On account of me being sick this weekend, I didn’t get much writing done, and I don’t have anything prepared to share with you this week. Since I was planning to take a little time off for the holidays anyway, I figure I may as well start my break a little early. So I’ll see you all in January!
Sciency Words: Cyborg
December 14, 2018
Welcome to another episode of Sciency Words, a special series here on Planet Pailly where we take a closer look at the definitions and etymologies of science or science-related terms so we can expand our scientific vocabularies together. Today’s term is:
CYBORG
In 1960, two American researchers named Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline were worried. How could human beings ever hope to survive in the extreme conditions of outer space? As they saw it, there were two solutions: we could either create artificial environments for ourselves, or we could alter our bodies to better suit the harsh realities of space.
That first option—creating artificial environments for ourselves in space—seemed utterly impractical to these two men. They equated it to fish inventing mobile fishbowls so they could leave the sea and go explore the land.
No, it would be far safer, easier, and cheaper (they reasoned) to reengineer the human body and mind through the use of technology, pharmaceuticals, and hypnosis. So, first at a symposium on human space flight and then in this article for the journal Astronautics, Clynes and Kline described a “self-regulating machine-man system,” and they decided to call this hypothetical invention a cyborg.
The word is a portmanteau, combining the first three letters of the word “cybernetic” with the first three letters of the word “organism.” It’s actually Manfred Clynes who’s generally credited with coining the word. Kline apparently liked the word well enough, but according to this article from The Atlantic, he expressed some concern that it sounded too much like the name of a town in Denmark.
Clynes and Kline seem to have had some rosily optimisitic notions about what our cyborgized future might have been like. Becoming cyborgs would not, in any way, diminish our humanity. Rather, we would be elevated, both physically and spiritually, by all the new opportunities that would suddenly be available to us to go out and explore the universe.
With the benefit of historical hindsight, I think it’s easy to see at least one flaw in this idea. The original question was how would human beings be able to survive in space? Our options were the mobile fishbowl method or the total cybernetic reengineering of our bodies.
Well, since 1960, human beings have been to space quite a few times. Our mobile fishbowls have their flaws, but they work well enough most of the time. Replacing the human respiratory and digestive systems with technological alternatives (as Clynes and Kline suggested we’d need to do, among other things) does not sound like a safer, easier, or cheaper solution. I mean, as difficult and expensive as it was to build the International Space Staion, that’s still probably easier and cheaper than doing the kind of surgery Clynes and Kline were talking about.
Maybe someday, that kind of cybernetic augmentation will become a reality. But we’ll have to learn a whole lot more about how our bodies work first. At least that’s how I see it.
P.S.: Clynes and Kline would have argued that cyborgs are still human, but better. A superior form of human being, perhaps. That is a position that the titular cyborg in my “Dialogue with a Cyborg” story would not agree with.
3 Comments | 
Biology, Sciency Words, Space | 
Permalink
Posted by J.S. Pailly
Dialogue with a Cyborg, Part 2
December 11, 2018
After much delay, and an embarrassing amount of procrastination, and one night of anxious editing and reediting, part two of “Dialogue with a Cyborg” is finally here!
For those of you who read my recent IWSG post, you know that I recently had a really exciting shiny new idea, and that this shiny new idea messed up my timetable for a preexisting project. “Dialogue with a Cyborg” was that project that got messed up.
I still can’t say what this shiny new idea is, but I can tell you that part two of “Dialogue” is the first story to make use of it. For me, this ended up being an experiment, a first test run to see if the new idea would play well with older material. Hopefully no one will even notice what changed between the first and second installments of this story.
So without further ado, please click here for the continuation of “Dialogue with a Cyborg.” Or if you haven’t read part one, please click here.
4 Comments | Dialogue with a Cyborg | Permalink
Posted by J.S. Pailly
Sciency Words: Qubit
December 7, 2018
Welcome to another episode of Sciency Words, a special series here on Planet Pailly where we take a closer look at the definitions and etymologies of science or science-related terms so we can expand our scientific vocabularies together. Today’s term is:
QUBIT
I’m starting to think I can get used to just about any weird quirk of language. When I first saw the word qubit, referring to the quantum bits inside a quantum computer, I’m pretty sure my eye twitched. The spelling of that word… it just looks so… so wrong.
