The Adjacent Possible Volume 4 issue 4
City Algorithms, Revisiting Blade Runner's Set Design, The Morality of Colonizing Space
Sometimes 2020 just feels like…
Welcome to The Adjacent Possible.
Here’s what caught my eye since the last issue:
Culture + Society
When Science Fiction Comes to Life
Amsterdam Algorithm Register
Upcoming Events of Interest
Science
Researchers Ready World-First Vision Restoration Device for Human Clinical Trials
Inside the Craft
Adjacent Possible POV: VR/Video Games in Literature - Does it Work?
Let’s Stop with the Realism Versus Science Fiction and Fantasy Debate
Discussing the Set Design of Blade Runner
Space
No One Should ‘Colonize’ Space
A Mini Fractal Universe May Lie Inside Charged Black Holes (if they exist)
Here’s a Clever Idea, Looking for the Shadows of Trees On Exoplanets to Detect Multicellular Life
Why the Universe May Be Conscious
In Review
The Adjacent Possible Review: NeXt on Fox
It all sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Before you dive in, how about letting your friends know about all the cool stuff you find in every issue of The Adjacent Possible:
Culture + Society
When Science Fiction Comes to Life (via MindMatters)
Quite a few of the stories that I read - and that make it into The AP - include a line that goes something like this: ‘Previously only imagined in science fiction novels…” and then go on to describe some new technological breakthrough. Here’s a nice overview of several science fiction authors who were quite prescient in the novels.
Amsterdam Algorithm Register (via City of Amsterdam)
An interesting project from the progressive city of Amderstam. As algorithms proceed to play a growing role in our lives, this register helps citizens understand the “algorithms that the municipality of Amsterdam uses for municipal services. For each algorithm, you will first find general information about the purpose and operation of the algorithm. You will then find more detailed technical information. By providing feedback, you can help us make the algorithms we use better, fairer, and more responsible.” I hope more cities will make this sort of information available to the public.
Upcoming Events of Interest (via SciFly Newsletter)
If you’re not familiar with Doc Martens SciFly newsletter, I highly recommend it. Each issue is filled with listings for all kinds of really interesting events, many of them are virtual and free. Here’s one that caught my eye:
What if the future of economics is invented in science fiction? // 10/16 // 8am - 8:30am EDT // Free
The situation is clear. An economy’s inaction based on its certainties is creating a global deadlock. Permanent micro-adjustments are no longer enough. Fortunately, intellectuals on all sides reject the status quo and imagine more desirable futures. Among them, science fiction authors are now proposing radically new models and shaking up the established order. To highlight the synergies between SF and the economy, the Edgeryders community and the Messina Community Foundation, supported by EIT Climate-KIC are organizing a residency program to support creative work at the intersections of imaginary worlds and economics. We are imagining an open-source world against a backdrop of science fiction/ narrativized speculative futures.
Science
Researchers ready world-first vision restoration device for human clinical trials (via TechCrunch)
Over a decade’s worth of work by scientists working at Melbourne, Australia’s Monash University has produced a first-of-its-kind device that can restore vision to the blind, using a combination of smartphone-style electronics and brain-implanted microelectrodes. The system has already been shown to work in preclinical studies and non-human trials on sheep, and researchers are now preparing for a first human clinical trial to take place in Melbourne.
Inside the Craft
VR/Video Games in Literature - Does it Work?
This year I’ve read The Peripheral by William Gibson, Fall; or, Dodge In Hell by Neal Stephenson, and Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin (Full disclosure, I’m still working my way through the latter two). In each of these works, all highly celebrated and by authors at the top of the field, significant passages take place in some form of virtual reality and/or video game.
In all cases, and more so in the Stephenson and Liu books, I found the parts that took place inside the virtual world to be almost impossible to get through. Part of it was the break from the main narrative, it just put up a huge blockade on the forward momentum of the story. But also, I just found the sections to be uninteresting. I didn’t care what was happening nor the characters involved.
I think part of the issue is that when cyberspace was initially brought to life - most memorably by Gibson’s Neuromancer or the movie Tron, the idea of being inside a computer was novel. It was something we had likely never imagined before. Today, not only can we imagine it, but it’s most likely that everyone reading these books has probably tried a VR headset, an AR mobile app, or an immersive video game. At the very least they’ve been on the Internet.
So now, at least for me, reading about characters roaming an open sandbox video game — inside a novel with other characters I do care about — is truly uninteresting. But maybe you feel differently, let me know in the comments at the bottom what you think.
Let’s Stop with the Realism Versus Science Fiction and Fantasy Debate (via LitHub)
The Adjacent Possible tries to find a balance between “science” and “fiction.” Similarly, my personal tastes tend towards what is often referred to as “hard” science fiction. But really, many of these labels only work to cause confusion and sew division. This essay provides a road map for thinking more broadly, and less definitively, about authors who use various fantastical elements.
