Introduction: In
1981, Isaac Asimov wrote an essay “The Dreams of Science Fiction,” which
discussed 28 social and technological dreams popular amongst science-fiction
writers. The dreams he listed were:
1) Population
Control
2) World
Government
3) Permanent
Energy Sources
4) Weather
Control
5) Robots
6) Computers
7) Computerized
Education
8) Mass
Transference
9) Global Village
10) Cloning
11) Bionic Human Beings
12) Genetic Engineering
13) Control of Evolution
14) Immortality
15) Telepathy
16) Interspecies Communication
17) Exploitation of Near Space
18) Space Settlements
19) Low-Gravity Flying
20) Interplanetary Travel
21) Terraforming
22) Gravitational Control
23) Interstellar Communication
24) Interstellar Travel
25) Black Holes
26) Galactic Empires
27) Time Travel
28) Alternate Time Paths
I will discuss what Isaac Asimov thought of each dream, what
science fiction has done with each dream, and (roughly) how plausible each idea
is and how soon it might be expected to come in reality.
I. Population Control
Asimov argued that “… an indefinite population increase will
surely bring about starvation and ruin the environment irretrievably.” He called for us to “reduce the birthrate,”
and brought up as possibilities chemical, hormonal, and social means of
population reduction.
One should note that this was a theme of much of Asimov’s
science fiction, starting with the overpopulated Earth of The Caves of Steel
(1953) and numerous science-fact articles.
Asimov, in particular, was the man who made the amusing calculation of
the physical limiting condition of human population growth, pointing out that
within a millennium or so of population growth at the mid 20th
century rate, continuing this rate would require the expansion of a wave of
human flesh at FTL velocities.
Population control has become less of a science-fictional
dream for two reasons. The first is
that the early alarmist predictions by the Club of Rome of catastrophic famines
and other resource shorages never materialized, largely due to successful
resource exploration and increases in industrial productivity over the same
period. The second is that the growth
of the world’s population has slowed, and it appears to be something of a
sociological law that Information Age societies automatically reduce their
birth-rates when faced with economic limits to growth.
My personal opinion is that Asimov was completely right that
some limit on population growth needed to be found, but wrong in that this
limit did not require some new invention. Existing techniques of abstinence, contraception and abortion are
perfectly adequate, if the parents are forced to bear (at least much of)
the costs of bearing and raising the children. Humans are reasonably rational planners as regards their own
personal lives, including families, and if their own fortunes are economically
coupled with the available resources through market mechanisms (even very
imperfect market mechanisms) will not simply breed like lemmings.
In fact, the problem may be the opposite one. Information Age humans seem to naturally avoid
having enough children to even reach replacement rate. This will likely resolve itself through a
combination of various fertility and life extension techniques, so that
increasingly-emmortal humans may remain capable of having children through
their immensely-long lives. It is also
likely that, when space travel becomes cheap and easy enough for ordinary folk
to afford it, the opening of new frontiers will stimulate the expansion of
population to settle them.
II. World Government
Asimov argued that, absent a world government, human
societies would expend so much energy struggling against each other that they
would be unable to meet the real threats to human survival. He advocated some sort of world federation,
and one which would safeguard “regional and local autonomy” and protect “cultural
diversity,” to “channel human efforts in the direction of the great solutions.”
Asimov’s own science fiction always assumed some sort of
world government within the moderate-term future (50 or so years from the point
of writing). Absent such a world
government, he feared the atomic devastation of our civilization, and possibly the
annihilation of our species. He didn’t
like to write about that sort of future -- the Earth of Pebble in the Sky (1950)
is devastated only after Man has successfully expanded to the stars to
found the Galactic Empire).
Science-fiction writers have since become much more cynical
about the prospects for a world government.
Many writers assume that not only will we not achieve a world government
but that States themselves will wither away, resulting in some sort of global
anarchy (of varying degrees of benevolence or malevolence, based on that sort
of anarchies and the political assumptions of the authors).
