For more than five years I have been thinking of writing science fiction that resembles nothing that I have found to read in the genre. I get hopeful, but then I get disappointed. I see some aspects of a story that is promising but then it turns in a direction that was different than what I would have liked it to go.
So, I shall start exploring some of my ideas here in this blog in anticipation of making progress toward out lining my vision more completely and eventually writing the novels that seem to be nagging at me in the back of my mind.
I shall start with my thoughts on a cultural change that may be hard to recognize within our society. I can see evidence in it in new age teachers like Matt Kahn and researchers like Jeffery Martin (http://www.fourthawakening.com/index.php/jeffery-a-martin). There lie the beginnings of a type of scientific advancement of human beings that is more than just technological but truly advances “us.”
As I was reading (for the third time) Asimov’s Caves of Steel, first of the robot murder mystery novels, I was thinking of how Asimov was looking forward in his science fiction setting but still looking backward. I had read somewhere that he had based his Foundation series of novels which carries forward the robot theme and major character from “Caves of Steel,” on the fall of the Roman Empire. I understood the need for the conflict at the social level but there was something that was unchanged from Roman times still carried forward into the human condition thousands of years into the human future. Can there be a way to see the future of humanity at a point when human nature itself is beginning to advance or evolve? And what does that human nature begin to look like? Then, if I can begin to describe that in the context of a plot can I go a step further and foresee the type of conflicts that may arise within that time of change? These are tough questions for me and only begin to scratch the surface of the puzzles I must solve to write “my” kind of science fiction.
As I read “Caves of Steel” Isaac Asimov began describing his idea of a futuristic setting. I began wondering what kind of futuristic setting I wanted to describe for my novels. I had thought that a three hundred year span might be interesting to consider. What would it look like in that future. And like “Lige Bailey” in Caves of Steel, what would I be thinking as I looked back?
Three hundred years, about 12 generations, seemed to be a good span that might be short enough to meet the accelerated pace that seems to be suggested by these advancements I have been reading about but still long enough to allow for the story to explore the conflicts that would need to arise and be resolved. From my point of view cultural attitudes can change but can also be very resistant to change. On the surface prejudice and bigotry may be subsiding more rapidly but the fear that underlies that kind of cultural resistance still hangs over subsequent generations. The very nature of empathic compassion vs. xenophobic aggression is where I want to go to explore this change, this advancement of the human being.
Empathic compassion, seeing others as being at one with yourself is at the heart of this change. Would there be a growing hidden class of individuals within our society that had experienced this awakening. Is it similar to what Jeffery Martin refers to? I can imaging that these types of humans were experiencing that kind of consciousness but felt so well adjusted that they blended right in with everyone else. The only difference being that they appeared “Happy for No Reason.”
Asimov divides his future world into three classes (broadly speaking). Earthers, Spacers and Robots. I think he set it 100,000 years into the future. Technology was advanced but Psychology was only different in a very small degree as he introduced the Hari Seldon character and the concept of Psycho History.
In my novels’ setting there would be a beginning in psychological and emotional advancement or evolution, much more subtle in nature (if you compared it to the technology advances). Perhaps it would be largely undetected by science (psychology and sociology) largely because it was so hard to understand given the thought processes and feelings of those academics that it would be overlooked. Overlooked because those who were open to that type of advancement were seldom accepted into the academic circles that would be expected to recognize such advancement. And, the ironic result would be an academic blind spot to such a change in society.
Jeffery Martin considers us to be on the cusp of a fourth awakening by the human race. I read recently (Will Durant’s Renaissance) that there was no awareness that the Renaissance was happening unitil 200 years after the Renaissance. I believe that the scientific establishment is suffering from a blind spot that similarly prevents recognition of the current signs of change in human beings. That blind spot may be due to several characteristics. I will explore later. I want to read Bruce Lipton’s Spontaneous Evolution to get a better understanding for my next entry.