Why Science Fiction? Guest post by Jamie Sheffield

Following, a guest blog post Jamie Sheffield wrote for me as part of the "Writers Robin Round".

I also have written a blog post for him. My post on his blog.
Here is what he wrote:

When I first talked with Micha Fire about each of us writing for the other's blog, she suggested I write a ‘food for thought’ article about Science Fiction. I was initially unsure of what to talk about, but have been thinking about it for some time, and have some snacks for thought about SF. 

Science Fiction is a genre that encourages the exploration of ideas or questions or philosophies through the application of various elements that support (and even require) the readers’ suspension of disbelief in ways that would not be reasonable in other types of fiction … some of the elements include:

Alternate timelines resulting in a changed history or future

Other worlds, outer space, the center of the Earth, etc.

Non-human characters - aliens, mutants, robots, etc.

Futuristic technology/scientific advances - devices or altered scientific principles

Different social or political systems or structures – post-scarcity, dystopic, post-apocalyptic, etc.

Evolved abilities like telepathy, pyrokinesis, mind-control, and teleportation

Building a story and/or world around one or more of these elements of Science Fiction allows the author (and by proxy, their readers) to explore thoughts and ideas and moralities outside of those presented by the ‘real world’. At the end of the day, it’s the exploration of these ideas, more than the special effects that makes great Science Fiction work for me. 

“Ender's Game” is a great example of astonishing technology and the threat of alien beings forcing the reader to focus on questions of morality and warfare and responsibilities to individuals versus society.

“Jurassic Park” grabs readers with a fast-paced story teeming with ferocious, cloned, dinosaurs, but the questions of scientists’ responsibility to carefully manage the power and knowledge gleaned from their predecessors ‘ work is what stays with you, long after you have finished reading the book.

“Dune” brings readers to a richly detailed universe that is hugely distant and different from ours, and allows readers to explore the concepts of power and scarcity and control and uprising and political intrigue and interdependence in the course of a rich and rewarding story.

“The Yellow Pill” is a brilliant short work that pulls readers into a discussion of perception and reality and the ways in which people choose to deceive themselves in order to go about their daily lives. 

I've read hundreds more novels and shorter pieces that use the elements of Science Fiction to help the reader crack open the accepted views of reality and normalcy, to allow us to look at some aspect of the world or our lives in a unique and telling manner; sometimes the best way to look at something is to turn it on its head, and that’s what Science Fiction allows readers and writers to do.

The stories that have changed my life the most, and stayed with me the longest have all been Science Fiction.

Jamie Sheffield

Short Bio

Jamie Sheffield lives in the Adirondack Park, and when he's not writing mysteries set in the Adirondack Park, he's probably camping or exploring the last great wilderness in the Northeast.  He has been a Special Education Teacher in the Lake Placid Central School District for the last 15 years.  Besides writing, Jamie loves cooking and reading and dogs and all manner of outdoor pursuits.  "Here Be Monsters" is his debut novel.

Other info and pictures and such can be found on my website at: http://www.jamiesheffield.com/p/media.html

My website is www.jamiesheffield.com

My Amazon author page is at: http://www.amazon.com/Jamie-Sheffield/e/B00AVJVYHS

And yes, I agree that reading Science Fiction, no matter if it is old ones or newer releases, can open your mind to see things differently. 

So, as writer with an open mind, I tend to write in Science Fiction style, however I do not stay strict to the genre. It might as well contain Psychology,  Romance, Speculation, Utopia, Fantasy or even Magic fiction ideas. Sometimes even Thriller or Horror though that is not so much to my likes. 

I'm more of a happy, optimistic writer; sharing the good and positive in this world. 

Happy reading, Science Fiction if you want. =))

Radio Storms - in our Solar System

There is always something new to discover and experience. This time I was fascinated by the sounds of the radio storm recorded from Jupiter.

This one was on Jupiter a few nights ago.

Turn on your speakers and listen to it.

