Jake Jackson's Blog, page 13

Dialogues | What is Art?

Hunter and Bain wait in a cafe at the end of a wide corridor. Above them, visible through the vast domed windows looms the presence of Wolf 359, the nearest star, gazing down at the holographic art exhibition Shi Xiu had insisted the three of them should visit. An exact replica of the Museum of Modern Art, just off 6th and 53rd on old Manhattan, the exhibition was now located across the galaxy, funded by a philanthropic dictator desperate, apparently, to ameliorate his sins. The occasional exhibitions still draw large crowds for the old painted arts of earth.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Bain, inhaling the delicate aroma of the artisan coffee: All this art stuff, what’s it for? Apart from decorating the corridors of endless hotels.

Hunter: You’re asking the wrong person.

Bain, nodded: Hmm, thought so.

Hunter: You can’t stop now!

Bain: Well I don’t understand it, nor do you, so there’s nothing more to say.

Hunter gestures towards the main gallery: Except that so many make the effort to come here and marvel at the works. Some of them must travel from the other side of the galaxy, that’s not just effort and energy consumption, but genuine passion.

Bain: Some of visitors are holograms too. I can see they’re slightly out of phase with the building. I wonder what they really see. It must be layers of light adjusted by yet more light. They must see a series of glitches.

Hunter: I suspect their technology is more advanced than that, otherwise why bother?

Bain: Well, why bother indeed, all of these images can be viewed in so many more convenient forms. Even if they wanted to see them, surely they’re already so familiar it doesn’t make sense to travel so far.

Hunter: Perhaps they appear more fresh, alive, seen at the correct size, in a gallery, being viewed on large white walls, with other people around.

Bain: But they’re holograms!

Hunter: Everyone in there, Shi Xiu included, seems to treat them as real.

Bain: Yes, as you and I rushed through the exhibition I saw her stop by the Starry Night painting. She just stared at it. Surely she’s seen enough starry nights in her travels, especially with us!

Hunter: She sees more in it than we do.

Bain: So this art thing is personal, like religion.

Hunter: Religion! That’s a collective experience surely.

Bain: Well, from the outside, but a true believer seems to have an intense personal connection with the object of their faith.

Hunter: So you equate art with personal connection?

Bain: I’ve heard Shi Xiu say that art only makes sense if you engage with the work, so your response becomes part of it. That seemed especially true of what she called the Modernists where the art was designed to evoke a response from the viewer, rather than just represent something profound in a beautiful or dramatic way.

Hunter: You sound almost interested.

Bain: I’m interested in her observation. I just don’t understand it. I don’t have a response worth evoking!

Hunter: But I’ve seen you smile at some of the paintings as you walked past them.

Bain: I suppose I like some of them, and they’re so different from each other – the Picassos with their inside out views of bodies, Dali’s melting clocks, the messy splashes of Pollock. It made me feel uncomfortable.

Hunter: So your smile was a wince. That’s still a response, in Shi Xiu’s terms.

Bain: I suppose so. And around us there were human children running about; they seemed energised by art, even the androids seemed affected. I think they must have been sent by humans because they stopped in front of every image and seemed to record the spectacle.

Hunter: Perhaps they were creating their own panoramic viewing for later consumption.

Bain: Will that be as good though?

Hunter: Why not?

Bain: Well, going back to your analogy about religion, there might be a collective element to this experience of art. The crowds seem to enjoy being part of something. If it’s taken back and made an utterly personal view in an apartment, perhaps it doesn’t have the same impact.

Hunter: So, back to your original question, art is more than a functional part of the decor.

Bain: Well, you’ve broadened it out. If any response is relevant, from pleasure to discomfort, then I concede art does something, and in any location, with or without others around you, but does it add to the sum of knowledge?

Hunter: From what I can see that’s not it’s purpose. I can’t see that any of the original artists tried to increase our knowledge.

Bain: Perhaps they tried to exorcise their own demons, or work through their agitated states of mind.

Hunter: Certainly, whatever the artists intend, they created a connection with others, so there must be something fundamental that appeals to humans in particular.

Bain: Perhaps they were making something that invoked an essential element of their own consciousness, something that teases at a vital part in the rest of us, something intimate and profound.

Hunter: And perhaps it doesn’t matter what the subject or the style is. Perhaps the very act of making and viewing art, in any form, gives some insight about humankind, to itself.

Bain nods slowly: Perhaps. As you say.

Bain’s eyes hover over the raised coffee and he sees the mirrored reflections of Wolf 359 merged into the upside down world of the people and the paintings from the gallery. All life seems reflected here, paintings and sculptures, digital works, objects, each with clusters of people and other beings gathered around, some moving swiftly, others lingering, each over different works of art. He flicks his gaze at Hunter and sees that he too is watching, just as Shi Xiu now wanders over to greet them, her face swept with an enigmatic smile.

Links

Is Hypocrisy Necessary?
Philosophical Dialogue: Is Free Will Good?
If We Live Forever, Is Life Meaningless?
Dialogue: Should we Fear Death?
Is this all a Dream?
Another Dialogue:
And one more: Who is Responsible for an Accidental Death?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson
These Dialogues can also be found on the long-form social media platform Medium

The post Dialogues | What is Art? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogues | Is Hypocrisy Necessary?

Hunter and Bain watch the evening draw in across the wide river, the pinks and purples of the dying light dragging their heels across the valleys before disappearing slowly towards the distant mountains. Coffee is brought to the little wooden table, under the awning where the two companions settle after an exhausting trip. Idly they watch a venerable old lady, her back bent, her face contorted with the pain of extreme age, helped into a simple wooden craft by a young man, whose clothes suggest adherence to a local religion. Words are exchanged, as the young man steadies the old lady’s progress onto the craft, and he keeps hold of her until he is sure of her safety. She nods, he bows and shuffles backwards a few paces before turning and walking slowly from the shore. As he passes a flow of others and walks toward the cafe where Hunter and Bain gaze out, a grimace betrays some inner tension before disappearing with the light of the evening.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Bain: I wonder what he said to her. Some hypocrisy no doubt.

