Sci-Fi and Philosophy

Nah, you're messing with me. That's straight out of Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

lonetrucker4 said:@Sandra Wilson68: Seriously? You actually don't get the whole "42" thing? 🙂 It’s straight out of a book by one of the biggest heavyweights of 20th-century philosophy!

They finally nailed down the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, but they totally missed the actual question... And it gets weirder... 😲 You can't have the question and the answer chilling in the same universe at once. It’s all tied up in set theory paradoxes—you know, that whole "set containing itself" mess—plus Tarski’s logic truth problems and those Gödel theorems. Plus, it all loops back to how we split consciousness from self-awareness, like that whole struggle with grounding the "Self" you see in Fichte and early Schelling.

@Amanda Jackson5: I am not pulling your leg, I’m being dead serious—I actually think The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is some deep philosophical gold. Who cares if it's formatted as a novel? We’ve got guys like Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, even Ayn Rand, who wrote fiction to make their points. Not to mention authors whose entire books are basically philosophy in disguise! Dostoevsky and H. Hess were huge favorites of mine, and then there's the SF crowd... You can probably tell I'm not exactly a fan of that dry "analytical" philosophy stuff. 🙂 Same goes for the traditional metaphysics Sandra Wilson68 is preaching. You don't have to buy it, but seriously I'm not kidding around here!

Amanda Jackson5 said:Look, I have to admit, the book is absolutely brilliant. It actually puts me in mind of a specific line from an old SF Book that always stuck with me: "To ask a question, one must already know a larger part of the answer." You see that kind of deep, philosophical heavy lifting all over the genre—take *2001: A Space Odyssey*, for example, which is basically a meditation on existence wrapped in a space suit. Then you’ve got the Strugatsky brothers, whose work is so profound that even Tarkovsky felt compelled to adapt it into *Stalker*. There are endless examples like this if you bother to look.
Then you have Milivoj Solar, who claims that when it comes to Jacques Derrida, the guy is essentially just writing literature and trying to pass it off as philosophy.

Then you've got that Science Fiction Book, "2001: A Space Odyssey"—just as deep and philosophical as hell.

The Strugatsky brothers are top-tier. They’re the ones behind the whole vibe for Tarkovsky’s Stalker.

lonetrucker4 said:Think of this one short story—it was published back in the day, can't recall where exactly. Basically, some ancient, extinct race built this massive machine that holds all the knowledge in the universe. Now, younger species show up and start asking questions, but there's a catch: the machine only answers if the question is "properly formulated." You actually have to know the right terminology just to get an answer. It won't even bother answering a biologist asking "what is life" or "what is death," because those terms are way too narrow when you look at the big picture. Like, a worm asks about the nature of mud... and that's where it goes.

Then you've got that Science Fiction Book, "2001: A Space Odyssey"—just as deep and philosophical as hell.

Clarke basically mashes gritty technical specs and near-future tech with those grand space opera vibes that hit right on the edge of mysticism. I was twelve when we landed on the Moon—watched the whole thing on TV—and I devoured both the book and the movie a year later once they finally hit the shelves here. That stuff messed with my head in a big way, and honestly, it did the same for everyone else in my generation. Back in the 70s, we actually believed we’d have permanent colonies on the Moon by 2001, massive orbital stations (that Apollo-Soyuz mission in '75 felt like proof), and crews heading straight for Jupiter. Then there's that spiritual vibe you get from seeing the Blue Marble—that shot of Earth from deep space where everything looks so tiny yet totally unique against the infinite void. It was also when people started waking up to the environment; I actually wrote something about this recently regarding the Rio +20 summit. The first UN environmental conference was back in '72, around the same time as the "Growth Limit" study and that classic "This Only Country" book. There's just something mystical about humanity leaving the cradle and potentially evolving even further. We went from ape-like creatures to self-aware beings with brains three times the size in just a few million years—so what happens in the next few million? But yeah... that dream slowly just faded away.

The Strugatsky brothers are top-tier. They’re the ones behind the whole vibe for Tarkovsky’s Stalker.

Yeah, obviously. Personally, I think their best novel is To Be or Not to Be.

Isaac Asimov messing around with robot identity and ethics, then hitting us with that whole "psychohistory" concept in *Endowment*... heavy stuff.

lonetrucker4 said:Think of this one short story—it was published back in the day, can't recall where exactly. Basically, some ancient, extinct race built this massive machine that holds all the knowledge in the universe. Now, younger species show up and start asking questions, but there's a catch: the machine only answers if the question is "properly formulated." You actually have to know the right terminology just to get an answer. It won't even bother answering a biologist asking "what is life" or "what is death," because those terms are way too narrow when you look at the big picture. Like, a worm asks about the nature of mud... and that's where it goes.

