Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / The SF Universe of Dr. Karen Lords

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The SF Universe of Dr. Karen Lords · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:08
Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, did you know the difference between psychic and
0:11
Speaker 1: physics is only one letter? I feel like I should
0:14
Speaker 1: have sensed that. Well, let's try what number am I
0:18
Speaker 1: thinking of? I gotta go with forty two. No, not
0:21
Speaker 1: even closed colder zero point forty two. Um. Starting to
0:28
Speaker 1: think the difference between psychic and physics is a lot
0:30
Speaker 1: more than one letter. You know, after all these years
0:33
Speaker 1: working together, sometimes I still have no idea what you're thinking.
0:36
Speaker 1: And that's probably for the best. Hi am more handmade
0:54
Speaker 1: cartoonists and the creator of PhD comics. Hi, I'm Daniel.
0:57
Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist and not particle psychics. I mean,
1:01
Speaker 1: you can read the minds of particles, or you can
1:03
Speaker 1: predict what particles will do. I can do neither, actually,
1:06
Speaker 1: and I don't think either of them are possible in
1:09
Speaker 1: our universe. I guess it makes sense to be a
1:11
Speaker 1: psychic of not particles, because everything's made out of particles.
1:15
Speaker 1: That's true. And I noticed that a lot of psychics
1:17
Speaker 1: tend to like to use physics like sort of pseudo
1:20
Speaker 1: terms in their you know, marketing. I once sat next
1:23
Speaker 1: to somebody on an airplane and told me she was
1:25
Speaker 1: a quantum psychic. Really, it was like, that's better than
1:28
Speaker 1: all those classical psychics out there, you know. I mean
1:31
Speaker 1: she was lying and not lying at the same time.
1:35
Speaker 1: She was both full of it and full of it
1:37
Speaker 1: at the same time. Well, I guess that that's better
1:41
Speaker 1: than being a Newtonian psychic. But welcome to our podcast
1:44
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of I
1:47
Speaker 1: Heart Radio in which we take the whole universe and
1:49
Speaker 1: try to insert it into your brain. We're not relying
1:52
Speaker 1: on your psychic powers. Instead, we are taking you on
1:55
Speaker 1: an audio tour of everything that's incredible, that's amazing, that's
1:59
Speaker 1: mind blowing about the universe. We think that wonder belongs
2:02
Speaker 1: to everybody, that your curiosity is just as deep and
2:05
Speaker 1: powerful and as important as those of us toiling away
2:09
Speaker 1: in the scientific trenches, and so we want to answer
2:11
Speaker 1: your questions and help you explore all the incredible stuff
2:15
Speaker 1: in our universe. Daniel, are you saying that we're all
2:17
Speaker 1: connected mentally? You knowing we are, I hope, all living
2:21
Speaker 1: in the same universe and working on the same science. Right,
2:24
Speaker 1: So in that sense, yes, we do have a shared
2:26
Speaker 1: mental challenge and including our curiosity about the world. About
2:30
Speaker 1: the universe, about the cosmos, and so in this podcast,
2:32
Speaker 1: we like to talk about all the amazing and incredible
2:35
Speaker 1: things out there for us to discover and to learn about,
2:37
Speaker 1: but we also like to kind of sometimes think about
2:41
Speaker 1: what could be or what might be in the far future. Yeah,
2:44
Speaker 1: because a big part of exploring the universe, about satisfying
2:47
Speaker 1: your curiosity is tapping into your creativity to thinking about
2:52
Speaker 1: what could be out there were kinds of ideas. Should
2:54
Speaker 1: we be thinking about what is the future of the
2:57
Speaker 1: universe and of humanity? Yeah, because you know, sometimes I
3:00
Speaker 1: think people associate signs not with creativity, or they think
3:05
Speaker 1: they're the two of them are separate, But actually sciences
3:07
Speaker 1: are very creative. I mean they have kind of have
3:09
Speaker 1: to be when facing the unknown. They have to come
3:11
Speaker 1: up with possible ideas of what could be or what
3:14
Speaker 1: might explain what we're seeing out there. And so today's
3:17
Speaker 1: episode is another one of our series of interviews with
3:21
Speaker 1: science fiction authors. That's right, and we like to tap
3:23
Speaker 1: into a broad set of creative minds out there. Everybody
3:27
Speaker 1: has a different idea for what the future might hold,
3:29
Speaker 1: or how we might react to it, or what life
3:31
Speaker 1: would be like under various circumstances, which hey is important
3:35
Speaker 1: because if we're designed in the future, if we are
3:37
Speaker 1: steering the fate of our humanity, we should think about
3:39
Speaker 1: what it would be like to live under various futuristic regimes,
3:42
Speaker 1: even if they are a little trippy. So to the
3:45
Speaker 1: on the podcast, we'll be tackling the science fiction universe
3:52
Speaker 1: of Karen Lord. That's right. Karen Lord has written a
3:56
Speaker 1: wonderful book. It's called The Best of All Possible world
4:00
Speaker 1: Olds and I recently had a chance to read it
4:02
Speaker 1: and to chat with her about So the Best of
4:03
Speaker 1: All Possible world So it's definitely fiction. I feel like
4:07
Speaker 1: we're definitely not living our best sells right now. Well,
4:09
Speaker 1: you know, there's dystopian fiction, and then there's optimistic fiction,
4:13
Speaker 1: and the opposite of dystopian utopian fiction. Utopian fiction. Yeah. Absolutely.
