Wednesday, 03.19.08
A World Made by HAL
Photo by Flickr user K!T under a Creative Commons license
Clarke was best known for anticipating the advent of telecommunication satellites and for writing 2001: A Space Odyssey, later adapted by Stanley Kubrick into one of the most innovative and well-regarded films of all time. But more than that, Clarke was a dissenter, a cosmopolitan visionary who saw conventional patriotism and religious belief as a dangerous plague; only by doing away with both, he ofted argued, could humanity reach its full potential.
Late last year, Arthur C. Clarke made a brief contribution to a Forbes symposium on the future, in which he looked back at human history from the year 2500. After a disastrous terrorist attack in the early 21st century, he envisioned a system of rigorous psychological screening being put in place to identify potential troublemakers.
One outcome of this--the greatest psychological survey in the whole of history--was to demonstrate conclusively that the chief danger to civilization was not merely religious extremism but religions themselves.
Clarke went further still:
Billions of words of pious garbage spoken by statesmen, clerics and politicians down the ages were either hypocritical nonsense or, if sincere, the babbling of lunatics. The new insights enabled by the Psi-probe helped humans finally recognize organized religions as the most malevolent mind virus that had ever infected human minds.
So what would come after the end of religion? Clarke suggested that humans might join together to form some kind of "supermind," and venture forth into the galaxy. But to what end? Clarke only rarely considered the justification for humanity's deep yearning to learn and explore. What if it was, like religion, yet another "mind virus," one that makes us restless and miserable? Clarke never took this notion seriously, perhaps because he was proffering his own faith. His novels were endlessly inventive and often very fun, but they were, with their wooden characters and simple moral parables, hardly meant to be great literature. They were, in a sense, devotionals. Clarke all but worshipped advanced technology, and his novels were a mash note to heroic humans who transformed the world in a spirit of fellowship and boundless curiosity.
But as a later generation of science fiction novelists and philosophers are asking now, what happens when the machines we create surpass us in raw intelligence and even creativity? Clarke dreamed up HAL, the intelligent computer at the heart of 2001, without considering that HAL, in a very real sense, rendered humanity obsolete. What is humanity's purpose in a world made by HAL? What Clarke failed to understand about the supposed "mind virus" of religious belief is that it answers exactly this question -- it grounds human dignity in transcendent truth. And that's nothing to sneeze at.
Goodbye foreverBruce Webster writes that "he was the last of the Big Three — Isaac Asimov, Clarke, and Robert Heinlein — to pass away, and we shall not see their like again. |
Clarke looks backSaswato Das interviewed Clarke shortly before his death. |
Childhood's endIn 2000, Frank Houston surveyed Clarke's brilliant career for Salon |
He never stopped growingLewis Wallace reveals the epitaph Clarke chose for himself. |
(10)
I think it's awfully condescending to say that Clarke spent his entire adult life writing about these issues "without considering" their implications. He knew exactly what he was doing, and wrote (and thought) more eloquently about human dignity and transcendent truths than most other authors -- it's pretty much the main theme running through his work. It's okay if you disagree with his conclusions, obviously, but this is pretty weak.
i think analogizing clarke's work to devotionals is right (especially childhood's end). by coincidence i blogged something related to this and clarke.
Why did Clarke choose to live in Sri Lanka for so long? Did he ever explain this?
So we have to invent a Magic Sky Fairy in order to understand humanity's purpose in the world? Why? And the transcendant truth that religion grounds human dignity in is, well, entirely man-made anyway. I'd say Clarke had the right idea. But most of his later novels are pretty dull.
"What Clarke failed to understand about the supposed "mind virus" of religious belief is that it answers exactly this question -- it grounds human dignity in transcendent truth. And that's nothing to sneeze at."
Most certainly not. The "grounds of human dignity in transcendent truth" certainly make you sit up -- especially when they grow terrorism and suicide bombers.
Do you seriously not see the sheer idiocy of claiming that organized religion -- especially Islam and Christianity -- has anything to do with basic human decency?
Minor quibble: Stanley Kubrick did not adapt 2001: A Space Odyssey from the book by Arthur C. Clarke. Arther C. Clarke actually wrote the book based on the screenplay which he wrote with Stanley Kubrick. The book was actually published after the release of the film.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:ASpace_Odyssey#Novel
nihili bonum and all that but his dislike of religion and attacks on those who follow them are likely not unrelated to his choice of young boys as sexual objects, a proclivity hat his long sojourn in Sri Lanka facilitated.
Here is a report on his uses of his view there is no absolute morality.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/artsandentertainment/books/article3587168.ece
Remember that it was shown the story about Clarke being a pedophile was made up by a local newpaper "reporter" for a scandal sheet.
Clarke had a tendency to bash religion, sometimes crudely, at the beginning of his works and then end things with a more nuanced view.
I don't agree with Clarke's view of religion, but I think when taken in soundbites it comes out more hostile and ignorant than I think he was in reality. Clarke at several points seemed to indicate religions do have some truth to them and fill some need. He had religious characters who were sympathetic.
However he felt whatever truth or value lie in them was purely psychological or naturalistic. He was strongly opposed to any belief in the supernatural or transcendent.
The question about "rendering humanity obsolete" would also be more or less irrelevant to the tradition of British science fiction he came from. British science fiction traditionally has a much more evolutionary mindset and timescale. Therefore it recognizes that "higher life forms" and "lower life forms" can coexist so long as they're not competing for the same resources. More disturbingly it also tends to see it as natural, healthy even, that humanity will eventually go extinct or be replaced by a successor species.
I found some of Clarke's attitudes to be very wrongheaded, but at his best he managed to summon a kind of atheistic religiosity that was intriguing and actually less intolerant than many younger generation atheists in SF.
By using this Service you agree not to post material that is obscene, harassing, defamatory, or otherwise objectionable. Although The Current does not monitor comments posted to this site (and has no obligation to), it reserves the right to delete, edit, or move any material that it deems to be in violation of this rule.
-->
"What is humanity's purpose in a world made by HAL? What Clarke failed to understand about the supposed "mind virus" of religious belief is that it answers exactly this question -- it grounds human dignity in transcendent truth. And that's nothing to sneeze at."
I think it's a difference of opinion, Reihan. Perhaps Clarke didn't feel like he needed doctrine to dignify his existence.
There are so many themes to discuss that come into play in the film, what's the point of letting a biased posthumous jab at the man's views on theology hijack the end of the article?
Posted by Connor | March 19, 2008 2:33 PM