuracy (higher
> >>>than fantasy, anyway). But just as with historical novels, there are nevertheless plenty that are in fact quite
> >>>innacurate. So it makes sense to you to differentiate historical novels by level of historical accuracy, but not to
> >>>distinguish sci-fi novels by level of scientific accuracy? What's the difference?
> >>
> >>Because, as we see in the discussion in this thread, there are so few
> >>examples that actually match these critera.
> >
> >
> > That's mainly because people are discussing movies rather than books. There are a lot more books that have a great deal of
> > care put into getting the scientific details as accurate as possible.
>
> There are also LOTS of book which do not care at all.
And lots of historical novels which don't care at all.
>
>
> > The same is true of historical movies vs. historical books, actually. How many historical movies have you seen that really
> > seem to be striving to get all the details as accurate as possible? You could probably count the number on one hand. So
> > no, if the percentage that match the criteria is your only argument about why historical accuracy is different than
> > scientific accuracy, your argument doesn't hold water.
>
> I think you didn't really understand what I was saying. I said
> historical novel and sf are insofar completely different as they are set
> up in different worlds. Since the historical novel takes place in our
> world, there are more realistic conventions to be followed. As simple as
> that.
I still don't understand what you're saying because you speak on such an abstract level. "Realistic conventions", what does
that mean? Does it mean something more than just the requirement that the story be historically accurate? If so, could you give
some examples of plot elements that would be historically accurate but would nonetheless violate these conventions, yet would
be considered OK in a hard sci-fi novel?
> Some sf might succeed in giving the illusion that it takes place
> in our because it relies so much on "scientific facts". The majority
> doesn't. But they're both sf.
Yes, and historical novels that get everything wrong and historical novels that get everything right are still "both historical
novels". So where's the crucial difference that you see? Could you spell it out?
>
>
> > Well, if the suspension of disbelief works on a scientist, I'd say it's obvious they're going a lot further than just
> > using meaningless scientific-sounding technobabble. Are you simply asserting that the standards of scientific accuracy in
> > hard SF are totally superficial, but the standards of historical accuracy in historical novels are not superficial?
>
> No.
>
> >>Or do you consider all the examples with obviously
> >>implausible nova simply not sf?
> >
> >
> > What do you mean by the word "nova"?
>
> The plural of "novum".
Still don't know what you're talking about. Dictionary.com defines "novum" as "A game at dice, properly called novem quinque".
And I've only heard the word "nova" used in the context of exploding stars.
> >
> >>>Any historian would say it's totally implausible, just by comparing the military and industrial power of the Axis
> >>>countries with the entire rest of the world. You can find some interesting essays by an AH fan which deal with the
> >>>plausibility of various "more successful Nazis" scenarios here:
> >>>
> >>>http://gateway.alternatehistory.com/essays-set.html
> >>>
> >>
> >>Please, don't bother me with this kind of crap.
> >
> >
> > "Crap?" Should I take your hostile reaction to mean you think it is indeed pointless to discuss the plausibility of
> > histories that didn't happen? Do you think historians who take the time to consider such questions (Niall Ferguson, for
> > example) are wasting their time?
>
> I just wont waste my time with stuff written by "an AH fan," no matter
> what he writes.
Whatever, dude. If you have some kind of knee-jerk negative reaction to alternate history, you probably shouldn't have asked
for clarification about whether Hitler-wins scenarios are supposed to be plausible or implausible.
>
>
> > "Some people might appreciate that feeling of verisimilitude that comes with reading a historical novel where all the
> > little details have been carefully researched and the reader feels like he's really being immersed in the time period.
> > That doesn't mean such people couldn't also appreciate less accurate historical novels, just not for all the same reasons.
> > Nor does the fact that they get a special pleasure out of historical accuracy mean that they would forgive a badly-told
> > story just because it was accurate."
>
> Yep, they might. But, as I much as I don't see "hard sf" as a genre on
> its own, I don't see different levels of historical novels. If a novel
> pretends to take place in our world and has obvious errors which are
> also recognized by a non-historian, it's just badly done.