4:19
Speaker 1: I heard a wonderful interview actually by Kim Stanley Robinson,
4:22
Speaker 1: a famous science fiction author, and he felt like dystopian
4:25
Speaker 1: fiction was sort of lazy because it just makes you
4:28
Speaker 1: feel better about our world than the world in the
4:30
Speaker 1: show you're watching or the novel you're reading. And he
4:33
Speaker 1: prefers to write utopian fiction because it inspires us to
4:36
Speaker 1: try and make our world better. I see regular fiction
4:40
Speaker 1: is more like comfort fiction, whereas maybe it should be
4:43
Speaker 1: more like fomo fiction exactly, should be like, look what
4:47
Speaker 1: they have achieved. Everybody in this novel has healthcare and
4:51
Speaker 1: the house and all this great stuff. Surely we can
4:53
Speaker 1: do that. Look how green their grass they've genetically engineered
4:57
Speaker 1: to be. That's amazing. That's right. Sometimes you just want
5:00
Speaker 1: to keep up with the science fiction. Jones is right,
5:03
Speaker 1: and there are definitely things we can do to improve
5:05
Speaker 1: our world, and sometimes it's the role of science fiction
5:08
Speaker 1: to think about that. So Karen Lord is a science
5:10
Speaker 1: fiction author, and she hails from Barbados. That's where you
5:14
Speaker 1: conducted the Enemy. You didn't go there, but that's where
5:16
Speaker 1: she was. That's right. The budget for trips to Barbados
5:19
Speaker 1: was set to zero for some reason. I'm not quite
5:21
Speaker 1: sure your chat, Daniel, and this is your chance to
5:24
Speaker 1: cook the books and get a vacation. No. So I
5:27
Speaker 1: chatted with her over the internet, as I always do.
5:30
Speaker 1: But I got a little bit of the taste of
5:32
Speaker 1: Barbados because you could hear the sound of it in
5:34
Speaker 1: the background. Wow. Just doubles as an m m R.
5:38
Speaker 1: What's the right s mr SMR. That's right. I'm not
5:43
Speaker 1: a fan of acronym. That's funny you said that because
5:45
Speaker 1: I heard that some folks listen to our podcast as
5:47
Speaker 1: they go to sleep because our voices soothed, not because
5:51
Speaker 1: we lack excitement in our because before That's right, So
5:58
Speaker 1: sit straight up and listen to this important podcast interview.
6:01
Speaker 1: Stop falling asleep, Wake up, Wake up. And Karen Hard
6:05
Speaker 1: has an interesting background. She's also sort of an academic
6:08
Speaker 1: kind of like you. Definitely, she has a couple of degrees,
6:10
Speaker 1: including a doctoral degree I read in the sociology of religion. Yes,
6:15
Speaker 1: she has a really eclectic and fascinating background. I mean
6:17
Speaker 1: she has an undergraduate degree in physics. Let's like really
6:21
Speaker 1: set her science, you know, in the appropriate context. But
6:25
Speaker 1: then she also has degrees in sociology and religion and history,
6:30
Speaker 1: and so it's really fascinating and you can definitely feel
6:32
Speaker 1: it in her writing. Her writing is different from the
6:35
Speaker 1: kinds of writing I've read before. So it's really a
6:38
Speaker 1: pleasure for me to sort of branch out and read
6:39
Speaker 1: something different. And it's different in sort of two ways.
6:43
Speaker 1: One is that it really focuses on what it's like
6:46
Speaker 1: to be there, and the interpersonal connections and how society
6:50
Speaker 1: is built and you know, how people treat each other
6:52
Speaker 1: in this new context where life is very different from
6:55
Speaker 1: our own. More about relationships kind of yeah, and what
6:57
Speaker 1: it would be like to live there. It's less about
7:00
Speaker 1: like how do you build this kind of starship and
7:02
Speaker 1: traverse the universe? And more like, well, what's it like
7:05
Speaker 1: to sit next to somebody for sixty years on a
7:07
Speaker 1: spaceship and argue with them about it makes the coffee
7:11
Speaker 1: or whatever? You know? I feel like maybe have a
7:13
Speaker 1: good idea of that. Daniel han't hand um. And also
7:19
Speaker 1: it's quite different because it's really infused with her knowledge
7:22
Speaker 1: of her culture. This is the second book she wrote.
7:25
Speaker 1: The first book she wrote was actually a retelling of
7:27
Speaker 1: some of her cultural mythology in a science fiction content.
7:31
Speaker 1: And so you'll see as we talk about the details
7:33
Speaker 1: of this book that actually blends mythology and science fiction
7:36
Speaker 1: a little bit. And she starts from mythology and then
7:39
Speaker 1: takes it forward using science fiction, which is quite fast.
7:42
Speaker 1: Is it kind of like explaining mythology as science fiction
7:45
Speaker 1: or just taking it further? It's just sort of taking
7:47
Speaker 1: it further. It's like you don't have to explain the
7:49
Speaker 1: beginning of the universe and the whole context of how
7:51
Speaker 1: things were made, because you can just sort of assume
7:54
Speaker 1: mythological origin for things, but then going forward everything has
7:58
Speaker 1: to follow the physical rules of the universe. So it's
8:01
Speaker 1: a really fascinating blend. Interesting alright. So her book is
8:04
Speaker 1: called The Best of All Possible World, and a big
8:07
Speaker 1: part of it is this idea of psychic powers and telepathy,
8:11
Speaker 1: and so we were sort of wondering what people think
8:14
Speaker 1: of telepathy out there. Yeah, I was curious if people
8:16
Speaker 1: thought if somehow in the far future, humans might evolve
8:20
Speaker 1: this kind of power, and so I asked a bunch
8:22
Speaker 1: of volunteers on the Internet to speculate baslessly on this
8:26
Speaker 1: possible future scenario. And if you'd like to participate in
8:29
Speaker 1: baseless speculation, please write to us two questions at Daniel
8:33
Speaker 1: and Jorge dot com. I think you just renamed our
8:35
Speaker 1: podcast Daniel Baseless Speculation with Daniel and Jorge. That's the subtitle, alright,
8:43
Speaker 1: So think about it for a second before you listen
8:45
Speaker 1: to these answers. If someone asks you if you thought
8:48
Speaker 1: humans would ever evolve telepathy, what would you answer. Here's
8:52
Speaker 1: what people had to say. I believe that it's possible,
8:55
Speaker 1: but it would be thousands or millions of years from now.
