thanks for the reference, I was not aware of the Renesan
<http://www.ssreg.com/renesan/classes/classes.asp?catID=4369> Institute
before this, though I had heard somewhere about the first listed
lecture/course/seminar on "the Trickster". I don't see your course in
the lineup? I will be out of town on the 7th so I wouldn't try to
attend anyway, but as always "good on ya" for your efforts to continue
to spread the enlightenment.
I've a friend who introduced me to Jack... he was in middle school in
Portales when someone introduced him to "that old professor who writes
Science Fiction" (then in his 50s?). They became fast friends despite
the many decades between them, and my friend Joe even influenced several
of Jack's titles, if not characters and narratives. He claims he helped
Jack come up with the title "Terraforming Earth", although Joe's
throwdown was "Terraforming Terra" which apparently Jack loved but his
editor said "not enough people know what 'Terra' is". Oh well.
In Jack's life story, his parents moved him from their hardscrabble farm
near Bisbee AZ where he was born to a relative's more productive ranches
in Mexico/TX but eventually eventually they migrated to NM in 1915 in a
covered wagon. He has(d) stories!
I have a copy of Jack's 2005 autobiography, "Wonder's Child" if
perchance you would like to borrow it. The duality of Science/Fiction
( or more generally the interplay between the literal/actualized and the
imagined is a fascinating study to me). This second wave of Scientific
Romancing (after Verne, Swift, Burroughs, even London/Twain) was so
smack-dab in the middle of the golden age of transportation and
communication, into information processing that it deeply
informs/reflects our contemporary psyche, even for those who think they
don't like or care about Science Fiction. The more modern adoption of
Science Fiction into mainstream cinema/TV has put titles/tropes like
"the Matrix" and "BladeRunner", "Avatar" and "Dr. Who" squarely in the
face (most literally) of the masses.
I believe this is for the better and the worse. Like everything I
suppose! Nothing Aristotelian about MY logic!?
- Steve
/"The best thing about being on the fence is that the view is better
from up there"/ - R. Edward Lowe
Steve, it is a Renesan course on Tue, September 7 and 14. I have read
Jack Williamson, not all 90, and he would have been included in
another course I proposed to Renesan on science fiction themes. Maybe
in the future.
davew
On Wed, Aug 9, 2017, at 09:57 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
Dave -
Most excellent of you to do this, and what will be your venue for
this class?
Are you familiar with our own Jack Williamson
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Williamson>'s vague parallel work
in his "Humanoids" which began in 1947 with the Novelette: "With
Folded Hands". I do not know if he ever acknowledged an influence in
this work from Asimov's introduction to the "three laws" in 1941? He
investigates the (unintended/unexpected catastrophic consequences of
something like the three laws on humanity, having the human spirit
"quelled" by being "niced" or "safed" near-to-death)
He claims to have written this as a cathartic project to shake off
the existential angst/depression he felt from the (ab)use of atomic
weapons at the end of WWII. Jack was too old to serve in the
military when the war broke out (he was 36?), but instead volunteered
to work in the South Pacific as a civilian meteorologist. He had
started his career in Science Fiction before the term was fully
adopted (Scientific Romance and Scientifiction being precursors
according to Jack) with the publication of a short story "Metal Man"
In Hugo Gernsbach's /Amazing Stories /in 1928. Up until the end of
WWII he claims to have been somewhat of a techno-utopianist,
believing that advancing technology would (continue to ) simply
advance the quality of life of human beings (somewhat?) monotonically.
I hosted Jack at an evening talk at LANL/Bradbury Science Museum in
1998 during the Nebula Awards on the theme of how Science and Science
Fiction inform one another. Jack was 90 that year and had over 90
published works at that time. His work was always somewhat in the
vein of Space Opera and his characters were generally quite two
dimensional and his gender politics typical of his generation of
science fictioneers, yet he was still loved by his community. His
use of this pulpy/pop medium as a way to investigate and discuss
fundamental aspects of human nature and many of the social or even
spiritual implications of the advance of technology was nevertheless
quite inspired (IMO).
He died in 2007 at the ripe young age of 98 and was still producing
work nearly up to the day of his death. In 1998 when I first met
him, the OED was creating an appendix/section of "neologisms from
science fiction" and he was credited (informally?) with having the
most entries in the not-yet-published project. His most famous
throwdown in this category at the time was his "invention" of
anti-matter, which he called "contra-terrene" or more colloquially
"seetee" (a phoneticization of the contraction "CT")! He was also
quite proud of being interrogated by the FBI during the Manhattan
project for having written a story about Atomic Weapons... they
wanted to assume he had access to a security leak until he showed
them a 1932(?) short story on the same theme, making it clear that
the ideas of nuclear fission (fusion even?) as a weapon were not new
(to him anyway)... that apparently satisfied them and of course, he
didn't appreciate the full import of their interrogation until after
the war.
Carry On!
- Steve
On 8/9/17 9:05 AM, Prof David West wrote:
For what its worth - I will be teaching a short class next month in
Santa Fe, "Isaac Asimov and the Robots." Two points of coverage: 1)
the robots themselves invent and follow a "Zeroth Law" that allows
them to eliminate individual human beings with a result the exact
opposite of Hawking et. al.'s fears that our creations will not
love us; 2) how the actual evolution of robotics and AI (see Daniel
Suarez'/Kill Decision/ - autonomous swarming drones as tools of war
and death to humans) diverged from the rosy naive 1950s view of the
future that Asimov advanced.
davew
On Mon, Aug 7, 2017, at 09:54 PM, Carl Tollander wrote:
It seems to me that there are many here in the US who are not
entirely on board with Asimov's First Law of Robotics, at least
insofar as it may apply to themselves, so I suspect notions of
"reining it in" are probably not going to fly.
On Mon, Aug 7, 2017 at 1:57 AM, Alfredo Covaleda Vélez
<alfr...@covaleda.co <mailto:alfr...@covaleda.co>> wrote:
Future will be quite interesting. How will be the human being
of the future? For sure not a human being in the way we know.
http://m.eltiempo.com/tecnosfera/novedades-tecnologia/peligros-y-avances-de-la-inteligencia-artificial-para-los-humanos-117158
<http://m.eltiempo.com/tecnosfera/novedades-tecnologia/peligros-y-avances-de-la-inteligencia-artificial-para-los-humanos-117158>
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