And I’m not the only one who to feel that way. In a paper titled “From Cbits to Qbits,” American physicist N. David Mermin laments that “the prevailing ‘qubit’ honors the English rule that q should be followed by u but ignores the equally powerful requirement that qu should be followed by a vowel.” Mermin would prefer the spelling qbit. I would prefer the hyphenated form q-bit. Unfortunately, neither of those options seem to have caught on.
So who is responsible for this crime against English spelling rules? It was another American physicist by the name of Benjamin Schumacher, who originally introduced the term in this 1995 paper on quantum information theory. In the brief acknowledgements section at the end of the paper, Schumacher explains: “The term ‘qubit’ was coined in jest during one of the author’s many intriguing and valuable conversations with W.K. Wootters, and became the initial impetus for this work.”
As a writer, I kind of identify with Schumacher here. I’ve had the experience many times of either learning a new word or inventing one, and having that spur fresh and exciting new thoughts. But still, why is the word spelled that way?
Several other sources (including Wiktionary) say the word qubit is formed by analogy with cubit, the ancient unit of measure equal to the length of an adult male’s forearm (from elbow to fingertips). There is a certain inherent uncertainty involved in cubit-based measurements, given the amount of variation there can be among adult male forearms. So I guess connecting that to all the inherent uncertainties of quantum science and quantum computing makes a sort of sense.
I don’t know. Maybe I’ve gotten so used to seeing the word spelled the way it’s spelled that it doesn’t bug me as much as it used to. And knowing a little about the word’s history, and its apparent association with the cubit, probably helps to make the weird spelling a little more palatable for me. But what about you? Are you okay with qubit, or does that weird spelling make your eye twitch when you see it?
16 Comments | Sciency Words | Permalink
Posted by J.S. Pailly
IWSG: Shiny New Idea Syndrome
December 5, 2018Today’s post is part of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a blog hop where insecure writers like myself can share our worries and offer advice and encouragement. Click here to find out more about IWSG and see a list of participating blogs.
As I said in a recent post, I have a lot on my mind right now. Good stuff. Writing-related stuff. But still, it’s hard to focus on actual writing when I’m so distracted by writing-related ideas.
So for today’s episode of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, I going to turn the floor over to my muse. She has something she’d like to say, and maybe it’s something your muse would like to hear.
* * *
Hello, I’m James’s imaginary friend, also known as his muse. It’s totally normal for adults to have imaginary friends, especially when those adults are writers.
It seems that I have created a problem for myself and my writer. I recently brought him a new idea. What is this idea? That’s not important right now. It’s a new idea, and it’s a really good idea (if I do say so myself), and that’s all that matters right now.
That was not the reaction I was hoping for. It’s one thing for a writer to be excited about a new idea, but quite another for a writer to get overexcited. Overexcited writers are a danger to themselves, their muses, and every single character in their story worlds.
As a muse, obviously you have to bring your writer great ideas, the best ideas you can find lurking in the depths of the subconscious. I do want my writer to use this new idea. I wouldn’t have brought it to him otherwise. But it’s a tricky thing, getting my writer to keep things in perspective, making sure he does not neglect all his other writerly duties.
So, my fellow muses, what do you do to keep your writers in line when a shiny new idea gets them a little too excited?
26 Comments | IWSG, Muse Chat | Permalink
Posted by J.S. Pailly
Wisdom of Sci-Fi: For the Benefit of Humanity
December 3, 2018I’ve wanted to do a Wisdom of Sci-Fi post about Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice trilogy for some time now. I absolutely love these books, and I’ve been telling every complete stranger I meet to go read them. These books are full of so much wisdom.
