From: heintzelman-george@CS.YALE.EDU (George Heintzelman)
Subject: Re: Re: Re: SF or FF?
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 13:20:07 GMT

In article <1992Jul31.114224.9762@waikato.ac.nz> mperry@waikato.ac.nz writes:
>In article <1992Jul29.152035.8662@cs.umn.edu>, thornley@cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley) writes:
>> In article <13839@mindlink.bc.ca> Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow) writes:
>What is SF about?
>
>SF is about science of the future. So if FTL may be invented in the future then
>a story containing FTL can be called SF.
>
>Science today states that xyz is impossible - this only means that xyz is
>impossible according to their theory (which only partially models reality)
>at this time. Given time their theory will probably change and xyz may become
>possible. Take Flying - how many people thought this was impossible.
	[Lots of examples of disproved theories]
>All these were considered impossible, yet someone did it.
>Therefore, no one can say "This doesn't belong to SF" as they don't know
>what science could be developed in the future (or the past).
>
>Reguardless of whether you think something is impossible, it may be possible,
>so you can't write off 90% of SF because you feel that it is impossible.
>SF has been an inspiration to Science for years, why can't it be an inspiration
>in the future.
>
>When some physics law says something is impossible, you must remember that it
>is only another theory, and it may be wrong. - just like the theory of god.
>They are theories modelling reality from one perspective. You can use theories,
>but you shouldn't take a theory as being absolute and infalable.
>
	For the most part, I agree with this. And I think that FTL and
psi, and aliens, and AI, and cyberspace, and ... are all
incontrovertible parts of the Speculative Fiction genre. 
	However. If an author wishes to write Science Fiction (my
definiton of this term coinciding with what many people call 'hard'
SF) he or she is obligated to provide a scientifcally plausible
explanation of the phenomenon used -- not necessarily a complete
theory, but at least a skeleton of one that might happen.  Note that
this is dependant on the state of science at the time of writing,
which is why much of Vern, for example is still science fiction.
	With the advances in scientific understanding in recent years,
it becomes harder and harder to come up with explanations of these
things that still retain the explanatory power of current theory.
Therefore stories with these elements begin to lapse into Speculative
Fiction.
	In Speculative Fiction, which to my mind includes fantasy as
well as 'soft' science fiction (old definition...) the central
requirement is not a universe consistent with current science, but a
world which is SELF-consistent, that takes its elements and carries
them through to logical conclusions. I suppose it is an obvious point,
but in many, many RPGs that I have played in, the GM/World designer
has failed in some way to make the universe self-consistent;
especially in (for instance) magical worlds, GMs use the medieval
practice as a guide, which is often jarring...castles that are open to
easy magical attack are the most jarring example. A castle in a
magical world is not going to be like the ones which were actually
built.  This applies in equal force to futuristic worlds, where again
consequences of postulated technology and so on are not fully worked
out.
	To my mind, it is SELF-consistency that makes an RPG world fun
to play in, not agreement with science. But it is the latter which
defines *Science* Fiction.

George Heintzelman
heintzel@cernapo.cern.ch
Ignore the posting address, it's just where I read news...


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