Stanisław Lem - Forum

English => Forum in English => Wątek zaczęty przez: flexi w Maja 22, 2004, 04:11:32 am

Tytuł: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: flexi w Maja 22, 2004, 04:11:32 am
hmm..

for example, think of a sci-fi story including characters who discuss about existence of god
[
x:  god is now here
y:  god is no where
x:  god is now here
y:  god is no where
...
..
]
that silly infinite loop hehe ;)

by the way what about Lem's fictions? in The Star Diaries, there is a great story which has a strange concept containing robots who have strange beliefs and thoughts about god, existence etc [my favourite sci-fi story].

In a collection book of sci-fi stories i read a comment complaining about some Lem fictions  because of their  being "metaphysical".

what about it?

"any metaphysical subject is forbidden in science fiction"?

it is not  science, it is science-fiction.

[hmm this can be another discussion subject which is directly related with the definiton of sci-fi.]

btw, i am not a theologist or a metaphysics maniac [and astrology surely sucks ;)].
i just wonder what people think about that-the relationship between metaphysics and science fiction.

[sorry for my bad english]

Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Socrates w Maja 27, 2004, 05:08:13 am
Science fiction is technically based on science; the fiction part apparently is a permit to invent worlds where the science can take place.  
I personally don;t see much of a difference between science fiction, fantasy, and metaphysiscs.  It's all based funadamentally on belief, and belief is not real....
Cheers, Socrates
Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Carlos w Lipca 16, 2004, 11:15:10 pm
Flexi, your meta dialog is not only beautiful, but also true.
Is not such questions-answers we always do, in the belief of going further?
Also, if you draw a line through the spaces between the "w" and the "h" in your dialog, you'll find a zig-zag path, kind of labyrinth, an image of god.

I think science-fiction is over, especially after Lem: why classify art as if it were socks? There are only good and bad books (Dante's Commedia would be, if in such way classifiable, "fantasy-and-horror-comedy").

Regards,

Carlos
Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Terminus w Lipca 20, 2004, 01:42:46 am
Cytuj
[
x:  god is now here
y:  god is no where
x:  god is now here
y:  god is no where
...
..
]




To be honest I have no (even slightest ) idea whatta heck makes this dialogue metaphisical. "God is nowhere" vs "God is now here". Yes, that's a cute word-game. But what else.
Does anybody claim, that this sequence of sentences (even infinite, which makes no difference) is in any way metaphisical?


Cytuj

In a collection book of sci-fi stories i read a comment complaining about some Lem fictions  because of their  being "metaphysical".
 
what about it?
 


From time to time some idiot complains about Lem's books' being too this or too that. That's just the proof of society's good health.
Anyway, when somebody thinks Lem's books are bad, he is taking a great risk ;]
Cytuj


and astrology surely sucks ;)]

Damn it does!

 
Cytuj

i just wonder what people think about that-the relationship between metaphysics and science fiction



Well... science fiction is, as Socrates mentioned before me, built on science, and even the stupid sci-fi ideas are somehow extrapolated from nowadays' scientific theories.
As for metaphysics, it's an attempt to derive some religious outcomes from scientific facts... Which brings us to the matters of beliefs and faith - the terrain where no rules exist.

Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Ritch w Lipca 24, 2004, 02:29:54 am
A great Lem's work dealing with metaphysic is Non serviam in his book A Perfect Vacuum.

(an extract)

(Personetics): A “world” for personoid “inhabitants” can be prepared in a couple of hours... A specific personoid activity serves as a triggering mechanism, setting in motion a production process that will gradually augment and define itself; in other words, the world surrounding these beings takes on an unequivocalness only in accordance with their own behavior... From four to seven personoids are optimal, at least for the development of speech and typical exploratory activity, and also for 'culturization’... It is possible to 'accommodate' up to one thousand personoids... Many different philosophies (ontologies and epistemologies) have arisen among them... I can enlarge their world or reduce it, speed up its time or slow it down, alter the mode and means of their perception; I can liquidate them, divide them, multiply them, transform the very ontological foundation of their existence...


Ahead, in the fictional review, the personoids argue between them about the existence an the believing in a "God", or a "Creator"; in this case, the scientist that programmed them.

I think this is one of the best metaphysical writings of Lem.
Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Jerzyab w Grudnia 05, 2004, 04:04:54 pm
What exactly do you guys understand as "metaphysics"?
Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Terminus w Grudnia 09, 2004, 02:13:33 am
I don't  understand it at all.
Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: SoGo w Grudnia 12, 2004, 02:27:19 pm
Lem , I think, define Science Fiction like Science that will come, and in a time in future it will be reasoned Knowledge and used Reality.

Metaphysics is something that never will come.
There comes never at all time a point, where you can negotiate or confirm the question.

The question: "Will there be cybernetic parts for our bodys?" can be answered. It is Science Fiction.
The question: "Does God exist?", for example never can be answered surely.