Hunter: Encouragement, surely.

Bain: Not sure he meant it.

Hunter: Really? How so?

Bain: Let’s just say I’m a little cynical.

Hunter: A little harsh perhaps! You’re thinking of his expression.

Bain, nodded.

Hunter: His actions were straightforward though, and truly helpful.

Bain: But are they valid if he didn’t mean it?

Hunter: Not sure what ‘valid’ means. His actions seem to meet the needs of the older lady, she was happy, being helped. He didn’t impose on her.

Bain, shrugging: True, perhaps it doesn’t matter about the intention, if the effect is good.

Hunter: You humans seem to expect perfection, even while being so imperfect yourselves.

Bain: Haha, that’s true. Perhaps the hypocrisy is just a way of dealing with our weaknesses.

Hunter: That’s a fair assumption. You seem to mind how you appear to others.

Bain: Unlike you, of course.

Hunter: It doesn’t matter to me. I just have a job to do. And you help me with the human stuff.

Bain: You mean talking to people to persuade them, or stopping them slow us down.

Hunter: Something like that. I always avoid talking to people, but that’s a hard line to hold if something needs to be done.

Bain: I’ve noticed.

Hunter: So your persuasive tones, aren’t they a form of hypocrisy?

Bain, puzzled: No!?

Hunter: So when you change your tone of voice and speak calmly to someone you’ve never met before, as though they were a friend, that’s not hypocritical?

Bain: Well, I’m not deliberately misleading them, am I? It’s not as if I don’t like them, I just don’t know them, so I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Hunter: Don’t they have anything to say in the matter?

Bain: I suppose they must feel the same in reverse, as willing participants in the deception, they don’t know me either.

Hunter: It might not be cynical, but it’s still hypocritical. Your manner is not conveying how you feel: you’re speaking in a way that’s designed to deceive.

Bain: No! That’s not right, I’m suspending judgement, admittedly to achieve an aim, your aim.

Hunter: So that hypocrisy is consensual and necessary.

Bain: Yes, but not by everyone.

Hunter: Are you unusually qualified then?

Bain: No, but some circumstances are more reasonable than others.

Hunter: Such as?

Bain: Well, in families there’s such a gap between the attitudes of the older generations, and the younger, that they could spend all their time disagreeing. Back on my home planet my grandparents, when they were alive used to hate my alien friends, but they held their tongue, mostly.

Hunter: Did you?

Bain: I didn’t ever learn to. My mother was always upset when we argued. I tried to shut up, but couldn’t stop myself. I just said what I felt, didn’t see it was right not to, perhaps, sometimes.

Hunter: So little hypocrisies are a way of keeping people together.

Bain: Assuming that they all want to…

Hunter: So the necessity is based on a desire on all sides to keep the peace, to allow the comforts of relationships to continue.

Bain: Hm, that sounds banal, but the emphasis is on ‘all sides’. It allows the bonds of loyalty to grow.

Hunter: So it’s a positive quality then?

Bain: Seem dangerous to say that, and because it’s so shaky, it’s open to abuse.

Hunter: Well, anyone in a position of authority can use hypocrisy for their own gain. That’s seems to be a different form of hypocrisy, much greater, and more obviously wrong.

Bain: Of course, there’s nothing more dangerous than a hypocrite with any form of power, someone willing to behave one way in public, advocating for a moral life, while behaving precisely the opposite way in private. The contradictory behaviour of the helpful novice earlier might grow into this greater, more powerful hypocrisy if one day he rises through the ranks, and his oh-so human weakness is not challenged. Should someone who’s privately dismissive of those they help be trusted truly to marshall the interests of those they dismiss?

Hunter smiles wryly: Seem a shame to extrapolate so far from such a simple act.

Bain: At it’s worst, this type of hypocrisy seems to tempt the powerful, it’s effects are so much more dangerous. Seductive, addictive, it becomes a way of life, a way of clinging on.

Hunter: So it’s just not the same as the mutual, necessary form you talked about earlier. We should simply call this bigger hypocrisy what it is.

Bain: Lying?

Hunter: I think so.

Bain nods, watching the back of the old lady recede along the river, the craft slow-dancing towards sunset, with ripples shedding gracefully across the dark waters. Still bent over, her bony shoulders seem to shudder. Bain remembers the last time he saw his grandmother, just before the entire family had been killed in a fire, shortly after he’d run away in some childish rage. The subsequent years of drink and regret had only dimly reduced the memories of the bickering home, and he wondered if a little more quiet hypocrisy would have helped them all. He sighed, and turned his gaze to his oblivious companion.

Links

Philosophical Dialogue: Is Free Will Good?
A recent Dialogue: If We Live Forever, Is Life Meaningless?
Dialogue: Should we Fear Death?
Another Dialogue: Is this all a Dream?
Another Dialogue:
And one more: Who is Responsible for an Accidental Death?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson
These Dialogues can also be found on the long-form social media platform Medium

The post Dialogues | Is Hypocrisy Necessary? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogues | Is Morality Relative?

Hunter and Bain huddle in a corner bay at the front of the cafe, sheltering from the dark downpour of seasonal rain. In the street outside a couple shuffle past, with the man holding an umbrella over his own head, his female companion, drenched and uncomplaining shakes her hair of water and notices a pile of melting clothes on the other side of the street, slumped against an alleyway wall. Bain watches her wrench, suddenly, the umbrella from her companion and stalk across the rainswept road. She leaps over a huge puddle and thrusts the flimsy protection towards the miserable pile from where a small hand emerges. For a moment the hand shivers a refusal, but the woman is insistent and presses the handle into the open palm. The now-grateful hand closes, holding firm in it’s unexpected respite.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Bain: I don’t see that very often.

Hunter: Perhaps she was punishing her companion. Evening up the misery of her own condition.

Bain: Or, she was just being good!

