Tuesday, January 10, 2006
I've had a life long habit of spending some of my time reading science fiction. That has not always been time well spent, even if one considers it recreation time. Below are some thoughts on a book I came by early in life and read again as an adult.
The World of Null A by AE van Vogt
I got this book in the 3rd grade. Tried to read it and gave up. I've finally read it around 1965 and finally read it and got something out of it in the mid 90's.
I believe that The World of Null A is typical science fiction in that it takes a science topic and develops a story around an extrapolation of the topic. Sometimes the proposition when you figure out what it is, is outrageous beyond belief. For example, Asimov's psycohistory in the Foundation books is just Marxist evolutional doctrine in disguise.
The topic in the case of Null A is a refutation of the foundations of Western civilization, which is Aristotelian, with non or null Aristotelian. So what the heck does that mean? Since I'm not a student of Greek philosophy, I will only take a guess (no time to get a worthless PHD in Philosophy.) Null A is observable fact based where A allows one to accept some things (axioms) as not needing proof, just acceptance as givens ie belief. Many chapters of the book are introduced with a quote from general semantics - probably a hot topic in the 50's. We are supposed be thrilled to learn that emotions have no place in decision making and only what is "scientific fact" is important.
Well, the first part of the book is a good read. But from the second half of the first book to the end of the third book, the story is just bizarre. That's all. Just bizarre.
Any way, when I read the book in the 90's , I ate it up. At the time I was learning statistical math (again) as part of rescaling myself at work. Technical / engineering workplaces pride themselves on fact based decision making.
Here is a general semantics quote found in the book - The map is not the territory. Semanticists who got this concept knew that the USSR and Yugoslavia would fall apart some day. See how useful the lessons from Null A are! I wonder if it ever occurred to the same people who understand that concept understand this one - Human beings don't do well in socialist systems and will get out of them given the opportunity.
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I believe that The World of Null A is typical science fiction in that it takes a science topic and develops a story around an extrapolation of the topic. Sometimes the proposition when you figure out what it is, is outrageous beyond belief. For example, Asimov's psycohistory in the Foundation books is just Marxist evolutional doctrine in disguise.
The topic in the case of Null A is a refutation of the foundations of Western civilization, which is Aristotelian, with non or null Aristotelian. So what the heck does that mean? Since I'm not a student of Greek philosophy, I will only take a guess (no time to get a worthless PHD in Philosophy.) Null A is observable fact based where A allows one to accept some things (axioms) as not needing proof, just acceptance as givens ie belief. Many chapters of the book are introduced with a quote from general semantics - probably a hot topic in the 50's. We are supposed be thrilled to learn that emotions have no place in decision making and only what is "scientific fact" is important.
Well, the first part of the book is a good read. But from the second half of the first book to the end of the third book, the story is just bizarre. That's all. Just bizarre.
Any way, when I read the book in the 90's , I ate it up. At the time I was learning statistical math (again) as part of rescaling myself at work. Technical / engineering workplaces pride themselves on fact based decision making.
Here is a general semantics quote found in the book - The map is not the territory. Semanticists who got this concept knew that the USSR and Yugoslavia would fall apart some day. See how useful the lessons from Null A are! I wonder if it ever occurred to the same people who understand that concept understand this one - Human beings don't do well in socialist systems and will get out of them given the opportunity.
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Georgia: I liked the first book a lot. I was watching a lot of Columbo at the time and saw some connection with the lead in that story for some reason, I think it was the way he was on the right track, didn't really know what was going on, fumbled around and then triumphed in the end. Maybe the problem with the plotting was that the hero's triumph is so complete, he becomes so thoroughly all-knowing, that there's nowhere left for him to go. From the second book onwards he's infallible, even a little bored with the events of the other stories. The third book had a scene of him playing chess with the other characters, I think that really sums the whole thing up. No one really wants to read about the omnipotent outside of the Bible.
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