"Badly done"? What if the anachronisms are intentional, like in a comedic or a postmodern way? Would you also say that any
science fiction novel that blatantly violates known laws of science is necessarily "badly done"? A lot of people who like
scientific accuracy in certain types of stories also enjoy something like "Star Wars", which isn't trying to be accurate.
Anyway, like I said, I don't really care about what qualifies as a distinct "genre" or not, I'm just asking if these are useful
distinctions. We're probably talking at cross-purposes here if you're only interested in the "genre" question--I think that's
just an uninteresting semantic question about how we choose to define the word "genre".
> But it doesn't
> cease to be a historical novel. The same for sf. It's not that easy to
> use the techniques I described in a satisfying way.
>
> >>Let me give you one of
> >>my favorite novels as an example, "Dr. Faustus" by Thomas Mann. In this
> >>novel Mann reworks the Faust myth, his modern Faust is a composer in pre
> >>WWII Germany who makes a deal with the devil. This story is, of course,
> >>highly implausible, but it still is one of the best description of the
> >>"philosophical climate" of pre WWII Germany and in this respect it
> >>outclasses many well researched and plausible novels. Mann is able to
> >>tell us something about Germany and the reasons for the war although he
> >>tells a story you could call fantasy.
> >
> >
> > See the bit where I said "that doesn't mean such people couldn't also appreciate less accurate historical novels, just not
> > for all the same reasons." Less accurate historical novels could still have many merits (Shakespeare's historical plays
> > weren't all that accurate, for example), it's just that that "feeling of verisimilitude" I mentioned above wouldn't be one
> > of them.
>
> Different genres with different conventions. A historical novel needs a
> certain accuracy because it takes place in our world. Sf doesn't.
Who made you boss of what historical novels and SF do and do not require? What is required depends on context and the reader's
understanding of the author's intent. If the reader of a book or viewer of a movie understands that the writer is not trying to
be historically/scientifically accurate, then that's fine. People watching Star Wars don't expect scientific accuracy just like
people watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail don't expect historical accuracy. But in other contexts, the reader/viewer is
made to feel that the writer is striving for accuracy, and is therefore jarred by errors. That's the main reason the hard
SF/soft SF distinction is useful, it's a convenient way of describing these different contexts and different expectations.
> But
> also in the historical novel, the main interested cannot lie in the
> historical details. If you're interested in that, you better read a
> history book.
A history book probably wouldn't bring to life the feel of the times in the way that a historical novel can. But yes, I agree
the *main* interest should probably not be the historical details, but it can nevertheless be *one* of the interests. The same
is true of scientific details in a sci-fi novel.
>
> >
> >>>And how about accuracy in a crime story? If the detectives' solution to a mystery rests on a piece of trivia that is
> >>>actually not true, like "the eyes of a dead corpse record the last image he saw before death", does it make sense to
> >>>you that this might affect someone's enjoyment of the resolution? You seem to be acting as though only emotion and
> >>>characters and drama are important in deciding what a "good story" is, but plenty of stories also are based on more
> >>>intellectual types of pleasures, like seeing a puzzle resolved in a satisfying manner.
> >
> >
> > You didn't address this part. Do you agree that for certain types of stories, the pleasure might be more intellectual and
> > depend on the reader's background knowledge (of history, science, crime-solving techniques, whatever) rather than being
> > based on more universal human feelings and drama?
>
> If the main interest really lies in that, I simply wouldn't call it
> literature. If a crime story is only focused on the puzzle solving and
> nothing else, I don't find it to be very interesting. It's some kind of
> paraliterary genre for a certain in-group, written and read by people
> who are interested in a special field.
This is merely a question of how you choose to define the word "literature." In some contexts, "literature" is used to refer to
just about any printed material, like how pamphlets can be referred to as "literature". You seem to be talking about
"Literature-with-a-capital-L", which I suppose includes some judgement of quality.