Hunter: That seems unlikely, you humans always have an ulterior motive.

Bain: So we have no capacity for being truly good? That’s very cynical.

Hunter: Not really, it’s a survival mechanism. I’m not making a value judgement.

Bain: And you say that with a straight face! You think there is no sense of morality in our action?

Hunter: It’s more relative than that, it depends on circumstances, and motivations. It’s just not as absolute as you imply.

Bain: But surely she could just have seen a greater need, and just responded to it morally.

Hunter: But that doesn’t deny a greater relative need on her part, in motivating her action.

Bain: I think your confusing motivation with action. By any standard she performed an act that was good, whatever her motivations. She improved the life of the hand in the clothes, even for a moment, in preference to her own.

Hunter: On the face of it, perhaps that’s true, but what if she’s an android, and so doesn’t either feel the cold of the rain, or suffer from the ill-effects of it? Doesn’t that lessens the morality of her actions?

Bain: Not really, it’s still a good action, with worthwhile consequences.

Hunter: Does that mean any good act, whatever its motivations, or origins, is intrinsically good?

Bain: The act itself is good.

Hunter: So, a man is saved from death by a drug that’s been mined by slaves, on some mountain colony, many of whom die in the tunnels. Is the act of giving the man the drug, moral?

Bain: Well, the act itself is moral, but it is compromised I suppose.

Hunter: If the man who is saved knows the drug is created in that way, is the act still moral. Or the doctor giving it knows?

Bain, sighs: I suppose not.

Hunter: So this morality of yours can’t be absolute, because it’s affected by other factors.

Bain: Always?

Hunter: What do you think?

Bain: It seems problematic. If every such act is relative, perhaps there is no morality, just convenient or inappropriate action, according to circumstance.

Hunter: Indeed, morality is so compromised, it’s almost worthless.

Bain: No, that can’t be right. I know when I’m doing something good, however rare that might be, I know how I feel if I do something I know to be wrong, even if I continue to do it. There’s something less than relative about that.

Hunter: But isn’t that a conditioning put in place by the structure of the society that reared you?

Bain: Rebelled against, more like.

Hunter: But still defined by. You seem to say that when you reject what you know to be right, there’s still part of you that recognises it. That response is part of who you are.

Bain: So the morality is about circumstance, a conditioning which drives identity, self-identity particularly.

Hunter: Well, as part of a collective identity. Most groups, cities even, or a species, agree on a set of principles which construct the morality that raises its young.

Bain: Such as the allowing, or ignoring knowledge of, the deaths of people forced to work in a mine, which is agreed to be wrong.

Hunter: Or, if a drug is available that could save a life, if taken, however it was created, is agreed to be good. It’s the mediation of such decisions that creates laws in human societies, based on an a negotiated threshold of morality.

Bain: Negotiated?

Hunter: People don’t always agree.

Bain: And I suppose greater circumstances come in to play too. If people are at war, perhaps a different set of moralities kick in. More brutal decisions are made.

Hunter: Oh yes, sometime we need to talk about the terrible human concept of ‘just war’.

Bain: I think we’ve covered enough for now.

As they lapse into silence, their hands warmed by the coffee cups they gaze outside to find the rain has eased. The pile of clothes on the other side of the road, largely hidden by the umbrella, shivers and falls further to the sodden ground. The hand, still holding the object of apparent selflessness is curiously inert, and as the rain subsides entirely the umbrella tips backwards to reveal a jumble of discarded robot parts, and a disconnected metal arm poking out, its hand jerking slightly without anything to hold.

Links

Dialogue: Is Free Will Good?
A recent Dialogue: If We Live Forever, Is Life Meaningless?
Dialogue: Should we Fear Death?
Another Dialogue: Is this all a Dream?
Another Dialogue:
And one more: Who is Responsible for an Accidental Death?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson
These Dialogues can also be found on the long-form social media platform Medium

The post Dialogues | Is Morality Relative? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogues | Is Free Will Good?

Hunter and Bain nod to the android waiter who delivers their coffee, and receive the usual tepid response. They sit on the fringes of a market square, with the sunlight casting shadows through the trees, watching the patterns of age on the ancient stone ground. The population of old Jerez slinks past, either trying to avoid the direct heat of the sun, or entirely oblivious to its consequences. These two groups seem to avoid each other expertly, although the occasional collision sparks a hot-headed response from one of the injured bodies, red-faced, and sullen; a fight seems to lurk always in the potential energy of the square.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Bain: Oh, there’s another one. On the other side.

Hunter: I didn’t know this place could be so entertaining.

Bain: I suppose there must be a pattern.

Hunter: Not everything is pre-determined.

Bain: That’s not what I meant, although now you mention it…

Hunter: I’m going to regret that…

Bain: No, but if it is random, it must be subject to Free Will.

Hunter: What must?

Bain: The ‘everything’ you mentioned.

Hunter: You mean everything is subject to Free Will?

Bain: That doesn’t sound right, if you say it like that.

Hunter: Well, narrow it down then.

Bain: Ok, so people are subject to Free Will.

Hunter: Not androids, robots, creatures or other living entitles?

Bain: Now we’re straying into the consciousness discussion. I do mean Free Will itself, in whatever manifestation, as it applies to any conscious being.

Hunter: Ah. Is that a good thing?

Bain: Not sure that matters, it’s just a thing.

Hunter: So it doesn’t matter if Free Will is good or not?

Bain: Well, it doesn’t matter in the greater scheme.

Hunter: It would if one of your human buddies exercised their Free Will and blew up another planet. Or exercised their collective Free Will and consumed so much of Old Earth’s resources that nothing could survive on it anymore, except the machines that farm the oceans and filter the skies.

Bain: Well, who’s to say that’s not part of an ecological cycle, that the exercise of Free Will did not make a difference to the climate or the planet, manifested through the agents of Free Will, humans, their inventions, or otherwise?

