How much would it take to raise a robot butler? (Shade Lite / Bigstock.com Illustration)
What rights does a robot have? If our machines become intelligent in the science-fiction way, that’s likely to become a complicated question — and the humans who nurture those robots just might take their side.
Ted Chiang, a science-fiction author of growing renown with long-lasting connections to Seattle’s tech community, doesn’t back away from such questions. They spark the thought experiments that generate award-winning novellas like “The Lifecycle of Software Objects,” and inspire Hollywood movies like “Arrival.”
Can science fiction have an impact in the real world, even at times when the world seems as if it’s in the midst of a slow-moving disaster movie? Absolutely, Chiang says.
“Art is one way to make sense of a world which, on its own, does not make sense,” he says in the latest episode of our Fiction Science podcast, which focuses on the intersection between science and fiction. “Art can impose a kind of order onto things. … It doesn’t offer a cure-all, because I don’t think there’s going to be any easy cure-all, but I think art helps us get by in these stressful times.”
An artist's conception shows a luxury airship flying over a mountain range. (Photo: Dassault Systèmes)
Spoiler alert: Kim Stanley Robinson’s latest science-fiction novel about a coming climate catastrophe, “The Ministry for the Future,” doesn’t end with the collapse of civilization.
Millions of people die. Millions more become climate refugees. And the crisis sparks terrorist acts, against those who are working for change as well as against those who are defending the status quo.
But by the end of the book, there’s hope that humanity will actually be able to keep things from spinning out of control. And that’s in line with what Robinson has come to believe in the process of writing “The Ministry for the Future.”
“We could either crash the biosphere, and thus civilization, or we could actually create a really high-functioning and prosperous permaculture, a sustainable and just civilization on the planet in the biosphere,” he says. “Both the utter disaster and the quite great, semi-utopian historical moment are available to us.”
Robinson talks about “The Ministry for the Future,” and the real-world technological initiatives on which his tale is based, in the latest episode of our Fiction Science podcast, which focuses on the intersection of science and fiction.
Queen Amidala addresses the Galactic Senate in a scene from "Star Wars." (Lucasfilm Photo)
Between the voting-machine failures, the cyberattacks and the social-media shenanigans, technology hasn’t had a great record when it comes to fostering and protecting democracy in the 21st century. But George Zarkadakis says the technology — and democracy — can be fixed.
In his new book, “Cyber Republic: Reinventing Democracy in the Age of Intelligent Machines,” the Greek-born tech expert, writer and management consultant offers a repair manual that takes advantage of innovations ranging from artificial intelligence and expert systems, to blockchain, to data trusts that are personalized and monetized.
According to Zarkadakis, one of the most important fixes will be for governments to earn back the trust of the people they govern.
“We should have a more participatory form of government, rather than the one we have now,” Zarkadakis told me from his home base in London. “A mixture, if you like, of more direct democracy and representational democracy. And that’s where this idea of citizen assemblies comes about.”
He delves into his prescription for curing liberal democracy — and the precedents that can be drawn from science fiction — in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast. Check out the entire show via your favorite podcast channel, whether that’s Anchor, Apple, Spotify, Google, Breaker, Overcast, Pocket Casts or RadioPublic.
Such stories helped ancient peoples get a grip on the workings of the natural world — and set the celestial stage for millennia of scientific advances. But ironically, those advances may be leading to the extinction of the stories, as well as the fading of the night sky.
“We understand so many wonders about the cosmos, but at the same time … we’ve never been so disconnected from the cosmos,” says Jo Marchant, the author of a new book titled “The Human Cosmos: Civilization and the Stars.”
In the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast, Marchant and I delve into how our cosmic perspective has been simultaneously sharpened and dulled. Give a listen to the Q&A via your favorite podcast channel, whether that’s Anchor, Apple, Spotify, Google, Breaker, Overcast, Pocket Casts or RadioPublic.
The saga had its genesis almost eight decades ago, and the action is set more than 10,000 years in the future. But the themes of the work — centering on the decline and fall of a high-tech empire, Machiavellian machinations and unintended consequences — are, if anything, more relevant than ever in the here and now.