Just out of curiosity, would you consider Sherlock Holmes to be Literature? There is very little character development in these
stories, the main appeal is just seeing how Holmes manages to find the solution to the latest mystery. Obviously if Holmes and
Watson weren't appealing characters the stories wouldn't be very interesting, but their appeal is on a pretty simple cartoonish
level, like Batman or Indiana Jones, the focus of each individual story is really on the mystery and its resolution rather than
what the characters are thinking and feeling (aside from thoughts and feelings directly related to solving the mystery, of
course). So is this merely a "paraliterary genre" rather than true Literature?
> Although you don't want to
> discuss this: literature is not about scientific and historical
> accuracy. They're just means to tell a story.
Did you really get the idea from anything I've said that I would define "literature" primarily in terms of "scientific and
historical accuracy"? Have you forgotten all the times I said this was just one element in some people's pleasure in reading a
historical or SF novel, and that accuracy would not make up for a badly-told story?
Anyway, "literature" is about whatever we define the word "literature" to be about. I don't really understand you when you make
all these high-falutin' statements about "the purpose of art" or what "literature is really about", it's almost like you're a
closet Platonist who believes these words have True Meanings outside of how human beings find it useful to define them. As you
may have noticed, my approach to language is more utilitarian.
czf
Simon Spiegel
vze2...@mail.verizon.net wrote:
>
> And why is "a story involving a crime" any better a distinction than "a story with a dog in it?" I'd say it's just because more
> people would care about the overall form and setting of the story than would care about a trivial detail like whether a dog
> appears in it. Similarly, there are a lot more people who care about historical/scientific accuracy than care about if there's
> a dog in the story. So, these are useful distinctions.
Because in the case of the crime/mistery story we deal with an
established genres with its own conventions and traditions. As a reader,
I have certain expectations towards a crime story which the story
normally fulfills.
>>>The same is true of historical movies vs. historical books, actually. How many historical movies have you seen that really
>>>seem to be striving to get all the details as accurate as possible? You could probably count the number on one hand. So
>>>no, if the percentage that match the criteria is your only argument about why historical accuracy is different than
>>>scientific accuracy, your argument doesn't hold water.
>>
>>I think you didn't really understand what I was saying. I said
>>historical novel and sf are insofar completely different as they are set
>>up in different worlds. Since the historical novel takes place in our
>>world, there are more realistic conventions to be followed. As simple as
>>that.
>
>
> I still don't understand what you're saying because you speak on such an abstract level. "Realistic conventions", what does
> that mean? Does it mean something more than just the requirement that the story be historically accurate?
Is that so complicated? There are fundamental differences between a
fairy tale, a Dickens novel and a sf novel. They are set in different
worlds and they tell their tales in different ways. What we deal with
here are different traditions which have been established over time.
There is a broad body of literature which follows a classical/realistic
convention. Its story takes place in our world and it follows certain
formal rules. Simple example: If a story starts with "Once upon a
time..." I know I have a fairy tale in front of me. If I have a novel
that starts with "The king was pregnant...", I know immeditaley that
we're not in our world. A Kafka story is inherently different than one
by Dickens because they use different styles to mark their worlds.
They're other traditions, for example at the beginning of the 20th
century several modernist traditions evolved whose stories, while set in
our world, used new "non-classic" narration modes, examples being
montage novels (Dos Passos being one example).
> If so, could you give
> some examples of plot elements that would be historically accurate but would nonetheless violate these conventions, yet would
> be considered OK in a hard sci-fi novel?
You're mixing things up here, I don't really understand your question.