Hunter: Apart from the logic of several hundred years of industrialisation, then technological consumerism, it’s an observable fact that making a choice has an effect, for good or ill. Your species is very good at self-destruction.

Bain: Maybe, but not exclusively, and that doesn’t make Free Will itself either good or bad.

Hunter: No, that’s true, it’s the way it’s used.

Bain: So it’s the consequences that are good or ill, the fact of Free Will has nothing to do with it.

Hunter: That can’t really be true. If there’s no Free Will then your planet would have survived longer, fewer people would have died, fewer species extinct. You’d not have had to colonise the rest of your galaxy and start the same cycle on hundreds of other planets.

Bain: So you are saying that the existence of Free Will is the problem?

Hunter: Not the problem, but you can’t ignore the effects, and there would be no effects if Free Will did not exist in the first place.

Bain: But if there was no Free Will then there would have to be some sort of grand design, under which the death of one planet, and the human expansion to others would merely be a small part, and probably irrelevant.

Hunter: That assumes a grand design is the only other alternative.

Bain: Okay, so it could be a series of random events, where species and planets cycle through birth and death without meaning or significance.

Hunter: Well, in either of these cases, the grand design or random events, then the issue of good or ill effects does not occur.

Bain: Hold on, it does, if the grand design is created by an original entity, a God or Universal Being.

Hunter: Hm, I don’t even countenance that in the grand design, I spoke in terms of cause and effect, energy and matter, not supernatural beings.

Bain: But there are many religions who disagree with you on that! They would point to the moment of creation, and the granting of Free Will, within the context of an overall design, or that every action is pre-determined.

Hunter: I think the operative word there is “many”. Many religions, with different Gods, or different aspects of the same Universal Being, each have views on grand design in relation to humans and other species.

Bain grimaced: Perhaps that’s another discussion then.

Hunter: Yes, although it still brings us back to Free Will because in any of these other circumstances the exercise of Free Will at a local level is possible, likely even, whether it effects a great scheme or a random universe.

Bain: So Free Will itself is neither good nor bad?

Hunter: Unless you take the view that it always and ultimately leads to poor choices.

Bain: And that’s one of your “human weakness” tropes. You do believe that. I know you don’t take account of affection or mercy, or sympathy.

Hunter: Are those not just mitigating factors?

Bain: Perhaps. But you are biased.

Hunter: And I have no free will, I do follow a grand scheme.

Bain smiles ruefully: Your sole task, to restore the fallen. How could I forget!

Hunter: In that respect I am more limited than you, if we accept that you have Free Will, as a human.

Bain sighs: Oh, do we?

They lapse into silence again, watching another altercation in the market square, with several other onlookers drawn in to separate the flustered, colliding creatures. The patterns of shadow and light strewn across the ground by the sunlight through the shifting trees are oblivious to the angry scuffling amongst them.

Links

A recent Dialogue: If We Live Forever, Is Life Meaningless?
Dialogue: Should we Fear Death?
Another Dialogue: Is this all a Dream?
Another Dialogue:
And one more: Who is Responsible for an Accidental Death?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson
These Dialogues can also be found on the long-form social media platform Medium

The post Dialogues | Is Free Will Good? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogues | What is Consciousness?

Hunter and Bain sit with their eyes half closed. The coffee in front of them is untouched, but the aroma teases at the early morning silence of a cafe in the 798 district of Beijing on old Earth. They have just returned from a distant asteroid and now wrestle with exhaustion. Bain fiddles abstractedly with his titanium arm, half watching the flow of life outside the cafe, his eye caught by the occasional reflection of light on a drifting metal skull.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Bain, nodding at the crowd: Is that consciousness?

Hunter, his right hand agitating on the table, as though it had a life of its own: Does it matter?

Bain huffs: You don’t know what I’m talking about.

Hunter: I’m sure you’re about to enlighten me.

Bain: I don’t want to now.

Hunter, pushes his long hair from from his eyes and raises an eyebrow: Come now, what is it?

Bain: You’re just humouring me.

Hunter: I’m proving a point.

Bain: What?

Hunter: About this consciousness thing.

Bain: Oh, so you were listening then.

Hunter: Always. Just not always engaged. But consciousness is curious. And we’ve seen it in many forms across the universe.

Bain: Have we? Surely there’s only one type?

Hunter: So you do know what consciousness is?

Bain: Well, it’s a state of being, and thinking.

Hunter: Animals can think. Androids can think. Insects can think. Does that make them all conscious?

Bain: Hm. A rock does not think. But a living, moving thing does, so it has consciousness.

Hunter: So if it moves, then it thinks, and so it’s conscious?

Bain: Yes.

Hunter, pointing in the distance to a digital painting of a beautiful old forest: So are trees conscious? Or flowers?

Bain: Uh, maybe? Not sure they think exactly.

Hunter: But they grow, they move upwards, and outwards, very slowly.

Bain: Yes, but they don’t interact.

Hunter: So is that a component of consciousness? Interaction?

Bain: I suppose so. Trees don’t exactly talk to each other, unless they have spirits in them. Then they definitely do.

Hunter: Spirits, that’s another story altogether. What about insects though, they definitely interact.

Bain: Oh, yes, ants could conquer the world! They work together, move large objects, create buildings and caverns, protect their queen. Just like bees. And we’ve encountered bigger species who act in the same way, on other planets.

Hunter: But do they act on their own?

Bain:  No, no, they act together, so they have a sort of collective consciousness at least.

Hunter: Is that what you mean though?

Bain: Well it’s awareness of necessary action, the need to operate in a particular way to the benefit of all.

Hunter: Could you not say the same of robots?

Bain: Well, mostly, they’ve been programmed to function in a particular way. So their software routines define their actions.

Hunter: We’ve met androids who think for themselves, who go beyond their programming.

Bain: Yes, but their origins are synthetic, they still work within given parameters, they have pre-defined rules which stops them behaving recklessly, or randomly.

Hunter: So is that a necessary component? The ability to act randomly?