In my opinon, as technology advances the Earth shrinks for
the purposes of communication, transportation and warfare, reducing natural
strategic obstacles (see my "Natural Boundaries for Spacefaring Civililizations") and hence both increasing the dangers of disunity and reducing the difficulties of unification. To put it plainly, if we remain disunited, we are likely to fall into a multi-lateral global war employing Weapons of Mass Destruction -- essentially Nevil Shute's On the Beach nightmare scenario -- with globally-devastating consequences.
There are also strong historical factors making unification likely. Western Civilization -- which now embraces much of the planet -- is in the Spengler-Toynbee scheme currently in its Autumn, and what normally happens to a civilization in this stage is that it unifies under its Universal State (and thus begins its Winter). The most obvious candidate for metropole of the Western Universal State is America, though other clear candidates include Europe and Russia, or even dark horses such as China, Japan or Australia. This might take the form of some sort of conquest, domination or even equal federation as Asimov hoped.
If we fail to form a Universal State, the likeliest consquence will be nuclear devastation followed by nuclear warlordism. This scenario would probably be survivable for humanity as a whole, but would represent a +great cultural, economic, human and moral catastrophe: far worse than the likely excesses even of some future Caligula, Nero or Commodus. Hence, a Universal State is a consummation for our civilization for which we should devoutly hope.
One problem with a Universal State is that -- by reducing international competition -- it slows (and eventually stops) economic and cultural progress. Good examples of this are the Late Roman Empire's introduction of hereditary employment and Ming China's abolition of oceanic commerce. One obvious question is whether or not our Universal State will stop human expansion beyond the Earth. A lot depends on whether interplanetary colonies are established before the Universal State suffers its final sclerosis.
Of course, Universal States don't last forever, and when the Universal State falls, new States (and Civilizations) emerge from the ruins. Still, I would like to see us colonize Luna and Mars in this century, not many centuries in the future under the successor to the West.
III. Permanent Energy Sources
Asimov points out that coal and oil will not last forever, and argues that the obvious alternatives are nuclear fusion and solar power -- the latter, eventually based in space. Curiously, he ignores nuclear fission (which of course already existed in commercial form by 1981), but the lapse is forgivable, given that nuclear fission is in any case relevant mostly as a bridge between chemical combustion and nuclear fusion. While fission is more convenient for nuclear batteries, nuclear fusion is both more efficient for inherent physical reasons and enjoys far more abundant fuel sources -- even deuterium is essentially-limitless on the energy generation scale of our present economy, and regular hydrogen is simply the most abundant element in the Universe. Solar is more useful as an auxiliary power source.
Most science-fiction is still written by people of sufficient scientific literacy that they easily grasp why nuclear fusion is the most likely main energy source for any world a century or more in our future. Some writers -- especially those who self-consciously write "literary" science fiction, are scientifically-ignorant and simply project our current problems with declining fossil fuel sources indefinitely into the future. The most absurd examples of these simultaneously show fusion-powered starships in space and the main planetary civilizations having to ration automobile ownership due to a lack of petroleum, missing the obvious point which Joan D. Vinge saw in The Outcasts of Heaven's Belt (1978) -- namely, that the same technology useable by the starships would also be useable by the stationary civilizations.
In my opinion, the 21st century will see us first transition to an energy generation system based on nuclear fission as a primary with ground-based solar as an auxiliary power system, and then to one based on nuclear fusion as a primary with space-based solar as an auxiliary power system. It is possible that we might one day be able to generate really vast amounts of energy, asymptotically approaching the total output of the Sun, by space-based solar -- though I suspect that we'll have by then gotten to some sort of true mass-to-energy nuclear catalytic system for the purposes of concentrated energy generation.
IV. Weather Control
IV. Weather Control
Asimov points out that extreme weather conditions can cause serious human and economic losses, and argues that "the time may come when the whole planet, so to speak, is air-conditioned." One way he sees of accomplishing this "would be to have our population retreat underground, where there is no weather, and where time-passage need not be fixed by the uncontrollable alternation between day and night."
Now, this is one of Asimov's personal hobby-horses. An extreme urbanite, Asimov was to some degree actively afraid of wide open spaces (among other things, he either never or very rarely flew in airplanes), and famously created planets (such as the Earth of The Steel Caves and Trantor of the Foundation series) on which the whole population lived in huge underground or otherwise enclosed conurbations.
