Sci-fi soul

Science fiction is a higher exploration. If, for a moment, you'd be willing to forget that it's the product of scientific notions and fantastic depictions, what you'll see is nothing less than the ultimate expression: good writing, good thinking, good creating and good exploring. There's an unfortunate conception associated with sci-fi, that its readers are geeks, that he who enjoys science fiction will also enjoy fiddling with computers, toying with codes, and so on; the fact of the matter is, however, that it's not false.

In the beginning, such impressions could've easily been false considering sci-fi didn't originate in esoteric laboratories and into cult-hungry groups of people but simply out of the discovery of possibilities (as is the case with everything). In the beginning, sci-fi was but literature's response to mankind's entry into the Information Age. When the free distribution of and access to information transcended cultural and social boundaries that were till that moment pertinent as information barriers, when the technology became available to speculate on the possibilities of the future with that kind of information, science fiction was born.

[caption id="attachment_20793" align="aligncenter" width="270" caption="Philip K. Dick's 'We Can Remember It For You Wholesale' was adapted for the silver screen as 'Total Recall'. The story is a good example of all that's sci-fi, including the psychological effects of false memories (something that could get lost in the technicalities of normal fiction)."][/caption]

It was rooted in the ability to shrink distances, to expand those horizons in the ambit of which foreign agents of influence existed, to reach out farther and beyond charted territories to evangelize the human condition across the universe. I don't want to list works now not because I suck at remembering what I've read but because it doesn't matter what "kind" of science fiction has been read: it's the sci-fi soul that matters. Like all works of literature, sci-fi labours under the onus of repairing the bad and basks in the glory of preserving the good, and even then, things are very subjective.

For instance, even Asimov and Clarke are leagues apart despite both being greats: Asimov is a philosopher, a man given to technique and process, whose worlds are ripe with intent and purpose, a world where ends justify means, whereas Clarke is a dreamer, a creator of worlds that don't seek to precipitate order out of chaos but art, whose characters revel not just in humanism but existentialism. In fact, such leagues span the differences between the likes of Verne, Gernsback, DNA, Stapledon, Aldiss, PKD, Vonnegut, Le Guin, Pohl, Herbert and Niven.

[caption id="attachment_20792" align="aligncenter" width="529" caption="Larry Niven's 'Ringworld' was situated on a massive ring that encircled a star, the light from which was periodically blocked by an intervening ring to give rise to night and day."][/caption]

The sci-fi soul will not regret reading any of them irrespective of whether it thought they were good or bad because it exists in a world filled with more variables than equations, and any shortcomings it thinks it sees are essentially a paucity of its own imagination. Because you've lived on Planet Earth, because you've lived for quite some time in a house that had trees around it, because you know that they're so commonplace and how they are what they are, there's not much you can dispute about a leaf. On the other hand, what are the chances that all sci-fi readers would've interpreted Pandora from Avatar similarly were it a book? You'll agree the chances are less than slim.

To the sci-fi soul, reading sci-fi is a process of self-discovery, a rudimentary rite of passage through which it attempts to understand the working of a universe that is conducive to human consciousness, an initiation into a realm beyond the vestiges of laws and forces where absolutely nothing is impossible. There are no leaves to define green, there are only exploding stars and drifting clouds of intergalactic dust from which beryl, aquamarine and chartreuse must be strained, must be purchased at some cost other than that of droll sight.

Science fiction, by mandating utmost obedience to its doctrine of freestyle, is the ultimate rebellion: it is where stagnation and mediocrity are interred in their crypts, where even convenient innovations are put to the test of participation. The sci-fi soul is what it is because sci-fi is what it is - an open forum to conceive, appellate, repair and conclude, a court of dialectics adjudicated by the scientific method.

The Spielberg-Kafka Impasse

The following are afterthoughts - as seems to have become the norm - concerning a good lecture by Prof. R. Radhakrishnan at the Asian College of Journalism on the 1st day of August, 2011.

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Professionalism

I profess skill. Therefore, I join a profession. Do I therefore incur the responsibilities dictated by professionalism? Before we discuss the source of values, before we seek to include the mechanism of ethics in our discussion, it's important to address the basic conflict in the form of professionalism on the one hand and simply fulfilling responsibilities on the other.

Disregard the context for a minute: where do values come from? They are always self-imposed because they are the consequences of subjective evaluations of our reality by ourselves (they do not arise out of the context itself and, thus, the loss of context does not matter in understanding the nature of our values). When different people espouse different values, the institution no longer remains in a position to enjoin what those values are but still is able to hire or fire those it deems compatible with its goals.

Are values a priori? No. Are they necessary? They seem to be. Why? I've addressed this question earlier: the system of values that we deem necessary is a matter of personal choice; however, it is neither mandated nor forbidden. Are they the principle definitions of a general ethical code of conduct?

