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Noelle Leslie dela Cruz Associate Professor, Philosophy Department De La Salle University There are obviously many intersections between philosophy and science fiction (SF). Both are associated with abstract concepts and speculation. They both address the nature of reality, moral conundrums, the limits of human knowledge, and other classic philosophical preoccupations. They also inevitably feature an argument structure, whether this is explicit or implicit. We may say that literature in general is susceptible to a philosophical reading. However, the SF genre is of special interest to us for three reasons. First, philosophers themselves have written SF in order to evince their ideas. These are not just fictional sketches that preface abstract exposition, but full-fledged literary works that have been published in academic journals.1 Second, a great many SF works pivot on philosophical issues, and have thus been used by teachers to make the subject more accessible. Finally, the sorts of conceptual experimentation that philosophers and SF writers engage in are very similar, so much so that we may say that at least some SF works are doing philosophy. My main concern in this paper has to do with the third reason. When a philosophical or SF text makes use of conceptual experimentation, how do we assess its claims? Thought experiments, broadly speaking, are hypotheticalfreely delving into the realm of the whatif. Hence, their assumptions are not based on facts about the world, but imaginative extrapolations of existing facts. What limits, if any, should be imposed on such speculations? How do we determine those limits? Since fictional discourse takes the form of a narrative, should aesthetic considerations, not just logical ones, factor in our evaluation? In examining these issues, I address some skeptical objections against thought experiments in general, and the idea that at least some SF works are doing philosophy. By philosophical SF, I mean SF written by a philosopher in support of his or her views, or SF which is highly susceptible to a philosophical reading. SF and philosophical thought experiments Before I present my arguments, let me cite critic Darko Suvins definition of SF, which Ill be using here because it underscores the similarities between writing SF and philosophizing. SF is, then a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the
1
See table 1.
presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main focal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the authors empirical environment (Suvin 1979, 7-8). Suvin differentiates SF from both fairy tale and fantasy in that SF respects the laws of the empirical environment whereas fairy tale escapes from them and fantasy directly contravenes them. The estrangement or feeling of unfamiliarity induced in the reader by SF is achieved through a re-imagination of reality, in a way that is scientifically or technologically coherent. The alternate world presented must logically follow from factual circumstances. Suvin (1979, 66) thus refers to the work of SF as a mental experiment validated against a body of already existing cognitions. Moreover, Suvins poetics of SF puts a premium on cognitive content. The aesthetic value of a work of SF depends on the hard science of its world-building. In this respect, the link between SF and philosophy becomes clear. Etymologically, philosophy is derived from the Greek words philia (love) and sophia (wisdom). In the Platonic tradition, wisdom is a higher species of knowledge, which in turn is acquired through logical justification. The work of the philosopher is not unlike that of the scientist, who employs systematic rules and the empirical method. But whereas the scientist conducts physical experiments, the philosopher putters around in a mental laboratory. A favored tool, especially in the analytic tradition, is the thought experiment, sometimes also referred to as the conceptual experiment. The aim of any experiment is to answer or raise its question rationally (Sorensen 1992, 205), and a thought experiment is one which purports to achieve its aim without the benefit of execution. Some stereotypical features identified by Sorensen (1992, 208-09) include (1) autonomy (from concrete particulars), (2) metal imagery, and (3) bizarreness. A famous philosophical thought experiment is that presented by Descartes in his Meditations. Here he imagines the existence of an evil genius whose sole aim is to deceive him. If this were the case, how could he trust anything, from the data from his senses to mathematical laws and propositions? Descartes uses this scenario as a springboard to formulating his idea of the indubitable fact. While the Cartesian meditations are obviously not a work of SF, the basic idea behind themparanoia about what we can knowmay also be found in some popular SF movies, such as The Matrix (1999) by Lana and Andy Wachowski and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) by Michel Gondry. In the former, powerful AI have taken over the world, colonizing human bodies as a source of energy. The contents of our consciousness are a product of computer simulation; in reality, we are all hooked up to the Matrix. In the latter, two lovers disenchanted with each other undergo a memory erasure procedure in order to start over separately. They meet each other again and begin to fall in love, not knowing that they had been lovers before. Both these films have an epistemological question at their heart. Both posit the existence of an evil genius of sorts: the AI in the case of The Matrix, and the memory erasers in the case of Eternal Sunshine. Each film dramatizes the logical conclusions of the alternative world it presents.
