Journal article
That Light at the End of the Tunnel: The Plurality of Singularity
Science-fiction studies, Vol.39(1), pp.2-14
03/01/2012
DOI: 10.5621/sciefictstud.39.1.0002
Abstract
The concept of Technological Singularity has achieved recent prominence in futurist speculation, sf literature, and sf critical discourse, but frequently the numerous aspects and constructions of Singularity have blurred together in what one critic calls "Singularity Paste." This paper attempts to distinguish among several important concerns in Singularity discourse. In the first place, it has become almost impossible to separate the idea of Singularity as a possible future historical event from the idea of Singularity as the ultimate challenge and barrier to the imaginative vision of science fiction. Several different, but ultimately compatible, technological/scientific paths to Singularity have been proposed by Vernor Vinge, Ray Kurzweil, and Eric Drexler. At least two different and incompatible post-Singularity futures have been imagined, one constructing the phenomenon positively, one negatively. And complicating all attempts to imagine what a post-Singularity future might be like is the claim made by several writers, most notably Vernor Vinge and Damien Broderick, that science and science fiction alike will be necessarily incapable of imagining such a future, so dramatic will be its changes from the present. In attempting to argue what science or science fiction is incapable of imagining, Vinge and Broderick engage in precisely the kind of flawed thinking described by Arthur C. Clarke in his Profiles of the Future. A much more positive appraisal of our ability to see beyond the "opaque wall" of Singularity has been offered by Ray Kurzweil, who provides a technological reason why the post-Singularity future can be accurately imagined, and by Colin Milburn, who champions the ability of science fiction to "tunnel" through the opacity of Singularity, his argument based in a deconstruction of the very distinction between science and science fiction. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- That Light at the End of the Tunnel: The Plurality of Singularity
- Creators
- Brooks Landon
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Science-fiction studies, Vol.39(1), pp.2-14
- Publisher
- SF-TH, Inc
- DOI
- 10.5621/sciefictstud.39.1.0002
- ISSN
- 0091-7729
- eISSN
- 2327-6207
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 03/01/2012
- Academic Unit
- English
- Record Identifier
- 9984397936402771
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