Derivative Plots?

[Shecky]

Because it translates emotional reality directly into physical in ways that have no basis in our actual understanding of the universe.

I just don't see why that's a problem. There are many theories about consciousness that essentially require the possibility of mind affecting physical reality.

If we have this argument, we'll just all draw our own lines in different places, and I do not think anything will be resolved.  Since Damon Knight is no longer with us, we can't even call on him to come over and point at things for us.

Wasn't intended as an argument, merely an illustration of how fluid the lines are even within genres. SF is not so separate from other genres as we might believe.

Agreed, to an extent; there is too much intentionally left blank - cf. the discussions elsewhere about the exact nature of God in the Dresdenverse - for it to really feel like an entirely SFnal world to me.

Very few SF works discuss everything. Much is left unexplained or even completely ignored - for example, Damon Knight's Why Do Birds leaves the majority of the SF-specific aspects entirely or minimally unexplained. Yet it's considered good SF.

It's just been my experience that little truly separates the genres; even hard SF, when well-written, is not so different from others - at its heart, a good story is still... well, a story. And for human readers, there's a certain set of shared-experience considerations that always enter into play.

Don't misunderstand me - I think that SF/fantasy are more freeing than are other genres. They put the human experience into unexpected and even new contexts, yet the human-experience aspect always shows through. They go beyond but bring it all back home to the human. And that's a good thing, in my opinion.

[Quantus]

I just don't see why that's a problem. There are many theories about consciousness that essentially require the possibility of mind affecting physical reality.

One of the few things that many philosophers can actually agree on is that the idea of emotional responses or some sort of non-physical (ie spiritual) part of the self affecting the physical realm in ways we don't understand is actually a necessary requirement of Free Will.  the argument being that if there is not some immaterial x-factor, then the brain is just one big chemical reaction that has only one possible path of responses and outcomes based on the inputs exposed to it, and that our belief in our own choice is simple a delution of grandeur. 

Very few SF works discuss everything. Much is left unexplained or even completely ignored - for example, Damon Knight's Why Do Birds leaves the majority of the SF-specific aspects entirely or minimally unexplained. Yet it's considered good SF.

It's just been my experience that little truly separates the genres; even hard SF, when well-written, is not so different from others - at its heart, a good story is still... well, a story. And for human readers, there's a certain set of shared-experience considerations that always enter into play.

Don't misunderstand me - I think that SF/fantasy are more freeing than are other genres. They put the human experience into unexpected and even new contexts, yet the human-experience aspect always shows through. They go beyond but bring it all back home to the human. And that's a good thing, in my opinion.

Thats what i thought.  SF/Fantasy taken as a whole are definitely a separate thing from other fiction, because they live in the Why Not over the Why; in what could be possible, not what is.   But within it, does it really change anything but flavor whether the super-strength was a result of gamma radiation and genetic manipulation or Troll blood and a magic ritual?  And does the fact that the word "gamma radiation" appears in science books make its use any less Fantastic?

And it goes both ways.  Some fantasy worlds are ordered and logical enough to have the feel of SF; dresden is a good example at times, so is the Young wizards series by Diane Duane.  Similarly some SF definately cross into a more fantasy realm; Dune is a big one, so is Star Wars (no matter how many microscopic organisms are in my blood). 

I guess I just think any hard division between the two are all going to be cosmetic, rather than effecting what kind of story-telling can be done.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

One of the few things that many philosophers can actually agree on is that the idea of emotional responses or some sort of non-physical (ie spiritual) part of the self affecting the physical realm in ways we don't understand is actually a necessary requirement of Free Will.  the argument being that if there is not some immaterial x-factor, then the brain is just one big chemical reaction that has only one possible path of responses and outcomes based on the inputs exposed to it, and that our belief in our own choice is simple a delution of grandeur.

Personally, if I have a choice between intellectual rigour and believing in free will for the sake of believing in free will, intellectual rigour wins.

At some levels it's a spurious opposition, though; free will and determinism are not necessarily contradictory.  The arguments there are too complex for me to do them justice in the time I have available; I recommend Daniel Dennett's Freedom Evolves.

And does the fact that the word "gamma radiation" appears in science books make its use any less Fantastic?

If it's used as magic handwaving, it's fantasy.  If it's used as a part of the world in much the same way as heat and light and gravity and the bits of reality that are intuitively obvious to us because they're the ones that have always been directly palpable to us are, it's SF.  My degrees are in genetics, so I don't default read "mutation" as magic password to superpowers, I read it as a very specific phenomenon that works in ways as understandable as going down to the shop for a loaf of bread.