8:59
Speaker 1: I think at that point we would qualify as a
9:01
Speaker 1: very different species. I think it's definitely not impossible. UM
9:05
Speaker 1: or something that will take a lot of time to develop,
9:08
Speaker 1: maybe like thousand or maybe a million years time humans
9:12
Speaker 1: we have developed a chip or something that we could
9:14
Speaker 1: implant in humans UM to use for telepathy. I do
9:19
Speaker 1: not believe that humans will ever evolve telepathic powers evolved
9:23
Speaker 1: as kind of a loaded word there. Evolution takes place
9:27
Speaker 1: over many, many generations, so that kind of thing would
9:32
Speaker 1: taken extremely long time for any kind of evolution. Could
9:37
Speaker 1: be possible that we could a genetically engineer some sort
9:41
Speaker 1: of heightened intelligence, heightened brain abilities. Humans have already evolved
9:49
Speaker 1: telepathic powers. I don't want to brag, but at Burning
9:53
Speaker 1: Man one year, there was a girl about fifty yards
9:57
Speaker 1: away riding her bike away from me, wearing a bikini
10:00
Speaker 1: and a cowboy hat, and in my head I said,
10:03
Speaker 1: please come talk to me, and she turned and looked
10:06
Speaker 1: at me, turned her bike, rode over park next to me,
10:11
Speaker 1: got off her bike and gave me a hug. Boom.
10:13
Speaker 1: I wish I had telepathic powers to know the answer
10:16
Speaker 1: to that question, but I'm pretty sure science will come
10:19
Speaker 1: to prove that that just cannot happen. I don't think
10:22
Speaker 1: we could evolve telepathic powers unless we embraced human enhancement
10:26
Speaker 1: and achieved it through something like cyberessic augmentations. Keyword here
10:30
Speaker 1: is evolved, And I would say to that no, because
10:33
Speaker 1: I don't see how telepy telepathy would in any way
10:38
Speaker 1: aid any human survival and reproduction. However, I could imagine
10:44
Speaker 1: us using technology to develop this ability, but in terms
10:47
Speaker 1: of natural evolution, now, I don't think so. I kind
10:50
Speaker 1: of hope not, because part of what's so fun is
10:52
Speaker 1: figuring out when someone else was thinking, not knowing it.
10:56
Speaker 1: All right, now, Daniel, did these people record their answers
10:59
Speaker 1: and send to you or did they just beam it
11:01
Speaker 1: straight to your brain? I am in tune with the
11:04
Speaker 1: whole universe, man, so I didn't even need to reach out.
11:07
Speaker 1: It just like just set downs, free streamed all these
11:10
Speaker 1: universes just speaking to me. You know, these were all
11:14
Speaker 1: emailed to me over the internet. All right, Well, pretty cool.
11:17
Speaker 1: A lot of people seem to have a lot of
11:19
Speaker 1: optimism about this, Like nobody said it's impossible, and you know,
11:24
Speaker 1: they think that maybe one day you could happen. Yeah,
11:26
Speaker 1: people feel like there's obviously potential out there for all
11:29
Speaker 1: sorts of crazy stuff to happen, that it's not physically
11:32
Speaker 1: impossible in our universe. And then there's a whole other
11:35
Speaker 1: thread of people wondering if it's better done with technology.
11:38
Speaker 1: Right right, I guess there's two ways that we can
11:41
Speaker 1: evolve telepathy. One is through evolving our brains biologically, and
11:45
Speaker 1: one is is kind of augmenting our brain. Yeah, and
11:48
Speaker 1: I was curious what you thought about these various options
11:50
Speaker 1: that we're going to dig into, giving your background in
11:53
Speaker 1: engineering and of course in bio mimicry and so, so
11:56
Speaker 1: how you saw these various options going forward. Right, So
11:58
Speaker 1: let's get into his book. Um, So the title again
12:02
Speaker 1: is the best of All Possible world And so, Daniel,
12:05
Speaker 1: what's the basic premise of it? So the basic premise
12:07
Speaker 1: is that the book takes place in a sort of
12:09
Speaker 1: our universe and in our galaxy, but humans or human
12:14
Speaker 1: like aliens are distributed through the galaxy. It's sort of
12:17
Speaker 1: a setting like Star Trek the next Generation. They are
12:20
Speaker 1: all these worlds and they're all populated by human like creatures.
12:24
Speaker 1: You know, they have two legs, and they have a head,
12:26
Speaker 1: and they speak various languages, etcetera. But they have mostly
12:30
Speaker 1: ten fingers. But there are big differences. Some of them
12:32
Speaker 1: are much taller and stronger and faster, some of them
12:36
Speaker 1: are smaller. Some of them have telepathic or other psionic pounders.
12:40
Speaker 1: Now do they say that they all came from Earth
12:43
Speaker 1: or people on Earth came from some other source? So
12:45
Speaker 1: she doesn't describe this in detail in the book. She
12:48
Speaker 1: leaves it a bit of a mystery, which I sort
12:50
Speaker 1: of like, I like being dropped into a universe and
12:52
Speaker 1: not just like having it explained to me. I like
12:55
Speaker 1: figuring it out for myself. And for me, it was
12:57
Speaker 1: a mystery I was trying to solve while I was
12:58
Speaker 1: reading the book, Like is this the far future where
13:01
Speaker 1: humans have spread through the galaxy and then evolved into
13:04
Speaker 1: these various forms because of their separation, or is this
13:08
Speaker 1: some alternative universe where you know, humans evolved in parallel
13:11
Speaker 1: and lots of different places. And so I was trying
13:14
Speaker 1: to figure that out through the book, and I never
13:15
Speaker 1: actually put my finger on and you'll hear in the interview,
13:17
Speaker 1: I asked her about that very question. And it's kind
13:20
Speaker 1: of interesting because you see you wrote here that Earth
13:23
Speaker 1: is embargoed. It means that we're we're like blocked or canceled.
13:26
Speaker 1: They canceled, that they canceled Earth. Yes, so the book
13:29
Speaker 1: takes place from the point of view of one of
13:31
Speaker 1: these human like aliens, and in the book, nobody's allowed
13:34
Speaker 1: to go to Earth and Earth is like embargoed, Do
13:36
Speaker 1: you know, allowed to to interact with Earth because the
13:38
Speaker 1: folks who live there are not very well behaved? What
13:42
Speaker 1: exactly we were on a timeout? Yeah, precisely, So nobody's
13:49
Speaker 1: allowed to visit us or you trade with us or
13:50
Speaker 1: communicate with us, but like Earth links know that they're
13:53
Speaker 1: embargoed and canceled, you know, or did we do something?
13:56
Speaker 1: And no, we didn't. It's not dealt with directly in
13:59
Speaker 1: the book. And then I asked her about it in
14:00
Speaker 1: the interview, and it's actually her personal explanation for maybe
14:05
Speaker 1: our current situation, you know, the Fermi paradox, Like if
14:08
Speaker 1: the galaxy is filled with lifelike planets, how become nobody
14:11
Speaker 1: is talking to us, nobody has visited, we've overseen anybody.
