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

Via Hero Complex come these ingenious public service announcements and travel posters from a near future in which time travel is possible and robots are self-cleaning.  Designed by artist Amy Martin, the posters are $20 each and proceeds benefit 826LA, a non-profit writing center for kids 6 to 18.

Going to Comic-Con is awesome on many levels, but going as press is, if you’ll forgive my butchery of the English language, even awesomer. Not that we keyboard-stained wretches get into crowded events more easily than everyone else—Comic-Con is remarkably egalitarian that way—but we do get the opportunity to interview some of our favorite actors, directors, and creators. Some of those interviews I’ll be publishing as blog posts in coming weeks, but I thought I’d share the interviews with the of Doctor Who folks right way.

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With the announcement that David Tennant is leaving the title role on Doctor Who after 2009, the producers will have to find a replacement. The rebooted Doctor Who has already shown a willingness to include much more diversity in the race and sexual orientation, etc., in the show’s supporting roles–why not extend that diversity to the casting of the Doctor himself? Here are five totally unsolicited ideas for the Eleventh Doctor.

1. Up until now, The Doctor has been played by characters on the thin side, from William Hartnell as the spry First Doctor to the angular Tennant as today’s Tenth Doctor. Why not go large? Possibilities – Robbie Coltrane, Matt Lucas, Mark Addy.
2. We’ve seen female Time Lords before, so why not a Lady Doctor? A female doctor also opens up the door for the return of the long-term male companion.  Possibilities – Samantha Morton, Helen Mirren.
3. If America can elect a black President, then the BBC can cast a black Doctor. Possibilities – Chiwetel Ejiofor, Don Cheadle (reprising his British accent from Ocean’s 11)
4. Why does the Doctor always have to be British? The BBC could sell out to world’s most lucrative TV market by going American.  Possibilities – Jason Bateman, Neil Patrick Harris
5. And why must a regenerated Doctor always mean a brand new actor? With the loss of Tennant in these uncertain and anxious times, the BBC could reassure us by returning to the other Greatest Doctor Of All Time: Tom Baker.

The rebooted Doctor Who just keeps going from strength to strength. (If you’ve managed to avoid seeing a single episode of Doctor Who since it started airing in 1963, the show features an enigmatic time traveller, the Doctor, who foils various nefarious schemes, usually with the aid of at least one companion.) Since being revived in 2005, the show has already cycled through a number of major cast changes, with two incarnations of the Doctor and three primary companions. Each combination of Doctor and companion usually produces a very different chemistry, and Season Four is no exception, with David Tennant playing the role of the Doctor and Catherine Tate playing Donna Noble.

Donna and the Doctor’s relationship is like that between adult siblings or very old friends, and it’s a nice change of pace from the romantic overtones that played out with the previous two companions. The dynamic is enhanced by the fact that Tate/Noble is older than the typical early-twenty-something female companion, and so perhaps a little less susceptible to looking at the adventurous Doctor with a starry-eyed gaze. Donna is perfectly willing cut the Doctor down to size if she thinks he’s getting a little too pleased with himself. This leads to some of the most memorable exchanges of the show to date, and Tate plays the part with impeccable comic timing and gusto. Tennant is, well, still the best Doctor ever (with Tom Baker in a more than honorable second place.)

The Doctor and Donna’s friendship plays out across a season of ambitious stories. The fall of Pompeii, a factory of alien slaves, a library the size of a planet that plays host to some of the scariest monsters ever, and the intensely claustrophobic confines of a damaged shuttle all form the background to some thrilling (and sometimes genuinely moving) plots. The season builds to a no-holds-barred climax which acts as a reunion show of sorts: A group of the Doctor’s former companions (including Torchwood’s Captain Jack and Sarah Jane Smith) band together to stop a dark threat from the past. Some Who watchers objected to the second half of the finale, feeling that the conclusion tried too hard to make fans happy in some respects. But I think the show stayed true to the darker and more ambiguous nature of the show, with an ending that really packed a punch.

The DVD’s also include the standalone 2006 Christmas Special, in which the Doctor teams up with Astrid Peth, played by none other than Kylie Minogue. (The real scene stealers are The Hosts, angelic robot concierges that go very, very bad.) There’s also a set of making-of features, one for each episode, deleted scenes (including a slightly, but significantly, alternate ending to the Season Four finale), and a bunch of other extras. If you decide to only ever own one season of Doctor Who, make it this one.

The British sci-fi series, Primeval, features a small team who have the job of capturing dinosaurs and other creatures who wander through rips, or “anomalies,” in the time-space continuum.The DVD of the first season that we reviewed yesterday is out today, and the nice folks at BBC America gave us the opportunity to pose a question to the cast about the show. Here, Andrew-Lee Potts, who plays Connor Temple, the show’s resident geek, answers our question about what creature he’d most like to see make an appearance on the show.

Just finishing its first season on BBC America is Primeval, a british sci-fi adventure series that shows how monster-of-the-week is really done.

In recent years, science fiction and fantasy shows have generally tried to steer away from plotlines that involve creatures appearing, then terrifying and/or eating bystanders, and then being dispatched at the end of the episode once the cast has figured out the creatures’ main weakness. This plot formula is only for the start of season one, the thinking goes, when audiences need self-contained stories to introduce them to the cast and the show’s milieu. The real meat happens later, as multi-episode arcs and more complex character development are brought in, and monster-of-the-week episodes, with their limited formula, go to the bottom of the story pitch pile. Primeval explodes this thinking by having a show built firmly around the monster-of-the-week device, while still advancing engaging season-length arcs and furthering clever character development.

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Last night’s episode of Eureka was terrific, easily one of the show’s best, with some amazing performances from the cast. If you haven’t seen the episode, or you haven’t yet watched Eureka at all, get over to the Sci Fi channel’s website and and catch it. The plot revolved around problems with the flow of time—and where you have time, you have clocks.

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Since I watched Stargate Continuum last week, I’ve been thinking more about the Grandfather Paradox, a puzzle that sooner or later crops up in all good time travel-related science fiction.

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U.S. viewers of Doctor Who are currently being treated to a goosebump-inducing two-parter penned by Steven Moffat, who also wrote the genuinely terrifying “The Empty Child” episode a few seasons back. In his latest offering, Moffat presents us with a library haunted by flesh-eating shadows. The library itself is a wonderful conceit: in the 51st century, e-books and neural downloads and [insert exotic paperless technology here], are all so ho-hum that the people of the future decide to reprint every book ever published on good old fashioned paper. Not surprisingly, it takes an entire planet to store the resulting tomes.

It all sounds completely absurd until you realise that books are currently holding up a lot better than digital technologies when it comes to long-term archiving.

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