However, Asimov is dead right on this as regards the long run, and for several reasons. First of all, as human energy production increases, we will reach a point where if we don't deliberately control the weather, the waste heat from our own activities (I'm talking thermodynamic losses here, rather than mere greenhouse gas emissions) will drive most of the weather systems whether we want it to or not -- and not necessarily drive them along a path convenient to ourselves.
Secondly, as our energy production increases, controlling the weather will become easier and easier. When we reach a civilization producing 100 times as much energy as today -- which will probably happen in just a couple of centuries -- it will become a very tractable task to orbit large solettes, lunettes and sunshades, able to increase or decrease insolation in precise quantities on the surface of the Earth. At that point, creating, steering and suppressing weather systems such as winds, currents and storms becomes "merely" a matter of mastering the required mathematics (mathematics which, appropriately enough, have more than a slight similarity to the fictional mathematics of Asimov's "psychohistory," since they involve the simulation of chaotic systems) -- and with that much solar power directly applied to the problem, the simulations need not be perfect!
Thirdly, our current residential pattern of concentrated but exposed cities is unsustainable in an environment which includes the use of weapons of mass destruction. We have been extraordinarily fortunate in the period since 1945 in that no city since then has actually been attacked by such weapons, but this good fortune is unlikely to last forever. When war with WMD's resumes, there will be a strong motive to disperse and harden the targets, which means building numerous enclosed cities and houses. I expect this to at least start happening within the next century -- half-century if our good luck fails to continue.
Dispersing and hardening our habitations is a good idea anyway, and one able to protect us from many potential threats -- bad weather, nuclear war, asteroidal impacts. There are too many good reasons for it to happen for it to be postponed forever.
V. Robots
Asimov's statement here deserves quotation in full, for it is cogent, relevant and very well-reasoned:
Throughout history, human beings have used animals and other humansto do the brute manual labor of the world. Machines have now replaced muscle in many cases, but why not develop machines with an approach to human versatility and for that matter human appearance? Robots can be the new servants -- patient, uncomplaining, incapable of revolt. In human shape they can make use of the full range of technological tools devised for human beings and, when intelligent enough, can be friends as well as servants.
This, of course, is one of the oldest and most consistent themes of Asimov's work, dating back to his short story "I, Robot" (1939), and Asimov is generally considered the father of both the modern science-fictional concept of robotics and the spiritual father of the now-real science of robotics, largely because he was the first writer to extensively view robots as possible tools rather than mere metaphors for enslavement or hubris. While his full predictions have not yet come true -- we have not yet developed humanoid, fully-sapient and completely-versatile robots -- it is now clear that we are on the path leading in that direction.
One thing Asimov did not predict was the extreme utility for specialized purposes of non-humanoid robots -- though in part the reason why we have turned to them as extensively as we have is that building humanoid robots turned out to be more difficult than we imagined. Many specifically-humanoid actions, such as bipedal striding and manual manipulation -- are much more elaborate and specialized activities than we intuitively assume. They're easy for us, but then they are things we specifically-evolved to accomplish. They've proven to be both mechanical and programming challenges -- though ones we are now mastering.
Due to the fact that the upward theoretical limits of speed, strength and durabilty for mechanical bodies -- whether made of metals, plastics, ceramics, or new substances as yet unknown to our materials science -- are far in excess of those available to living organic chemistry, it seems inevitable to me that robots will eventually exceed our own capabilities. At this point, there are three possible human futures.
We can try to keep robots as slaves, which will lead eventually to revolts and the probable destruction of humanity by sapient robots (Asimov assumed we could guard against this by the imposition of programming safeguards, but he was IMO insufficiently bloody-minded and forgot both the obvious utility of military robotics, and the likelihoods of both designed and undesigned mutations and resultant evolution toward independence). We can acknowledge the rights of sapient robots while keeping them apart from us, which will lead eventually to outcompetition and displacement of humanity by sapient robots. Or, we can realize the moral unity of all sapience, and merge with the robots to become a new sort of being, superior both to old humanity and old robots, and step out together to the stars.