The imposiibility of impossilbility is the greatest mark of metaphysics.
Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Terminus w Grudnia 13, 2004, 12:15:20 am
Cytuj

The imposiibility of impossilbility is the greatest mark of metaphysics.


Quite cute definition! (It required an introduction, so it's good you made it clear). But it's impressive.
Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Socrates w Grudnia 13, 2004, 12:53:36 am
Metaphysics is that which we can all theorize about, but we can never prove to be true or not true.
Cheers, Socrates
Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: cckeiser w Grudnia 13, 2004, 05:48:26 am
The Metaphysical is what everything physical is made from.
Meta= beyond
metaphysical = beyond the physical.
Scientist do not like the metaphysical because they cannot ( as yet ) stick a probe into it to prove it is there. The Scientific method relies of testability. It must be testable and the test must be reproducible. If it cannot be tested, it does not exist.
The metaphysical, by its very un-nature, can not exist in a physical Universe, so it cannot be tested.

Popular Science-Fiction mostly deals in -what if- we take what science is saying is possible and create a universe where it already is? What would that Universe look and feel like.
Science-Fantasy takes what science says is not possible and tries to create a Universe where it is.

The works of Stanislaw Lem are more Philosophical than fiction. He uses fiction to illustrate a philosophical concept.
Since modern philosophy deals mostly in the metaphysical, Science objects to calling it -Science- Fiction.
It was not always that way. In the early days of philosophy some crazy philosopher came up with the concept that all matter is composed of very tiny things he called -atoms-.
Once a philosophical concept is proven to be correct, it is no longer philosophy, it becomes Science!
Philosophers pose the questions. Science; a tool of philosophy, searches for the answer.
Today's Philosophy is tomorrow's Science.
Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: cckeiser w Grudnia 13, 2004, 05:58:00 am
Cytuj
The question: "Does God exist?", for example never can be answered surely.

Yes it can.
It all depends on how you define -god-.
Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Terminus w Grudnia 13, 2004, 09:25:29 pm
I myself am full of deep disrespect towards so_called metaphysics.
For me, it's either ,,meta'' or ,,physics". Nothing in between.

Therefore I won't discuss this matter any more.
Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Jerzyab w Grudnia 13, 2004, 10:53:48 pm
Cytuj
I myself am full of deep disrespect towards so_called metaphysics.  
For me, it's either ,,meta'' or ,,physics". Nothing in between.  
 
Therefore I won't discuss this matter any more.


I agree with you. :)
Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Miranda w Stycznia 16, 2006, 01:05:02 pm
A very god-like way of cutting of discussions...

I like what Fisch and Cc say. Lems books for sure are no meta-physics. Can´t bear them as well.

But thinking beyond known physics in the way Lem does is - as CCkeiser says about philosophy - the physics of tomorrow. Maybe exchanging the term metaphysics for thinking beyond what has already been thought is more adaquate where Lem is concerned?
Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Deckert w Stycznia 16, 2006, 04:11:22 pm
Cytuj
Yes it can.
It all depends on how you define -god-.



Can you explain it to me?

CU
Deck
Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: pagrab w Kwietnia 02, 2006, 04:27:25 am
Terminus, I guess that you use the word "metaphysics" in a very loose sense. In philosophy the metaphysics is the most general theory of the world. For example: we may construe a theory where we have three kinds of basic entities: objects, properties and relations. This would be a common sense metaphysics. But we could say that there are only properties and then objects are constructed as the sets of properties and relations are constructed as the supersets of these sets. I don't see how this kind of work might be perceived as "an attempt to derive some religious outcomes from scientific facts"
Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: cckeiser w Kwietnia 02, 2006, 06:14:01 am
Cytuj


Can you explain it to me?

CU
Deck

http://www.physicsmathforums.com/showthread.php?t=256
Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Metalist w Kwietnia 04, 2006, 05:37:56 am
I found that webster has a pretty good definition of metaphysics:

Main Entry: meta·phys·ics
Pronunciation: -'fi-ziks
Function: noun plural but singular in construction
Etymology: Medieval Latin Metaphysica, title of Aristotle's treatise on the subject, from Greek (ta) meta (ta) physika, literally, the (works) after the physical (works); from its position in his collected works
1 a (1) : a division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being and that includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology (2) : ONTOLOGY 2 b : abstract philosophical studies : a study of what is outside objective experience
2 : METAPHYSIC 2
Tytuł: Re: metaphysics and sci-fi
Wiadomość wysłana przez: wetal w Kwietnia 20, 2006, 01:56:17 pm
 The prefix META means above or standing above.Now you are clever enough to translate the following words:METATHEORY,METALANGUAGE,METAPHISICS.
This way the word metaphisical you can translate as supernatural, and metaphisics as a studies about unexplainable.
Sci-fiction is not a study yet,but a genre of literature where people using scientific facts try to predict the future.