My futurist colleague and friend, Rick Smyre, President of Communities of the Future, recently presented a challenge to me. How does science fiction connect with Rick's ideas on the Second Enlightenment and Integral Culture? What is the philosophical and practical significance of science fiction, in creating a new more open and constructive mindset in the world, in facilitating a more positive and wise future?

As Rick expressed it, "...how [could you] connect science fiction with our Second Enlightenment philosophic ideas so that young adults would have a new literary genre that could help them prepare for a different kind of future at a fundamental level of thinking...and yet be fun?"

The following short essay captures the essence of my answer to Rick.

 

As Rick Smyre, and other futurist writers concur, there is a host of contemporary challenges facing humanity. We live in an era of rapid and pervasive change. We need a new way of thinking to successfully meet these challenges and "flourish" in such a world.

So what does science fiction offer that is of relevance and value to this perspective and initiative?   

  

Psychologically, what most powerfully informs, motivates, and moves people, are experiences that stimulate the total array of psychological processes, inclusive of thought, imagination, emotion, the senses, desire, behavior, and social reality -- that is, holistic experiences. As I describe in my theory of holistic future consciousness, people approach the future (mentally and behaviorally) with all these psychological dimensions coming into play. What I propose is that science fiction stimulates holistic future consciousness, impacting all the above psychological dimensions.

 

Second, also bringing into play human psychology, we are cognitively predisposed to create and tell stories about ourselves; following from the research of Damasio, among others, it is through self-narrative that we give our lives meaning, purpose, and coherence. We literally create our sense of identity through self-narrative. Our societies  and cultures create a sense of identity through narrative. Narratives (including myths) have been an integral and primordial dimension of the human mind, at least since the beginnings of recorded history (and probably earlier, within the ancient oral traditions). It seems that the narrative is more fundamental than the abstract theoretic within the human mind. Hence, since science fiction is narrative (about the future), it taps into and resonates with our preferred mode of human cognition and thinking. To get people's minds "into the future" we should immerse them in stories, both good and bad, about the future.

 

 

Let me elaborate on the expression "...stories, both good and bad..." When we look out toward the future, we are confronted with negative and positive possibilities (though sometimes it is difficult to tell which are which). Both types of narratives move people. In science fiction there are both utopian and dystopian stories, both narratives of transcendence and cataclysmic visions of tomorrow. The latter, of course, can be seen as "warnings." Even if a science fiction story is not unequivocally negative, it invariably presents challenges and difficulties that drive the narrative; you need some kind of trouble or problem to create drama.

Looking toward the future, it is important to be aware of both negative and positive possibilities, of imagining the consequences, good and bad, of our present ways of doing things. The future will be drama, tragedy, comedy, and conquest. Science fiction, having been born in modern times, will continue to reflect that duality, for the double-edged sword of fear and hope toward the future (the dual heritage of the First Enlightenment and Gothic Romanticism) is a critical dimension in imagining the future.

As both narrative, with characters, plots, and concrete imagery, and as a stimulus for provoking holistic future consciousness, science fiction provides a medium for how the future feels. It is not enough to think it out; the question is always, how would the envisioned future(s) feel?



William Gibson said, "The future is already here, it is just not evenly distributed." My parents grew up and lived their lives in the context of the Great Depression, WWII, and the 1950s philosophy of middle-class American values. But I grew up (and perhaps I was an anomaly of the times), being quickly immersed in science fiction cinema -- the early classics of the 1950s and 1960s. In contemporary times, the youth of the world has grown up in an era significantly dominated by the visions of science fiction cinema (beginning with Star Wars, most of the biggest money making movies of all time are science fiction movies of the last few decades) and the various commercialized and multi-media techno-visions of the near future. If we want to tune into the mindset and mode of experience of the youth, then science fiction (as multi-media, techno-framed immersive experiences) does just that. Many of the younger generation feel that we are living in a science fiction reality already (for better or worse).

Though horror and fantasy are both popular genres in literature and cinema among the younger generations, horror and fantasy are escapist modes of experience. The genre that, to various degrees of success (depending on the quality and intelligence of the production), is both realistic and future oriented is science fiction. Though science fiction clearly stretches and engages the imagination, equally it can be highly realistic. (The general scenarios envisioned in science fiction could happen.)

Moreover, science fiction is pluralistic. Each of us has visions of the future, both hopeful and fearful (preferable and nightmarish), and has theories regarding the nature of reality, the nature of contemporary times, and what we think is the good toward which we should strive. But grounded in what I think is a fundamental truth about the future -- that it is possibilities -- science fiction provides a diverse set of images, stories, scenarios, and arguments pertaining to the future. To be thoughtful about the future and expand the flexibility of our consciousness, it is important to be familiar with a diverse set of futurist visions (even if we don't agree with many of them). Due to the diverse mindsets and philosophies of its various authors, science fiction opens the imagination to the breadth of possibilities of the future.

In Rick's question above, he uses the word "fun," and piggy-backing on this idea, an ongoing "dialectic" within the history of science fiction has been the dual concerns of  entertaining and educating. When science fiction is done well, it does both. You could argue that if you don't entertain you are not going to successfully educate. Hence, whether it is "fun," or simply excitement, thrills, and spills, science fiction brings the entertainment dimension into futurist education.