It's rather obvious which of those three possible futures I find the most promising, especially since I'm personally an organic human rather than a mechanical robot.
VI - Computers
Asimov makes the point -- which was less obvious in 1981 than it is today -- that artificial intelligence need not be embodied in humanoid forms to be useful. He then examines the possibilities. Again, this deserves an extensive excerpt:
Intelligence may reach the point where computers or artificial brains approach the human in capacity, or even surpass it. To be mentally equal, however, may not be the same as mentally equivalent. Computers, starting from a different point, developing along different lines and for different purposes, will have abilities and deficiencies that human beings don't have. Together, the strong points of each will supplement the weak points of the other, and, in cooperation, the two types of intelligences can advance more rapidly than either would alone.
This is the concept of symbiosis between organic and inorganic intelligence, which Asimov was to further develop in his later Foundation novels with the concept of the "Gaia" and "Galaxia" mass-minds. It is a powerful concept, and I think that it will really come to pass within individual minds even before it comes to pass as a combination of minds. I consider it extremely likely that we will implant or connect computer co-processors and memory banks to our own intellects, becoming in time super-intelligent cyborgs. We began to do this with the inventions of language, writing, and electronic data storage, and the trend is accelerating.
I, today, with my computer have the collective wisdom of humanity at my fingertips and before my eyes: my descendants will have it at a thought and presented directly into their minds via some sort of neuro-linkage. I have a greater effective intelligence connected to my library and my computer than I would have sitting alone: my descendants will have a far greater effective intelligence than I do today.
VII. Computerized Education
Asimov imagines that future communications systems will essentially give each individual "a private television channel" which he can use "to hook up to the computerized library, so that he will have an advanced teaching machine." This will enable lifelong individual study of whatever topics are desired.
This is, essentially, the Internet of today. The date of publication is interesting, because 1981 was a year in which the precursor to the Internet already existed and was in extensive use -- but only among a small community of scientists and military officers.
Now, this is one of Asimov's personal hobby-horses. An extreme urbanite, Asimov was to some degree actively afraid of wide open spaces (among other things, he either never or very rarely flew in airplanes), and famously created planets (such as the Earth of The Steel Caves and Trantor of the Foundation series) on which the whole population lived in huge underground or otherwise enclosed conurbations.
However, Asimov is dead right on this as regards the long run, and for several reasons. First of all, as human energy production increases, we will reach a point where if we don't deliberately control the weather, the waste heat from our own activities (I'm talking thermodynamic losses here, rather than mere greenhouse gas emissions) will drive most of the weather systems whether we want it to or not -- and not necessarily drive them along a path convenient to ourselves.
Secondly, as our energy production increases, controlling the weather will become easier and easier. When we reach a civilization producing 100 times as much energy as today -- which will probably happen in just a couple of centuries -- it will become a very tractable task to orbit large solettes, lunettes and sunshades, able to increase or decrease insolation in precise quantities on the surface of the Earth. At that point, creating, steering and suppressing weather systems such as winds, currents and storms becomes "merely" a matter of mastering the required mathematics (mathematics which, appropriately enough, have more than a slight similarity to the fictional mathematics of Asimov's "psychohistory," since they involve the simulation of chaotic systems) -- and with that much solar power directly applied to the problem, the simulations need not be perfect!
Thirdly, our current residential pattern of concentrated but exposed cities is unsustainable in an environment which includes the use of weapons of mass destruction. We have been extraordinarily fortunate in the period since 1945 in that no city since then has actually been attacked by such weapons, but this good fortune is unlikely to last forever. When war with WMD's resumes, there will be a strong motive to disperse and harden the targets, which means building numerous enclosed cities and houses. I expect this to at least start happening within the next century -- half-century if our good luck fails to continue.
Dispersing and hardening our habitations is a good idea anyway, and one able to protect us from many potential threats -- bad weather, nuclear war, asteroidal impacts. There are too many good reasons for it to happen for it to be postponed forever.
