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05 oct 06 "Do you think modern science is imitating science fiction, in either form or function?" i wrote my "get into college" essay on this, back in 1993. furthermore, i got in. so, you'd better watch out. i seem to remember i wrote about some kind of social responsibility of science fiction to point out the errors of our ways before nannites eat us, or something. i wish i still had it, but hard drives have been destroyed since then, and files lost. computers are so awful. i've heard of "science fact imitating science fiction", and of course the old adage "life immitates art". i think "art" might be taken to mean "creative imagination", which is of course the bug that grows the whole of progress. once someone comes up with a fanciful idea, then the hard part is over with -- now, all it takes is legions of drones to bring it to some kind of manifestation/fruition. so i guess it's the same thing with science fiction and future developments. actually, your question is a little bit weird -- what do you mean by "science" imitating something? science is a process of testing ideas via observation. fortunately, i can use my usual psychic powers and guess what you meant, yet again. you meant "does what's being developed now, civilization-wise, mirror some of the things people like asimov and what-all wrote about?" the general progression of technology follows a mostly predictable path, such that the imaginations of authors are going to be grouped more or less together, unless the author is some kind of wacko and writes about all of the plants suddenly getting up and walking around, or something like that. but development tends to point in a direction, and with that in mind, authors come up with some stuff that tends to closely mirror what actually happens, to a point. but the walking plants demonstrates something -- it's doubtful that a story about them would be considered "sci fi". in order to fit into that genre, stories have to be plausible, and involve things that have already started lurking in the collective imagination (like space travel, for instance). furthermore, the reason these ideas have entered our sphere of consciousness is because they're reasonable sequelae to current phenomena, and may have appeared in science magazines and such. science fiction, in order for it to be considered as such, must have some basis or roots in science "fact". the best authors, like asimov, weave social issues into their science fiction -- the effects of technology on our society and culture, as well as on our civilization. this makes for more interesting reading -- certainly technological change doesn't happen in a vacuum. we're the ones using the technology, and the lifestyle changes that come from the use of technology are going to affect the way we interact with and mesh with one another. right now, there are a few things brewing around in our collective imaginations (i talked about futurism in another, early answer): nanotechnology, AI, genetic engineering, etc. as far as i can sense, space exploration isn't as much of a hot button as it once was, because people are realizing that the solar system isn't maybe all that fascinating a place, and we're not going anywhere else without some serious physics-violation. so, the focus is now imnward. the nature of technological change is imaginative, as is the nature of science fiction. since both are concerned with the same subject matter, both are obviously going to feed each other. i'm going to ignore the "in form or function" part. |
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