Information as found on www.spaceweather.com :

Two nights ago, there was a storm on Jupiter--a radio storm. Amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft recorded the event using a shortwave radio telescope located in New Mexico. Click on the dynamic spectrum (a plot of intensity vs. frequency vs. time) to hear the whooshing, crackling, popping sounds that emerged from his telescope's loudspeaker.
"Listen to the recording in stereo," advises Ashcraft. "I recorded the audio from two separate radios at 21.1 MHz and 20.9 MHz, so there is a stereo spatial effect from the frequency drift of the emissions."Jupiter's radio storms are caused by natural radio lasers in the planet's magnetosphere that sweep past Earth as Jupiter rotates. Electrical currents flowing between Jupiter's upper atmosphere and the volcanic moon Io can boost these emissions to power levels easily detected by ham radio antennas on Earth. Jovian "S-bursts" and "L-bursts" mimic the sounds of woodpeckers, whales, and waves crashing on the beach. Here are a few audio samples: S-bursts, S-bursts (slowed down 128:1), L-BurstsNow is a good time to listen to Jupiter's radio storms. The distance between Earth and Jupiter is decreasing as the giant planet approaches opposition on Dec. 3rd; the closer Jupiter gets, the louder it gets. NASA's Radio Jove Project explains how to build your own receiver.

As a kid I loved to turn the radio dial all the way to the end to hear all the squeaking and squawking and "white" noise, imagining it was aliens communicating with us. 

But maybe, it just was Earth and space. ;-)

And Earth's magnetic field  "sings" too. 

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/28sep_earthsong/

or here:

http://io9.com/5947951/earths-magnetic-field-is-singing-this-is-what-it-sounds-like

direct link to sound

There are many more sounds in space, we just need to learn to listen to them. 

It's not only with our eyes that we can perceive wonders. Our complete body can. 

Ears, skin, and other sensitive parts we might not even be aware of yet.

We just need to be "quiet" to  sense those not so direct interactions of us with what surrounds us. Technical things can help, but some things not even those can perceive.

morning reading on my subjects of interest

OK --
these I thought interesting from the title to read today (all from Science Daily ):

Can Social Media Detect the Changes in Public Mood?

"It is important to remark that the real-time detection of social trends via the analysis of social media content, presents various possible limitations. Social media analysis can only be accomplished with text mining technologies, which are less accurate than human assessment, but can be applied to vast amounts of data. Also the population that is assessed is necessarily that of Twitter users, which is a biased subsample of the general population. Particular care needs to be paid when extracting information but also when reporting it."

Sticking to Our Goals: What's the Best Approach for Success?

"Starting toward a goal can often feel easier than following through and reaching this goal's end state, as individuals with good intentions often fail to invest the time, effort, or monetary resources required to bring their goals to completion. We predict that individuals will express greater motivation to pursue actions when they focus on whichever is smaller in size -- the area of their completed actions or of their remaining actions -- because motivation increases with the perceived impact of each new step, and each new step will appear more impactful if compared to a smaller set of other steps toward the goal."

Your Left Side Is Your Best Side: Our Left Cheek Shows More Emotion, Which Observers Find More Aesthetically Pleasing

Your best side may be your left cheek. Images of the left side of the face are perceived and rated as more pleasant than pictures of the right side of the face, possibly due to the fact that we present a greater intensity of emotion on the left side of our face. (Credit: © Gerry Pelser / Fotolia)

My observation on this: I seems to prefer drawing faces with the right side of the face showing toward the looker. And on photos from me, mainly on the ones with my right faceside showing more than the left I seem to smile much nicer.

It's the Network: Ever Wonder Why Your Friends Have More Friends Than You or Diamond Is Harder Than Graphite?

The authors argue that, as network research matures, there will be increasing opportunities to exploit network concepts to also engineer new systems with desirable properties that may not be readily available in existing ones. Examples include emerging areas such as synthetic biology and microfluidics, which could be radically changed by rational circuit design, but also established areas such as traffic and materials research.
Motter and Albert consider the problem of network control, particularly in the context of biological networks as a promising new avenue for disease treatment. Cascading processes, in particular, in which successive elements in a complex network fail, are shown to be not as unstoppable as previously thought.
They also discuss at length how collective behavior may depend on properties of the underlying network, even when composed of the exact same nodes -- as in the case of radically different materials made of the same chemical element.

