So after the first work of the class, how well has everyone's definitions of science fiction held up against the Ted Chiang stories? I know that a lot of them reference technology, which doesn't directly play into "Tower of Babylon" or "Division By Zero." Does this make you reconsider your original definition? Or would you say that some of the stories aren't what you consider to be science fiction? Or have you found another way of making the two match up that makes sense to you?
I said that science fiction made things happen in a universe different from ours with the intention of making us look at humanity differently, but "Division by Zero" doesn't seem to be in a universe all that different from ours, but I think it may take place in a very similar alternate universe where the only difference is that arithmetic doesn't work.
Has anyone else had moments like this?
Luckily, my definition of science fiction, where the authors try to make the irrational rational is still holding up!
ReplyDeleteMine is holding up fairly well at the moment too - although I'm starting to like Maureen's better and better.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you mention "Division by Zero" because one of my favorite thoughts while reading that piece was that it could have happened (and subsequently been covered up by some government) in our world in the last 15 years; if not that, it could absolutely happen in the next 15 years. We hold as basic truths beliefs like "arithmetic works" or "time is linear" but the funny thing is, people used to hold as basic truth the "fact" that the sun revolved around the earth. At the end of the day, our "basic truths" are true until they're not, and then we have to figure out how to deal with it. That's why I loved Division by Zero so much.
For the Tower of Babylon I interpreted it as that their 'technology' was substituted for tools, the advance system they had for preventing being trapped, and the ways they developed to survive in the tower.
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