ON THE OUTER LIMITS

(ep. 1.15 'The New Breed')

One question very often dealt with in science fiction is the future of the human race, the next steps of evolution. There are several different models of development, but all of them seem to include the possibility that there will be a development on a genetic scale - the difference mostly is seen concerning the time frame. So what is it we are dealing with? The human body - as any biological unit - consists of very basic building blocks of life, cells, organic components forming a larger shape and working together. But cellular life has not always been this way, it has developed over quite some time; a lot of time on our scale, a short period of time on a cosmic or evolutionary scale. Still we do not know exactly how evolution works; we know some basics about genetics, about selection and differenciation, about Darwinistic models of evolution. That still isn't enough.

Our present understanding is far from having grasped what life really is; we can describe it, touch it, write about it - but we do not comprehend it, nor do we know how it came into existence. So everything we say about it will ultimately be filled with speculation; an educated guess at its best. Science becomes science fiction - and eventually science fiction will become science again:

There is a two-way trade between science fiction and science. Science fiction suggests ideas that scientists incorporate into their theories, but sometimes science turns up notions that are stranger than any science fiction.
(Stephen Hawking, Foreword, in: Lawrence M. Krauss. The Physics of Star Trek. N.Y.: BasicBooks 1995. p. xi-xiii)

(ep. 1.19 'I, Robot' / TNG ep. 2.09 'The Measure of a Man')

Life is something special, something extraordinary, something we value most, especially if it is our own. The prospects of life we take seriously, we eagerly consider them and think about them any minute; no moment to be wasted, no time to be spent without assigning a meaning to it. Waiting or just doing nothing but to await another activity to be done, we consider worthless, a waste of time, unworthy our capabilities and necessities.

But what then is life? There's a lot of both speculation and argument, with none of the existing positions effectively delivering entirely convincing answers but merely aspects, pieces of the whole. We seem somewhat confident, satisfied with this kind of a missing background and data; having either accepted the conventional approaches or ruled out any chance for a final answer and an end to all those unnerving quarrels.

Does such an answer exist for us - is it even necessary to get one? Why do we seek for answers of such a definite nature when we are not even able to deal with it even when it would lie open and clear before us? Our perception but hinders us from accessing the truth behind unhindered; we never get access to an unfiltered, undisturbed and unaltered view. As with any definition or scientific proof, our means are restricted to making a statement about probability, a statement basically just repeating the influx of data we get. We gather the information around us and force it into an artificial system of confines defined by arbitrary estimates; arbitrary, because we always have to create models, simplifications, which are proving productive within a certain range.

Such is our understanding of what life consists of. It is being defined by what we see; we assign the shapes and patterns of what life looks like on Earth to something like a global model; global of course just meaning the situation on our planet at our time. This is not because of ignorance, not primarily because of a limited understanding of nature, but because our means to discover the world are restricted. It is not that the scientific method would be a failure, on the contrary - though it would limit itself when it ceased to accept other possibilities. The problem is not with the method but because of tradition.

Science fiction can provide us with new possibilities; like with The Outer Limits and Star Trek it can have the character of a case study: giving us an outlook into a possible future. We will one day have constructed androids, we will provide them with artificial intelligence. Why should it be impossible for then to develop consciousness? What is the difference between 'artificial' and 'natural' intelligence? The material is irrelevant. So would the only decisive factor be that we will be the creator of them? Well, parents are in a way the creators of their children; but children have the right to become independent, to start a life of their own - as should androids. No sentient being has the right to enslave another.

December 12th/13th, 1998

(ep. 2.09 'Trial by Fire')

To screw up or not to screw up - that could be the very basic options of first contact (see also Extraterrestrial Life). There is nothing as crucial, nothing as decisive as the first impression. To be precise: First contact might be a concept of sf but can also be applied to politics. I bet it didn't quite work out between the President and Ken Starr, but better with Miss Lewinsky, but I won't discuss that charade right now.

Responsibility is a burden as much as it is providing options of action. Responsibility is a field which can both animate people to grow and to fulfill their duties, but it can also destroy people. The responsibilities of office and politics can grow out of any proportions in a moment of crisis, in a moment of first contact, in a moment of decision.

A moment of decision demands for risen attention and more than readiness; it yearns for communication and mutual decisions as well as for initiatives and bravery. Critical moments slow down the passing of time, they sharpen both attention and tension and form the beginning of something - of a something which will either prove to be wrong or, in a lucky case, to be right. To this differentiation of consequences will but be added a third option: An option in between, an option which will be the result of a less consequential and less magnanimous approach and intention.

A moment of tension has to be a moment of calmness: In the heat of battle there needs to be a center of the storm, a less or least tensed are of thought, deliberation and concocted concentration - an area of civilized interaction, defying panic and fear. As soon as the center of the storm is disturbed by pejorative and pessimistic input, as soon as the ones entrusted and elected to protect and serve us are losing the initiative and becoming mere shadows of themselves, puppets mainly following the trends of time and giving way for panicking, losing their logical judgement, losing their command eventually; as soon, as the organization and canalization of power are becoming victims of the conflict, the result is unpredictable and probably tending to the worse. If the ones who lead the insurrection or impeachment against the original center of action are no better and doing their thing just for their own agendas, the critique and counter-action can be disguised as being unproductive and, most of all, wrong.

Seems I am drifting away to present-day politics again, so I will cut it short again. When in a trial by fire, in a moment of crisis decision-making ultimately breaks down, doesn't anymore cling to facts and logic and isn't anymore oriented to adapt to the actual circumstances, the outcome will be something not anymore serving the people; it would need a miracle to correct whatever went wrong. To screw up or not to screw up.