Bain: No, I don’t mean it like that. It’s a very human trait to behave illogically, or strangely, to be affected by emotions, or exhaustion.

Hunter: But are these innate qualities of consciousness?

Bain: Well, perhaps it’s about the a sense of unplanned-ness. The rocks, the trees, the ants even, the robots, they proceed according to a plan, a path laid out for them.

Hunter: A prime directive. You believe in a god now?

Bain: No, no! But the motivation in all things, as we’ve discussed many times before, at a species level is to move forward, to grow, to expand.

Hunter: Perhaps consciousness is just part of the bigger plan, it defines the actions at a macro level to ensure survival of life, in all its forms, any form in the universe.

Bain: Oh, but there is a difference between that, and the individual consciousness, one is about the everything, or a group, tribe, species, the other is about the identity of the individual element.

Hunter: Ah, identity.

Bain: Yes, perhaps that’s it. Consciousness is about self-identity. The ability, or liability to act in an individual way, that self-defines, could change, is not determined by others by its nature, may be affected by circumstances or the actions of the others, but has some element of choice.

Hunter: So a robot, whose software is designed to allow self-development, to grow beyond its programming, can be conscious?

Bain sits up, studying the mix of life, creature and android that passes by the cafe: Yes. We’ve passed the point where metal life is determined only by the creator, many of the androids here have consciousness because they have an identity, they exercise a degree of choice, at least no less so than any human with a particular upbringing, or set of physical characteristics.

Hunter: So what is consciousness?

Bain nods definitively: Self-identity.

Hunter and Bain lapse into silence and close their eyes once more. Between them a quiet communion of experience passes as they both remember the various species they’ve met across the universe. Bain taps the metal fingers on the fake wooden table, while Hunter gently pats the surface with his palm, and together they create a subtle rhythm, and smile at their collective motion.

Links

Another Dialogue: Is this all a Dream?
Here’s another Dialogue:
Dialogue: Should We Fear Death?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson
The image used in the background of this article is courtesy of the incredible, wonderful NASA images

The post Dialogues | What is Consciousness? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogues | Should We Fear Death?

On the planet of his ancestors Bain looks out from a simple cafe at the edge of an old forest and wonders at the relentless flow of the seasons. Before him he sees the evidence of Winter’s reluctant departure, its dark corridors of cold, dead, determined days yielding finally to Spring, the blooms of swallows crosshatching the sky, and in the distance the abandoned towers of an old era, comforted by the fingers of the morning sun. Bain allows himself to glance at his companion, Hunter, who seems more interested in the dismantled flintlock pistol laid out in front of him, prodding at the springs, cleaning the ancient weapon.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Bain: I’ve never seen you use that.

Hunter: Probably not. As an instrument of death it’s less than efficient.

Bain: Why bother to carry it?

Hunter: Ah, I love it as an object, the intricacy of the dragon carving, the mechanical simplicity, and it has other functions.

Bain: It reminds you of the deaths withheld.

Hunter, smiling: Ah yes, that little secret.

Bain: Hardly! I’ve seen your reluctance to end life, even in the worst demons.

Hunter: Well. they’re only so terrible because they’re in the wrong place. Returning them fixes that.

Bain: Do they fear you will end them? Do they fear death?

Hunter: Oh, most of them. You’ll have seen that. Even the younger gods stuck out here, billions of years away from their origin, playing at tyranny like bored children.

Bain: Of all beings, why would they fear death? Surely it has no meaning for them, they could just return, and reassemble?

Hunter, picking up a cloth and feeding it through an oily spring: No being likes to bring about its own end, even the most simple creatures cling to life.

Bain: So it’s not death they fear, but the ending of what they have.

Hunter: Well, that’s pretty much the same. And it depends what you think is on the other side.

Bain: You mean, if you think there’s something better, then you’d welcome it?

Hunter: Hah, if you spend you’re life stuck in war, your friends and family torn from you, with no food, or means of survival beyond the end of the day, then a death is not so much to fear.

Bain: No, of course, but that’s an individual, in a particular situation. If someone else has a peaceful life, with lots of interesting events around them, a happy life, then they might fear death as an end to all the good things. I’m really talking about a fear of death in a larger sense, should we fear death in principle?

Hunter: It still depends what you think is on the other side, if there’s anything there at all.

Bain: Well, we’ve bumped into so many religions, on so many planets, they all make some claim over an afterlife.

Hunter: Yes, but it’s hard to see how many actually believe it, except out of necessity, or fear of their own life.

Bain: What about you?

Hunter, looked up for a moment: You know I’m not like you humans. I’m an imprint, created for a single purpose, like this flintlock.

Bain: Yes, but you use the pistol for a different purpose, not to kill but to remind you what it has not done, so it has a purpose beyond its design.

Hunter: That’s true, but in that sense everything has a dual purpose, even if it’s only stated as one. In being something, we are not something else. If we’re alive, we’re not dead, if we run fast we’re not running slowly. If we’re one thing, we’re not another thing. That’s being not being.

Bain: So a fear of death is really a fear of losing life, whatever happens after?

Hunter: There’s a part of all things which holds on to life, it’s a universal motivation.

Bain: But just holding on to life isn’t significant enough to register, surely, it’s just desire and self-obsession.

Hunter: Perhaps to the conscious mind, but other living things don’t ‘think’ as such, they ‘exist’, and their existence persists.

Bain: So is fear of death just the conscious mind’s attempt to deal with over-thinking? Part of us just wants to maintain our existence, in spite of the evidence of age and illness, so a fear of death keeps us going.

Hunter: Hah. If there’s a primary motivation in the universe that fuels expansion and growth, more than just survival, then the fear of death prolongs the struggle. Imagine a whole planet, or a star system of beings fearing death, straining to survive and thrive. That’s powerful.

Bain: Yes. So, does that make an individual’s fear of death better or worse?

Hunter shrugs: That really is personal, and perhaps doesn’t matter in the greater scheme of things.