Possibly: the "goodness" quotient of the outcome of my actions is evaluated against the requirements of my profession together with certain humanistic unavoidables. In that light, my system of values - if any - is going to be influenced by the safeguarding of my interests and perhaps those of the organization, too. Values, I believe, are strictly a posteriori.

Freedom

Say what you will, freedom is a conversational piece. A flosculation. Perhaps its most palpable forms as such have all been macropolitical. In the micropolitical sense, however, it's a modality that gets diffused in various field logics, perhaps as a result of attempts by the freedom-seeker to contextualize it.

Reality itself has been undeniably victimized by such things as inflation and globalization: the "bigger picture" as I choose to see it does not step beyond the confines of my laptop. Consequently, my freedom is limited to the choices I will have a right to access and/or make, and so my freedom is to customize my Facebook profile, my freedom is my right to privacy on the web, and so forth.

There comes a difference when the macropolitical and the micropolitical engage, whereby a mitigating mediating force becomes apparent. When Gandhi asked those seeking to "do good" to consider what good they would do for the common man, did philanthropists and samaritans scurry to seek out the necessities of the common person? Or did they surmise the nature of the common man's micropolitical environment and scaled down the relevance of their ambitions?

In the name of what?

What am I speaking for? (Too many people go on at ACJ about how they've asked themselves this very question so many times - so what? I've asked myself the question many times, too, and I don't get the implied significance - are things all that ambivalent?).

Whether or not a collective is involved is irrelevant to me: as long as I am being representational, I will represent only that face of the collective that embodies all that is necessary for the representation to be accurate, i.e., like an individual who is the summa of all that the collective wishes communicated.

A minor reference to historicity becomes necessary (or, as Prof. Radhakrishnan chose to call it, temporality): to do something "in the name of an event that has become a part of history and acquired a political, social, cultural or economic flavour because of its eventual outcome."

(Say a man approaches a crossroads at which his friend awaits. The man says to his friend, "My cause is X." The friend replies, "I endorse your cause. Now, go forth." Presented with three options, the man picks the path straight ahead. He walks it, and its end he finds he has emerged a supporter of cause Y. Now, can the man's friend be said to endorse cause Y?)

What's your dharma?

Does idealism have its price in a world that constantly debates its pertinence? Is it fair to consistently toe the line as a matter of principle? Am I going to talk about just what shouldn't be talked about? It's the whole professionalism versus fundamentalism argument once more (I mean "fundamentalist" in its original sense).

Dharma is a perception of the self when between objective reality and subjective reality, and as such the former's existence is a matter of debate. However, irrespective of the conflict between a way of thinking and a way of practising, my dharma is a mechanism constituted by my experiences to model them (i.e., the ways).

However, there is some abrasion in the form of my individual autonomy. When extant in some reality, is it possible for me to not precipitate the antecedence of reality to my intervention? In other words, can I act without being acted upon, perhaps without reality having been presumptuous of my actions?

It wouldn't be right, I conclude, that the truth, per se, exists independent of my existence and so constitutes an independent reality with the employ of which I can reflect myself. Reality will always be antecedent of my intervention because I am involved in the constitution of that reality, and when I act, I can only do so in spaces that have room for the outcome/effect.

The truth is a negotiated simplification because I exist relative to a totality. (This reminds me of a post I wrote quite some time ago on the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis in linguistic theory.)

The simulacrum

When moving from being real to being intelligible, we move away from the objective existence of reality and toward the subjective counterpart (as if they're distinct!), and in the process attempt to include our understanding of reality. This "understanding" is encapsulated by the production of intelligibility (tied in with, but different from, the production of meaning).

So, what does it mean to have a point of view?

Just as in the previous statements, intelligibility also suffers from the marriage of existence and subjectivity: the question of a universally extant intelligibility is mired with the likelihood of the creation of new frames of knowledge in order to create such understanding. Just like the notion of freedom is extra-political, the moment we put something into words in order to understand it, we suffuse it with the persisting symbolism in language: a mediator rises like a snake on the bosom.

Ultimately, all of this condenses into the nature of the posthuman subject: just like Abhinavagupta's Shaivite position held that the individual consciousness is an individuation of the universal consciousness that is God, the posthuman is an individuation of the unified human entity. Being in possession of an emergent ontology, only the posthuman subject is capable of self-reflexivity, i.e., to avail the option of defying norms, etc., simply by availing the tools with which to study his reflection.

If you've read Edwin Abbott's Flatland (1884), the nature of self-reflexivity (as in social theories) can be explained by the inability of the two-dimensional objects to understand the real nature of the three-dimensional sphere. Going another way, it can also be analogized to the sphere's ability to view Flatland in its entirety while the lines and shapes can't.