Cassini Finds Titan Lake Is Like a Namibia Mudflat

 While the liquid on Titan is methane, ethane and propane rather than water, the cycle appears to work in a very similar fashion to the water cycle on Earth. Beyond Earth, Titan is the only other world known to bear stable liquids on its surface. There, the full hydrocarbon cycle is based on hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen, and takes place between the atmosphere, the surface and the subsurface. Titan's lakes are an integral part of this process.

NASA Image Gallery Highlights Earth's Changing Face

In celebration of this year's Earth Day on April 22, NASA's Webby Award-winning Global Climate Change website, http://climate.nasa.gov , has unveiled a new version of its popular image gallery, "State of Flux." The gallery, which can be found at http://climate.nasa.gov/sof , presents stunning images, mostly from space, of our ever-changing planet, chronicling changes taking place over time periods ranging from days to centuries.

New Kind of Quantum Junction

A new type of quantum bit called a "phase-slip qubit," devised by researchers at the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute and their collaborators, has enabled the world's first-ever experimental demonstration of coherent quantum phase slip (CQPS). The groundbreaking result sheds light on an elusive phenomenon whose existence -- a natural outcome of the hundred-year-old theory of superconductivity -- has long been speculated, but never actually observed.

"Aliens" visiting "Humans" - Why would they do it?

Yes, why would they? And would we notice it?

There are a lot of movies and other media about what would happen if aliens came to this planet, Earth.
Mostly, they show them as aggressive and brutal invaders, coming here to take over and destroy humans so they can use the planet for themselves.

We humans, so far, have not the possibility to leave this planet and go on such "long" (meaning the distance AND the time) journeys. We are technically not advanced enough for that.
So, any visitor from "outer space" would be much more advanced in technology and the actual use of it than we are right now. Even so, it would take a lot of "money" (if they still use money) or some other kind of "payment"; i.e. the alien labour put into it as well as all the resources needed to complete the project.
And I don't think it can be done by a few alone. So, different to our planet, the aliens already would (have to) be all unified - one gigantic civilisation - all working on achieving the goal.
I'll leave aside all the technical and scientific explorations of the "if it is possible" that there are alien worlds at all, if they are advanced enough, will have enough resources and the actual possibility of space travel in such a physical way. And assume that they can do it.

Now, you may ask: "Why would they want to come to a planet like ours? We humans are so much "below" them in technology (and in many other things too)! There simply is nothing (of interest - as if we would know what interests them, hahaha) they could get from us - except the planet itself. It is our home and we will defend it!" And if you like to believe in the reality that movies show you, we will chase them off again. Hooray!!
If you are more realistic, then I think, to assume they will just take what they need and don't bother about killing off a few billion of possible intelligent lifeforms, is not too way off.
If you assume that the aliens think and behave like we do!

BUT

I think, that there is a big chance that aliens are very different from us. More advanced and evolved in many things - not only technology.
So, if they would go out on such a thing to look for other inhabited planets like ours, then surely not because they want it "just for themselves".
You might say: "What if their own planet and sun are dying and they just NEED to go some other place?"
Even in that case, I think, they wouldn't take over a planet that already has "intelligent" life on it; or life that is still evolving and becoming "intelligent". There are so many other planets that they easily, with all their technology, could make habitable. Planets that have all the resources that are needed and, with a little help, will support their life.
Anyway, our planet will have to be made habitable for them too; not all of it will be perfect (and as polluted as our planet is by now, it is not perfect for us too - but that's another story!) And then rid it of part of it's life first? That's way too much of an effort and not "economic" even for an advanced civilisation.
And, how would the aliens know if that life-form they are about to destroy so they have solely access to the planet is not an important part of that planet's life?
(Yes, the planet as such has a life too - the "non-animated" forms like rocks are alive too.
"The trans-disciplinary theory demonstrates that purportedly inanimate, non-living objects -- for example, planets, water, proteins, and DNA -- are animate, that is, alive."
Case Western Reserve University (2012, January 26). Radical theory explains the origin, evolution, and nature of life, challenges conventional wisdom. ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 28, 2012, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120126115127.htm# read at link for more on the theory. )

