About Writing Philosophical Science Fiction-Part Two

There may be many examples of good philosophical science fiction--in fact Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy and 'The Harry Seldon Plan' is a kind of social philosophy for itself. Frank Herbert's 'Dune' and 'The Jesus Incident implicitly presented alternative views of normal reality which comprises on occasion philosophical meritorious work.

Amidst philosophers Bishop Berkley's Dialogues are perhaps the most famous fiction method of presenting philosophical ideas--in that case the proof for Idealism (Ideaism). Yet we are not in quest of thinly disguised philosophical works dressed up with science fiction costume. We seek to create actual philosophical science fiction. Such work in a modern context may include neo-Platonism, String Theory and multiverse criteria. There is a need for flexible characters able to adjust to complete and sudden transformations of space-time continua, of the fundamental nature of reality, yet capable of keeping some dignity about themselves and not losing track of perennial, transcendent values that cohere in the logical constitution of the presented thermodynamic variables of the Creator.

Of course as philosophers writing science fiction we seek after the One true God recommended by Jesus Christ. We realize that Jesus had a system of transcending values that could not be fulfilled by any one human being on Earth in a lifetime--personal sacrifice was required. Jesus started the new age rolling with his own personal sacrifice. He told us also that those that save their lives will lose them, and those that lose their life for his sake, find it. Tough order of assembly obviously, yet humanity as an imperfect and flawed organism needs help in moving toward spiritual orders and rational (from my perspective) social reality in pursuit of pragmatic utopia rather than dysfunctional non-renewable macro-economics and depletion of environmental resources amidst and exploitative social infrastructure. In order to bring philosophical merit into our science fiction projects it is important to describe the temporal veils of appearance and circumstance that comprise bad federal policy on any planet or circumstance in which it may occur, if it serves to advance the story line.

We may ask 'where should we leave our protagonists--in this universe or that, dead in this lifetime or resurrected through some sort of super-medical intervention in another universe. Though we commend our soul unto God, everything else seems somewhat subject to change and insult, attack or depletion. We may not seek to create our own non-temporal realm of forms, yet we can contemplate arresting elements of the changes of space-time a little such as capture of photons in Einsteinium or whatever extrapolating perhaps to the freezing of quantum super-positions and all states of all waveforms in all possible universes until we get a pay increase in our negotiating humor if such serves to advance the science fiction story line.

While we may drop down puts into unpredictable holes with the assurance of a reduction of quantum uncertainty such as a Tiger Woods perhaps, neither need we form our science fiction plot lines with random association of macro-quantum wave-particle configurations pre-determined to emerge as any mundane universe flowing ineveitably toward thermodynamic exhaustion. Our science fiction descriptions have the trait of meta-stepping to a higher or lower level frequently enough to bring us to counter-act that effort to reach just the conclusive and best truth with decent in to lower realms nearly reaching the clouds of temporal comedy of errors and the praise of folly such as a Congress may prefer.

I believe its worthwhile making a comment about the Socratic dialogues probably the intended reference by Len above concerning "many of the Greek and Roman philosophers used dialogue to make their points."

Aeschylus and/or Euripides made a little fun of philosophers for their seemingly air-headed ways in their plays, yet the dialogues of Plato that captured the essence of the ideas of Socrates and his opponents in rhetoric were anything besides spaced. They brought an intellectual acuity to their day that has comparatively never been surpassed.

Socrates as a philosopher isn't known to have written anything at all--not much help then as a guide for a writer today of philosophical science fiction. Plato on the other hand, wrote a lot about Socrates and his conversations with other philosophers and people he led in philosophical dialectical inquiry concerning truth and it's nature. Yet Plato wasn't a fiction writer--he was more like a court reporter hanging out at the Agora and at other famous Athenian locals capturing the best of the life and times of Socrates.

There were other writers of non-fiction in the 5th century B.C. of course--historians and such. There were also dramatist-playwrights and poets. Fiction wasn't much of a genre back then. In fact Cervantes and Don Quixote built up from many short stories and in Japan The Tales of Genji are two of the earliest novels. Philosophers generally wrote non-fiction and more technically in both ancient Greece and Rome. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius doesn't provide a mix of dialogue and prose fiction scene setting--we must wait some time for that.

Plato was a philosopher writing about his idea of what another philosopher said. Our issue for this essay was discover methods of making the writing of philosophical science fiction simpler. We like dialogue, yet it is too simple and insufficient for making an interesting story if it is actual philosophy--for it is then mostly speculative non-fiction. Our philosopher writing a story simply breaks up his monologue into two parts and has a dialectical exchange format for presenting the ideas.

That was the reason for the three to one rule of description to dialogue-one may write a fifty thousand word philosophical monologue in two parts and throw in some parsley and sprigs of mint for scene setting. Like Tolstoy at the end of Anna Karenina throwing his used-up heroine under a train (tragically) to provide a quick ending to a story he had lost interest in continuing, the philosophical science fiction writer has the risk of evaluating his descriptive portion as insignificant and just provide highlights as accoutrements to the main course of philosophy. Prose fiction writing is important too for the philosophical science fiction novel--so plotting is very helpful in creating a framework into which the philosophy can fit--it is not an afterthought, or an indirect product of a well written novel such that philosophical meaning might appear here and there like the sun breaking through interminable months of nimbus clouds and rain to shine some light into the underworld of temporal existence.