Bain: You only say that because you’ve no investment in this. You think your life just shuts down at the end, not even an endless darkness. One moment it’s on, the next it’s off. And you have no fear of this?

Hunter shrugs: It’s all the same to me.

Bain looks out at the trees quietly shaking off the winter. The buds will soon blossom, leaves and flowers will banish the silence of winter. Spring will lead to summer here, die off and the cycle will begin again.  Bain wonders if there is no death, perhaps there should be no fear either.

Links

A recent Dialogue: If We Live Forever, Is Life Meaningless?
Another Dialogue: Is this all a Dream?
Another Dialogue:
And one more: Who is Responsible for an Accidental Death?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson
These Dialogues can also be found on the long-form social media platform Medium

The post Dialogues | Should We Fear Death? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogues | Who Am I?

Hunter and Bain are slumped into a corner at the front of the Thought Café in Bleecker Street. They have grown to enjoy the anonymity of the large crowds in New Manhattan, where everyone is different, nobody looks at anyone else, and so the subtle judgements of smaller communities are left unsaid. In this Street, barely changed for hundreds of years a throng of humans, robots, aliens and ragged bi-pedal creatures throb past the translucent wall at the front of the cafe, allowing occasional flickers of light from the pale skies into the faces of the exhausted companions.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Bain: I look at these crowds and wonder where they all come from, how many mothers and fathers, creators and inventors have conspired to gather this precise collection of life. It looks like a fair representation of every planet, every point in time we’ve ever visited.

Hunter grunted, his hand gesturing simply, causing a white cup of hot black coffee to appear: Not even close…

Bain, still finishing his first coffee restrains himself from copying his fellow traveller: I suppose not. But it makes me wonder. Who are they? Do they even know who they are?

Hunter, grumpily: Or, does it really matter?

Bain: Well, does everyone who passes by this café know who they are, beyond their name I mean?

Hunter sighed: At some level, they must do, otherwise they wouldn’t be here. The robots and the androids, even if they’re in an advanced state of self-programming they have some sense of who they are, driven by their purpose.

Bain: I suppose the various alien species will have made a specific effort to be here, so knowing who they are.

Hunter: Alien? Who’s the alien? It’s you humans who are alien here.

Bain laughs: Hah, that’s true, so far from old earth, we’re all aliens.

Hunter tips his head ruefully at his companion: Or some form of AI.

Bain looks at his titanium arm and grimaces. Opening his hand next to the white coffee cup he allows a metal flower to grow slowly from his metal palm, unfurling upwards in the image of the slow motion of the universe: So who am I?

Hunter watches as the delicate, foiled flower reaches maturity, its petals flickering and waving in unfelt breezes, then separate from Bain’s hand and drift up between them: You are what you want to be.

Bain: That can’t be right. I’m a product of my origin, and my life.

Hunter: Up to a point, but you’ve made choices.

Bain: But not always informed choices, sometimes we find ourselves in a situation with limited choices, so the consequence isn’t necessarily what I would have chosen with more options, or information.

Hunter: Yes, that’s true in the short term but surely the trend of choices over time creates the shape of who you are.

Bain: So are we only the sum total of the various decisions we’ve made over time?

Hunter: Well, you asked “Who am I?” not “Who could I have been?” Different circumstances might have led to different choices.

Bain: I suppose so, but beyond the limits of our circumstances are we only subject to our own choices? Presumably these limits are themselves subject to the choices of others, or other forces.

Hunter: Yes, that must be true too, the choices of others help define the limits of your circumstances, so to a certain extent who you are depends also on the actions of others.

Bain: Except there are key moments where, in retrospect a key choice, a decisive moment defines a new path, a new set of choices.

Hunter: When we met, you could have decided to stay where you were.

Bain: That wasn’t a choice. I was desperate to get off that moon. Its gravity was failing. I would have died soon enough. I didn’t know for certain that a supply ship would turn up.

Hunter: So that was a specific choice, and it has led to a dramatic change in your life, changed who you are.

Bain: Although my choice was consistent with a need for survival, surely that’s merely human, not specific to me.

Hunter: But fear of the alien, of the different, that’s human too, and you overcame those characteristics to make a choice. You didn’t know who or what I was, at that time.

Bain: So my essential human-ness, and a combination the choices I had made which led me to that god-forsaken moon, my limited options at that point, your choice in offering to take me along with you, and my decision to come, that’s what makes me who I am?

Hunter: Nothing unusual in that. Being human is a major factor though. No other species would have made the series of dumb human choices you made that led you to be on that moon.

Bain: Charming…

Hunter’s eyes follow the free-floating flower that had exfoliated from Bain’s arm, no longer controlled by its reluctant creator. It brushes against the translucent front wall, pausing momentarily before being sucked through the amber-like substance that separates the café from the outside world. Its fragile form shivers in the open air, almost disintegrating in the buffeting sway of creatures and people, before a child’s hand reaches up and gathers it, nodding to her android companion, waiting for the approval that secretly she knows is neither required nor can be given.

Links

A recent Dialogue: If We Live Forever, Is Life Meaningless?
Another Dialogue: Is this all a Dream?
Another Dialogue:
And one more: Who is Responsible for an Accidental Death?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson

The post Dialogues | Who Am I? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogues | If We Live Forever, Is Life Meaningless?

Safe from the sun, on the edges of the desert, under the canopy of their cafe Hunter and Bain watch Shi Xiu negotiate with a street trader by a cluster of huge, old trees. As he chants prices at her, she simply stares at the packet of spinach rolls in her hands, passing them from palm to palm, weighing, as it were, their fate. Eventually the trader appears to give up and moves on to the other customers jostling around the stand. Shi Xiu reaches into the pocket of her black tunic, retrieves a flat disk of black gold and presses it in to one of the trader’s still outstretched hands, before drifting back towards her companions.

The time is not important, nor the year.

Bain: I love watching her do that.

Hunter: You wish you could do the same.