And that brings us to...

The Spielberg-Kafka Impasse

Steven Spielberg must never adapt Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis for the silver-screen. Kafka's insectoid captured perhaps the uncapturable aspect of change and of displacement, and its now-Kafkaesque surrealism is befitting because it leaves ample space for interpretation.

If Spielberg made a movie out of it, the imagery would become set in stone, its changeable nature lost to the mass of readers who find solace in Kafka's consideration of such emotions. The posthuman would settle down back into the human entity, no longer capable of assuming different identities at will, the mediating ghosts would turn into phantoms, in their wake leaving a world incapable of change.

The Spielberg-Kafka Impasse

The following are afterthoughts - as seems to have become the norm - concerning a good lecture by Prof. R. Radhakrishnan at the Asian College of Journalism on the 1st day of August, 2011.

--

Professionalism

I profess skill. Therefore, I join a profession. Do I therefore incur the responsibilities dictated by professionalism? Before we discuss the source of values, before we seek to include the mechanism of ethics in our discussion, it's important to address the basic conflict in the form of professionalism on the one hand and simply fulfilling responsibilities on the other.

Disregard the context for a minute: where do values come from? They are always self-imposed because they are the consequences of subjective evaluations of our reality by ourselves (they do not arise out of the context itself and, thus, the loss of context does not matter in understanding the nature of our values). When different people espouse different values, the institution no longer remains in a position to enjoin what those values are but still is able to hire or fire those it deems compatible with its goals.

Are values a priori? No. Are they necessary? They seem to be. Why? I've addressed this question earlier: the system of values that we deem necessary is a matter of personal choice; however, it is neither mandated nor forbidden. Are they the principle definitions of a general ethical code of conduct?

Possibly: the "goodness" quotient of the outcome of my actions is evaluated against the requirements of my profession together with certain humanistic unavoidables. In that light, my system of values - if any - is going to be influenced by the safeguarding of my interests and perhaps those of the organization, too. Values, I believe, are strictly a posteriori.

Freedom

Say what you will, freedom is a conversational piece. A flosculation. Perhaps its most palpable forms as such have all been macropolitical. In the micropolitical sense, however, it's a modality that gets diffused in various field logics, perhaps as a result of attempts by the freedom-seeker to contextualize it.

Reality itself has been undeniably victimized by such things as inflation and globalization: the "bigger picture" as I choose to see it does not step beyond the confines of my laptop. Consequently, my freedom is limited to the choices I will have a right to access and/or make, and so my freedom is to customize my Facebook profile, my freedom is my right to privacy on the web, and so forth.

There comes a difference when the macropolitical and the micropolitical engage, whereby a mitigating mediating force becomes apparent. When Gandhi asked those seeking to "do good" to consider what good they would do for the common man, did philanthropists and samaritans scurry to seek out the necessities of the common person? Or did they surmise the nature of the common man's micropolitical environment and scaled down the relevance of their ambitions?

In the name of what?

What am I speaking for? (Too many people go on at ACJ about how they've asked themselves this very question so many times - so what? I've asked myself the question many times, too, and I don't get the implied significance - are things all that ambivalent?).

Whether or not a collective is involved is irrelevant to me: as long as I am being representational, I will represent only that face of the collective that embodies all that is necessary for the representation to be accurate, i.e., like an individual who is the summa of all that the collective wishes communicated.

A minor reference to historicity becomes necessary (or, as Prof. Radhakrishnan chose to call it, temporality): to do something "in the name of an event that has become a part of history and acquired a political, social, cultural or economic flavour because of its eventual outcome."

(Say a man approaches a crossroads at which his friend awaits. The man says to his friend, "My cause is X." The friend replies, "I endorse your cause. Now, go forth." Presented with three options, the man picks the path straight ahead. He walks it, and its end he finds he has emerged a supporter of cause Y. Now, can the man's friend be said to endorse cause Y?)

What's your dharma?

Does idealism have its price in a world that constantly debates its pertinence? Is it fair to consistently toe the line as a matter of principle? Am I going to talk about just what shouldn't be talked about? It's the whole professionalism versus fundamentalism argument once more (I mean "fundamentalist" in its original sense).

Dharma is a perception of the self when between objective reality and subjective reality, and as such the former's existence is a matter of debate. However, irrespective of the conflict between a way of thinking and a way of practising, my dharma is a mechanism constituted by my experiences to model them (i.e., the ways).

However, there is some abrasion in the form of my individual autonomy. When extant in some reality, is it possible for me to not precipitate the antecedence of reality to my intervention? In other words, can I act without being acted upon, perhaps without reality having been presumptuous of my actions?

