science fiction studies stanislaw lem

Science Fiction Studies: Stanislaw Lem

Science Fiction Studies is a journal published three times a year by

DePauw University that takes a scholarly look at science fiction,

including reviews, interviews and literary analyses. They have posted

a lot of interesting material online, so I've decided to start a

series of posts on biology-related bits.

Two full issues of Science Fiction Studies (Vol. 13 (3) #40; Vol. 19

(2) #57)have been devoted to Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw

Lem (1921-2006). Lem's works best-known novel is Solaris, first

published in Polish in 1961, which features the futile attempts to

communicate with a very alien alien - one that covers the entire

surface of a distant planet. His novel His Master's Voice also focuses

on the attempt to communicate with an alien in this case a

transmission from space intercepted by scientists here on Earth.

Fiasco is also about our inability to communicate with aliens.

Needless to say, Lem doesn't believe the universe is populated by

English-speaking humanoids.

In 1983, Raymond Federman interviewed Lem for Science Fiction Studies.

Lem talks about the role of science in his fiction:

Federman. What about the role of science in your work?

Lem. What matters for me is what is called cognition. In other

words, that which is the concern of the theory of cognition. And

the question of whether or not it should be limited only to exact

sciences, that is to say, natural sciences, remains open. I am

interested primarily in the line of junction, the border between

science and philosophy, and also in the fact that a certain species

of "brained animals" on Earth, I mean Man, has made science one of

its main preoccupations. I experiment in the sense that sometimes I

examine real possibilities of science and philosophy, and sometimes

I imagine how other thinking species would practice philosophy of

science.

Federman. If I understand you correctly, you do not make any

distinction between science and philosophy?

Lem. Right. After all, the same psychic processes underlie

scientific thinking and imaginative thinking.

He also thought about the future of biology in his work.

Federman. Do you work on one book at a time, or do you work on

several projects at the same time?

Lem. Usually I work on one novel at a time, but at the same time I

write shorter things, essays and so on. Not long ago I was writing

a forecast for the Polish Academy of Sciences about the progress of

biology in the next 60 years. In this essay--this is funny but also

very typical of the way I work--I used some material, some

fantastic ideas from the novel [Wizja lokalna] to include in the

forecast. These ideas turned out to be very helpful in writing this

essay. So you see, I take things out of my fiction to use in my

essays, and vice versa.

Lem was interviewed again in 1986, by Istvan Csicsery-Ronay. He spoke

about his concept of "literary realism" and the incorporation of

science into his works

Lem: Literary realism, for me, is literature's way of dealing with

the real problems of a dual (at least) type. The first kind is the

sort of problem that already exists or is coming into existence.

The second kind is the sort that appears to be lying on the path of

humanity's future. Any attempt to differentiate "possible problems"

from "fictional," or "probable situations (albeit seeming

outrageous today)" from "unlikely," is probably too polarizing to

be successful. In this field, it's every man for himself, as long

as the particular reasons for claiming the status of expert on

dichotomies like the ones cited above are more or less respectable.

Thus, anyone can be a selfmade authority on this subject, and so I

am one.

I must add, however, that only recently did I begin to believe that

I must abide by this conception of literary realism I had

formulated umpteen years ago. Nor did I apprehend it consciously at

first. That is, I stuck to a sense of implied "realism," one

implied through various hypotheses which only later became apparent

to me.

This ought perhaps to be qualified by one more observation. The

contemporary physicist would be surprised to learn that, in

contrast to his or her 19th-century counterpart, he or she is not a

"realist" but a "fantasist." After all, the physicist must in some

sense continue to be a realist, still working within the empirical

tradition shared with 19th-century science; he or she still

converts guesses into testable hypotheses, to be crystallized into

theories which are subject to falsification. Similarly--mutatis

mutandis--my writing over the last 30 years has been subjected to

tests imposed by the changing world. I dare claim that the thrust

of the main changes (such as genetic engineering or computer

science) would become apparent to me, roughly at the time when some

very intelligent people simply laughed at my notions as fairy

stories. Of course, I was quite a bit off when it came to details,

but the strategic movements of civilizations I fathomed rather

well. This sort of realism may be termed sound prognosticating. On

the other hand, sheer fantasizing is characterized by its

self_impossibility (for example, no one will ever manage to travel

back into the past to beat up his or her grandfather; that, I

think, is certain).

[. . . ] Readers with training in biological sciences may be the

ones in the best position to enjoy my books like His Master's

Voice, but I would shy away from drawing conclusions from this.

Both interviews are worth reading to get a sense of Lem's point of

view. Lem is erudite and philosophical, and not at all coy about his

disdain for most science fiction - and much of modern literature.

(I came across Science Fiction Studies via the latest People of Color

in SF Carnival at Seeking Avalon)

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