I'm not talking about plot elements per se, but about *how* stories are
told. If I start a novel with "Once upon a time.." the reader
immediately expects a fairy tale. On the other hand, I expect some kind
of psychological realism in a historical novel which isn't necessary
for a fairy tale. Fairy tales deal with stereotypical characters like
witches, princes etc. whereas a historical novel has to follow to some
degree a realistic convention and to present round, fully developed
characters. No one complains about the character of the witch being
unrealistic, we know that fairy tales have their own conventions. Most
sf novels also strive for psychological realism, but, they're also
fundamentally different in some degrees. The sentence "The king was
pregnant" is meaningless in a "normal" novel. In sf, I immediately
understand that we're dealing with a world where sexes function
different from ours. I only understand this sentence because I know that
sf has its own way of telling stories, it is a different mode of telling
stories. Delany wrote some nice essays about this...
> Yes, and historical novels that get everything wrong and historical novels that get everything right are still "both historical
> novels". So where's the crucial difference that you see? Could you spell it out?
You're the one trying to make a difference between different kinds of
sf, not me. A historical novel full obvious errors is badly done. A sf
novel which doesn't succeed in convincing me isn't well done either. But
to convince me scientific accuracy isn't necessary.
>>>What do you mean by the word "nova"?
>>
>>The plural of "novum".
>
>
> Still don't know what you're talking about. Dictionary.com defines "novum" as "A game at dice, properly called novem quinque".
> And I've only heard the word "nova" used in the context of exploding stars.
"Novum" is a term coined by Darko Suvin, one of the pioneers of sf
criticism. It describes the "marvelous element", "the gadget", the one
thing radically different from our world that characterizes the sf
world. Novum is a term widely used in sf criticism, and since it's a
latin word, the plural form is "nova".
> Whatever, dude. If you have some kind of knee-jerk negative reaction to alternate history, you probably shouldn't have asked
> for clarification about whether Hitler-wins scenarios are supposed to be plausible or implausible.
Although I have no special interest in alternate history, I also don't
have any problems with it. But I do have problems with complete idiots,
and if someone declares himself - ok, he didn't, you did - as Hitler
fan, I know that he is a complete idiot without further evidence.
>>Yep, they might. But, as I much as I don't see "hard sf" as a genre on
>>its own, I don't see different levels of historical novels. If a novel
>>pretends to take place in our world and has obvious errors which are
>>also recognized by a non-historian, it's just badly done.
>
>
> "Badly done"? What if the anachronisms are intentional, like in a comedic or a postmodern way?
Did you understand anything I said? If the anachronisms are intentional
they're normally marked as such, therefore we're not dealing with a
historical novel anymore. A postmodern novel or a parody have their own
ways of telling a story. The reader recognizes that and "tunes his mind"
according to that convention.
> Would you also say that any
> science fiction novel that blatantly violates known laws of science is necessarily "badly done"? A lot of people who like
> scientific accuracy in certain types of stories also enjoy something like "Star Wars", which isn't trying to be accurate.
No, I wouldn't. Sf has to give us a certain scientific/technological
feeling, but it also has to achieve this. The sentence "I was beamed up
to our space station on Gurgel7." indicates some kind of
teletransportation technology. I don't need to know how it works, I
don't need any kind of explanation. The words used already indicate a sf
world. Whether this kind of technology is possible or not is not
important. These are conventions I must accept when reading sf. But if I
write something like "I fixed the broken AI by giving it a good smash
with a hammer." I probably would consider it badly done. Although I
don't know how an AI works, I know that hammering on it, wont fix it
(you can also replace "smash with a hammer" by "magic fairy dust" or
"giving cardio-pulmonary massage", in each instance, we live the are of
sf). But if I replace "a good smash with a hammer" by "hacking into its
neuronal subroutines and recompiling the basic logic functions" we're
talking again. I don't consider this primitive example good sf, but in
the latter case we deal with typical sf jargon. Whether this sentence
makes sense from a scientific point of view is secondary, as long as the
main emphasis of the story doesn't lie on it. If the whole point of my
story is indeed the "recompiling of the logic functions" I should better
have some kind of satisfying explanation. But then again, if this is the
main focus of the story, it's probably not very good anyway.