Thus, thought experiments feature prominently in both SF and philosophy. In the following chart, I summarize some key works of philosophical SF, identifying their assumptions and the problem they address. In supporting my claims in the next section, I will refer to these examples:
Table 1. Some key works of philosophical SF
Premises Dennett is tasked by NASA to diffuse a bomb, which he could accomplish only by sending his body in harms way while his mind/brain remains behind in the safety of a life-support system. The reader is introduced to the point of view not of a human subject, but of a brain. The brain explains the phenomenon of functional decomposition, i.e. the distribution of specialized functions among different subcomponents. Goldman finds a book in a library that accurately describes his past and seems to accurately predict his future. He devises some experiments to test whether the book would be right.
Philosophical issue(s) Is the self an information pattern independent of the body or the brain?
2. SF films susceptible to a philosophical reading Blade Runner (1982), based on Humans have developed the What is the difference between the novel Do Androids Dream of capacity to create clones or a human being and a machine? Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick replicants, which service earths distant colonies. Deckard is a retired Blade Runner, a cop whose job is to terminate replicants. He is called back to duty when four replicants escape from an off-world colony and go to earth.
Minority Report (2002), based on the short story of the same name by Philip K. Dick
The Pre-Crime division headed by John Anderson ensures a crime-free world by arresting people before they could commit their acts. They rely on visions from three Pre-Cogs, humans who can predict the future. When Anderson is himself accused of a future crime, he escapes and tries to find may have manipulated the system.
Total Recall (1990), based on the short story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick
Quaid, a construction worker, What is real? How do we know? buys a memory implant of a vacation on Mars. The procedure goes wrong and he recalls instead having been Hauser, a secret agent. During a series of adventures, some characters try to convince him that he is really Quaid, having delusions that he is Hauser. He sticks to the Hauser identity, eventually foiling the governments attempt to charge people for oxygen that can be freely obtained on Mars. The ending has the character wondering whether it has all been a dream. Humans are categorized according to their genetic makeup. The strongest, healthiest, and smartest ones occupy the top tier while the flawed ones get menial positions. Vincent Freeman, who wants to go to space, deceives the system by using biological samples from a former athlete, now a paraplegic. When a murder is committed, the resulting investigation jeopardizes his secret. Is it just to organize society according to eugenic principles?
Gattaca (1997)
In a future world, humanity was almost wiped out by a virus. A cure for it was eventually found, at the price of an entire city submitting to a totalitarian regime. Aeon Flux, a rebel, is sent on a mission to assassinate the ruler, Trevor Goodchild. In the course of her mission, she discovers the secret behind the survival of humanitythe replication of consciousness through cloning. Dr. Elizabeth Shaw is on the trail of aliens that may have created humanity. She goes on an exploratory mission, funded by a billionaire who wants the secret of immortality. Finally encountering a representative of the creators, she finds that their intentions may not be benign. Humans go to Jupiter in search of a monolith that somehow affects the course of human evolution. Two astronauts engage in a battle of wills with HAL, the supercomputer that controls their spacecraft.
Assessing the claims of philosophical SF How should we assess the claims of philosophical SF, given their heavy reliance on hypothetical worlds? This brings us to a conundrum in the philosophy of literature, about the status of fictional discourse and whether it can be said to be making any truth claims. That question cannot be settled here given the scope of my paper. Instead, I will take a stand and adopt Curries (1985: 387) definition of fiction. Fiction is an illocutionary act in which the author intends to get the reader to engage in a game of make-believe, which the reader does so in recognition of this intention. This entails that the opposition between fiction and nonfiction is not equivalent to the opposition between false and true. The claims of works of fiction which encompass philosophical SFare not necessarily false simply by virtue of being in 5
and of fiction. They may be true or false, in the same way that the claims of nonfiction works (e.g. an unreliable memoir) can be true or false. The ideal reader of philosophical SF enters the world of the text with evaluative criteria apart from propositional truth. Her enjoyment of the work depends on its speculative vision. How plausible is it given the scientific and technological constraints of the world she lives in? How relevant is it to the concerns of her actual world? Dennetts short story, Where Am I?, certainly raises an important question concerning personal identity. After the digital revolution, we are increasingly becoming like the disembodied character described in the story, whose consciousness may be uploaded in numerous instantiations. However, on the whole it fails to convince me. Dennetts assumption that the living brain could ever be severed from the body is, in a word, preposterous. Not only is the scenario he envisions based on bad science, it also forces Cartesian assumptions on the reader. The story leaves us no room to think our way out of dualism. The very question of