Review of Three-Body
Review of Three-Body
Also: Twitter, deep space, comments to the Q/A with Rudy Rucker, downward causation and engineering.
Greetings to all readers and subscribers, and special greetings to the paid subscribers!
Please scroll down for the main topic of this newsletter. But first:
I subscribed to Twitter Blue and now I can post long tweets (long enough for a quick blog post). So I’ll start using Twitter instead of my personal blog at giulioprisco.com. Please follow me on Twitter!
On March 22 I’ll participate in a webinar on the Deep Space Effect produced by the Cultural Considerations Working Group of the Moon Village Association. The main speaker will be Frank White, who coined the term “Overview Effect” to describe the powerful mind-changing and life-changing impact of seeing the Earth from space. Frank wrote a series of books starting with the seminal and very influential “The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution” (first published in 1987). See also “The Cosma Hypothesis: Implications of the Overview Effect” (2018).
Waiting for this webinar, watch Frank’s talk at the Terasem Colloquium on December 14, 2022.
The Deep Space Effect is a cosmic version of the Overview Effect. Looking at the Earth from space, we feel one with the Earth. Looking at deep space, we feel one with the universe.
Both overview effects are important, but to me the Deep Space Effect is more important. And you can experience it right here looking at the night sky, without leaving the Earth!
Frank extends James Lovelock’s concept of Gaia, the living Earth, to the whole universe. The universe itself will become a living whole and we are “actively encouraged by larger forces” to expand beyond the Earth and “help the universe become increasingly self-aware.”
It will be good to see Frank again. The webinar will start at 6pm CET on March 22. You are invited, please register!
I recently interviewed Rudy Rucker, one of the thinkers who influenced and continue to influence me most. Rudy republished the interview. Then I posted some comments and further thoughts. Rudy hasn’t replied yet, but I hope he will.
Note: I didn’t email the two posts about Rudy because I don’t want to invade your mailbox more than once per week. I often publish posts here without emailing them, with links in the newsletter that I email about once a week.
There’s a very interesting comment to my video “Turing Church podcast: A conversation with Emily Adlam” on YouTube (see the original podcast for background):
“A very interesting and mind bending way of looking at causation. As an engineer I am trying to fathom how this way of thinking could be put to practical use.”
I guess the way of thinking that leads to global determinism and downward causation will be put to practical use one day. History shows that eventually engineers put to practical use all that scientists learn about the universe. But there can be a delay of decades or centuries. I’m afraid this will be one of these cases, for this speculative, philosophically oriented research on the foundations of physics is still very far from the laboratory.
I think the immediate impact of these speculations is likely to be a shift in mental attitude. If we don’t find an efficient cause for a phenomenon, then perhaps there isn’t one. If so, the phenomenon does have a cause, but not an efficient cause that today’s science can describe. But often engineers make use of natural phenomena long before the scientific consensus settles on an explanation.
I have finished watching the first season (30 episodes) of “Three-Body” - the TV series produced by Tencent Video, based on Cixin Liu’s science fiction masterpiece “The Three-Body Problem.”
You can find all episodes on the YouTube channel of Tencent Video.
See my previous review based on the first 12 episodes. After watching the entire first season, I confirm all that I wrote. Also listen to this chat with another fan.
“Three-Body” consolidates the position of China in global science fiction. But Chinese science fiction doesn’t even need a global market, for there are plenty of passionate fans at home.
“The China of the present is a bit like America during science fiction’s Golden Age, when science and technology filled the future with wonder,” said Cixin Liu.
History shows that good science fiction is uniquely able to inspire the young to become scientists and engineers, and do great things that change the world. I predict that young scientists and engineers in China will do great things and change the world. Read the news from China and see how China is advancing to the frefront of all futuristic technologies including quantum computing and AI. And Chinese astronauts may well be the next to walk on the Moon.
“Three-Body” is a warning to the West. A warning that we should take seriously, or else.
China Daily reveals that the second season of “Three-Body” is in production.