Then you've got that Science Fiction Book, "2001: A Space Odyssey"—just as deep and philosophical as hell.

Clarke basically mashes gritty technical specs and near-future tech with those grand space opera vibes that hit right on the edge of mysticism. I was twelve when we landed on the Moon—watched the whole thing on TV—and I devoured both the book and the movie a year later once they finally hit the shelves here. That stuff messed with my head in a big way, and honestly, it did the same for everyone else in my generation. Back in the 70s, we actually believed we’d have permanent colonies on the Moon by 2001, massive orbital stations (that Apollo-Soyuz mission in '75 felt like proof), and crews heading straight for Jupiter. Then there's that spiritual vibe you get from seeing the Blue Marble—that shot of Earth from deep space where everything looks so tiny yet totally unique against the infinite void. It was also when people started waking up to the environment; I actually wrote something about this recently regarding the Rio +20 summit. The first UN environmental conference was back in '72, around the same time as the "Growth Limit" study and that classic "This Only Country" book. There's just something mystical about humanity leaving the cradle and potentially evolving even further. We went from ape-like creatures to self-aware beings with brains three times the size in just a few million years—so what happens in the next few million? But yeah... that dream slowly just faded away.

The Strugatsky brothers are top-tier. They’re the ones behind the whole vibe for Tarkovsky’s Stalker.

Yeah, obviously. Personally, I think their best novel is To Be or Not to Be.

Isaac Asimov messing around with robot identity and ethics, then hitting us with that whole "psychohistory" concept in *Endowment*... heavy stuff.

lonetrucker4 said:@Sandra Wilson68: Seriously? You actually don't get the whole "42" thing? 🙂 It’s straight out of a book by one of the biggest heavyweights of 20th-century philosophy!

They finally nailed down the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, but they totally missed the actual question... And it gets weirder... 😲 You can't have the question and the answer chilling in the same universe at once. It’s all tied up in set theory paradoxes—you know, that whole "set containing itself" mess—plus Tarski’s logic truth problems and those Gödel theorems. Plus, it all loops back to how we split consciousness from self-awareness, like that whole struggle with grounding the "Self" you see in Fichte and early Schelling.

@Amanda Jackson5: I am not pulling your leg, I’m being dead serious—I actually think The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is some deep philosophical gold. Who cares if it's formatted as a novel? We’ve got guys like Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, even Ayn Rand, who wrote fiction to make their points. Not to mention authors whose entire books are basically philosophy in disguise! Dostoevsky and H. Hess were huge favorites of mine, and then there's the SF crowd... You can probably tell I'm not exactly a fan of that dry "analytical" philosophy stuff. 🙂 Same goes for the traditional metaphysics Sandra Wilson68 is preaching. You don't have to buy it, but seriously I'm not kidding around here!

lonetrucker4 said:Think of this one short story—it was published back in the day, can't recall where exactly. Basically, some ancient, extinct race built this massive machine that holds all the knowledge in the universe. Now, younger species show up and start asking questions, but there's a catch: the machine only answers if the question is "properly formulated." You actually have to know the right terminology just to get an answer. It won't even bother answering a biologist asking "what is life" or "what is death," because those terms are way too narrow when you look at the big picture. Like, a worm asks about the nature of mud... and that's where it goes.

Then you've got that Science Fiction Book, "2001: A Space Odyssey"—just as deep and philosophical as hell.

Clarke basically mashes gritty technical specs and near-future tech with those grand space opera vibes that hit right on the edge of mysticism. I was twelve when we landed on the Moon—watched the whole thing on TV—and I devoured both the book and the movie a year later once they finally hit the shelves here. That stuff messed with my head in a big way, and honestly, it did the same for everyone else in my generation. Back in the 70s, we actually believed we’d have permanent colonies on the Moon by 2001, massive orbital stations (that Apollo-Soyuz mission in '75 felt like proof), and crews heading straight for Jupiter. Then there's that spiritual vibe you get from seeing the Blue Marble—that shot of Earth from deep space where everything looks so tiny yet totally unique against the infinite void. It was also when people started waking up to the environment; I actually wrote something about this recently regarding the Rio +20 summit. The first UN environmental conference was back in '72, around the same time as the "Growth Limit" study and that classic "This Only Country" book. There's just something mystical about humanity leaving the cradle and potentially evolving even further. We went from ape-like creatures to self-aware beings with brains three times the size in just a few million years—so what happens in the next few million? But yeah... that dream slowly just faded away.

The Strugatsky brothers are top-tier. They’re the ones behind the whole vibe for Tarkovsky’s Stalker.

Yeah, obviously. Personally, I think their best novel is To Be or Not to Be.