That’s what makes the Foundation series the perfect literary work for the revival of the Cosmic Log Used Book Club.
The CLUB Club goes back to the foundation of Cosmic Log. In contrast to book clubs that promote pricey new publications, our aim is to highlight books with cosmic themes that should be available at used-book shops as well as local libraries.
Over the past 18 years, we’ve issued more than 60 CLUB Club selections — many of them suggested by Cosmic Log readers. And to celebrate the return of the CLUB Club, we’re giving you the full list at the end of this item.
We’re also presenting a book giveaway, so keep reading!
“Foundation” dates back to a series of short stories that were published in Astounding Magazine starting in 1942. In the 1950s, those stories were published as a book trilogy — and in the 1980s and 1990s, Asimov produced two sequels and two prequels.
The key concept is psychohistory, the idea that the mass behavior of billions of people can be predicted and shaped centuries in advance. The series’ foundational character, Hari Seldon, uses psychohistory to foresee the fall of a galactic empire. He also comes up with a plan to reduce the resulting dark age from 30,000 years to a mere millennium.
The latter half of the Foundation Trilogy highlights another concept: the potential for one individual with a talent for inspiring loyalty and fear to throw the course of history on a different track. That concept is as relevant today as it was in the midst of the Second World War.
To celebrate the revival of the CLUB Club, as well as the centennial year of Asimov’s birth, let’s have a trivial giveaway. This giveaway is “trivial” not only because it involves a trivia question, but also because there’s a relatively trivial sum at stake.
The prize is a $4 Amazon e-gift card that can be put toward the purchase of the Foundation Trilogy — or, frankly, any other purchase. I’ll send that amount to the first person answering the quiz question correctly in a comment below, based on submitted time stamp.
Here’s the question:
The Foundation series features a fictional reference work that has also popped up in books written by Carl Sagan and Douglas Adams. What is the two-word name of that reference work?
Update: We have a winner! Congrats to Kathy Coyle… The answer is “Encyclopedia Galactica.”
In case you’ve already gotten all the way through the Foundation series, here are 66 other CLUB Club selections you can check out using your e-gift card or your library card:
“The Sparrow” by Mary Doria Russell (June 2002 selection)
“Alice in Quantumland” by Robert Gilmore (July 2002)
“Mr. Tompkins” series by George Gamow (August 2002)
“Manifold: Time” by Stephen Baxter (September 2002)
“Dreamer” by Richard L. Miller (October 2002)
“Earth” by David Brin (November 2002)
“Roadside Picnic” by A. and B. Strugatsky (December 2002)
“Strange Matters” by Tom Siegfried (January 2003)
“Out of the Silent Planet” by C.S. Lewis (February 2003)
“Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein (March 2003)
“The Copper Crown” by Patricia Kennealy (April 2003)
“Dragon’s Egg” by Robert L. Forward (May 2003)
“The Elegant Universe” by Brian Greene (June 2003)
“Contact” by Carl Sagan (July 2003)
“A Skywatcher’s Year” by Jeff Kanipe (August 2003)
Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (September 2003)
“Book of the New Sun” series by Gene Wolfe (September 2003)
“The Best of AIR” by Marc Abrahams (October 2003)
“Flare” by R. Zelazny and Thomas T. Thomas (November 2003)
“Mother of Storms” by John Barnes (November 2003)
“Mars: Uncovering the Secrets of the Red Planet” by Paul Raeburn (December 2003)
Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher (January 2004)
“A Princess of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burroughs (February 2004)
“Bad Astronomy” by Phil Plait (March 2004)
“The Spirit of St. Louis” by Charles Lindbergh (April 2004)
“Angels and Demons” by Dan Brown (May 2004)
“The Man Who Sold the Moon” by Robert A. Heinlein (June 2004)
“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by P.K. Dick (July 2004)
“Idlewild” by Nick Sagan (August 2004)
“The Right Stuff” by Tom Wolfe (October 2004)
“Science and Theology” by J.C. Polkinghorne (November 2004)
“Evolution” by Stephen Baxter (December 2004)