14:14
Speaker 1: She thinks that maybe because we're on a time out.
14:18
Speaker 1: What people people are avoiding us. Boy, So she wrote
14:22
Speaker 1: this a little bit as likely, Hey, maybe this is
14:24
Speaker 1: what's happening in our universe, that there are aliens out there,
14:27
Speaker 1: but they're choosing not to. We don't shave up, we
14:30
Speaker 1: won't get invited to the party, that's right. And so
14:35
Speaker 1: in this world that she's built, you have all these
14:37
Speaker 1: different kinds of human like aliens, and they have all
14:40
Speaker 1: these different powers. Some of them can read minds, some
14:43
Speaker 1: of them can influence what you think. They can do
14:45
Speaker 1: like emotional control and feel things or coerce you into
14:49
Speaker 1: doing things. It's really quite interesting. And then she builds,
14:53
Speaker 1: you know, a realistic society. She builds workplaces and relationships
14:58
Speaker 1: and all sorts of stuff and takes you through really
15:01
Speaker 1: what it would be like to live in that world.
15:03
Speaker 1: I guess my biggest question would be how do you
15:05
Speaker 1: trust anyone? You know? Like, how do you trust that
15:07
Speaker 1: they're not reading your mind or influencing you or making
15:11
Speaker 1: you say some things. It's hard and it really changes
15:13
Speaker 1: the nature of relationships. And she has really interesting examples
15:16
Speaker 1: in there about like abusive marriages where one person controls
15:19
Speaker 1: the other or you know, romances and what that's like
15:23
Speaker 1: and infidelity, and so it's really an interesting deep dive
15:27
Speaker 1: into what it would be like to live in that society.
15:30
Speaker 1: And that's what I meant earlier, that she's really thought
15:32
Speaker 1: carefully about the experience of a person in that situation.
15:36
Speaker 1: And I'm always really impressed when somebody pulls that off,
15:38
Speaker 1: because you have to do too hard things at once.
15:41
Speaker 1: One is imagine what it's like to be a completely
15:44
Speaker 1: different kind of person with a different kind of brain,
15:46
Speaker 1: and also make it accessible to us, right, I mean,
15:50
Speaker 1: if you imagine what it's like to live as a
15:52
Speaker 1: weird o blabo alien, it would be totally incomprehensible to us.
15:56
Speaker 1: You couldn't write a novel, you know, from the point
15:58
Speaker 1: of view of something that thinks fun to mentally different.
16:01
Speaker 1: So you have to sort of like bridge that gap
16:03
Speaker 1: to make it accessible to like, you know, the readers,
16:05
Speaker 1: us actual human beings. Right. It's not an easy thing
16:08
Speaker 1: to do, you know, from a literary construct point. You
16:10
Speaker 1: depend translate in a way a whole different way of thinking. Yeah,
16:14
Speaker 1: so they play mind games with each other and we're
16:16
Speaker 1: the ones getting a time out. Who's making these decisions? Yeah,
16:21
Speaker 1: well you know, the ones with the power are the
16:23
Speaker 1: ones making the decisions. Um. But as you read it,
16:26
Speaker 1: you'll also find that these characters, even though they're not
16:28
Speaker 1: technically human or they're very different from us, their society
16:32
Speaker 1: is a lot in common with ours. You know, they
16:34
Speaker 1: build bureaucracy to have conflicts. The book begins with a
16:38
Speaker 1: really devastating act of war and genocide, and so then
16:41
Speaker 1: there's politics and factionalism and you know, like workplace romance
16:45
Speaker 1: and all sorts of stuff. So it's very relatable and unfortunately,
16:49
Speaker 1: I think you know what. Fortunately, all right, well let's
16:54
Speaker 1: get into the science of this novel, The Best of
16:56
Speaker 1: All Possible World by Karen Lord, and that's get into
17:00
Speaker 1: your interview with Karen Lord. But first let's take a
17:02
Speaker 1: quick break. All Right, we're talking about science fiction author
17:12
Speaker 1: Karen Lord and her book The Best of All Possible World.
17:16
Speaker 1: And so it's it's a world where everyone has psychic
17:18
Speaker 1: powers in a way, Daniel, And so what's the science
17:21
Speaker 1: of it? How do you explain the psychic ability that's
17:24
Speaker 1: pervasive among all these aliens species. Yes, so one question
17:27
Speaker 1: is just like physically or biologically, is it possible to
17:31
Speaker 1: evolve this kind of ability? I mean, evolution essentially explores
17:35
Speaker 1: random mutations and chooses the ones that are best fit
17:38
Speaker 1: for the environment. But it can't do things that are impossible.
17:41
Speaker 1: You can't spontaneously evolve the ability to travel faster than
17:45
Speaker 1: the speed of light, right because it breaks the laws
17:47
Speaker 1: of physics, or like evolve the anti gravity or maybe
17:50
Speaker 1: or maybe it's called legs Daniel. But you know, you
17:55
Speaker 1: can't break the laws of physics even with evolution. But
17:58
Speaker 1: you know, fundamentally, I don't think there is anything physics
18:01
Speaker 1: wise that would be preventing us from communicating more directly
18:05
Speaker 1: brain to brain. Interesting. We have a lot of ways
18:07
Speaker 1: to translate the thoughts in our brain into information and
18:09
Speaker 1: transmit them, so we recreate the thoughts in somebody else's brain.
18:13
Speaker 1: We're doing one right now. I'm boiling down my thoughts
18:16
Speaker 1: into these sound waves and sending them into your brain
18:18
Speaker 1: through your device, through the internet, you know, through the
18:21
Speaker 1: error in cell phone signals, and then into my ears
18:24
Speaker 1: and into my brain precisely. And so that's a little indirect,
18:27
Speaker 1: and I guess telepathy would just be like somewhat more direct.
18:29
Speaker 1: You know. Imagine your brain broadcasts something invisible instead of
18:34
Speaker 1: using it through sound waves we use electromagnetic radiation or something.
