sci fi

SciFi Master Greg Bear: The Singularity is the Secular Apotheosis

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Greg Bear is truly one of the masters of classic science fiction – he has written over 35 books, that have sold millions of copies, and have been translated into 22 languages. No wonder I was not only immensely excited but also pretty nervous while preparing to interview him face to face. As it turned out I was worrying for nothing: Greg Bear is a really affable fellow with a fantastic sense of humor and, together with his wife Astrid, endlessly generous hospitality. Bear is also a passionate macro-photographer with the most stunning dragon-fly-pictures collection that I have seen in my life. Thus it is a total understatement to say that I had an absolute blast spending a full day shooting 4 podcast episodes at his house, including the attached 90 min interview.

During our conversation with Greg Bear we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: how he got inspired to write; what is science fiction; the role of photography and visual imagery; the merging of philosophy and science; sci-fi as the jazz of literature; religion, mysticism and his take on Jesus; the birth of Comic-Con; whether science fiction inspires science or vice versa; the singularity, transhumanism and “the brick wall of philosophy”…

This interview was so packed with intellectual gems that I almost feel like shying away from listing any. But here are just two of my favorites, and you feel free to share yours in the comment section below:

…The people who are changing the world read science fiction.

In a sense, science fiction is history in reverse…

This is the third out of a series of 3 sci-fi round-table interviews with Ramez Naam, William Hertling, and Greg Bear that I did last November in Seattle. It was produced by Richard and Tatyana Sundvall, shot by Ian Sun and generously hosted by Greg and Astrid Bear. (Special note of thanks to Agah Bahari who did the interview audio re-mix and Josh Glover who did the video editing.)

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation or become a patron on Patreon.

 

Who is Greg Bear?

Greg Bear PortraitGreg Bear is the author of more than thirty books, spanning thrillers, science fiction, and fantasy, including Blood Music, Eon, The Forge of God, Darwin’s Radio, City at the End of Time, and Hull Zero Three. His books have won numerous international prizes, have been translated into more than twenty-two languages, and have sold millions of copies worldwide. Over the last twenty-eight years, he has also served as a consultant for NASA, the U.S. Army, the State Department, the International Food Protection Association, and Homeland Security on matters ranging from privatizing space to food safety, the frontiers of microbiology and genetics, and biological security.

William Hertling: The Singularity is closer than it appears!

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William HertlingWilliam Hertling is a rather recent science fiction discovery of mine and the author of award-winning novels Avogadro Corp: The Singularity Is Closer Than It Appears, A.I. Apocalypse, and The Last Firewall. William has written several plausible scenarios for the technological singularity that were so engaging and compelling that, as soon as I finished his first book, I could not help but go ahead and read the next one too. And so I was very happy to get an opportunity and interview Hertling on my podcast.

During our 45 min conversation with William, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as the impact of reading Accelerando and The Singularity is Near; how he was challenged to become a sci-fi author, and outlined the plot of his first book on the proverbial paper-napkin; the extrapolation of current trends in software and hardware as a way of predicting technological progress; the importance of theory of mind for the creating of artificial intelligence; the singularity and whether it is more likely to happen in a hacker garage or a military lab; hard take-off vs soft take-off; whole-brain simulation and the diminishing costs thereof; if an AI apocalypse is a plausible future scenario or not; transhumanism and healthy life-extension…

This is the second out of a series of 3 sci-fi round-table interviews with Ramez Naam, William Hertling, and Greg Bear that I did last November in Seattle. It was produced by Richard and Tatyana Sundvall and generously hosted by Greg and Astrid Bear. (Special note of thanks to Agah Bahari who did the interview audio re-mix.)

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation, or become a patron on Patreon.

 

Who is William Hertling?

William Hertling is the author of the award-winning novels Avogadro Corp: The Singularity Is Closer Than It Appears, A.I. Apocalypse, and The Last Firewall. These near-term science-fiction novels about realistic ways strong AI might emerge have been called “frighteningly plausible,” “tremendous,” “must-read.”

Avogadro Corp won Forewords Review Science Fiction Book of the Year and A.I. Apocalypse was nominated for the Prometheus Award for Best Novel. The Last Firewall was endorsed by tech luminaries including Harper Reed (CTO for Obama Campaign), Ben Huh (CEO Cheezburger), and Brad Feld (Foundry Group).

He’s been influenced by writers such as William Gibson, Charles Stross, Cory Doctorow, and Walter Jon Williams.

William Hertling was born in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up a digital native in the early days of bulletin board systems. His first experience with net culture occurred when he wired seven phone lines into the back of his Apple //e to build an online chat system. He currently resides in Portland, Oregon.

