Blogs / Science Not Fiction

Science fiction has long tackled the biggest questions about the human condition: What is reality? What makes us human? What is consciousness?

So to Susan Schneider, an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, sci-fi seemed a logical way to illustrate some of the existential conundrums of philosophers over the ages, from Plato to René Descartes to David Chalmers.

“Science fiction fires the imagination and can get across conceptual ideas and thought experiments, or scenarios, that test philosophical theories,” she says. “Consider Isaac Asimov and his stories about robots and what happens if they become conscious. What does that tell us about the notion of a person?”

In her new book, Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence (Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2009), Schneider mines time travel, artificial intelligence, robot rights, teleportation, and genetic modification to discuss the nature of space and time, free will, transhumanism, the self, neuroethics, and reality.

Each chapter tackles a different philosophical question via essays by Schneider and academic colleagues with titles like “Could I be in a Matrix or a Computer Simulation?” and “Free Will and Determinism in the World of Minority Report.” These discussions draw parallels between such sci-fi stalwarts as Star Trek, Blade Runner, and Brave New World, and philosophical classics like Plato’s The Republic and Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy.

The book sprang from a 2007 undergraduate Penn course of the same name, which she plans to resume in the 2010-2011 school year. The course grew of out of Schneider’s quest for a compelling way to introduce students to philosophy, plus her own research on the nexus of philosophy and cognitive science.

“Cognitive science regards thinking as computational. I examine how it shapes our understanding of the mind, the self, and consciousness,” says Schneider. “If both computers and humans arrive at answers in a computational manner, then how much of a difference is there between us and them? Not all philosophical questions involve cognitive science. But the area of philosophy I’m most interested in—the nature of our minds and thinking—is in constant dialogue with cognitive science.”

— Guest-blogger Susan Karlin

For those of you who couldn’t make it to San Diego last week, Discovermagazine.com and the National Academy of Sciences’ Science & Entertainment Exchange present our panel discussion on “Mad Science,” featuring Jaime Paglia (co-Executive Producer of Eureka), Kevin Grazier (Battlestar Galactica and Eureka science adviser), Jane Espenson (Dollhouse, Battlestar, Caprica, and lots more), Ricardo Gil da Costa (science adviser for Fringe), and Rob Chiappetta and Glenn Whitman (writers for Fringe).

If you don’t have  time to watch the video you can read recaps and quotes from the panel here, here, here, here and here.

Big thanks to Jennifer at SEE, to all of our panelists, and to the Bad Astronomer, who found time to moderate our panel while he wasn’t partying with Hollywood starlets (Phil – we kid because we love).

First, I want to assure anyone who’s not been to New York City that Grand Central station is never as empty as it was in Tuesday’s episode of Fringe. I’ve been there at 4 a.m., and even then, I’ve never been alone on the platform. I know it was a dream sequence, but I thought you should know.

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While you’re waiting for the imminent return of Torchwood, there is an awful lot of John Barrowman on BBC America right now.

Any Dream Will Do is a reality competition for aspiring West End actors/singers trying to land the lead in a new London production of Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  The host is a somewhat subdued (compared to his late night show) Graham Norton.  The judges include Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber himself and your very own Captain Jack Harkness.

Whether or not musical theater reality competitions are your cup of tea, one episode of this show will leave you wondering, “How does the BBC find a dozen talented singers in the UK, while American Idol can only produce one in a much larger country?”

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City of Ember opened on Friday, a beautifully visualized adaption of the book of (almost) the same name. The eponymous city is actually the ultimate bunker, a settlement located in a vast underground cavern and designed to sustain a community for 200 years following the apocalypse. Unfortunately, more than 200 years have passed and the systems that sustain the city are beginning to break down, most notably the giant generator that is the sole source of electricity. This is a particular problem as the inhabitants are sealed in, with no memory of any existence beyond the boundaries of the city. The exit instructions eventually fall into the hands of two youngsters who must battle social inertia and a corrupt mayor to escape the coming darkness.

The ignorance of the population is actually the result of a deliberate decision by the city’s builders. In order to keep the population tucked safely away for 200 years, the builders decided to remove the temptation of the surface world by excluding any record of its existence–and to make sure curious inhabitants stay within the cavern, technologies such as batteries and candles are excluded as well, literally tethering would-be explorers to a power outlet.

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Tom McCarthy’s novel Remainder has been out in paperback for just over a year now, but it’s one of those books that lodges in your brain permanently after you read it.

Perhaps that’s appropriate. It is, after all, about a man who suffers a traumatic brain injury after being hit on the head by something “from the sky.” He then sets about spending his personal injury settlement on an escalating series of elaborate recreations of very specific memories.

Many reviewers have read the book as an examination of the “pursuit of total control” or of “normalcy.”

Here at SciNoFi, we’re going to argue that it’s a book about neuroscience. After all, it’s brain chemistry, as opposed to conscious thought, that shapes our memories and compels us to return again and again to the activities that provide pleasure.

Or you can just enjoy it as the trippiest beach read of your summer. Either way, it’s well worth your $15 and your time.

Read more about Tom McCarthy here, here and here.

… I am a free man! AMC announced today that they are going to be remaking and “reinterpreting” The Prisoner, starring Gandalf (as Number Two) and Jesus (as Number Six).