From concept cars… conceptual architecture etc. It doesn’t always work, but without new concepts everything stagnates. Just like evolution most of the ideas don’t work. Every now and again one does. The same is true in writing, and let’s face it, SF is concept car show of the writing and sometimes science world.
A lot of concept cars aren’t precisely ever intended to drive, and it would be fair to say that some of the science in science in SF isn’t going to be, either. Both serve, however, as a vector for ideas. Some of these ideas are constructed like Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, which falls apart on the first corner, others… well, 1984 and the Minority Report seems depressingly to be holding up well, if a little premature. Others have elements that have were new and never thought of… which have now become part of normality – Waldos for example.
It’s my excuse for diving down a lot rabbit holes in my research, but it has also colored a lot of my thinking about HOW we think. That was one of the major themes of RATS, BATS & VATS – was that language sets the pathway of how we think, and of how we can think. Different languages and the way they structured (like English with several sets of often conflicting rules in one language, or other languages that coherent and consistent about their internal rules.)
I have often said – though I loathe it – that Hollywood did more to change Africa than anything else (and not because of its attempts to shape society – but by showing things that were literally not thought of) – because, like the concept car, it got many people thinking about things that had just never occurred to them as possibilities before. The role of women, for example, in African society was very prescribed – and accepted by the women… until they saw that well, it didn’t have to be like that. Yes, I know – the images and lifestyles portrayed were as functional as the rice-paper car, and as real a three-dollar note. We know that… now.
I was working on the current book — current being very appropriate because it has a lot to do with fish (I am sure you’re all surprised by this unusual turn of events). Thing is, fish, and particularly some species like the mormyrids, in addition to the senses we have are also electro-sensitive. They can generate weak electrical fields and by the changes in conductivity ‘see’ (for want of a better word). through the substrate and in muddy water. The fish – as fish go, have large complex brains for processing this information.
We take it one step further, and find that they can use the ability to generate electric fields, and be aware of them to the next logical stage – communication. Admittedly, it’s pretty rudimentary, with males effectively doing no more than saying “I am a male, and I am too sexy…” But evolution doesn’t have to stop there. Just as dolphins find sound not only useful for sonar, but useful to co-ordinate hunting something like could drive this.
The whole thing takes another turn when you come such a species meeting up with another species – ours… that can’t generate or receive electrical field messages, but do generate electrical signals in our nervous system. Two species hitting concepts that were alien to them. I read post by a deaf lady – and it’s made me very aware of the fact that much of our world is shaped by shared senses. And when you don’t share a sense…
One mormyrid might recognize another by its electrical field. Let’s make the reasonable assumption that there are tiny differences that make individuals unique. You don’t have to identify yourself by a name. You ARE as defined by that pattern. And if it is picking up signals, they would outline concepts like hunger or fear or even direction, without actually having words for these. So, what effect does having words do for their ability to think of more abstract concepts.
And that is what I am working on at the moment. Probably no-one but me will ever get it… it’s a light, entertaining story. But underneath is the concept. Maybe not one that’ll drive…
Mad Genius Club 
12 responses to “New Concepts”
I read about a woman whose husband left her. After she had complained for a long time her sister told her to learn a new language, idea being that sis was tired of listening to the fuss, and the wronged woman wouldn’t be able to keep thinking about her misery in the new language because she would have no words for it…
Fascinating idea.
Your definition of scifi as “concept car show” is the best I have heard. And it gives such freedom for playing with ideas.
SF not only “invents” new things, it explores the social ramifications of them. Lois Bujold’s good at this with her Quadies and brain transplants.
Your Rat, Bats, and Vats uplifted animals manage to make us laugh, even while we’re thinking.
The role of women, for example, in African society was very prescribed – and accepted by the women… until they saw that well, it didn’t have to be like that. Yes, I know – the images and lifestyles portrayed were as functional as the rice-paper car, and as real a three-dollar note.
Of course, in this case, it didn’t even really matter that the roles of women as presented by Hollywood were totally unrealistic. All that the presentation had to do was introduce the concept that, “There are other ways to do this. You don’t need to be tied to the way that things have always been…”
I actually ran into a short story recently that was very similar: someone from a highly patriarchal society runs into someone from a highly matriarchal one where the roles of men and women were exactly reversed. I found the matriarchal one pretty stupid, honestly (the babies are cared for by the sex that doesn’t have boobs or make milk? How does that work?), but I realized that the specifics of the new idea matter less than the general concept of, “New idea. Mind blown. Must figure out how to incorporate new idea into existing world view to put mind back together again.”
There’s a movie made in Canada titled Black Robes that does a good job of showing this at work in real life, when French Jesuit missionaries brought Christianity to the Huron and other tribes. They show the people involved as honestly as possible. They also show how alien European civilization was to the American Indians by a scene where a few Hurons are literally terrified by the use of writing. They literally think it’s witchcraft. Because how else can those silly little marks on paper tell one person what another person said when they weren’t even present?
My mind isn’t flexible enough right now to imagine how a species that communicates through electrical sensations/pheromones with just the concepts of things like: “I’m here,” “Food ahead,” “move to the side and block prey from escaping,” would transition to language. The rudiments are there, but moving from broad concepts to specifics is not something I can really grasp well.
Why not? We already do that.
Just substitute “visual” for “electrical”. We recognize individuals at a distance that way, and you can carry on entire conversations with strangers using nothing but facial expressions and gestures when you’re reacting to something you both can see. [ Did you see that? what an idiot! is he OK? Eh, no accounting for teenagers ]. No other common language necessary, though common culture can help (and some of that is bred into the bone).
Common culture, or at least recognition of some of the other culture’s aspects and/or behaviours is pretty much required to communicate effectively. First contacts between groups, or species, or starting from scratch within a group, is beyond me.
First contact is between a very young alien and teen boy. Recognition of some fairly basic information (hungry, scared) is the initial depth of communication, moving on to words (electrical pattern) for objects. Pretty much like a Border collie with its 300 word vocabulary :-). It adds a dimension though. Lying doesn’t work.
clears throat.
Heinlein reported that there were waldos in existence before his story was written.
I did not know that 🙂