science with Lem

[Miranda]

What about Lem´s robots? They are very specialized and dumb creatures. No signs of taking over command. At least the robots humans created.

[Deckard]

I don't know much about robots described by Lem, but I remember that in "Astronauts" he very much surprised me, 'coz he didn't even mention a robot as a common practise on board of the future spaceships. Strange...

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[Miranda]

Why is Lem so convinced that science rules the world in one respect and on the other hand he always critizises it and shows its limits in his stories? See those miniature creatures in the Invincible: they are the end of an technological evolution and the story/Lem takes their description very seriously. What is said there sound possible to me. It´s an scientifically interested and accurate description.
But in the end the crew with all its experts is exposed to be a bunch of idiots, who Kirk-like try to kill any unknown creature that crosses his way. Scientist appear to be very limited persons, or maybe they just represent mankind.
Or take Solaris: microscopic examination on below nucleus level of Hareys blood meets gone crazy scientists defeated by a superior or at least very different intelligence. Why those endings?
You know what I mean: it´s always the same scientific euphoria that meets the limits of (human) science.
What do you think about it? What is his attitude towards scientific thinking, possibilities...?

[innate]

Part of it is that we abandon rational scientific thought under stresses.

I was also going to say that maybe what I think is true of 99% of humanity is what he thinks is true of 100% of humanity -- but then perhaps it's simply that he's been so deeply disappointed by us in his life that he has no desire to show any humans in a good light.

[Miranda]

Do you think he abandons rational thinking in writing literature? At least he´s able to think and speculate whatever he wants there. Whereas in scientific essays he is bound to explain based on existing knowledge. Not so many new possibilities there...

[innate]

I'm just saying that I think there are a few individuals out there who don't match his descriptions (but I fear that they may be too few to make a difference).

[pirxowa]

How scientific are Lem´s texts?

I am writing a book about science in polish and russian science fiction. What about Lem´s scientific ideas? Are they innovative, are they accurate...?

They are not actually scientific.
Scientific theories are based on mathematics (like in physics)  or at least on logical reasoning (like in biology) AND on experiment.

Lem does not know too much about mathematics, nor does he do experiments. All he can do is to intelligently extrapolate the information read in "New Scientist" etc. or gained from his physicist friends. And, since he was (still is?) an extraordinarily intelligent person, his predictions were not  too much divergent from reality. (In a time scale as short as tens of years, of course.) But he did not really "invent" anything new.

[wetal]

  I don`t agree, read H.Harrison or P.Dick and yo will see that Lem`s books are more or less scientific and futuristic.
 What do you think about works of Arthur Clarke are they actually scientific.

[pirxowa]

 I don`t agree, read H.Harrison or P.Dick and yo will see that Lem`s books are more or less scientific and futuristic.
  What do you think about works of Arthur Clarke are they actually scientific.

They are not "scientific" as well as Lem's books are not.
I have written about the INTELLIGENT EXTRAPOLATION of today's state of science and technology to the future. The difference between Lem and the writers you listed is that Lem was able at least to take correct initial conditions. In other words, he knew quite well what is the state of the contemporary scientific knowledge.  Unlike the other writers who didn't even know what is going on in science in their days. And then they wrote things which were in contradiction with science already at the time when the book was being written.

[Deckard]

They are not "scientific" as well as Lem's books are not.
I have written about the INTELLIGENT EXTRAPOLATION of today's state of science and technology to the future. The difference between Lem and the writers you listed is that Lem was able at least to take correct initial conditions. In other words, he knew quite well what is the state of the contemporary scientific knowledge.  Unlike the other writers who didn't even know what is going on in science in their days. And then they wrote things which were in contradiction with science already at the time when the book was being written.

Wow!!! That's great. You problably don't know who Arthur C. Clark is, right?

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[pirxowa]

Unfortunately, I do know.
I read his first book of "Rama" series.
This was exactly what I mean by "wrong initial conditions".

I remember a particularly amusing fragment on how the high temperature moves through a spaceship's wall. If you know a thing or two about thermodynamics, you will see where the mistake is. As far as I remember that event was very important to the whole story. But if it is wrong, then the whole story becomes unrealistic.

[Deckard]

I gotta read this "Rama" series.... hmmmm

I think that in most of the SF books some parts are more or less inoccurate from the scientific point of view. That's because those stories are addressed to common people. But I agree that if you'd probe a little deeper into the stories you'd find some inconsistencies. Neverthereless Clark in opposistion to Lem is, in my humble oppinion, a different league.

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[Terminus]

Baaah, it's natural for someone involved with science to suddenly acquire unrealistic expectations about SF-writer's knowledge and abilities. Easy, pirxowa, mind the fact that if all them autors were competent scientists, they wouldn't be writers, but scientists... (as long as they stay away from Poland, when noone gives a damn about being competent in science).

[wetal]

   So the previous argument was that Mr.Lem is not an inventor and stands apart from science and is limited by having friends keen on phisics.It didn`t bother him to write "Solaris".
  Clarke`s ''Rendezvous with Rama''unlooking at the fact that some laws of phisics were broken is not a trash and is still quite readable in Ukraine.Though apart from S.Lem Clarke is closer to science and phisics and in some sources is regarded a man who suggested the idea that geostationary satellites would be ideal telecommunications relays.

[Deckard]

Arthur C. Clarke is a man of science and then a writer. The similar story goes with Carl Sagan, but that one was an active scientist to the very end.
Lem is a writer and philosopher.... and I guess that's all.

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