The Scifly “:Anything one man can imagine , other men can make real.” —Jules Verne
Vol. IX, Iss. 6 November 25, 2008
The Search for Good Sci-Fi (Spoilers Alert) Science Fiction is a genre that more often than not goes horribly wrong. With moon princesses needing rescued, terrifying aliens threatening the fate of the world, and nine different ways to travel at the speed of light, science fiction is not considered great literature by any stretch of the imagination. However, for some authors the beauty of science fiction is that it offers a platform on which certain moral questions can be raised while exploring the different consequences of charac-
ters in response to the questions. A well-known example of this is Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which explores a world where humans have created clones. In the novel, the clones are considered less than human, consequently enslaved, and forbidden on Earth. Throughout the novel, the main character, a bounty hunter paid to kill errant clones hanging out on Earth, struggles with the question of whether or not the clones are human and have souls as he becomes more familiar with
certain clones. What is intriguing is that the clones, designed to be super smart, lack any sort of empathy, emotions, and hope. The worst fate for a clone is to die because for them there is not a hope of an after life, they are merely machines created by fallible beings that have no real love for their creations. Published in 1968, this novel asked questions that have real significance today as scientists clone animals and attempt to clone humans. Another thought provoking novel is Next by Michael (Continued on page 5)
20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE PSYCHE Video games, iPods, high definition surround sound television – these are becoming part of the daily life of our generation. Turn on your headphones, plug them into your Xbox, pick up the controller, and for a few hours you're in another world, oblivious to everything really going on around you. Or do you even know at all what's really going on around you? Could it be that a video game is a more accurate model for the things we experience each day? Could it be that conscious experience is simply the
effect of chemical reactions in the neurosystem much like the world in the video game is the effect of the Xbox console and game disk? Neurologist Paul MacLean presents us with pages of experimental data supporting his hypothesis that emotion can be reduced to simply neurological activity responding to various stimuli inside or outside the body. Through countless experiments, MacLean and other scientists have found that manipulating parts of the brain actually results in particular emotional experiences or even conscious states. For example, MacLean reports that disruptions in
the limbic system can cause one to see objects which are not real, to enter certain emotional states, and to perceive objects differently from the way others do. As you may see, there is a lot at stake in such experiments. If the reductionistic stances of certain scientists are correct, the meaning of personhood itself would be challenged. Could it be that we cannot help but be enclosed in ourselves and our biological and psychological needs, without any real knowledge of or love for anything greater than ourselves?