Arthur C. Clarke books

[Ramses II CP]

History, naturally, is limited to the momentary view society takes of actual events at the time the book is written. Novels bear no such limitation, and so can reveal, or at least hint at, truths that remain outside our experience.

Some extremely important concepts have been introduced through the medium of fiction; just to name a few from science fiction (Per the thread):

1. The idea of the Dyson Sphere was inspired by science fiction, and most of it's more practical variants and in between steps were explicitly given form in science fiction stories. Any consideration of the not-so-distant future scope of humanity is quite beyond history's capacity to consider.

2. A. C. Clarke's thoughtful prediction of geosynchronous communications satellites several years in advance of their actual creation.

3. The concept of nanotechnology was introduced and thoroughly explored by science fiction.

4. Potential ethical concerns of population control, organ transplants, cloning, AI and human analogs, and a host of looming issues too large to list get frequent exploration in Sci Fi novels.

5. In the more speculative realm, deep space travel, aliens, and parallel universes.

You can't have a theory without a hypothosis, and you can't often get to a hypothosis without some wild, if educated, guessing. The novel is the perfect format for making those guesses which, even when wrong as they often are, can reveal important possibilities and details about the nature of our future. History is knowledge revealed by experience and discipline, but it still often errs or is subject to the undue influence of the society of it's writer. Novels, and Science Fiction in particular, are unbound by the strictures of what's actually happened or actually possible, and so can explore the outrageous and sometimes necessary outer limits of reality.

In short, don't dismiss the creative while swallowing whole the restrictive format of known, experienced truth. There's room enough in any mind for both.

[Vladimir]

History, naturally, is limited to the momentary view society takes of actual events at the time the book is written. Novels bear no such limitation, and so can reveal, or at least hint at, truths that remain outside our experience.

Some extremely important concepts have been introduced through the medium of fiction; just to name a few from science fiction (Per the thread):

1. The idea of the Dyson Sphere was inspired by science fiction, and most of it's more practical variants and in between steps were explicitly given form in science fiction stories. Any consideration of the not-so-distant future scope of humanity is quite beyond history's capacity to consider.

2. A. C. Clarke's thoughtful prediction of geosynchronous communications satellites several years in advance of their actual creation.

3. The concept of nanotechnology was introduced and thoroughly explored by science fiction.

4. Potential ethical concerns of population control, organ transplants, cloning, AI and human analogs, and a host of looming issues too large to list get frequent exploration in Sci Fi novels.

5. In the more speculative realm, deep space travel, aliens, and parallel universes.

You can't have a theory without a hypothosis, and you can't often get to a hypothosis without some wild, if educated, guessing. The novel is the perfect format for making those guesses which, even when wrong as they often are, can reveal important possibilities and details about the nature of our future. History is knowledge revealed by experience and discipline, but it still often errs or is subject to the undue influence of the society of it's writer. Novels, and Science Fiction in particular, are unbound by the strictures of what's actually happened or actually possible, and so can explore the outrageous and sometimes necessary outer limits of reality.

In short, don't dismiss the creative while swallowing whole the restrictive format of known, experienced truth. There's room enough in any mind for both.

Sorry, that's incorrect.

History is a rapidly evolving, living science. As technology improves and new discoveries are made our understanding of it improves. There is also a great deal of creativity involved when filling gaps in our knowledge of (even recent) history. Novels reveal no truths as they are novels. They reveal no truth, only speculation. What is the study of history if it is not the revelation of truth beyond one's experience?

Your points (briefly):

1. Doesn't need to be revealed in novels as it can be based on past scientific discoveries.

2. Not very impressive.

3. Viruses.

4. While interesting can be based on current and past social norms as well as the evolution of human history.

5. Science, not novels, will reveal those answers. To understand these mysteries one needs to learn what has already been revealed not read a fanciful flight of whimsy.

The perfect format for forming an hypothesis is the scientific method, not a dime store novel. If you want to frame the discussion that way novels will always come up short. There is a place for them in society but truth is better, and can be stranger than fiction.

[Beirut]

To understand these mysteries one needs to learn what has already been revealed not read a fanciful flight of whimsy.

I happen to like fanciful flights of whimsy.

[Vladimir]

I happen to like fanciful flights of whimsy.

Just don't burst into song when wielding that chainsaw.

[Beirut]

Just don't burst into song when wielding that chainsaw.

"Neeear... faaaaaaar... on whatever planet you are... I believe that my heart will go ahhhh-ah-ah-onnnnnnn... "

[TinCow]

I personally tend to enjoy non-fiction more than fiction, but I think it's very short-sighted to say that novels are a waste of time. Beyond just refreshing the brain, fiction in general, and science fiction in particular, have been dramatically influential on our history. Scientists, engineers, politicians, and military leaders have all be hugely influenced by things that have struck them as significant and worthwhile in fiction settings. Ender's Game is required reading at West Point. Martin Cooper was inspired by Star Trek to invent the mobile phone.