18:38
Speaker 1: It's not inconceivable to imagine evolving a new part of
18:42
Speaker 1: the brain that can transmit e M waves because, after all,
18:46
Speaker 1: you know, the brain is a bunch of wires, right
18:49
Speaker 1: that you use electromagnetic signals to interact. It's basically a
18:53
Speaker 1: little circuit. Wait, so you're talking not not through tech
18:55
Speaker 1: but through actual biology. Do you think there's a way
18:58
Speaker 1: to have a biological like radio transmitter and receiver. Yeah,
19:02
Speaker 1: I think there's no physics objection to having a biological
19:05
Speaker 1: radio antenna in your head. Yeah, I guess, yeah, maybe,
19:08
Speaker 1: I guess. You know, your body could learn to I
19:11
Speaker 1: don't know what, like make an antenna inside of your head,
19:14
Speaker 1: like accumulate metals in a certain way. And you don't
19:17
Speaker 1: even necessarily need metals, right to generate a signal radio signal,
19:21
Speaker 1: you just need a current current that's oscillating and then
19:25
Speaker 1: to be receptive to it. And so there are lots
19:27
Speaker 1: of ways to do that, and lots of things that
19:29
Speaker 1: are conductive. You know, water for example, is very conductive,
19:32
Speaker 1: and so there you could certainly engineer if you were
19:35
Speaker 1: going to sit down and design it. There's no physics
19:38
Speaker 1: or engineering principle I'm aware of that would prevent it
19:40
Speaker 1: from happening. The whole separate question of whether it would evolve,
19:43
Speaker 1: whether it's the benefit to it and the energy use
19:47
Speaker 1: you know, makes it worth it, whether there you could
19:49
Speaker 1: find yourself in an environment that would need that, and
19:52
Speaker 1: evolution would provide the selective pressure to encourage that. But
19:56
Speaker 1: from a physics point of view, I don't see why
19:59
Speaker 1: you couldn't have telepathy. Wow, yeah, I guess that there
20:02
Speaker 1: are studies of birds, right, birds who can sort of
20:05
Speaker 1: sense the banetic field of the earth, and they do
20:07
Speaker 1: it by repredating some you know, some metal inside of
20:10
Speaker 1: the brain reading the right currents, I think, right, yeah, yeah,
20:15
Speaker 1: And this is different from other things, you know, like telekinesis,
20:18
Speaker 1: the ability to move objects with your mind. Like, I
20:21
Speaker 1: don't see a physical basis for that at all, you know,
20:24
Speaker 1: sending messages back and forth emailing brain to brain. Yeah, totally,
20:28
Speaker 1: we could in theory evolve that using our brain. I see.
20:31
Speaker 1: So telepathy yes, so like kinesis no, But that's the
20:35
Speaker 1: phone that's the more fun, because you want to tap
20:40
Speaker 1: on somebody's shoulder from the other side of the room
20:41
Speaker 1: and trick them. I just be like, if you're telekinetic,
20:44
Speaker 1: the best thing you can do with it is move yourself.
20:46
Speaker 1: You can fly, right right, of course? I wonder telekinesis
20:50
Speaker 1: is basically flying, yeah, Or you could just sit on
20:52
Speaker 1: your couch and clean your room at the same time.
20:55
Speaker 1: You could, yes, technically, would you though? It brings the
21:00
Speaker 1: whole new challenge to being lazy? Right Like you do
21:04
Speaker 1: you think it feels like an effort to lie in
21:05
Speaker 1: bed and clean your room without moving your body? Well,
21:07
Speaker 1: I always wondering, you know, because these things take energy, right, Like,
21:10
Speaker 1: even if you're theopathic, you would need to You would
21:13
Speaker 1: be burning a lot of energy to send these signals
21:15
Speaker 1: out probably, And and I don't know what it would
21:18
Speaker 1: be like from the evolutionary point of view, whether evolving
21:21
Speaker 1: this thing would be efficient or not. But you know,
21:24
Speaker 1: you could imagine some scenario where it's really crucial to
21:27
Speaker 1: survival because you can't communicate using sound for whatever, they
21:31
Speaker 1: find themselves on a really noisy planet or or something,
21:34
Speaker 1: and you have to evolve some alternative way to communicate
21:36
Speaker 1: or in response to some you know, predator or something.
21:40
Speaker 1: I mean, you can imagine vary scenarios, but it would
21:42
Speaker 1: take a lot of time, right, Like evolution takes generations
21:45
Speaker 1: and generations and generations. So this is not like by
21:49
Speaker 1: this is like far in the future of humanity, or
21:52
Speaker 1: if humanity exists on different planets, they would have to
21:54
Speaker 1: have split a long time ago in order to have
21:57
Speaker 1: a chance to have this court of evolution. All right, So,
22:00
Speaker 1: but then it's also possible to get telempathy through technology. Yeah,
22:04
Speaker 1: I think, you know, engineering will probably beat biology in
22:07
Speaker 1: the race. They're like, if you wanted to design and
22:09
Speaker 1: implement something to make it possible to send a message
22:13
Speaker 1: without talking to just think it. I think it's not
22:15
Speaker 1: that far in the future to be able to do that.
22:17
Speaker 1: We have the basic elements of that, I think already
22:20
Speaker 1: in hand, right, No, I mean we have it right now.
22:23
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've seen those studies or those
22:26
Speaker 1: experiments for people who are like paraplegic, they put a
22:29
Speaker 1: brain sensor under in their cortex and they send you know,
22:34
Speaker 1: spatial signals and they are able to sort of move
22:36
Speaker 1: a robot arm around. It's like, that's happening right now. Yeah,
22:40
Speaker 1: there's sort of two steps you need there. One is
22:42
Speaker 1: like to control an external device to use your brain
22:45
Speaker 1: signals to send information right to some prosthetic for example,
22:49
Speaker 1: And you're right, we can do that. You can train
22:51
Speaker 1: your brain to send the right signals to control a prosthetic,
22:55
Speaker 1: which is amazing. And the other side of it is
22:58
Speaker 1: to interpret messages in your brain, like to receive messages.
23:02
Speaker 1: And people have been doing this already with like cochlear implants.
23:05
Speaker 1: They attached a fake ear to somebody's head and just
23:08
Speaker 1: like zap it into the brain the nerve, and the
23:11
Speaker 1: brain learns to interpret those messages as sound. Yeah, they
23:15
Speaker 1: did that with the like retinel I implants too, And
23:17
Speaker 1: so you know, there's a lot of steps between here
23:20
Speaker 1: and you know, brain email your friend, but it's there.
