John C. Wright's Blog, page 177

Drawing Swords Against the Deluge

A reader calls me to task for my Christian pessimism about the world, or, to call it by a poetic name, the Vale of Tears. Let me reprint his whole note, and answer, hat in hand, as best I may.

Hm…

You are definitely an interesting one, Mr. Wright. I sometimes find my worldview seriously reconsidered after reading your work, and sometimes I decide you are a complete moron. Frequently you inspire both in the same article.

May I say you actually convinced me to choose chastity until...

Reflections in a Chessboard

“Consider the Chinese Room, or better still consider Deep Blue, the chess machine. Nobody claims that Deep Blue has consciousness, but it has intelligence in the very narrow sense of playing excellent chess.”

And Grandfather Clock has intelligence in the very narrow sense of being able to count the minutes and hours correctly, adding up the sums in its head, and telling me the correct time, by deciding to play the chimes hanging in his case. Oddly, Grandfather Clock always decides ...

Return to the Chinese Room

In an earlier article, I had this to say about the famous Chinese Room of Robert Searle:

Robert Searle asks the following question: suppose you had a room that could pass the Turing Test. Written questions in Chinese are passed into the mail slot of a room, and, after a while, a written answer comes out, and the Chinese reader is satisfied that the answers are intelligent. Inside the Chinese room, however is nothing but a series of filing cabinets cards on which are written Chinese...

An Announcement

It has been brought rather sharply to my attention that I have been quite rude and condescending both to people I respect and admire, and to the people whose respect and admiration I have no reason to diminish beneath its current realistically low level.

The internet tempted me, and I turned into a troll on my own blog.

I hereby repent, and announcing the initiation of a new policy of a kindlier and gentler curmudgeon — and maybe I can remember that half the people I disagree with, the...

Blindsided by Blindsight

I reprint this article from two years ago in response to a question by a reader, who goes by the august yet duodecimal title of Wildrow12 (not his real name). I offered the opinion that BLINDSIGHT by Peter Watts was an excellent yet flawed book, and was asked in what way I found the work flawed.

My regret about this article is that it concentrates so heavily on the negative, that the real strengths and virtues of the book, it expert world building and effortless genius of...

Hercules and Noah, Scylla and Charybdis, and the Argument from Design

Part of an ongoing conversation. The beginnings of it are here (http://www.scifiwright.com/2010/08/whats-wrong-with-the-world/ ) and here (http://www.scifiwright.com/2010/08/whats-wrong-with-whats-wrong-with-the-world/) And here (http://www.scifiwright.com/2010/08/whats-wrong-with-whats-wrong-with-the-world/comment-page-1/#comment-48427 )

Flamingphonebook (not his real name) and I are discussing the sickness of modern philosophy by means of the conceit of a dialog between Diogenes and an...

Ignoring the Debt You Owe Heinlein

Over at Tor.com and SfSignal, there is some internetual (note useful new word!) discussion of Robert A. Heinlein and his legacy.

The ingratitude that hangs like a cloud of phosgene gas over the discussions I find as ugly and appalling as I do incomprehensible.

One writer opines, for example, that Heinlein was both a pro-feminist and a sexist pig. Me, because I harbor no illusions about what feminism truly stands for, I see no irony in that. I note that Hugh Hefner, pornographer, also was ...

Wright's Writing Corner — Show, Don't Tell

This week’s Wright’s Writing Corner has some sage advice by David Marcoe –

Show, don’t tell. Yes, oldest advice in the world, but one so often forgotten it helps to list it first. Often, in stories called “dense” or “philosophical,” characters will begin speaking more than acting, stopping to chide, declare or preach, often for an extended periods. The writer has so much to *say* and the simplest way is to put it in the character’s mouths.

The first and simplest mistake is that...

Favorite Science Fiction Settings

The fine fellows over at SfSignal were kind enough to solicit my opinion about my favorite SFF settings. In my typical orotund fashion, I analyzed the several possible meaning of the question and defined the role of setting in “counterfactual fiction” (my newly-coined term for SFF) before saying I liked Tolkien’s Middle Earth and Zelazny’s Amber and especially liked the Tschai, Planet of Adventure, of Jack Vance.

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2010/08/mind-meld-favorite-sf-and-f-settings/

On a Slightly Lighter Note

I plugged in the verbiage from my short story, 'One Bright Star to Guide Them'  which appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in the April-May edition of the magazine (I plugged in the first chapter of my current novel, COUNT TO A TRILLION, but it came out that my writing style matched that of Vladimir Nabokov, a writer not to my taste, so I decided to see whether a second sample would produce a more flattering result.)



I write like
William Shakespeare

I Write Like by Mémoires...