History is certainly all-important, but fiction is actually part of history. To ignore it is to ignore one of the most important determining factors in human existence: our imagination.

[Ramses II CP]

First let me say that my post was not meant in any way to diminish the importance of non-fiction or history, but meant instead to drive home the importance of fiction through the specific example of science fiction.

Secondly, history is not properly a science in the same sense as the sciences which prove the possibility of the Dyson's Sphere, or created the communications satellite. There is such broad, general acceptance of this point that I'm always quite surprised to hear claims to the contrary, but it seems to me that they originate in a misapprehension of the difference between sociology and mathematics. That may be a whole other discussion, but I'll include a few links for the curious and try not to sidetrack the larger point.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=003...3E2.0.CO%3B2-A

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/10/129.html

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=339

In any case it seems to me, as an avid reader of history, that to try to narrow history into a category of what is proven true and what is proven false robs it of it's beauty and interest.

Now, to your points, briefly as you say:

1. It's easy for you to say that science 'can' do something or the other, but impossible for you to prove. Freeman Dyson personally acknowledged a debt of inspiration in his scientific exploration of the idea to a science fiction novel. It's unseemly for you to backtrack and claim he had no such help.

2. A utterly unimpressive rebuttal. You might as well write 'You're wrong' and go get a coffee as post something this petty again.

3. Prions. You've typed a word, not made a point.

4. Easily said, impossible to prove.

5. To 'reveal' an 'answer' is not the purpose of fiction, the purpose is to evoke a speculative train of thought, to inspire the mind in a new direction, to open a possibility where before none existed.

You'll note I do not claim that hypothoses are formed out of science fiction, but that the wild guesses and speculation of science fiction can inspire a person to formulate such. In fact I've listed a very specific historical case of this happening. You've made a great many claims and backed them up with nothing. The attempt to make out that I'm equating science with science fiction is a bald strawman , and the insulting dismissal of such works as 'dime store' is beneath you.

I will reiterate my point in the simplest possible terms in the hope that it doesn't become lost; novels are not a waste of time.

[Papewaio]

Sorry, that's incorrect.

History is a rapidly evolving, living science.

There might be a component of technology and science within history, but that does not make history a science. Sure it is fashionable and cool but its like calling a janitor a technician... it does not make him a scientific one.

History is a branch of knowledge. Science goes a couple of steps beyond that by organising its information in a manner to allow predictions. One does not make accurate predictions on future events based on history... you can make general ones, but nothing with the level of accuracy and sustainability required to call it a science.

As for science fiction.
1. Not really, first to the post is the inventor. That was science fiction.

2. Mr Clarke was lauded by the scientific community for his idea on satellites. Strangely enough in a branch of knowledge called history... NASA chronicles the idea of satellites... and they credit Arthur C. Clarke as the originator of the idea..

Communications Satellites: Making the Global Village Possible

In fall of 1945 an RAF electronics officer and member of the British Interplanetary Society, Arthur C. Clarke, wrote a short article in Wireless World that described the use of manned satellites in 24-hour orbits high above the world's land masses to distribute television programs. His article apparently had little lasting effect in spite of Clarke's repeating the story in his 1951/52 The Exploration of Space

3. Huge difference between nanotechnology and viruses. It's like claiming that the idea of fusion has no merit because stars do it.

4. Asimov's 3 Robotic Laws:
Again from a Nasa website:

# 1942 - Asimov wrote "Runaround", a story about robots which contained the "Three Laws of Robotics":

* A robot may not injure a human, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
* A robot must obey the orders it by human beings except where such orders would conflic with the First Law.
* A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict withe the First or Second Law.

And from the SETI insitute:
I, Robot

Now admittedly, there are some who believe that, despite such capability, machines will never be capable of human-style intelligence. But that suggests that there is some sort of unfathomable miracle going on between our ears.

The alternative view is that synthetic sentience -- thinking machines that can write a symphony, or turn a canvas into a beautiful masterpiece -- is not only a possible development, but one that will probably occur in this century. Asimov wrote his robot stories in 1950. A bare two generations later, it's possible that the fiction will be superceded by fact.

If we do invent thinking machines, how will we handle their interaction with us? Will we be able to forever cripple their initiative, with laws similar to Asimov's, in order to avoid situations in which the created turn on their creators? Can we always pull the plug on the androids?

5. I think that having listed only science institutes to answer... it would appear that science fiction has been integral in inspiring and directing the search for answers in science and technology. Often we are not limited by what we can do, we are limited about what we think we can do. Science fiction often opens up those limits on what we think and allows us to go forth and do it.

Science fiction is the muse of Science. And in a theater of knowledge where the first step is hypothesis's this gives science fiction a valuable role. Of course to make it science one has to test these ideas and as demonstrated come up with theories that can predict future outcomes. So science fiction is a branch of knowledge that by itself doesn't contain the apparatus for testing or predicting the future... that would put it on par with history methinks.