CONSCIOUSNESS, LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE FICTION The direction of science and the direction of science fiction are at a shared, unique juncture--which has not always been true. It is a juncture which mainstream literature, for the most part, ignores. For instance, science fiction and biological reality converged in a particularly terrifying way during the anthrax scare, which awakened us to our own vulnerabilities--vulnerabilities which we cannot avoid, because they lie at the root of our biological being. But these same vulnerabilities have the potential to expand our lives in ways that we can now only imagine. We are entering the century in which we will explore not just matter, as we did in the twentieth century, but life itself. Despite its reputation, science fiction is no more predictive of the future than reading tealeaves. Instead, it is a lottery of possibilities, a crystal garden that begins with reality and then goes on, like all literatures, to build on the submerged texts upon which it stands. Science fiction in America started in the pulps, and its target audience, it is often said, was twelve-year-old boys. It has gone through many stages of growth since then, and perhaps is on the verge of another one. Instead of being predictive or prescriptive, science fiction's greatest strength is that it is a revelatory literature, a way of thinking which takes into account the real world, and its real possibilities. It focuses on technological developments--which are the offspring of science--that have given us the wonders of the present day, negative and positive, that really do make a difference in our lives. It is an intellectually adventurous and, at it's best, edgy literature which foregrounds the astonishing, powerful actions of the human mind and the human imagination. Science itself is neutral. It is just information. It has no moral content. In a manner analogous to the way we slant and manipulate events in the real world for fictional use, we use the information we discover to develop technologies. Our whole way of life is based on those relatively few people who were interested enough in nature to expand the knowledge that feeds technology. We humans are the only creatures who can actually and use what we know in order to radically change our environment - and ourselves. That is where sociological concerns arise. While we are still exploring the issues of time and space, we are now able to also explore life itself; perhaps even consciousness. Until now, we have been the same old humans with a lot of new toys. Our physical bodies have remained relatively unaltered while we converse with people on the other side of the world, or hurtle through the atmosphere at hundreds of miles an hour. We have had much success in dealing with infectious diseases. Lifesaving procedures such as bypass surgery are almost commonplace. We still remain the biggest mystery in the world. We are comprised of millions of programs, systems of evolutionary successes intimately linked to one another in a network which we are just beginning to understand. And understanding will bring manipulation, and manipulation will bring improvement. Or at least, change. That is, whose idea of improvement will we use? Richard B. Hoover, of NASA's Marshall space flight center said, "A lot of paradigms about what life can and cannot do are coming apart now." [20] What might the new paradigms be? Science fiction explores them. Our emotional malleability at a young age allows us to mimic the cultural milieu into which we are born perfectly. We absorb language, which is a social program in and of itself, effortlessly. Newborn infants react to tone of voice and eye contact. We are programmed to be a part of the community. We are exquisitely imprintable. We absorb our own culture much as we absorb food, and make it a part of our physical substance, our neural wiring, our filtering process. This human malleability is the source of much joy, and a lot of sorrow as well. There has been discourse for thousands of years about what the nature of a perfect human society might be. One society's criminal is another society's hero. But the marvel of it all is that all of this, every last raveling, is biological. We are entering a period of time when we will be able to cure cancers, heart disease, diabetes, and inherited disorders. The present debate over stem cell research is just the tip of the iceberg. We will soon have the opportunity to consider, as a society, just who we want ourselves to be. Presently, altering one's appearance through plastic surgery or even hair colorings or piercing falls into the category of vain frivolity. But when such alterations are deeper, more finely controlled, and more easily accomplished, how will we feel then? Let's say that it is possible to choose one's mood, one's very personality, with more precision. Who is doing the choosing? What is identity? Theological and philosophical questions have become scientifically accessible. What is information going to mean to us in the future--or for that matter, what does it mean to us in the present? Hypertexts, both literary and informational, give us the ability to browse information in a nonlinear way; a way, perhaps, akin to the way a toddler takes in information and begins to make links--except that we do this with a (more-or-less) mature brain. Thus, the intellectual and emotional experience of making new connections can deeply reward that part of the human that thrives on such tasks, can reawaken the exploratory excitement of intellectual growth, and deepen emotional response and epiphany. Brooks Landon's review, in Science Fiction Studies #61 (http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/review_essays/land61.htm), of Gareth Branwyn's and Peter Sugarman's Cyberpunk: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to the Future, [21] with its many references to seminal hypertext works, is an excellent place to begin exploring hypertext fiction. As an example, Queen City Jazz [22], my first novel, was conceived in 1990 as a hypertext novel before such technologies were available to the public. The jazz, ragtime, Tin Pan Alley, American visual art, comics, and novels referenced therein are presently referenced only by words. Thus, the full extent of their evocation is limited to those who, at one time, actually experienced the referenced work. In addition, it was a nonlinear work forced into the constraints of linearity by the limits, at that time, of the publishing process. I laid out many of the chapters around me in a circle, and decided on the sequence that seemed to make the most narrative sense, but it was only one interpretation among many possibilities. Transforming QCJ into a hypertext work (ignoring the massive cost of obtaining the rights to do so) would enhance the experience of this novel immeasurably. The uses of technology as regards perception are unlimited. Artistic paradigms might change completely when they begin to infiltrate the public in more intimate, more biologically entwined, ways. This vision of science fiction as the next modality of human growth, the ultimate realization of the Twentieth Century's movement through Surrealism, Modernism, and Postmodernism, all of which were linked to science and to changes in how and what we were able to perceive - the flattening of time through the telegraph, for instance - may be poised to completely change the face of literature and the intensity of the literary experience. This is only one small facet of the newnesses we will soon be able to experience, out of an unlimited range of newnesses both within ourselves and in our environment. In the coming era, as we gain ways to manipulate our very biology, human character might well and truly change, and are arts will reflect, and perhaps participate in, these changes. Science fiction points the way in which the two cultures of science and literature, which represent a schizophrenic split in humanity's use of information, might merge, and create new possibilities in the nature of consciousness itself._____________ 20 Travis, J. Science News, Vol. 155, #24 (June 12, 1999). "Prehistoric Bacteria Revived From Sea Salt." 21 Gareth Branwyn, Peter Sugarman, et al . Beyond Cyberpunk: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to the Future . The Computer Lab, Rt. 4, Box 54C, Louisa, VA 23093. 22 Goonan, Kathleen. Queen City Jazz. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1994. |