In Rick's paper on the Second Enlightenment, he compares and contrasts First and Second Enlightenment principles, noting that First Enlightenment principles were developed as a new way to think about and guide the future evolution of human society. First Enlightenment philosophy involved both a rejection of certain ideas and practices of the past, as well as the articulation of a set of new ideas that presumably would drive progress in the years ahead.

In my writings and teaching on science fiction, a main area of focus is the ongoing and evolving interaction between culture, as it developed through ancient and modern times, and how these developments influenced the growth of science fiction. I discuss the importance of the Scientific Revolution and the First Enlightenment in the transformation of the Western mind and the emergence of modern science fiction in Verne and Wells. I also include the significant revolutions in thinking in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century (Evolution, Entropy, Relativity, Quantum Physics, Modern art and music) that affected the development of both futurist thinking and science fiction. Examining the evolution of science fiction within a cultural context  provides a history of thinking about the future -- from ancient times to contemporary times -- thus setting new ways of thinking in a historical and philosophical context. We watch how the idea of the future (and writing about it) grew.



The best science fiction is not simply technological extrapolation, but rather about the future of everything (for example, Hyperion, Last and First Men, and River of Gods) . There are two different meanings to "the future of everything." On one hand, a futurist science fiction novel can integrate into its imagined scenario all dimensions of human reality, from the scientific-technological to the environmental-ecological to the psychological-social-cultural-political-economic-moral and even spiritual-religious. The scenarios of good science fiction are complex, multi-faceted, and rich. You could argue that the most comprehensive and detailed visions of the future are produced in science fiction. Hence, if one challenge of today is to appreciate and understand the complexity of the human condition, then science fiction is a very good place to see how this complexity will develop into the future.

But second, "the future of everything" refers to the cosmic dimension of science fiction. Frequently, science fiction stories address the universe as a whole, delve into questions of God, the purpose and meaning of the cosmos, and humanity's place within it (Stapledon's Star Maker). In this sense, science fiction is mythic, as were the myths of old, keeping in mind that the "cosmic myths" produced in science fiction are pluralistic and diverse. Science fiction generates big picture thinking. This cosmic dimension of science fiction stimulates thinking on issues such as enlightenment, wisdom, and transcendence.

Science fiction is the mythology of the future. I use the word "mythology" not in any disparaging or critical sense, as if to imply unrealistic, antiquated, or untrue. I mean it in a very positive sense. In the past, myths, based upon the ideas of the time, provided meaning, understanding, guidance, and inspiration for people; myths as stories informed and motivated human consciousness. With changes in thinking about the nature of reality, our myths haved naturally changed as well. To quote the science fiction writer and philosopher, Olaf Stapledon (from Last and First Men), when he described the nature of science fiction, "The activity we are undertaking is not science, but art...Yet our aim is not merely to create aesthetically admirable fiction. We must achieve neither mere history, nor mere fiction, but myth. A true myth is one which, within the universe of a certain culture... expresses richly, and often perhaps tragically, the highest aspirations possible within a culture." If we wish to resonate with people's minds and their hearts, we need "myths of the future" that will guide us, inspire us, and inform us; this is science fiction.

          

A critical challenge that humanity faces is summed up in a quote from the psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, "It is easier for us to imagine ourselves living among better appliances than among better human beings." The message of the Second Enlightenment (as was the message of the First Enlightenment) is that we need to transform ourselves -- to transform our minds. We can articulate basic principles of thinking, attitude, and behavior that would serve as a framework and guidance system for this desired transformation, but can we imagine (concretely and in a realistic action mode) what transformed (evolved? better?) humans would be like?

We know from psychological research that people learn through role models. What does a wise or enlightened person of the future look like? Can we envision an individual or a group that has expanded consciousness? If technology is an integral dimension of human reality, then how would a "wise cyborg" think, feel, and behave? Science fiction faces these kinds of imaginative challenges: Can we envision in science fiction settings "better human beings"? There have been many efforts within science fiction to do just this, but it is very difficult, and yet equally very important. As examples, I would consider Card's Ender's Game and especially the sequel Speaker for the Dead, Butler's Parable of the Talents, Kress' Beggars in Spain, and Stephenson's The Diamond Age, as embodying "journeys of wisdom building." At the very least, the medium of science fiction provides the appropriate context in which to think out this central concern.

            

In parting, I invite you to engage in a futurist visioning or scenario-building exercise with me:

• Envision concretely a person who lives within, and indeed revels in, a consciousness of acknowledged existential uncertainty.
• Envision someone who flourishes within ongoing change.
• Envision a person who balances individual needs with communal and holistic concerns -- someone who sees their unique role in the context of interdependency.
• Envision a wise and enlightened person who uses advanced technologies to realize deep, as opposed to shallow, purposes.
• Envision a future mind--a cosmic mind--that truly sees and lives through "the eyes of eternity" 

After presenting my "Science Fiction: The Mythology of the Future" as a one day course at the World Future Society conference this last month, Jeanne and I will be doing an expanded three-day weekend retreat (with more multimedia, more discussion, and a variety of hands-on writing activities) in Grand Rapids, Michigan, September 19th to the 21st.  See the Program and Register.