Our scientists study lifeforms, the ecosystems and how they interact. And through publishing their findings and educating others around them, slowly we all understand that there is more to "life on a planet" then just us as the "highest" evolved life-form.
Example: Scientist study ants. You may ask: "What for? They are so below us in the "evolution"! What can ants show us that we don't already know?" A lot, I say! (And the scientists.) About how community works, about how to handle resources, about how to live WITH nature (and the planet) and not against it. Ants (as an example - there are many more) just KNOW how to do all that. They don't have technology - but they live all over the planet (more numerous than humans in fact). Maybe they are the true "intelligent" life-form of this planet?
So, I think, aliens would, coming across a planet like ours, surely first study it, and then either avoid it - or if they find it interesting enough - "beam" down to study it closer.

Now, you may remind me of movies like  V (2009 TV series). There the aliens came to Earth to use the humans as breeding stock; in similar movies and stories humans are simply used as food. In my opinion to actually show themselves as visitors is not logical in these cases. It would be simpler and more efficient to just breed and use the humans without them knowing about it. Or would you tell the cows, pigs and sheep we use as food that you are going to eat them and then expect them to humbly succumb into it? Better not let them know. Quick and fast - no "visiting".
On a side note: do you think such very advanced aliens and humans have an equal basis for communication? I don't mean the different language or way of speaking, but the one of the "advanced" being to "not-as-advanced" being. Or do you think ants really understand you when you talk to them? These are just some thoughts that show how difficult an encounter with aliens could be.

Another option for "visitng" humans, you might want to add, is that they use humans as workers/slaves. Well, that's a thing that I opt out rather fast. If those aliens are so advanced to us that they can travel all the way here in reasonable time, they also have the means to built "robots" and such devices to do the work for them. They wouldn't use "weak" humans for that. Even we humans use "stronger" animals to do work for us because those are better suited for the task.
"They come to "feed" on our emotions!" Well, that's another possible reason to come here - but not one to actually visit in a way so that we notice them, is it?

So, let's assume the aliens come as visitors after having studied us humans for some time. And have solved all the difficulties of how to interact with "not-as-advanced" beings as themselves. Knowing how "fearful" humans are of strangers they sure would do that in a way to go "unnoticed"; appearing and acting like any other human here does too. We wouldn't notice them; unless they want to be noticed. Once their studies are completed, it's a stay-or-go decision.

Then again, maybe they don't come to visit us. They come to visit the planet. As they care about the planet, its life! And want to "heal" it from the lifeforms that make it "sick". In this case it is very possible they would get rid of the humans as the most sick-making factor. Or teach them (us humans) to heal the planet by themselves; so that we can go on living with it.
Maybe this "teaching" is already happening. Why would they - the aliens - do such a thing? Maybe because they care (more than we so far) about the planet and maybe had to go through similar events to evolve to the kind of civilisation they are now. And they feel that it is their "duty" and responsibility to help. 
Or, they are still thinking of a good way to get rid of the humans without "hurting" the planet further. In this case, I think, we wouldn't notice that they are dong it. Not like in the movies. With their so much more advanced technology there would be a way to do it in seconds.

So actually, after all this, to meet an alien face-to-face (and recognise it for what it truly is) has only a tiny chance.

But, maybe no aliens have been here yet. And we have to do the clean-up and evolving all on our own. Because, if the aliens don't come to us - maybe one day we are ready to go and visit them.
And where would we go? Well, our scientists are searching a lot. For example with the Kepler telescope. Recently they found 11 new "planetary systems". ( Kepler telescope finds 11 new solar systems )

We are still at the beginnings of this. Still have to find out which planets are in a habitable zone that could support life like ours (so that we can actually interact with it). And we still have to find a means to bridge the vast distances.
And before actually visiting those planets: do our "homework" here and evolve in many, many fields to become that sort of advanced civilisation that could and would be the "visiting" aliens!






And after all -- these arguments are just my thoughts on why aliens would come for a visit. But who knows why they would (or would not) do it truly. Maybe one day, I meet an alien and can ask it about the why (and how). ^^