This article by science fiction writer Neal Stephenson focuses on how science fiction has/can/should influence and drive innovation in America.

Stephenson is one of those science fiction writers who has been able to expand beyond just genre readers and become respected by what you might call the critical establishment. Caveat lector – he’s on my list, but I have never read him. But, it appears as if he’s on a level with a writer like China Miéville, though perhaps not up to Margaret Atwood heights.

Much of it is a cri de couer regarding the failure of the current age to follow up on the dreams of a previous age, but I mostly wanted to point how two ways, mentioned in the article, that sci fi can push scientific achievment.

1. The Inspiration Theory. SF inspires people to choose science and engineering as careers. This much is undoubtedly true, and somewhat obvious.

2. The Hieroglyph Theory. Good SF supplies a plausible, fully thought-out picture of an alternate reality in which some sort of compelling innovation has taken place. A good SF universe has a coherence and internal logic that makes sense to scientists and engineers. Examples include Isaac Asimov’s robots, Robert Heinlein’s rocket ships, and William Gibson’s cyberspace. As Jim Karkanias of Microsoft Research puts it, such icons serve as hieroglyphs—simple, recognizable symbols on whose significance everyone agrees.

 

One thought on “Innovation and Science Fiction”

  1. Snow Crash and Diamond Age have hung with me for 15 years. It’s rare that a book sticks in my brain for a day and a half, much less a decade and a half. OTOH Cryptonomicon I barely remember, and I couldn’t make it through the Baroque Cycle.

    China Mieville’s The City and the City is another one of those books that will stick for decades. I’m currently working my way through Mieville’s work (because TCatC was so great). Good stuff, but isn’t having the impact TCatC had.

    As for Stephenson’s argument in IS, I think he’s got it wrong. He wants to apply 20th century solutions to 21st century problems. No amount of steam power is going to get a rocket to the moon, and no amount of NASA engineers and Three Initial Corporations (TIC) are going to ween the world off oil and plastic (for example).

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