Bain: Oh yes, I get all flustered. I can’t focus.

Hunter. I’ve noticed that.

Bain: Do you think it’s because she knows what she wants?

Hunter: You mean her quiet confidence?

Bain: Of course.

Hunter shrugged: Food is just subsistence to her. She judges its value according to her need.

Bain, laughing: That’s cold!

Hunter: Not really, she just has other things to think about.

Bain: So she has a greater purpose?

Hunter: I don’t mean that.

Bain: No, but you’re referring to a previous conversation, ‘what gives true meaning to life?’.

Hunter: No. That’s just a human preoccupation. There is no meaning, as such.

Bain: You have the luxury of thinking that because you can’t die.

Hunter: I can, you know that. I can be murdered, or burnt.

Bain: Hmm. Actually I’m pretty sure you could find a way out of those two inconveniences.

Hunter: Well, perhaps, but I’m not an eternal being.

Bain: But you’re close enough. And you have meaning, your great task.

Hunter: My only task. It’s what I was created to do.

Bain: But aren’t human’s created with a task?

Hunter: Hah, to mess up the universe and slaughter millions of your own kind, and any other living being that gets in its way?

Bain, shifts uncomfortably in his seat: That’s a little unfair, ignoring music, art, science, literature and the love of small furry animals. I was thinking of survival.

Hunter: I’m not sure that’s a purpose exactly, more of a state of being.

Bain: But if we lived forever, life would become meaningless.

Hunter: If that’s true, then ‘become’ is the significant word. A state of being, such as survival, is a species level purpose.

Bain: Well, perhaps I mean ‘be’ meaningless.

Hunter: But that’s relative. Meaningless in relation to what? Something else must be meaningful.

Bain: No, that doesn’t make sense. The one doesn’t rely on the existence of the other. Meaninglessness can exist without the existence of meaning itself.

Hunter: That’s just playing with words. If you’re questioning meaning in life it has to be at the architect level, not the decor that fills in the design.

Bain: You mean the Great Architect in the sky.

Hunter: No, that’s too literal. Meaning can be a state of being, or a purpose. I have a purpose, so that’s my meaning.

Bain: But if I lived forever, I would get bored.

Hunter: You only say that because your context is that you live your life knowing there’s an ending at some point. If you knew one did not exist you wouldn’t chase the distractions of self-indulgence.

Bain: That’s a thinly veiled dig at what I do after every adventure with you.

Hunter: Acknowledgement perhaps, but you seem to have given up on that.

Bain: Well, not entirely, but travelling with you, through the meta-universe, it made me question everything I had ever known. It was like being punched in the stomach, repeatedly. I didn’t cope with it at first. I was so sick, but I didn’t want you to know. I suppose the drinking, and it’s more pleasurable consequences allowed me to think less about it.

Hunter: But grown used to it.

Bain: Let’s say I suspend my disbelief. Humans aren’t meant to travel like that. But I fool myself I can help you at best, even at worst I get to see the most incredible places, and creatures. And I’ve never been so terrified, but knowing we can return, then move on makes all the difference.

Hunter: So is that enough meaning? If you did this forever, would it be meaning enough?

Bain: I don’t know, but perhaps the secret is in the long view.

Hunter nodded, observing the gently swaying trees that arched over Shi Xiu’s receding form, as she sought a quiet place close to her companions, to rest in the shade of the hot, hot day.

Links

Another Dialogue: Is this all a Dream?
Another Dialogue:
An one more: Who is Responsible for an Accidental Death?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson

The post Dialogues | If We Live Forever, Is Life Meaningless? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogues | If We live Forever, Is Life Meaningless?

Safe from the sun, on the edges of the desert, under the canopy of their cafe Hunter and Bain watch Shi Xiu negotiate with a street trader by a cluster of huge, old trees. As he chants prices at her, she simply stares at the packet of spinach rolls in her hands, passing them from palm to palm, weighing, as it were, their fate. Eventually the trader appears to give up and moves on to the other customers jostling around the stand. Shi Xiu reaches into the pocket of her black tunic, retrieves a flat disk of black gold and presses it in to one of the trader’s still outstretched hands, before drifting back towards her companions.

The time is not important, nor the year.

Bain: I love watching her do that.

Hunter: You wish you could do the same.

Bain: Oh yes, I get all flustered. I can’t focus.

Hunter. I’ve noticed that.

Bain: Do you think it’s because she knows what she wants?

Hunter: You mean her quiet confidence?

Bain: Of course.

Hunter shrugged: Food is just subsistence to her. She judges its value according to her need.

Bain, laughing: That’s cold!

Hunter: Not really, she just has other things to think about.

Bain: So she has a greater purpose?

Hunter: I don’t mean that.

Bain: No, but you’re referring to a previous conversation, ‘what gives true meaning to life?’.

Hunter: No. That’s just a human preoccupation. There is no meaning, as such.

Bain: You have the luxury of thinking that because you can’t die.

Hunter: I can, you know that. I can be murdered, or burnt.

Bain: Hmm. Actually I’m pretty sure you could find a way out of those two inconveniences.

Hunter: Well, perhaps, but I’m not an eternal being.

Bain: But you’re close enough. And you have meaning, your great task.

Hunter: My only task. It’s what I was created to do.

Bain: But aren’t human’s created with a task?

Hunter: Hah, to mess up the universe and slaughter millions of your own kind, and any other living being that gets in its way?

Bain, shifts uncomfortably in his seat: That’s a little unfair, ignoring music, art, science, literature and the love of small furry animals. I was thinking of survival.

Hunter: I’m not sure that’s a purpose exactly, more of a state of being.

Bain: But if we lived forever, life would become meaningless.

Hunter: If that’s true, then ‘become’ is the significant word. A state of being, such as survival, is a species level purpose.

Bain: Well, perhaps I mean ‘be’ meaningless.

Hunter: But that’s relative. Meaningless in relation to what? Something else must be meaningful.

