[b]Ted Chiang
We don’t normally think of it as such, but writing is a technology, which means that a literate person is someone whose thought processes are technologically mediated. We became cognitive cyborgs as soon as we became fluent readers, and the consequences of that were profound.[/b]
And then the “I’ll be back” cyborgs among us.
If you could see your whole life laid out in front of you, would you change things?
My guess: You’d have to see it first.
We experienced events in an order, and perceived their relationship as cause and effect. They experienced all events at once, and perceived a purpose underlying them all.
They who?
Physics admits of a lovely unification, not just at the level of fundamental forces, but when considering its extent and implications. Classifications like “optics” or “thermodynamics” are just straitjackets, preventing physicists from seeing countless intersections.
Let’s just say that most of us go too far in the other direction.
The individuals are tragically like marionettes, independently animate but bound by a web they choose not to see; they could resist if they wished, but so few of them do.
That’s how it works alright. But how far to take it?
Science fiction and fantasy are very closely related genres, and a lot of people say that the genres are so close that there’s actually no meaningful distinction to be made between the two. But I think that there does exist an useful distinction to be made between magic and science. One way to look at it is in terms of whether a given phenomenon can be mass-produced.
Think for example [lately] of dragons.