Discussing the Set Design of Blade Runner (via American Cinematographer)
Blade Runner is my favorite film of all time, and this reprint of a 1982 American Cinematographer article is a fantastic behind-the-scenes look at the set and costume design for the classic Ridley Scott film. It really brings home how considered every aspect of the design was for this movie, which, nearly forties years later still holds up.
Also in the piece is this little gem from Scott:
“The film is a tongue-in-cheek idea of what could actually happen if the replicant industry becomes a large conglomerate, a monopoly. If one particular company could become so large that it develops into aerospace, it develops into the space probes looking for mining and military areas. Another side of that company could be genetics and genetic engineering which could easily lead to the development of the first human clone.”
He’s talking about the Tyrell Corporation here, but it sounds almost more like he’s speaking of Weyland-Yutani, the corporation that is the villain of the Alien franchise (also helmed by Scott).
If you received this issue of The Adjacent Possible from a friend, please consider subscribing so you can get this mix of science fiction, technology, and innovation directly to your inbox.
Space
No One Should ‘Colonize’ Space (via The Atlantic)
It feels as if over the last few years America is starting to come to grips with some of the problematic language embedded in culture. It’s a slow process, and one that articles like this acknowledge still needs to be addressed when we talk about space exploration. If colonialism is accepted as a troubled word, why do me talk about setting up colonies on Mars or the moon?
A mini fractal universe may lie inside charged black holes (if they exist) (via LiveScience)
Black holes are perhaps the strangest, least-understood objects in our universe. With so much potential — being linked to everything from wormholes to new baby universes — they have sucked in physicists for decades.
But as strange as these known objects are, even stranger types of black holes could be dreamed up. In one upside-down, hypothetical version of the universe, a bizarre type of black hole could exist that is stranger than an M.C. Escher sketch. Now, a team of researchers has plunged into the mathematical heart of so-called charged black holes and found a slew of surprises, including an inferno of space-time and an exotic fractal landscape.
Here’s a Clever Idea, Looking for the Shadows of Trees On Exoplanets to Detect Multicellular Life (via Universe Today)
Fascinating look at how scientists constantly come up with new ways to look at problems and solve challenges.
Why the Universe May be Conscious (via Grin News)
This headline really caught my eye as this is an idea I’ve been playing around with as I (struggle to) write a novel. Obviously, my idea, which incorporates Dark Matter, Brane Multiverse, and the Tegmark Scale, is a bunch of hand-wavy nonsense, but this interview provides some real thought-provoking ideas.
In Review: NeXt
When Person of Interest debuted in 2011 I didn’t bother watching it. A network TV about a supercomputer that helps solve crimes didn’t sound like it was going to be very good. Over the course of the show, however, it morphed into what I understand to be a pretty compelling drama that tackled the idea of a rogue AI pretty well. There’s too much programming out there for me to go back now and watch it though, so it will just live in my memory as one of those shows that was perhaps a bit ahead of its time.
Now, FOX has a new show (you can see it on FOX on Hulu as well) called NeXt which seems to be coming out at just the right time. I’ve seen the first three episodes and while it has some things going for it, it misses being a must-watch show.
The shows stars John Slattery who you’ll probably recognize as Roger Sterling from Mad Men. In NeXt he plays a - wait for it - rich white guy who’s kind of a dick. At this point that just about the only character Slattery plays and in the first episode his character, Paul LeBlanc, a Steve Jobs-ian computer genius, literally announces that he’s kind of a dick in a nice bit of meta-commentary about Slattery’s typecasting.
Because this is a network show, the show races through plot, tries to add too many C storylines, and generally suffers from a lack of production quality. The evil AI seems way too powerful, taking over any system almost instantaneously. Though, to read this story about hijacked billboards that could interfere with autonomous vehicles demonstrates some of the show’s ideas aren’t too farfetched.
There are some interesting touches within the show - one of the FBI team members on the case is a reformed white supremacist (though his hacking skills are reminiscent of Huck from Scandal). In episode three the character who oversees a Boston Dynamics stand-in is played by a wheelchair-bound actor, and the voice of an Amazon Echo type smart speaker is called Iliza, a nod to ELIZA, one of the first programs capable of attempting the Turing test.
Slattery is trying his best with material that doesn’t rise to the level of the ideas the show is skirting around, but my hope is that it’s just early and the writers and showrunner haven’t yet found the rhythm. I’ll keep watching, and while I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it, perhaps it will grow into a better show, as Person of Interest did.
New episodes of NeXt air on Tuesday nights.
Thank you so much for sharing your time with me. I hope you found at least one item in this issue to be interesting, thought-provoking or even challenging. The wonders we discover and create, never fail to amaze me.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the items in this issue. Please consider leaving a comment.
Until next time, have a better one.