> Anyway, like I said, I don't really care about what qualifies as a distinct "genre" or not, I'm just asking if these are useful
> distinctions. We're probably talking at cross-purposes here if you're only interested in the "genre" question--I think that's
> just an uninteresting semantic question about how we choose to define the word "genre".
I don't see it as a useful distinction, because it says us nothing about
the work itself, be it a novel or a film. As for my understanding of the
term genre, I mainly refer to a book by Rick Altman ""Film/Genre" which
is widely considered as *the* state of the art in genre theory.
>>Different genres with different conventions. A historical novel needs a
>>certain accuracy because it takes place in our world. Sf doesn't.
>
>
> Who made you boss of what historical novels and SF do and do not require? What is required depends on context and the reader's
> understanding of the author's intent.
Except that I wouldn't rely on the author's intent, I agree, but you
obviously don't understand what I mean when I say that a novel or a film
signal their genres.
> If the reader of a book or viewer of a movie understands that the writer is not trying to
> be historically/scientifically accurate, then that's fine. People watching Star Wars don't expect scientific accuracy just like
> people watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail don't expect historical accuracy.
Exactly. But no one considers Monty Python as a historical movie. It's a
comedy, and therefore follows different rules.
>>But
>>also in the historical novel, the main interested cannot lie in the
>>historical details. If you're interested in that, you better read a
>>history book.
>
>
> A history book probably wouldn't bring to life the feel of the times in the way that a historical novel can. But yes, I agree
> the *main* interest should probably not be the historical details, but it can nevertheless be *one* of the interests. The same
> is true of scientific details in a sci-fi novel.
If a sf novel succeeds in being scientificaly accurate, that's nice, but
it's not important. And definitely mustn't be its main goal.
>>If the main interest really lies in that, I simply wouldn't call it
>>literature. If a crime story is only focused on the puzzle solving and
>>nothing else, I don't find it to be very interesting. It's some kind of
>>paraliterary genre for a certain in-group, written and read by people
>>who are interested in a special field.
>
>
> This is merely a question of how you choose to define the word "literature." In some contexts, "literature" is used to refer to
> just about any printed material, like how pamphlets can be referred to as "literature". You seem to be talking about
> "Literature-with-a-capital-L", which I suppose includes some judgement of quality.
I'm not sure whether it really is a judgement of quality. It's more a
question of goals and purpose. A pornographic novel - to name an extreme
example - has a very different purpose than a Tom Wolfe novel.
> Just out of curiosity, would you consider Sherlock Holmes to be
Literature? There is very little character development in these
> stories, the main appeal is just seeing how Holmes manages to find the solution to the latest mystery. Obviously if Holmes and
> Watson weren't appealing characters the stories wouldn't be very interesting, but their appeal is on a pretty simple cartoonish
> level, like Batman or Indiana Jones, the focus of each individual story is really on the mystery and its resolution rather than
> what the characters are thinking and feeling (aside from thoughts and feelings directly related to solving the mystery, of
> course). So is this merely a "paraliterary genre" rather than true Literature?
It's been a while since I read Sherlock Holmes, but basically I would
agree with that judgement.
>>Although you don't want to
>>discuss this: literature is not about scientific and historical
>>accuracy. They're just means to tell a story.
>
>
> Did you really get the idea from anything I've said that I would define "literature" primarily in terms of "scientific and
> historical accuracy"? Have you forgotten all the times I said this was just one element in some people's pleasure in reading a
> historical or SF novel, and that accuracy would not make up for a badly-told story?
Why don't you replace hard sf with "the kind of sf stories I like?"
>
> Anyway, "literature" is about whatever we define the word "literature" to be about. I don't really understand you when you make
> all these high-falutin' statements about "the purpose of art" or what "literature is really about", it's almost like you're a
> closet Platonist who believes these words have True Meanings outside of how human beings find it useful to define them. As you
> may have noticed, my approach to language is more utilitarian.
Ok, then plain and simple: a story that only deals with scientific
details is a great bore.