Sci Phi: Journal of Science Fiction and Philosophy

Sci Phi Productions

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What is Sci Phi ? By Jason Rennie

So what is this thing called Sci Phi? As the play on words in the name suggests, Sci Phi is a term that combines the ideas of science fiction and philosophy. I first encountered the term myself in Mark Rowland’s work, “The Philosopher at the end of the Universe”, a book I would highly recommend as a starting place to anyone wishing to delve into these ideas themselves. Now this might seem like an odd combination of things, after all what can science fiction stories of tales from the far future teach us about an ancient discipline like Philosophy? It turns out that the answer is, “A surprisingly large amount”. Many philosophical ideas have been discussed in the medium of story telling. From Plato’s conversations questioning the basis of morality in his Euthyphro dialogues, through Thomas More’s exploration of Utopia and down to Nietzsche’s stories about the mad man proclaiming the death of god and its consequences. It should be no great surprise that the modern story telling art of science fiction would likewise provide such a vehicle.

In fact we should expect science fiction to provide an excellent vehicle for these sorts of ideas because it is able to explore, through the vehicle of advanced technology and other worldly creatures, ideas that would be difficult to communicate otherwise. Consider a film like Total Recall that confronts us with questions of personal identity and what makes you the person you are, something that would be impossible to do in the way it is done without this technology that allows memories to be erased and implanted in the way they are in the film. Who is Doug Quaid and what has become of Hauser? Perhaps this idea could be explored through a regular movie set in modern times, but not so deeply, and almost definitely without all of the action we see in a film like Total Recall.

This is one of the real strengths of science fiction as a story telling medium. It is so easy to communicate subtle ideas through these different situations and technologies without needing to beat the audience over the head with it. So many of these stories can be enjoyed on all these different levels, although the special effects laden medium of modern film and television seem to provide a unique opportunity to do this sort of story telling. Phillip K Dick’s original story, “We can remember it for you wholesale” is an interesting exploration of the ideas of memory and identity, with an amusing twist ending, but I suspect far more people saw Paul Verhoven’s re-imagining of the ideas in Total Recall than ever read the original short story. Although many people probably have discovered the writings of a man like P.K. Dick thanks to the movies that have been based on his short stories, I know I did.

Another real advantage of a medium like science fiction is its ability to put a fresh face on ideas that have been around for centuries and communicate them for the current generation. Consider the Wachowski brother’s film, The Matrix. It is a movie filled with philosophical themes from end to end. Whole books have been written exploring these ideas, try doing a search on Amazon some time. However one of the major themes of the first Matrix film is a retelling of the story from Plato’s Republic about people who are chained inside a cave and have been all their lives. The parallels should be obvious, and how one man reacts upon escaping his bondage and being out in the sunlight for the first time. A related theme is the thought experiments of the Enlightenment philosopher Rene Descartes and his methodical exploration of the idea of doubt and sense experience that includes the idea of a malevolent demon that is systematically deceiving a person into imagining the outside world as the machines do to the human race in The Matrix. Best of all, these deep ideas are retold in an exciting way, and will be encountered afresh by people that would probably never pick up centuries old tomes of philosophical musings because they are too intimidated by the prospect of doing so. How many people reading this have read works by people like Ray Kurzweil and his ideas of building thinking machines? But surely everybody has reflected on the concept of what it means to be alive and thinking from films and books like I, Robot or Star Trek episodes like “Measure of a Man”.

Consider the questions of personal identity that are asked in a film like The Sixth Day or J.C. Hutchin’s audio book 7^th Son. What does it mean to be a clone? Unless somebody tells you or you have some obvious mark to distinguish, how can you tell the original from the clone? Who is the real you and who is the copy? What is it like to be a clone? Or the deep moral questions asked in the Star Wars films. Although the prequel films were somewhat disappointing in terms of quality, there are really interesting questions of good and evil asked about the Jedi and the Sith in the movie. Who are really the bad guys? On the surface it would appear the Sith Lords are the bad guys, yet, it is the Jedi who, in all six films, tell the most lies and freely deceive people “for their own good”, while the Sith are frequently brutally honest, and although Palpatine’s quest for power seems to have corrupted him, he is motivated by a desire to bring order to an increasingly chaotic and disordered galaxy.

The only real problem I have with using Science Fiction and a vehicle for these explorations of interesting philosophical ideas is that they are often missed by so many people. Something as intentionally philosophical like The Matrix is hard to miss, but the subtler concepts of a film like Dark City may be lost on the audience. Now this is partially a bad thing because important ideas and questions are missed by people, but more importantly people absorb ideas from the media they consume that is probably better absorbed consciously rather than unconsciously. The deeply eastern world view of a film like Star Wars, the bleak Nihilism of a film like Dark City, or the triumphalism scientism of Star Trek are all concepts better reflected up consciously and weighed and examined than taken on uncritically.

Besides the life of the mind and philosophical speculation make for great intellectual stimulation that is good for people and if Science Fiction brings these ideas across to people and there are more amateur philosophers created who are more deeply reflective of the world around them, then all the better. The ability to think and reflect upon ideas is something that is of benefit to everyone.