“Krakatoa” by Simon Winchester (January 2005)
“Killing Star” by C. Pellegrino and G. Zebrowski (February 2005)
“The Forge of God” by Greg Bear (March 2005)
“Short History of Nearly Everything” by B. Bryson (April 2005)
“The Red One” by Jack London (May 2005)
“N.Y. Times Book of Science Questions and Answers” (June 2005)
“Heavy Weather” by Bruce Sterling and “Forty Signs of Rain” by Kim Stanley Robinson (August 2005)
“Chaos” by James Gleick (October 2005)
“A Brief (or Briefer) History of Time” by Stephen Hawking (and Leonard Mlodinow) (November 2005)
“A Wrinkle in Time” by Madeleine L’Engle (December 2005)
“1491” by Charles C. Mann (January 2006)
“Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card (February 2006)
“The Gnostic Gospels” by Elaine Pagels (March 2006)
“Prey” by Michael Crichton (April 2006)
“Hellstrom’s Hive” by Frank Herbert (May 2006)
“Inferno” by Jerry Pournelle (August 2006)
“This Place Has No Atmosphere” by Paula Danziger and “Countdown for Cindy” by Eloise Engel (September 2006)
“Orbit” by John J. Nance (October 2006)
“Time and Again” by Jack Finney (November 2006)
“God in the Equation” by Corey Powell (December 2006)
“Conversations on Consciousness” by S. Blackmore (Jan. 2007)
“Everyday Life in New Testament Times” by Bouquet (April 2007)
“Supernova” by Roger Allen and Eric Kotani (May 2007)
“The Twilight of Briareus” by Richard Cowper (June 2007)
“The Traveler” by John Twelve Hawks (July 2007)
“Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut (August 2007)
“Flatland” by Edwin A. Abbott and “The Fourth Dimension” by Rudy Rucker (December 2007)
“The Year 1000” by D. Danziger and R. Lacey (November 2009)
“Creation” by Randal Keynes (January 2010)
“In Search of Time” by Dan Falk (February 2010)
“Space” by James Michener (September 2011)
What’s your favorite cosmic reading matter? Pass your suggestion along in a comment, and it just might be featured as a future CLUB Club selection.
David Dickinson, author of "The Backyard Astronomer's Field Guide," sets up a telescope in his backyard. (Courtesy of David Dickinson)
Ready for a star party?
The COVID-19 pandemic has put a damper on summer star parties and other public gatherings, and skywatching isn’t exactly the kind of thing best done via a Zoom session. But you can still experience the wonders of the universe, just by looking up into dark, clear skies.
Four planets are on view: Jupiter and Saturn after sunset, and Mars and Venus before sunrise.
Although now is not the best time for Americans to spot the International Space Station, you just might be able to track the latest batch of SpaceX Starlink satellites as the stream across the sky. (Plug in your coordinates on Heavens-Above.com to check viewing times.)
Dickinson’s guide is designed to cover the more established targets of the night sky, ranging from the constellations to star clusters, nebulae and galaxies.
Forty-four sky charts, organized by month, point out wonders that can be found with the naked eye, with binoculars or with a telescope like the one that Dickinson sets up in his backyard or on the top floor of a nearby parking garage.
“Your observatory is wherever you’re observing,” he said.
“The Backyard Astronomer’s Field Guide” is spiral-bound for convenient use in the field. (Page Street Publishing / Laura Benton)
Dickinson also provides context that goes beyond latitude and longitude: Which naked-eye stars have planets orbiting them? What are the myths behind the constellation’s names, and what did other cultures see in them? What makes a planetary nebula “planetary”?
The guide includes a list of online tools, websites and publications to help you plot out your observing strategy — including Stellarium, a free planetarium program that’s priceless.
So what are the best deep-sky objects to turn your telescope toward while you’re waiting for the Perseids? Dickinson recommends M13, a globular star cluster in Hercules, the Ring Nebula in Lyra, the variable star Algol (a.k.a. the Demon Star) in Perseus … and Epsilon Lyrae, the “double-double” star in the constellation Lyra.
You’re unlikely to repeat Messier’s mistake, as long as you have Dickinson’s field guide sitting next to your lounge chair (preferably consulted by the light of a red flashlight to preserve your night vision).