23:24
Speaker 1: But the technology is there. The technology is there, and
23:26
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, complicated signal processing, like how
23:29
Speaker 1: do you take what's in somebody's brain interpret in a
23:32
Speaker 1: way to send it out and all this kind of stuff.
23:34
Speaker 1: But there's really fascinating studies they've done there. They did
23:37
Speaker 1: one with movie trailers where they showed people a bunch
23:40
Speaker 1: of movie trailers and image their brains while they were
23:43
Speaker 1: doing it. Yeah, and then they tried to train and
23:46
Speaker 1: network to guess which movie trailer they were watching just
23:49
Speaker 1: from the brain image, and they could totally tell. They
23:52
Speaker 1: could totally tell you really probably just depending on the
23:55
Speaker 1: voice of the narrator in the world they all start
23:59
Speaker 1: with in or the voice changes a little bit. Yeah,
24:03
Speaker 1: but so I think that technologically, you know, I don't
24:06
Speaker 1: know how many years away we are, you should say,
24:08
Speaker 1: because you're the engineer. But I don't see an obstacle
24:11
Speaker 1: to making this happen. If we wanted to know, if
24:14
Speaker 1: you're willing to drill into your brain and add some
24:16
Speaker 1: sort of prosthetic device to your brain, then yeah, you
24:19
Speaker 1: could probably tap into the Internet with your mind. Yeah.
24:22
Speaker 1: I don't know if you noticed, but I actually worked
24:23
Speaker 1: in the lab after my PhD. I was a research
24:26
Speaker 1: scientist at a neural prosthetic lab. I wasn't aware that
24:30
Speaker 1: did you work on the human phase? I just tell
24:32
Speaker 1: people I worked in the little base port that in
24:34
Speaker 1: the matrix where you insert the connector that that was
24:38
Speaker 1: my thing. I see, So you're actively working for our
24:41
Speaker 1: AI overlords. I was. That's why. That's why I quit it.
24:45
Speaker 1: Until they like the matrix. You pull the plug. I
24:49
Speaker 1: pulled the plug. Yeah, But you know, the hard part
24:52
Speaker 1: in all of this is actually your body rejects anything foreign,
24:56
Speaker 1: So you can put implant in your brain, but after
24:58
Speaker 1: a while, your body is going to be like, this
25:00
Speaker 1: is not supposed to be here, and it it actually
25:02
Speaker 1: like covers it in cells and scar tissue that makes
25:06
Speaker 1: it unusable, and so they have to like pull it
25:09
Speaker 1: out again, insert it again, or figure out one way
25:11
Speaker 1: for either your body to accept it or for it
25:14
Speaker 1: to kind of adapt to your body. Do those folks
25:16
Speaker 1: have to take immuno suppressants forever um? Yeah? Probably, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well.
25:21
Speaker 1: I also thought it was interesting, like how long have
25:23
Speaker 1: people have been thinking about telepathy, Like is it a
25:26
Speaker 1: new idea or an ancient one? And I was surprised
25:28
Speaker 1: to learn that it's sort of a recent concept. The
25:31
Speaker 1: idea of like sending messages invisibly burined brain sort of
25:36
Speaker 1: appeared like about a hundred and fifty years ago. Really
25:39
Speaker 1: was the first mention it. It was sort of in
25:41
Speaker 1: the late eighteen hundreds when people realized that like X
25:44
Speaker 1: rays and radio waves and invisible particles were actually real,
25:47
Speaker 1: that you really could send invisible information, that we were
25:50
Speaker 1: basically living in an invisible universe. It's constantly surrounded by
25:55
Speaker 1: things happening around us. We weren't aware of that. They thought, well, oh,
25:59
Speaker 1: maybe it's possible then to send information brain to brain.
26:02
Speaker 1: And if you look at like the history of science fiction,
26:05
Speaker 1: this kind of concept didn't appear in science fiction until
26:07
Speaker 1: about the late eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds. But there
26:11
Speaker 1: have been sort of like mystics, right, and mythology also
26:15
Speaker 1: that must have you know, talked about this idea of
26:19
Speaker 1: reading your mind or making you controlling you. Yeah, and
26:23
Speaker 1: those people always have like special magic powers. But the
26:26
Speaker 1: idea is that it entered, you know, sort of science
26:28
Speaker 1: fiction across the threshold into like, maybe this is something
26:31
Speaker 1: which could actually happen in the future for normal, regular
26:34
Speaker 1: people once we realized that we were surrounded by these
26:38
Speaker 1: invisible fields and particles that maybe we could learn to manipulate.
