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Forum in English / Fiasco
« dnia: Kwietnia 20, 2005, 01:31:51 am »
I have read recently Fiasco. As every time I have read a Lem book, I have been totally impressed by it 
I would like to ask your opinions about many parts of the book that are obscure to me. As there are many questions, I will post them gradually from time to time.
What meanings do you find in the small sub-tales found in Fiasco?
- The gold search.
- The giant ant colonies.
I am puzzled about the gold search tale, is quite large and complex but I can't extract any meaning from it.
The ants tale seems very sugestive of SETI's research for alien life. To reach the center of the ants kingdom, the enthomologist don't doubt to kill most ants and destroy their buildings. Once he reachs the center, he takes an object unknown to mankind and carry it home, but the object serves no purpose to us at all.
IMHO what Lem is trying to explain is that mankind has this childish anxiety about finding extraterrestial life, but this contact can not bring us anything especial because every life form builds it's own "micro-universe". Our needs and our objectives are purely created by chance, and are our exclusive property, probably not shared by other intelligent forms of life.
(An example: most priest would like to know if other planets have a saviour, a Christ, but the question would probably be meaningless).
I would like to ask your opinions about many parts of the book that are obscure to me. As there are many questions, I will post them gradually from time to time.
What meanings do you find in the small sub-tales found in Fiasco?
- The gold search.
- The giant ant colonies.
I am puzzled about the gold search tale, is quite large and complex but I can't extract any meaning from it.
The ants tale seems very sugestive of SETI's research for alien life. To reach the center of the ants kingdom, the enthomologist don't doubt to kill most ants and destroy their buildings. Once he reachs the center, he takes an object unknown to mankind and carry it home, but the object serves no purpose to us at all.
IMHO what Lem is trying to explain is that mankind has this childish anxiety about finding extraterrestial life, but this contact can not bring us anything especial because every life form builds it's own "micro-universe". Our needs and our objectives are purely created by chance, and are our exclusive property, probably not shared by other intelligent forms of life.
(An example: most priest would like to know if other planets have a saviour, a Christ, but the question would probably be meaningless).