Isaac Asimov messing around with robot identity and ethics, then hitting us with that whole "psychohistory" concept in *Endowment*... heavy stuff.

Honestly, that's more of a book thing than a movie thing.

Something from a Science Fiction Book just popped into my head: "To even ask a question, you've gotta already know most of the answer."

lonetrucker4 said:Think of this one short story—it was published back in the day, can't recall where exactly. Basically, some ancient, extinct race built this massive machine that holds all the knowledge in the universe. Now, younger species show up and start asking questions, but there's a catch: the machine only answers if the question is "properly formulated." You actually have to know the right terminology just to get an answer. It won't even bother answering a biologist asking "what is life" or "what is death," because those terms are way too narrow when you look at the big picture. Like, a worm asks about the nature of mud... and that's where it goes.

Then you've got that Science Fiction Book, "2001: A Space Odyssey"—just as deep and philosophical as hell.

Clarke basically mashes gritty technical specs and near-future tech with those grand space opera vibes that hit right on the edge of mysticism. I was twelve when we landed on the Moon—watched the whole thing on TV—and I devoured both the book and the movie a year later once they finally hit the shelves here. That stuff messed with my head in a big way, and honestly, it did the same for everyone else in my generation. Back in the 70s, we actually believed we’d have permanent colonies on the Moon by 2001, massive orbital stations (that Apollo-Soyuz mission in '75 felt like proof), and crews heading straight for Jupiter. Then there's that spiritual vibe you get from seeing the Blue Marble—that shot of Earth from deep space where everything looks so tiny yet totally unique against the infinite void. It was also when people started waking up to the environment; I actually wrote something about this recently regarding the Rio +20 summit. The first UN environmental conference was back in '72, around the same time as the "Growth Limit" study and that classic "This Only Country" book. There's just something mystical about humanity leaving the cradle and potentially evolving even further. We went from ape-like creatures to self-aware beings with brains three times the size in just a few million years—so what happens in the next few million? But yeah... that dream slowly just faded away.

The Strugatsky brothers are top-tier. They’re the ones behind the whole vibe for Tarkovsky’s Stalker.

Yeah, obviously. Personally, I think their best novel is To Be or Not to Be.

Isaac Asimov messing around with robot identity and ethics, then hitting us with that whole "psychohistory" concept in *Endowment*... heavy stuff.

lonetrucker4 said:That wording's actually pretty interesting:

Honestly, that's more of a book thing than a movie thing.

What's his deal? Whatever.So what, like books are some lower class of media now? Truth is, movies are pretty much useless when you actually want to tackle deep philosophical ideas. I’m a reader through and through—don't ask me about movies, I don't get them.

The movie version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is alright, but if you actually want to get what the author was laying down, you gotta read the book. It’s like how 2001: A Space Odyssey managed to land its big message through pure visuals alone. In that case, the writer and director were basically joined at the hip, working on the book and the film simultaneously—pretty wild way to do things.

Walter Edwards said:I honestly have no clue how they managed to get that published in the USSR back in the 60s—maybe because of the religious critique? I read it ages ago, but if I remember right, the planet is basically under absolute totalitarian rule.

For me, "Roadside Picnic" is still the all-time favorite—you know, the one they made "Stalker" from (even if the movie and the book are pretty different). The whole concept behind the book is just pure genius; it’s the complete opposite of that human-centered worldview that's just as stubborn today as it was forty years ago.

Harold Doyle3 said:Science Fiction bombs and philosophy

lonetrucker4 said:@Walter Edwards: You got it wrong, man. It’s a planet stuck deep in some medieval wasteland. The crew from Earth is doing "participatory research," but since this Only Country is ruled by communism under those rigid laws of historical materialism, the main guy eventually starts thinking he's destined to rule that planet too.

I'm guessing you read "Roadside Picnic" in English, which is pretty standard these days. Seems weird to me, reading something in a language so close to our own in English. 🙂 I read an old translation back in the 80s.

lonetrucker4 said:Just a heads-up: if you ever stumble upon an old copy of the Strugatsky brothers' "Scoundrel on the Heath"—specifically that 1979 version from New York City published by Penguin Random House in their "Centaur" series—be careful. It’s wild. When I first read it, I had this nagging feeling like pieces were missing. Turns out, they split the translation work between two different people to handle alternating chapters. Half the story takes place in a human colony, and the other half happens out in the woods on some distant planet. Well, the guy handling the forest half totally blew it, so they just published half a damn novel! Sounds insane, but that's the reality.

The full set actually came out later in New York, back in 1988, through a Scholastic and Highlights collaboration as part of a six-book collection of the Strugatsky brothers' best work.