I guess I just think any hard division between the two are all going to be cosmetic, rather than effecting what kind of story-telling can be done.

There's more than one borderland, IMO, and as an aspiring author I am interested in how things work differently, what makes something feel SF or fantasy and where the edges are.  Magic with strict scientific rules, on one hand, and a world with  underlying rational workings inhabited by people who think of them as magic, on the other, are very different things, but they're both edge cases between SF and fantasy.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I just don't see why that's a problem. There are many theories about consciousness that essentially require the possibility of mind affecting physical reality.

Insofar as sentience as software has to run on something, yes.  [ Though to loop back to the start of the thread for a moment, Permutation City does a lovely deconstruction of even that notion. ]  But there is a difference of scale between that and magical thinking.

[The Corvidian]

All the good stories are remade every so often. That's how come stories of King Arthur are still told today.

[Shecky]

Insofar as sentience as software has to run on something, yes.  [ Though to loop back to the start of the thread for a moment, Permutation City does a lovely deconstruction of even that notion. ]  But there is a difference of scale between that and magical thinking.

Not being argumentative here - I honestly don't see any intrinsic difference there, just ones that are functions of the authors' choices.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Not being argumentative here - I honestly don't see any intrinsic difference there, just ones that are functions of the authors' choices.

Well, unless you want to go all cognitive zombie apocalypse*, the scientific method suggests that human minds are actually working and running on human brains in some way of which we are only just now starting to grasp the details.  The scientific method does not, as yet, support the proposition that Willing It Really Hard makes fireballs come out of your fingers.  Not to say the author cannot choose to do the latter and make a good book out of it, just that it's not SF to do so.  Come up with a rigorous enough take on it and it might feel like alternate science, like a lot of what Ted Chiang does.

*See http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/04/zombie-movie.html for example

[Shecky]

This is why I said some theories work that way.  Given that they're just as valid as mind-as-emergent-phenomenon theories (i.e., nobody's got convincing data either way and there are more than enough inexplicable phenomena to support at least the possibility of a non-material mind), I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and accept them as reasonable possibilities; the scientific method neither excludes nor includes without sufficient data. In the absence of sufficient data, even "alternate science" is a reasonable option.

... which brings us back to the original point: mind over matter cannot be rejected out of hand.

[Suilan]

mind over matter cannot be rejected out of hand.

If it were, Star Wars couldn't be considered SciFi. (Nor Star Trek or Babylon5, though the Jedi Knights are really the closest thing to wizards that scifi's got.)

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

This is why I said some theories work that way.  Given that they're just as valid as mind-as-emergent-phenomenon theories (i.e., nobody's got convincing data either way and there are more than enough inexplicable phenomena to support at least the possibility of a non-material mind), I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and accept them as reasonable possibilities; the scientific method neither excludes nor includes without sufficient data. In the absence of sufficient data, even "alternate science" is a reasonable option.

When all else fails, though, Occam's razor feels more scientific than postulating extra-scientific agencies to me.

I suspect I find software-is-sentience more easy to believe than many people because I have seen more examples of how easy it is to program the appearance of sentient behvaiour into something.

[Shecky]

When all else fails, though, Occam's razor feels more scientific than postulating extra-scientific agencies to me.

I suspect I find software-is-sentience more easy to believe than many people because I have seen more examples of how easy it is to program the appearance of sentient behvaiour into something.

... which brings us back to the Zombie Apocalypse link you gave us (highly entertaining, by the way!).

All this says is that the concept of will affecting material reality is, at present, a moot point, both in and of itself and as a tool for fiction. *shrugs* Nice topic, though; I've spent many an hour talking about it and related subjects.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

If it were, Star Wars couldn't be considered SciFi. (Nor Star Trek or Babylon5, though the Jedi Knights are really the closest thing to wizards that scifi's got.)

Yet some people still wonder why
We say "SF" instead of "SciFi";
It's because there's a fine line
Between Robert Heinlein
And "Son of the Two-Headed Fly".

Star Wars is fantasy.

[Shecky]

Star Wars is fantasy.

Why? Not that I disagree completely, but what's to stop SF from having fantastic elements? Look at Heinlein's multiperson pantheistic solipsism if you want to see BIG-time mental effects on physical reality couched in SF.

[Starbeam]

Why? Not that I disagree completely, but what's to stop SF from having fantastic elements? Look at Heinlein's multiperson pantheistic solipsism if you want to see BIG-time mental effects on physical reality couched in SF.

Because George Lucas said so.

[Yeratel]

Star Wars is fantasy.

Well, really, it's Akira Kurosawa's samurai movies rewritten with lightsabres.