December 12th/13th, 1998

(ep. 2.12 'Inconstant Moon')

We usually do not know when our time to die will come; we do know that our physical presence on Earth will one day be over, we know that we have to survive that long, and we try to maintain our life and health up to the ultimate our; we try to prolong it, try to improve it any time - but we also tend to be confident with what we have, we fear risking all our achievements for some invisible and quite hypothetical improvement, we often, too often? prefer conformity over initiative. We try to compensate for the uncertainty of our point of death.

What if we all of a sudden knew what will come? What if the hour would be known, would be eminent? What if all our life would in a moment reveal our incompetence to have accomplished our goals? That we have been merely dreamers, lacking the initiative of starting anew, of making bold moves instead of just serving our innate inertia? What to do in the last days of our life, what to do?

The courage we lacked in our life, it will return then with all other options gone. Conformity would make no sense then - unless of course we would be confident with our life and now enjoying peace, awaiting death as the natural outcome and prospect into something new, an entry into a new level of being and consciousness. Lucky be those who can enjoy such a positive perspective, and I too tend to join this way of thinking, but then it is easy to talk about some hypothetical situation in theory. Reality could look much more different. When we have nothing to lose, how to act?

How will we act in such a situation? Will we then defy everything we have believe in for so long? Will we cease to rely on the truths we once have so persistently been following? Is our obeying to the law of both divine and human law just resulting from fear of punishment, or is there an understanding of right and wrong? Critical situations will reveal who we really are; our masks will fall: Will we maintain our humanity or will we abandon it, surrender to the new possibilities?

Nothing to lose, but what to gain? If such a situation is a test of integrity, how will we perform? Will we prove worthy of being called a human being with 'human' also carrying the connotation of 'humane'? Will we prove to be able to resist temptation, will we maintain our dignity and fight our egotism? And perhaps, we might eventually discover that within fate there lies a certain flexibility - what if we will not die at the presumed point of time? Will our sudden courage be discontinued and let us return to business as usual; or will we be able to live up to it and face the consequences?

December 12th/13th, 1998

(ep. 3.05 'Stream of Consciousness')

The quest, the desire for knowledge is as old a theme, as old an issue as long as mankind exists. Knowledge is not only a kind of luxurious supplemental, not only a hobby or a non-obligatory kind of game to be conducted when there is too much spare time left. Knowledge not only is a necessary condition to survive, it is also the precondition for development and evolution.

There is the saying that knowledge means power; this is a statement being quite true: The possession of knowledge constitutes an advantage against those who lack that knowledge. The quest for it therefore always is a quest for power, for supremacy, for collecting intelligence and possibilities to improve one's own position; but such a one-sided improvement would always be directed against another side. Except one would learn to be one day able to share this knowledge with others and teach them, such a quest always inherits a certain egotism.

But also for the teacher or lecturer or writer there exists a level of power in the possibility and occasion to be able to make a selection, a classification or canonization. By this creation of artificial structures and determinants, personal agendas are served and personal preferences laid upon those who are to be taught. The dominance of the teacher, the dominance of the educated versus the non- or less educated counterpart is a position of power and influence of the most dangerous character.

The difference, the cleft between educated and less educated part of the society has always been a very important means of non-democratic reign. Societies based upon class differences either create such a gap or hinder it from closing; the power of the powerful is always easier to justify and to maintain when the suppressed population has no access to literacy and science. Knowledge therefore becomes a means, a motor for creating true democracy: Education for all being a most primary condition for equality on a political and social level.

The idea presented in the respective episode of The Outer Limits looks like a futuristic version of the internet: A stream of data accessed by cyberspace interfaces implanted into the human body: Instantaneous and effortless access to any kind of information; without even needing the abilities to read, write or calculate. But such an improvement eventually would make us totally dependent on technology. In case of a failure, we wouldn't be able to survive. Knowledge and the collection of it remain a personal responsibility: Neither a machine nor another human being can change that.

December 13th, 1998

(ep. 3.22 'In the Zone' / CL ep. 3.11 'Wink of an Eye' / TNG ep. 5.24 'The Next Phase')

Other levels and dimensions of reality are a classic theme of science fiction; the mere possibility of the existence of another reality is appealing for it would change our conventional perspective of the world to a large extent: It would somehow remove the air of exclusivity and the notion that what we see and otherwise experience in our 'normal' surroundings would constitute all that exists and all we could access.

Some of the usual visions sf provides us with are being applied to a story either because a certain scientific phenomenon (like a black hole, a nebula or novae) is being explored, or because our present understanding of nature has to be circumvented to be able to tell a story either at all or just in a certain way. Some of those story-driven necessities might have led to the 'invention' of warp drive (and consequently that of subspace), jumpgates (and hyperspace), beaming (and replicators and holodecks) and phase-shifting.

The idea of phase shifts as established by sf holds a lot of potential; but it is just an example showing some basic characteristics of sf. Besides the obvious question why out-of-phase people can pass through anything on an horizontal level like walls and furniture and other living phases outside of their phase, but they can effortlessly walk on the floor without penetrating it too. That shows the story-based character of such means.

Our space-time-continuum is usually seen as just that: A continuum of conditions accessible to the human mind and understanding; accessible to us just by the conventional methods we are used to. The concepts of space and time are not questioned; they are the foundation of our daily life, as well is the concept of material life. Additional aspects which would either undermine or just simply enrich those original concepts are usually neglected because they do not seem to fit into the usual picture.

Seen in that respect, what science fiction does is that it really can open the mind to possibilities never considered before; it can raise our awareness of what is out there and in here; it does this by establishing fresh approaches towards reality, joining the philosophical discussions as well as the scientific ones, playing out in fiction what could be or become an aspect of reality. Like with the idea of different phases or dimensions, it can show us that there could be much more to reality than we originally thought of.

December 13th, 1998