26:41
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's get back to Karen's book, and
26:43
Speaker 1: so what I guess, what's the basic story of the
26:45
Speaker 1: book before we get into her interview. The basic story
26:47
Speaker 1: of the book is that one of these planets with
26:49
Speaker 1: human like aliens is devastated by an attack that wipes
26:53
Speaker 1: out almost the entire species, and so refugees from that
26:56
Speaker 1: planet then come to another world, and they have to
26:59
Speaker 1: learn to sort of live on that planet and interact
27:01
Speaker 1: with those folks. It's a lot of like clash of
27:04
Speaker 1: cultures and acclamorization. It brings different kinds of aliens into
27:08
Speaker 1: contact and conflict and have to learn to live together
27:10
Speaker 1: and find a new home. So it really highlights in
27:13
Speaker 1: a nice way the differences between them as to figure
27:16
Speaker 1: out how to learn together and get to know each
27:18
Speaker 1: other and have some romance, all right, some refugee romance,
27:22
Speaker 1: some pan alien romance. Oh boy. All right. Well, let's
27:26
Speaker 1: get into your interview with Karen Lord, author of the
27:30
Speaker 1: Best of All Possible world and here it is. Well,
27:34
Speaker 1: it's my absolute pleasure to welcome today to our program,
27:37
Speaker 1: doctor Karen Lord, the author of today's featured book, The
27:41
Speaker 1: Best of All Possible Worlds, and also the book Redemption
27:45
Speaker 1: in Indico. Dr Lord, thank you very much for joining
27:48
Speaker 1: us and welcome to our program. Thank you so much
27:50
Speaker 1: for inviting me. First, we just like to get to
27:52
Speaker 1: know you a little bit. Tell us how did you
27:54
Speaker 1: get into science fiction writing. You have a sort of
27:57
Speaker 1: impressive academic background of a PhD and a master's in
28:00
Speaker 1: philosophy and a master's in science well, I think that
28:06
Speaker 1: any time you grew up as a reader, you kind
28:08
Speaker 1: of end up I'm going this direction anyway. So I
28:11
Speaker 1: was reading Satisfiction from very very far back. And as
28:15
Speaker 1: for writing it, I think you do that thing in
28:18
Speaker 1: school where you try to write things and you just
28:20
Speaker 1: realize how extremely bad you are, so you wait to
28:22
Speaker 1: grow up a bit and then um. It was quite
28:27
Speaker 1: by accident that I, you know, sometimes I would go
28:30
Speaker 1: back to writing, and then I would get busy and
28:33
Speaker 1: how about the work to do? And then I'll go
28:34
Speaker 1: back to it. And then one month I was actually
28:39
Speaker 1: doing Um, I was taken a pause from a master's
28:43
Speaker 1: and I said, I need to keep my hand in
28:46
Speaker 1: writing long documents. So this month I'm going to try
28:49
Speaker 1: National Novel Writing Month, and I'm going to tackle that
28:53
Speaker 1: that folk tale that I always loved as a kid
28:56
Speaker 1: and see if I can expand it. And that's how
28:58
Speaker 1: the draft of Redemption an Indigo came to being. And
29:02
Speaker 1: I didn't have any particular plans for it except to
29:05
Speaker 1: just try to see what I could do yes, and
29:08
Speaker 1: just sort of snowball from there. Hopefull that's wonderful. What
29:12
Speaker 1: is your academic background? What fields do you have your
29:14
Speaker 1: degrees in oh dear, so this is going to make
29:18
Speaker 1: me look like a dilatant. And my only excuse is
29:21
Speaker 1: that this is all over very long period of years.
29:24
Speaker 1: My first degree is a batult of science. It's actually
29:28
Speaker 1: a specialist in history of science of technology, a major
29:32
Speaker 1: in physics and a minor in astronomy. Then after that
29:35
Speaker 1: my first masters is Science and Technology and Policy. And
29:40
Speaker 1: then I did an m film which was actually in
29:44
Speaker 1: sociology religion. Um that there was a bit more history
29:48
Speaker 1: plus sociology. And then my PhD also sociology religion. Wow, fascinating.
29:52
Speaker 1: That is quite an amazing collection of topics for our listeners.
29:56
Speaker 1: We usually like to ask a science fiction author to
29:59
Speaker 1: sort of orient them cells in the science fiction in
30:02
Speaker 1: the space of science fiction writers. So let me ask
30:04
Speaker 1: you a few questions that we ask all the authors. You,
30:07
Speaker 1: I assume, of course, are familiar with the transporter technology
30:10
Speaker 1: in Star Trek. Yes, and so is it your view
30:14
Speaker 1: that those transporters actually transport your atoms somewhere else or
30:19
Speaker 1: kill you, disassembly you kill you, and then clone you,
30:21
Speaker 1: recreate you somewhere else. Well, to answer that question properly,
30:25
Speaker 1: you would have to talk about the nature of being
30:26
Speaker 1: wouldn't share, yes exactly. So um, I do have some
30:31
Speaker 1: writings in fact, something I'm working on right now with
30:33
Speaker 1: the colleague where I am talking about what does it
30:36
Speaker 1: mean to be discorporate? But so conscious, Um, where does
30:40
Speaker 1: your consciousness reside when you're not in a physical body.
30:43
Speaker 1: Some of that can be looked at mystically, and some
30:45
Speaker 1: of it could be looked at scientifically, especially if you
30:48
Speaker 1: plan to go forward a few centuries. So in that case,
30:50
Speaker 1: would you if somebody invented this technology, would you be
30:53
Speaker 1: willing to step into a transporter? So that's an excellent
30:56
Speaker 1: question because right now I wouldn't be willing to step
30:59
Speaker 1: into a plane. I think. I think that part of
31:05
Speaker 1: it depends on who built it, because it still has
31:07
Speaker 1: to be reliable there, and we've had plenty of episodes
31:11
Speaker 1: about what goes wrong when it doesn't work properly, so
31:15
Speaker 1: you understand that there's always sort of risk once it's
31:17
Speaker 1: sort of built by human hands. But then again, sometimes
31:21
Speaker 1: it's a question of balancing your risk of your opportunity.
31:25
Speaker 1: How else are you're gonna get to see the universal
31:28
Speaker 1: so you're gonna go there into the galaxy? So let's
31:31
Speaker 1: just say it would be very, very tempted, and depending
31:33
Speaker 1: on how much I could trust the manufacturers, I might
31:36
Speaker 1: to go for it. Right, So you look at the
31:37
Speaker 1: brand name before you step in exactly. I want to
31:40
Speaker 1: dig into that a little bit more, but at first
31:42
Speaker 1: we have to take a quick break. Okay, and we're back.
31:56
Speaker 1: I'm interviewing doctor Karen Lower, the author of the book
32:00
Speaker 1: The Best of All Possible World. Well, you have some
32:03
Speaker 1: knowledge of the history of science, which is fascinating. So
32:06
Speaker 1: I'd like to ask you, then, what technology exists in
32:09
Speaker 1: science fiction only that you would like to see become
32:12
Speaker 1: reality in our future. That's a tough one because you know,
32:16
Speaker 1: we've had our jet taxs phase, and then we realized
32:20
Speaker 1: we didn't really want those that much, and then we
32:23
Speaker 1: had our kind of whole busness would you call it again? Well,
32:27
Speaker 1: that that thing which became the iPad, which basically came
32:30
Speaker 1: off of Star Trek, that kind of came into being.
32:33
Speaker 1: I almost feel as if I want to be surprised.