It wouldn't be right, I conclude, that the truth, per se, exists independent of my existence and so constitutes an independent reality with the employ of which I can reflect myself. Reality will always be antecedent of my intervention because I am involved in the constitution of that reality, and when I act, I can only do so in spaces that have room for the outcome/effect.

The truth is a negotiated simplification because I exist relative to a totality. (This reminds me of a post I wrote quite some time ago on the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis in linguistic theory.)

The simulacrum

When moving from being real to being intelligible, we move away from the objective existence of reality and toward the subjective counterpart (as if they're distinct!), and in the process attempt to include our understanding of reality. This "understanding" is encapsulated by the production of intelligibility (tied in with, but different from, the production of meaning).

So, what does it mean to have a point of view?

Just as in the previous statements, intelligibility also suffers from the marriage of existence and subjectivity: the question of a universally extant intelligibility is mired with the likelihood of the creation of new frames of knowledge in order to create such understanding. Just like the notion of freedom is extra-political, the moment we put something into words in order to understand it, we suffuse it with the persisting symbolism in language: a mediator rises like a snake on the bosom.

Ultimately, all of this condenses into the nature of the posthuman subject: just like Abhinavagupta's Shaivite position held that the individual consciousness is an individuation of the universal consciousness that is God, the posthuman is an individuation of the unified human entity. Being in possession of an emergent ontology, only the posthuman subject is capable of self-reflexivity, i.e., to avail the option of defying norms, etc., simply by availing the tools with which to study his reflection.

If you've read Edwin Abbott's Flatland (1884), the nature of self-reflexivity (as in social theories) can be explained by the inability of the two-dimensional objects to understand the real nature of the three-dimensional sphere. Going another way, it can also be analogized to the sphere's ability to view Flatland in its entirety while the lines and shapes can't.

And that brings us to...

The Spielberg-Kafka Impasse

Steven Spielberg must never adapt Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis for the silver-screen. Kafka's insectoid captured perhaps the uncapturable aspect of change and of displacement, and its now-Kafkaesque surrealism is befitting because it leaves ample space for interpretation.

If Spielberg made a movie out of it, the imagery would become set in stone, its changeable nature lost to the mass of readers who find solace in Kafka's consideration of such emotions. The posthuman would settle down back into the human entity, no longer capable of assuming different identities at will, the mediating ghosts would turn into phantoms, in their wake leaving a world incapable of change.

No Candy For Right. Lesser Candy For Wrong.

Enough has been said over the last 10 years about the deluge of information on the web, and on the TV, the radio and the papers. All of it has contributed – one way or another – to change the way we look at the world around us; significant bits of it have even gone on to dictate newer with which we can interact with it. Unsurprisingly, however, there is also in place a different protocol, an upgraded one, that includes a new set of mistakes we could commit, a new set of implications and an altogether new rewards program, speaking as such, for not committing those mistakes in the first place.

Amongst them, there is a certain “mistake profile” that strategically underlies a lot of mistakes committed by unifying them with one principle: “doing it right makes no difference, doing it wrong makes a world of it”, and this kind of mistake has become more common; so common, in fact, that in some institutions, of investigations and reportage to be specific, they have attained the critical pedestal of being called systematic simply because they are not corrected even if exposed glaringly.

[caption id="attachment_317" align="aligncenter" width="386" caption="The Indian division of CNN"][/caption]

Commas once held the privileged position of inducing the most of such mistakes in writing. Using the commas in the right place leaves the reader with a smooth flow of thought, although he or she would ultimately take away the point being made at the end of the reading session. However, once the writer uses a comma in the wrong place, that sudden jerk in the flow of thought leaves the reader only with a dissonance that lasts the whole time – and he or she is bound to leave without giving a damn about your ideas. So also in reportage: just today, I was watching CNN-IBN cover the story of the Indian Navy capturing a pirate vessel off the coast of “Lakshwadeep”. If the presenter had pronounced it right, it would have gone a very short distance, if at all, in corroborating the care taken by the presenter to pronounce it correct. However, the moment she pronounced it wrong, it gave away a sense of journalistic nonchalance - especially when there is no hurry associated with covering the piece.

As long as the media is under the scanner, there is a critical difference between “showing” and “telling” that needs to be discussed. In order to understand this, consider the genre of creative writing: when such a piece is being constructed, the author needs to state something to the reader, not declare it. Similarly, facts need to be presented separately wherever possible, and not as cause and effect. This ensures the utmost neutrality even when an extremely suggestive event is unfolding. Such is the difference between statement and declaration. I principally address the contexts of writing and reporting first because they address a larger audience and quickly. However, there are other industries that face significant challenges in the long run because they didn’t look before they leapt.

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The writer, at this point, was struck by a writers’ block arrow and regrets announcing that the article is done.