Suspension Of Belief: Welcome to Suspension Of Belief

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Welcome to Suspension Of Belief

Hi! This will be a podcast about futuristic developments in philosophical, religious and political thought as illustrated in the thought experiments of hard science fiction authors such as Greg Egan, Vernor Vinge, John Varley, Karl Schroeder, Rudy Rucker, Cory Doctorow, Charlie Stross, and many geek philosophers such as Eliezer Yudkowski, Ray Kurzweil, or Kevin Kelly. In just the past few years, scientific research into human nature, our origin, and our future development, has moved exponentially faster than at any time in the previous century. Philosophy is still catching up to the implications. If you enjoy thought experiments about the future of your nonfantasy real-world, ripped from the headlines of near-term research, you will enjoy this podcast.

-Matt Arnold

Greg Egan

... the most brilliant visionary of our time, tuned into the meaning of life as it is and as it could be. If transhumanism had a high priest and deeply compelling preacher, it would be Greg Egan.

The three best novels I have ever read:

Distress The first time I have seen anyone invent a whole new cosmology of the beginning of the existence of reality-- Egan actually makes it seem possible. And that's just the religious cherry on top of this sundae. A radical re-thinking of gender, psychology, politics and what it means to be "human" and "healthy"-- the two most dangerous words.

Permutation City More enjoyment than is found in most entire novels is packed into the teaser text on the back cover of this book.

Diaspora Each chapter has enough satisfaction to stand as its own story. In fact, chapter eight has been printed that way.

Stories on Fictionwise:

Reasons To Be Cheerful If you suffered brain damage, which parts could you replace with computational prosthetic and still be you?

Cocoon What if tomorrow someone discovers a way to ensure that embryos grow heterosexual brains? Would that be anti-gay?

Transition Dreams

Free Stories Online:

Singleton

Oracle What if Alan Turing had survived and debated C.S. Lewis? This story means a lot to me personally.

Border Guards Containing a perspective on death you may not be used to.

Oceanic A scientist on another planet discovers a biological basis for his religion.

The Planck Dive A poet attempts to give a scientific experiment "meaning" by describing it with mythopoeic archetypes. "They're the product of a few chance attractors in flesher neurophysiology. Whenever a more complex or subtle story was disseminated through an oral culture, it would eventually degenerate into an archetypal narrative. Once writing was invented, they were only ever created deliberately by fleshers who failed to understand what they were. If all of antiquity's greatest statues had been dropped into a glacier, they would have been reduced to a predictable spectrum of spheroidal pebbles by now; that does not make the spheroidal pebble the pinnacle of the artform. What you've created is not only devoid of truth, it's devoid of aesthetic merit."

Cory Doctorow

... a transatlantic mover and shaker in the emerging electronic frontier, and it shows in his urbane and savvy fiction.

Free Works Online:

Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom, A novel about a reputation economy in a future of immortality and no physical need, where ad-hocracies have taken over Walt Disney World as a hobby.

Eastern Standard Tribe Many elements of this novel about internet time-zone tribes have since started to come true.

A Place So Foreign & Eight More A short-story collection. I especially recommend 0wnz0red.

Cory publishes his works under a Creative Commons License, which allows for copying and remixing. So in the spirit of participation, I alied new chapters to his novel "Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town." I haven't removed any text, but I've inserted my own passages in the text marked with a highlighted appearance.

John Varley

Varley seems to have started producing great hard SF involving morphological freedom and other transhumanist tropes earlier than most of them. Examples include:

Titan; Wizard; Demon. This trilogy -- about a naturally-occuring wheel world habitat orbiting Saturn and mistaken for the moon Titan, controlled by a demigodlike AI -- ranks among the most memorable science fiction ever. The fan site about this world is highly recommended.

Steel Beach

Golden Globe

Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder doesn't just skewer the assumptions made by most science fiction-- he does so convincingly, effectively, and without any mockery. You may not agree with his iconoclastic views, but you will absolutely be challenged to know why. His novels offer a lot to chew on after you put them down. His is the truest and most thorough skepticism, and we need that.

Permanence

Ventus-- Karl Schroeder is concerned with making his hard-science fiction novels accessable and marketable to fans of non-science fiction, such as fantasy and adventure. In this he might be unique in his field. Don't be deceived by appearances in the first few chapters of Ventus-- it's a very clever disguise for a hard science fiction feast, and tremendously rewarded me when I got over my anti-fantasy prejudices. He will probably go a long way to whet more appetites for hard SF who otherwise would not have read it.

Lady Of Mazes

The Engine of Recall

Warren Ellis

Transmetropolitan. A comic book series available in trade paperback, published by Vertigo (DC's line for mature readers), about a Hunter S. Thomson gonzo journalist of the future. The author's sociological critiques are delivered with a sledgehammer of hilariously irreverant wit. Not for the faint of heart, the prude, or the easily future-shocked.

James Patrick Kelly

... sometimes wonderfully witty, often deep, and usually reflective character portraits. Short stories:

Think Like a Dinosaur. Shockingly thought-provoking.

Ninety Percent of Everything, co-authored by Jonathan Lethem, James Patrick Kelly, and John Kessel. Brilliant leaps of imagination.

Standing in Line with Mr. Jimmy. Darkly weird.

Fruitcake Theory. Christmas comedy about aliens.

The Prisoner of Chillon.

Undone.

Unique Visitors

Mr. Boy. ... 'stunted' to remain physically a teenager. His filthy rich mom has turned herself into a scale replica of the Statue of Liberty. I read this when I was in high school and it really stuck with me.

Andrew Niccol

There are two kinds of science fiction films. The most common is thoughtless and implausible fantasy, succeeding only on eye-candy, special effects, and merchandising for kiliies. The second kind is intelligent and literary. Andrew Niccol is the screenwriter and director of three of the finest of these:

GATTACA

The Truman Show

S1M0NE