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[advancedatheist]

On page 37 of the July/August 2005 issue of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, Carl Sagan's widow Ann Druyan writes in an essay titled "The Great Turning Away" about the apparent reversion to a new dark age:

  My hunch is that we are living during the twilight of the magical thinking phase of human history. Lest you think this is mere faith, I offer some evidence: Consider all the futures depicted in science fiction that you have ever seen or read; whether of life on this world or any other. How many of them imagine a future in which the dominant religious traditions and beliefs of the present survive? Remember: This is the output of countless independent imaginations of every conceivable point of view. Yet, when we imagine the future, the gods of our childhood are long gone.

I have to admit that I find this observation intriguing, though it also sounds like a grasping at straws. Unless you count the underlying (and exhausted) "hero's journey" myth as a form of religion, it does seem as if science fiction has reached a more or less secular-humanistic consensus about the future.

That aside, however, I would like something more substantial than certain individuals' published or filmed fantasy lives as a basis for hope for a more rational world.

[Chip]

Science fiction is speculation, at least that which I prefer to read. I found LeGuinn's novels to be quite interesting as at least a couple were considering social structure innovation. "The Mote In God's Eye" seemed to follow a theme presented in other sci-fi speculation, perhaps even H.G.Wells "The Time Machine" namely, that incorporation of caste systems, classes of people or thinking beings who rarely if ever move into a different class, is a potential underlying cause of danger to humanity's future. Death as an unescapable fate, is a caste that few escape. I believe thinking in such terms can help one to grasp the concept of ergodicity, which I find to be a major design criterium if one were to create a working social system amongst humanity.

John Brunner has done some very interesting sci-fi. Ira Levin's book "This Perfect Day" touches upon the same theme as outlined above, sort of a "Brave New World" scenario.

All in all, I find the contention that most of these speculative tomes have incorporated a secular humanist perspective to be cognizant. I kind of hold out the hope that humanity does find the best of all possible worlds and I do suspect these cultural second-order cybernetic impinged classification systems, casting of personal traits via various religious affiliations, will be virtually curtailed through time by choice. It will become too risky to hold humanity's fate to fantasies that deny science. We will need to embrace the root and core of the scientific method, rational thinking.

[Mark Hamalainen]

Chip, you would probably enjoy Richard Morgan's Market Forces.