Other interviews from the series:

Shelved: Robot Comedy Shows Tragedy of Robots Replaced By Humans

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Shelved is an animated short sci fi film telling the comedic/tragic story of a couple of warehouse robots that get replaced by humans.

The movie was created by Auckland’s Media Design School and its comedic elements are a nod towards the early films of directors Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats) and Richard Linklater (Slacker, Dazed and Confused).

Shelved

Shelved was directed by James Cunningham with visual effects by eleven Media Design School students.

 

Other cool science fiction films

Memorize: A Short Sci Fi Film By Eric Ramberg and Jimmy Eriksson

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Memorize is a short sci fi film written and directed by Eric Ramberg and Jimmy Eriksson

Synopsis: In 2027, everyone is implanted with a chip – the Memorize-chip. It records everything you see, a new system to fight crime. One unit controls the system. The SSU – Special Surveillance Unit.

Director’s note: We shot this piece in Sweden (Gävle, Strängnäs and Uppsala) on a “shoestring budget”, using just one 5D-Mark II-camera (with Canon L-series lenses). Our very first mission was actually to help another company (Quixel) with some live-action shots/scenes to simply showcase their new texture-tool for 3d-models in games and movies, but instead we came up with this concept idea and created a full blown short film. Primarily, we wanted to do something visual and entertaining to simply present this concept and showcase Quixel’s tools.

We did almost everything our self (with some 3d/texture/sfx help) and we used close friends/family members to be “actors”, including myself playing the main character. So I guess that’s why the acting isn’t top notch and why we didn’t use so much dialogue 😉 BUT we also wanted to keep it very visual, we wanted to tell a story with pictures (and UI-text of course). That was a big challenge but I think we succeeded. In the end we’re happy with the end result considering the conditions and people really seems to like it! That’s awesome to see and very rewarding! / Jimmy & Eric”

 

Other cool science fiction films

Fact or Fantasy – Is Today’s Science A Hard Act For The Sci Fi Writer To Follow?

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On joining Singularity Weblog I signed up for the free e-book Accelerando.

Which I will not, after all,  be downloading!

It is in all probability an excellent example of its kind. So my rejection in no way a reflection of the quality of the book.

It is simply that I discovered it to be a novel and (unless dosed very heavily with humor a la Douglas Adams) I just don’t read Sci Fi any more.

You see, I am an old guy. Having had a great thirst for books of all kinds from my boyhood right through to my early thirties I eventually became bored with fiction in general and SF in particular.

All the while intrigued by works such as The Selfish Gene as well as the study of chemistry and the fun of fooling around with electronics, I became increasingly fascinated by the wonderful intricacies of natural processes.

Exquisite mechanisms that have only in the last two centuries become apparent to us by virtue of the enormous extension and expansion of our senses which the on-going exponential evolution of technology has provided. Such devices as the microscope, the telescope, a whole variety of spectrometers covering virtually all parts of the electromagnetic and acoustic spectra. These have extended our understandings and our imaginations beyond all bounds.

Until recent times, a human looking at a tiger or a tree or a rose would see just the tiger or the tree or the rose. Of course, these have their own superficial attributes which, in themselves have often inspired poetry.

But today, some (sadly, all too few) of us can sense an aura, an appreciation of the countless billion molecular interactions which comprise these wonderful entities. Just a seemingly plain inactive rock can be seen to have an intricate structure and to be a seething hive of activity at the atomic level.

When one has acquired the knack of using visualizations of this kind to appreciate such wonders, any of our fictional fabrications pale into insignificance by contrast.

Viewed in such a light, the very commonplace process of an egg developing into a fully formed hen or rooster becomes miraculous. Even such a detail as the exquisitely complex mechanism for the splicing of RNA and subsequent encoding of proteins provides enough magic to blow the mind. Much as, in the non- biological arena, do the bizarre machinations of non-linear optics.

I am not saying that science fiction has no value. The world needs speculative dreamers, for occasionally such reveries can provide valuable insights. I am simply saying, perhaps because my cup has been overfilled, that these days, I personally find it dull.

Also, now that our view of the “big picture” is becoming so comprehensive, science “fact” has far greater predictive power.

But for this to work properly, it is the “big picture”, derived from an interdisciplinary approach which must give guidance.

An overly tight focus, such as that exhibited by most IT gurus, can, and often does, skew projections. As does also, to an even greater extent, our very natural anthropocentricity.

About the Author:

Peter Kinnon was born in London(UK) but is now a long time resident of New Zealand. His primary discipline is chemistry but in recent decades he’s been self-employed with a manufacturing business, scientific consultancy and a laboratory equipment recycling operation.

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