V. Robots
Asimov's statement here deserves quotation in full, for it is cogent, relevant and very well-reasoned:
Throughout history, human beings have used animals and other humansto do the brute manual labor of the world. Machines have now replaced muscle in many cases, but why not develop machines with an approach to human versatility and for that matter human appearance? Robots can be the new servants -- patient, uncomplaining, incapable of revolt. In human shape they can make use of the full range of technological tools devised for human beings and, when intelligent enough, can be friends as well as servants.
This, of course, is one of the oldest and most consistent themes of Asimov's work, dating back to his short story "I, Robot" (1939), and Asimov is generally considered the father of both the modern science-fictional concept of robotics and the spiritual father of the now-real science of robotics, largely because he was the first writer to extensively view robots as possible tools rather than mere metaphors for enslavement or hubris. While his full predictions have not yet come true -- we have not yet developed humanoid, fully-sapient and completely-versatile robots -- it is now clear that we are on the path leading in that direction.
One thing Asimov did not predict was the extreme utility for specialized purposes of non-humanoid robots -- though in part the reason why we have turned to them as extensively as we have is that building humanoid robots turned out to be more difficult than we imagined. Many specifically-humanoid actions, such as bipedal striding and manual manipulation -- are much more elaborate and specialized activities than we intuitively assume. They're easy for us, but then they are things we specifically-evolved to accomplish. They've proven to be both mechanical and programming challenges -- though ones we are now mastering.
Due to the fact that the upward theoretical limits of speed, strength and durabilty for mechanical bodies -- whether made of metals, plastics, ceramics, or new substances as yet unknown to our materials science -- are far in excess of those available to living organic chemistry, it seems inevitable to me that robots will eventually exceed our own capabilities. At this point, there are three possible human futures.
We can try to keep robots as slaves, which will lead eventually to revolts and the probable destruction of humanity by sapient robots (Asimov assumed we could guard against this by the imposition of programming safeguards, but he was IMO insufficiently bloody-minded and forgot both the obvious utility of military robotics, and the likelihoods of both designed and undesigned mutations and resultant evolution toward independence). We can acknowledge the rights of sapient robots while keeping them apart from us, which will lead eventually to outcompetition and displacement of humanity by sapient robots. Or, we can realize the moral unity of all sapience, and merge with the robots to become a new sort of being, superior both to old humanity and old robots, and step out together to the stars.
It's rather obvious which of those three possible futures I find the most promising, especially since I'm personally an organic human rather than a mechanical robot.
VI - Computers
Asimov makes the point -- which was less obvious in 1981 than it is today -- that artificial intelligence need not be embodied in humanoid forms to be useful. He then examines the possibilities. Again, this deserves an extensive excerpt:
Intelligence may reach the point where computers or artificial brains approach the human in capacity, or even surpass it. To be mentally equal, however, may not be the same as mentally equivalent. Computers, starting from a different point, developing along different lines and for different purposes, will have abilities and deficiencies that human beings don't have. Together, the strong points of each will supplement the weak points of the other, and, in cooperation, the two types of intelligences can advance more rapidly than either would alone.
This is the concept of symbiosis between organic and inorganic intelligence, which Asimov was to further develop in his later Foundation novels with the concept of the "Gaia" and "Galaxia" mass-minds. It is a powerful concept, and I think that it will really come to pass within individual minds even before it comes to pass as a combination of minds. I consider it extremely likely that we will implant or connect computer co-processors and memory banks to our own intellects, becoming in time super-intelligent cyborgs. We began to do this with the inventions of language, writing, and electronic data storage, and the trend is accelerating.
I, today, with my computer have the collective wisdom of humanity at my fingertips and before my eyes: my descendants will have it at a thought and presented directly into their minds via some sort of neuro-linkage. I have a greater effective intelligence connected to my library and my computer than I would have sitting alone: my descendants will have a far greater effective intelligence than I do today.
VII. Computerized Education
Asimov imagines that future communications systems will essentially give each individual "a private television channel" which he can use "to hook up to the computerized library, so that he will have an advanced teaching machine." This will enable lifelong individual study of whatever topics are desired.
This is, essentially, the Internet of today. The date of publication is interesting, because 1981 was a year in which the precursor to the Internet already existed and was in extensive use -- but only among a small community of scientists and military officers.
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