Where am I? becomes intelligible only in spatial terms, making us look for an I that is an object, a thing. On the other hand, the movie Prometheus convinces me about its message that human beings have a vestigial need to believe in, and search for, a creator or god, and furthermore, that such a search is futile and misguided. The idea that aliens have created humanity and left cryptic messages in ancient caves is not implausible, considering the prevalence of such speculations. Regardless of the propositional truth of the statement, Aliens exist, the belief that they do exist is popular enough to warrant a reference in fiction. Also, the technology depicted in the film is not out of bonds with our existing capacities, in particular the presence of an immortal android. We know that we can create machines with unprecedented computing capacities. It is still debatable whether such machines can become self-conscious, but it is not the fact but the possibility that counts. The way that the movie juxtaposes two creator-created pairsaliens-humans and humans-androids drives home the futility of Elizabeth Shaws quest to find the ultimate creator. The android already knows the answer to who created him, and it makes no difference whatsoever. Thought experimentation is thus not an anything goes art; it has constraints that bear on the texts overall power to convince. Minimally, there must be a logical relation among the cognitions that arise from the experiment. We may also say that the works argument is sound if it addresses the pressing issues of the real world that it essentially mirrors. Now, there may be two objections to the view that at least some SF works are doing philosophy. The first objection reflects a general skepticism about thought experiments. In his criticism of John Searles Chinese room experiment, Dennett (1991) writes that thought experiments are not arguments so much as intuition pumps. As such, they are skewed to evoke certain images or emotions that affirm the assumptions of the author. Dennetts point is that these are merely assumptions, not in themselves arguments. My view is that philosophical SF, as thought experiments, are arguments in terms of their authors 6
speculative vision about the world. Cultural critics like Luckhurst (2005) show that SF as a genre is inextricably tied to the social issues, norms, and technological possibilities of a particular era. Thus, philosophical SF mirrors reality based on the authors chosen conflict (the premise) and inevitably present a solution, answer, or verdict in the end (the conclusion). The second objection is evinced by Sorensen (1992) who classifies fictional experiments as natural thought experiments, which are not intentionally produced and are therefore not experiments as such. He thinks of the phrase fictional experiment as a misnomer. I think that Sorensen subscribes to a hasty generalization concerning the aims of SF writers. While we may imagine that literary works are primarily written and read for ludic purposes, who is to say that their authors necessarily have no philosophical aspirations? We cannot read their minds. Also, what of SF works written by philosophers intended to support their views, cited above? These are clearly thought experiments, yet they are in the form of fiction. The phrase fictional experiment is not necessarily a misnomer. Conclusion In this paper, I have argued for the case that at least some SF works are doing philosophy. I call them philosophical SF, and have outlined a way of evaluating their power to convince. I have made use of two conditions. The first corresponds to Suvins idea of cognitive validity. Although we are not concerned with propositional truths in fiction, we must judge the plausibility of alternate worlds against existing science and technology. This entails that there are, and must be, limits to speculation based on these considerations. The second concerns the relevance of the authors speculative vision to the actual world we are living in. Although SF is purely imaginative, even imagination must begin from empirical facts. In keeping with the cultural criticism of SF, I submit that the work must be read in terms of the historical and socio-cultural circumstances of its writing. Its aesthetic value, and moreso its power to convince, therefore depend on how it addresses the problems or issues of its social milieu. Given the broad scope of philosophical SF, my aim in this paper has been to explore the specific question of whether a literary work such as a science fiction narrative can be said to be doing philosophy. If so, in what way, and how can we assess its truth claims? In discussing these issues, I have referred to popular SF narratives summarized in the preceding chart. Interested instructors may use these stories as springboards for critical discussion. As for the interested reader, he or she is invited to test the papers claims by applying the two conditions I enumerated (i.e. cognitive validity and socio-cultural relevance) to his or her favorite SF works. For a more detailed criticism of the SF genre and specific narratives, which is outside the scope of my framework, I refer the reader to Darko Suvins classic Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre.
References:
Dennett, Daniel. 2009. Where am I? in Science fiction and philosophy, ed. by Susan Scneider Schneider. Massachusetts and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. ----------------------------. 1991. Consciousness explained. New York: Penguin. Luckhurst, Roger. 2005. Science fiction. Cambridge and Massachusetts: Polity. Sorensen, Roy A. 1992. Thought experiments. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Suvin, Darko. 1979. Metamorphoses of science fiction: On the poetics and history of a literary genre. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.