Quote of the Day

[coalescent]

Ted Chiang responds to this post by Sarah Monette and suggests a way of looking at the differences between sf and fantasy:

I submit that what distinguishes magic from science--even imaginary science--is the role of consciousness. Magic has a subjective component--the intention, desire, or willpower of the practitioner--that is explicitly excluded from scientific experimentation.

[...]

This perspective helps illustrate why, even though fantasy doesn't have to be pre-industrial, fantasy works so well with a pre-industrial setting. Before industrialization, it was easier to believe that we lived in a universe that recognized persons. And even though fantasy doesn't have to be nostalgic, it's easy to romanticize the days when an individual's labor mattered, and you couldn't be replaced by a machine.

Similarly, this perspective illustrates why, even though science fiction doesn't have to be about technological advancement, it is so often concerned with the notion of progress. Once conscious intention was removed from the creation of devices, inventions could spread so rapidly that you could see society change within a single lifetime. And even though SF doesn't have to be cautionary, it's easy to worry about the dehumanization that can result when conscious intention is removed from too many aspects of life.

EDIT: Jeff Vandermeer (and Evil Monkey) respond here.

EDIT: And truepenny completes the circle here by arguing that definitions are useful after all.

Comments

[communicator.livejournal.com]

That's a circular argument, because the whole point of moral philosphy is to define what 'the good' is. Utilitarianism defines it as human happiness, or pleasure. This was to get away from the idea that the good was what god told us was good.

Mill tried to distinguish higher pleasures from lower ones, while primitive utilitarianism said all pleasures were equal.

I've got to leave the computer now, so I can't follow this conversation for a while.

[peake.livejournal.com]

But it is still a rational philosophy, emotion is not something that creates the moral theory, it is something that can be rationally measured as the target for that theory.