Bain: No, that doesn’t make sense. The one doesn’t rely on the existence of the other. Meaninglessness can exist without the existence of meaning itself.

Hunter: That’s just playing with words. If you’re questioning meaning in life it has to be at the architect level, not the decor that fills in the design.

Bain: You mean the Great Architect in the sky.

Hunter: No, that’s too literal. Meaning can be a state of being, or a purpose. I have a purpose, so that’s my meaning.

Bain: But if I lived forever, I would get bored.

Hunter: You only say that because your context is that you live your life knowing there’s an ending at some point. If you knew one did not exist you wouldn’t chase the distractions of self-indulgence.

Bain: That’s a thinly veiled dig at what I do after every adventure with you.

Hunter: Acknowledgement perhaps, but you seem to have given up on that.

Bain: Well, not entirely, but travelling with you, through the meta-universe, it made me question everything I had ever known. It was like being punched in the stomach, repeatedly. I didn’t cope with it at first. I was so sick, but I didn’t want you to know. I suppose the drinking, and it’s more pleasurable consequences allowed me to think less about it.

Hunter: But grown used to it.

Bain: Let’s say I suspend my disbelief. Humans aren’t meant to travel like that. But I fool myself I can help you at best, even at worst I get to see the most incredible places, and creatures. And I’ve never been so terrified, but knowing we can return, then move on makes all the difference.

Hunter: So is that enough meaning? If you did this forever, would it be meaning enough?

Bain: I don’t know, but perhaps the secret is in the long view.

Hunter nodded, observing the gently swaying trees that arched over Shi Xiu’s receding form, as she sought a quiet place close to her companions, to rest in the shade of the hot, hot day.

Links

Another Dialogue: Is this all a Dream?
Another Dialogue:
An one more: Who is Responsible for an Accidental Death?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson

The post Dialogues | If We live Forever, Is Life Meaningless? appeared first on These Fantastic Worlds.

Dialogues | Who is Responsible for an Accidental Death?

High in the mountain Hunter and Bain rest in a balcony overlooking the great valley of dreams. Behind them a flame-haired monk enters, bows and brings tea in delicate porcelain cups. As he waits for Hunter to deliver his approval subtle fragrances drift in through the simple pillars carved into the mountainside ushering the monk back into the cool darkness of the inner chambers.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Bain: This is so peaceful, we should come here more often.

Hunter: Depends what you want from life I suppose.

Bain: Oh surely there comes a time when even you seek relaxation

Hunter, fidgeting with his mechanical eyepiece: No, no, I hate it. Too much to do.

Bain: Hah, I suppose it takes a severe injury to force you stop.

Hunter withheld a grin but did not bother to restrain the corners of his mouth: Perhaps.

Bain: If you were injured, whose fault would it be? I mean, if it was an accident.

Hunter: That depends on your perspective.

Bain: Well, if it was a knife, a kitchen knife say, and, distracted by me coming in you drop it on your bare foot.

Hunter. Well, I would never appear in a kitchen, use a kitchen knife, or walk around with bare feet.

Bain: As you know, that’s beside the point, so?

Hunter: Are you asking an absolute question, or a relative one?

Bain: I don’t understand.

Hunter: Well, if you introduce random chance into the equation, then there is no fault.

Bain: Hmm, that doesn’t go very far. And I don’t believe in random events. I know you don’t either. You always say every event has a causal chain.

Hunter: So it depends how far back you want to lay the blame.

Bain: It seems to me to be a straight choice between you not holding the knife properly, or me for not noticing you had a knife, so being more incautious by interrupting you.

Hunter: Possibly, but is that not too immediate? Is the knife manufactured so poorly that it can spring from my feeble hand? Does the maker of the knife not have a more safety mechanisms to stop such an event occurring? Should the kitchen not have been able to warn me either of your imminent approach, or stop you from entering at all while I had such a lethal object in my hand?

Bain: Even so, you might still have tripped and dropped the knife.

Hunter: So the manufacturer is at fault?

Bain: Well they created a device which can cause the damage to your foot.

Hunter: But did they intend that damage? Is it not simply an unhappy consequence of an otherwise intentioned product?

Bain: You mean like a bomb designed to kill an enemy but kills innocent people as well.

Hunter: Hm, you might have talked about guns exploding in the hand first!

Bain: Sure, but it’s all the same, the manufacturer, either consciously or otherwise will know that damage can occur if not used correctly. Hence the warnings in most instruction sheets.

Hunter: I’m not sure that’s taking account of the predilection of you humans for inflicting damage, accidental or otherwise. That scrap of paper is of little use when faced with a clumsy individual such as myself, or a six year-old intent on exploring.

Bain: You’re not clumsy, but then you’re not human either.

Hunter: But the point stands. In fact I might also say that this inherent tendency for accident is a function of human curiosity. If you were always cautious you’d never invent anything. It’s a function of an intelligent mind to find out new things, make mistakes on the way and correct them, so learn from them.

Bain: Sounds like a grudging respect for humankind.

Hunter: It does doesn’t it.

Bain: But what you’re actually saying is that the maker of a knife, or a gun, or a bomb is itself the product of a tendency within humanity.

Hunter: And you could argue that it’s exactly that tendency which has allowed humans to survive, then expand.

Bain: So that’s a good thing, and the damage to your foot is an unhappy, but allowable by-product of a deeper truth which allows the species to thrive.

Hunter: I’m not sure ‘truth’ is the word, primary motivation perhaps, which has consequences along the causal chain.

Bain stayed silent for a moment: Uhuh. So, how’s your foot?

Hunter: Stop trying to be funny.

They both looked out at the serene mountains, the plunging beauty of the valley hidden by the mists, and reflected further on the weapons of humankind.

Links

Philosophical
Philosophical Dialogue: Is this all a Dream?
Philosophical Dialogue on Why do We Feel?
More concepts on These Fantastic Worlds
More about the SF Fantasy fiction of Jake Jackson
A good article from The Guardian on the art of writing dialogues.

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