To celebrate the summer’s big week for skywatching — and reward you for reading down this far — I’m giving away a copy of “The Backyard Astronomer’s Field Guide.” Just be the first to answer this Cosmic Log quiz question in the comment section below:
What is the name of the closest planetary nebula to Earth?
The first person to answer correctly, based on my assessment of the time stamp, will be eligible to receive the book by mail (U.S. postal addresses only). If I can’t get in touch with that person via email in a timely fashion, I’ll move on to the next person on the list.
Back in the old days, Cosmic Log was known for its community of commenters, and I’m hoping we can revive that spirit. If you have a favorite night-sky object to observe, or a favorite resource for skywatching, pass it along in a comment. Your recommendation may end up in a future Cosmic Log roundup.
Update for 11:25 a.m. PT Aug. 9: We have a winner! Boris Zuchner was the first to answer the quiz question correctly, with an assist by Professor Google. As revealed on page 160 of “The Backyard Astronomer’s Field Guide,” the closest planetary nebula to Earth is the Helix Nebula, a.k.a. NGC 7293. Assuming that Boris’ mailing address is in the United States, he’ll be able to look that fact up himself in the future, thanks to the book I’ll be sending him.
As I wrote in the comments, don’t be a stranger! It took me a while to approve the comments this time around, but I’ll try to be faster on the draw for the next book giveaway.
Ann Druyan is an executive producer, writer and director of “Cosmos: Possible Worlds,” a National Geographic TV series premiering Monday. She’s also the author of a companion book, and the widow of astronomer Carl Sagan. (National Geographic Photo / Stewart Volland)
It all started with the original “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage,” which brought cosmic topics such as stellar evolution and extraterrestrial life to prime-time TV in 1980. Eighteen years after Sagan’s death in Seattle, the show entered its second prime-time dimension in 2014 — thanks in large part to the efforts of Ann Druyan, Sagan’s widow and longtime collaborator.
Druyan served as an executive producer, director and co-writer for “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey,” which aired on Fox and the National Geographic Channel with astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson as host.
The series, which extended and updated Sagan’s original narrative with new discoveries and new graphics, was so well-received that it led to the third dimension. “Cosmos: Possible Worlds” preserves the metaphorical framework built all those years ago by Sagan and Druyan.
Columbia University theoretical physicist Brian Greene discusses the human search for meaning amid the grand sweep of the universe during a Seattle appearance presented by University Book Store. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)
You might think it’s depressing to contemplate the view that the universe is likely to end in everlasting darkness — but that’s not how physicist Brian Greene rolls.
“I am quite upbeat about the end of everything,” he insists.
Greene lays out what scientists have learned about the grand sweep of cosmic evolution, and its implications for phenomena ranging from the origin of life to consciousness and free will, in a new book titled “Until the End of Time.” This latest work follows up on books dealing with topics ranging from string theory to parallel universes — and in its way, it’s just as mind-bending.
The Columbia University theoretical physicist’s efforts to spread the scientific gospel, good news as well as bad, brought him to Seattle last week, for a fireside chat with KUOW radio host Ross Reynolds and a Q&A session with fans at University Temple United Methodist Church.
One hypothesis for the nature of the cosmos visualizes parallel universes as huge membranes, or branes, that are stacked alongside each other in extradimensional space like books in a cosmic bookcase. A “big bang” results when two branes touch. (NASA Illustration / Dana Berry)
We’re leading off our annual holiday roundup of science books with “The Number of the Heavens” and “Something Deeply Hidden,” and continuing the theme with six other thought-provoking picks about other realities, fictional and factual. If that’s not enough, you’ll also find links to geeky book recommendations from outside sources, plus our own top picks from previous years.
Neuroscientist Christof Koch, president and chief scientific officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, talks about the roots of consciousness at the 2017 GeekWire Summit. (Photo by Dan DeLong for GeekWire)
Do animals possess consciousness? Can consciousness be uploaded into a computer? Can we measure objectively whether someone is conscious or not?
Those may sound like deep, imponderable questions — but in a newly published book, “The Feeling of Life Itself,” neuroscientist Christof Koch actually lays out some answers: Yes, no … and yes, scientists are already testing a method for measuring consciousness, with eerie implications.