But they’re not easy to quote. For these Sci-Fi Wisdom posts, I really like to have a nice, pithy quote. Something that really brings an important idea into focus. That’s kind of hard to do with the Ancillary series. I feel like you have to be immersed in the politics and culture and language of that universe before the truly poignant moments start to make sense.
However, I did find a quote in Ancillary Mercy (book three of the series) that does a decent job summing up what this series is all about:
How can there be any benefit at all? She tells herself that, you know, that all of it is ultimately for the benefit of humanity, that everyone has their place, their part of the plan, and sometimes some individuals just have to suffer for that greater benefit. But it’s easy to tell yourself that, isn’t it, when you’re never the one on the receiving end.
The “she” referred to here is Anaander Mianaai, the ruler of the great and powerful space empire in which these stories are set. Through the course of the series, we’ve either heard about or witnessed the many things Mianaai and her empire have done for the alleged benefit of humanity.
I guess you could say Mianaai has a “the ends justify the means” philosophy. It’s easy to fall into that mode of thinking, even when you’re not the ruler of a vast space empire. Who doesn’t want to fight for the benefit of their family, friends, co-workers, etc…. These are worthy causes. The benefit of humanity is a worthy cause. But when you accept that the ends justify the means, when you really start to believe that, then maybe all you’re doing is making excuses. Maybe you’re just telling yourself you’re doing what’s right, even though you know you’re doing what’s wrong, and you’re desperately trying to ignore the full consequences of your actions.
Something to think about, at least, and to be on guard against in yourself and others.
P.S.: And seriously, if you haven’t read Ancillary Justice, I highly recommend it. It’s the best book I’ve come across in many, many years.
7 Comments | Book Review, Sci-Fi Wisdom | Permalink
Posted by J.S. Pailly
The Softer Side of Sci-Fi
November 30, 2018So I sort of screwed up my blogging agenda for this past week. I just had too much other stuff on my mind, and I guess I needed time to sort things out in my head. Such is life!
At least it’s good stuff, for a change. Writing stuff. World-building stuff. I’m not sure how much I want to reveal at this point; but since this is a Friday, and since we usually talk about the definitions of science or science-related terms on Fridays, I’ll tell you about one thing. It has to do with the definition of science fiction.
Or to be more precise, it has to do with the definitions of hard and soft science fiction. Hard science fiction tries to portray science as accurately as possible, while soft science fiction takes more creative liberties (sometimes a whole lot more creative liberties) with scientific facts. Pretty much every work of science fiction lies somewhere along a spectrum between hard and soft Sci-Fi. Or at least that’s what I always thought these terms meant.
But then a week ago, I read an article that seemed to be defining soft science fiction in a way that didn’t make much sense to me. I can’t find that article now (thanks for trying, Google), but when I turned to my trusty copy of Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, I found that yes, indeed, soft science fiction (and by extension hard science fiction as well) can be defined in two very different, almost contradictory ways.
To quote from Brave New Words, soft science fiction may be defined as “science fiction that deals primarily with advancements in, or extrapolations based on, the soft sciences (e.g., anthropology, psychology, sociology, etc.).” And hard science fiction is, therefore, science fiction dealing with the hard sciences, like astronomy, physics, or chemistry.
So instead of being two ends of a spectrum that encompasses all of science fiction, hard and soft science fiction are merely two subgenres among a host of other subgenres like cyberpunk, space opera, alternative history, etc…. And weirdly, according to these new (or at least new to me) definitions, soft Sci-Fi is just as concerned with scientific accuracy as hard Sci-Fi. It’s merely a different branch of science that it’s trying to be accurate about.
Maybe this is old news to some of you, but for me this has been a huge revelation. Redefining hard and soft science fiction has been a major factor in all the re-thinking, re-writing, and re-world-building I’ve been doing this week. However, this is not the big, central idea that’s been on my mind. It’s more like a satellite thought orbiting that big idea, and its gravitational perturbations are being felt.
I’m going to leave it at that for now, but I’m sure I’ll have more to say in the coming weeks and months. My IWSG post this coming Wednesday should be interesting.
14 Comments | Sciency Words | Permalink
Posted by J.S. Pailly