32:36
Speaker 1: I don't want the things that we think we can
32:40
Speaker 1: invent just from our point of view. I want something
32:42
Speaker 1: to come completely unimagined and unimaginable. I surprised me. That's
32:47
Speaker 1: the sort of thing I really want to say. I'm
32:50
Speaker 1: asking your question, is really bad we are? I'm not
32:52
Speaker 1: doing it, yes or no. I'm just sort of always
32:55
Speaker 1: she was in the weird option. You know, the weird
32:57
Speaker 1: option is always the most interesting one. So, and the
33:00
Speaker 1: last in this series of questions, what's your personal answer
33:03
Speaker 1: to the Fermi paradox? If the galaxy is so big
33:06
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of earth bike planets, why
33:09
Speaker 1: haven't we been visited yet by aliens? So well, I
33:12
Speaker 1: wrote that into my books. Because we're so badly behaved,
33:16
Speaker 1: we don't deserve to be visited. We're too dangerous to
33:19
Speaker 1: be visited. Where do you go into that ant's nest
33:23
Speaker 1: in the garden that you know, the waver between avoiding
33:26
Speaker 1: it and wondering if you should call the exterminator. Well,
33:29
Speaker 1: that's sort of terrifying and disappointing to think that they're
33:31
Speaker 1: aliens out there with great knowledge that they're just keeping
33:34
Speaker 1: from us because of our poor behavior. Wow, I'm disappointed
33:37
Speaker 1: in us. Well, then let's tear into your novel, which
33:40
Speaker 1: I read and thoroughly enjoyed. It's called the Best of
33:42
Speaker 1: All Possible Worlds and The novel takes place sort of
33:46
Speaker 1: in the deep future, where humans have a wide variety
33:49
Speaker 1: of mental and physical abilities, including like psionic powers like
33:53
Speaker 1: telepathy and emotional manipulation. What gave you the idea to
33:57
Speaker 1: use this concept new novel. Did you start from the
34:00
Speaker 1: acience and the concept and then developed the story, or
34:02
Speaker 1: was there a story you wanted to tell and you
34:04
Speaker 1: created sort of this concept in framing in order to
34:07
Speaker 1: tell that story. I think it was a little bit
34:09
Speaker 1: of both. I didn't want my aliens to be fully alien.
34:13
Speaker 1: I wanted it to be a concept where the aliens
34:15
Speaker 1: are still human. They're so recognizably human. But then you
34:18
Speaker 1: needed to have a degree of difference that would allow
34:21
Speaker 1: for the usual fare of the other. That is always
34:25
Speaker 1: an interesting thing to play within story. So I remember
34:29
Speaker 1: someone telling me that people had kind of abandoned the
34:33
Speaker 1: psionics aspect of science fiction for a while. Then I
34:36
Speaker 1: was sort of bringing back this old school thing, and
34:37
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought of it that way. I was just
34:40
Speaker 1: interested in something that would allow me to play with
34:42
Speaker 1: the power dynamics between people, the question of you know
34:45
Speaker 1: what if this person really did have some kind of
34:49
Speaker 1: superior or different mental ability that made you feel at risk,
34:53
Speaker 1: made me feel as if they could harm you, And
34:56
Speaker 1: how would that play out in terms of being in
34:58
Speaker 1: a society with them. It's really a story will fall
35:01
Speaker 1: of empire in some ways, so the people from the
35:04
Speaker 1: empire have to look as if they are somehow ahead,
35:08
Speaker 1: and being just technologically ahead wasn't cuting it for me.
35:10
Speaker 1: And so I noticed that in the in the story
35:12
Speaker 1: you tell in this future, you describe the problems these
35:15
Speaker 1: folks face are sort of familiar. There's culture, class, there's conflict,
35:19
Speaker 1: there's identity questions, there's workplace romance. Is that because you
35:23
Speaker 1: think that those problems will be with us forever, that
35:26
Speaker 1: they're part of what makes us human? Or is that
35:28
Speaker 1: just because you wanted to tell a story to people
35:30
Speaker 1: who live today and you wanted to make it sort
35:32
Speaker 1: of accessible. Well, I kind of hate to tell you this,
35:35
Speaker 1: but it's not as far in the future as you think,
35:38
Speaker 1: because remember it doesn't take place on Earth, right because
35:41
Speaker 1: Earth is embargoed because we're kind of, you know, so immature,
35:44
Speaker 1: we need to be left ourselves for a bit. So
35:46
Speaker 1: although I haven't come out and said exactly when it
35:50
Speaker 1: takes place, there are some hints in terms of where
35:54
Speaker 1: the cultural references stop to make you kind of realize that,
35:58
Speaker 1: wait a minute, it might not be as far in
36:00
Speaker 1: the futures. I think. So it's it's close enough for
36:03
Speaker 1: people to have the same flaws and foibles and usual pitfalls,
36:07
Speaker 1: and so there was one sort of factual detail I
36:10
Speaker 1: was a little bit confused about in the stories are
36:12
Speaker 1: these humans or are these aliens? Because they're sometimes described
36:16
Speaker 1: as human cultures, but they do definitely seem like they
36:19
Speaker 1: have abilities that humans don't currently have, which is what
36:22
Speaker 1: made me think maybe it happened in the far future.
36:24
Speaker 1: They are definitely human. At the time, I was interested
36:28
Speaker 1: in some genetic research that was coming out talking about
36:32
Speaker 1: I'm gonna mispernounce all these names. By the way, I'm
36:34
Speaker 1: an author. I always read my words. I never seen them,
36:36
Speaker 1: and then just up front it's a sign of being
36:40
Speaker 1: well read. Yeah they'll go with that. Um, but yes,
36:45
Speaker 1: I was. There was there was research on the genetic
36:47
Speaker 1: traces that the neander dolls and the dinners with them
36:52
Speaker 1: had left behind, and part of me was thinking, um,
36:55
Speaker 1: what if there was a template that they were supposed
36:58
Speaker 1: to be at least three or form closely related human
37:02
Speaker 1: species that could in fact, you know, to use the
37:05
Speaker 1: cruster into breeding and mixed a mixed genetic material and
37:09
Speaker 1: what have you. What if there was another planet that
37:12
Speaker 1: was like mostly in Neantal or mostly Dinnis within what
37:15
Speaker 1: would that look like? So in the back of my head,
37:18
Speaker 1: although I haven't put it in the story, that's what
37:21
Speaker 1: these different so called alien planets are, These different strains
37:25
Speaker 1: of humanity that are somehow kind of you know, hard
37:28
Speaker 1: hardwired into that the whole egg of creation I see.
37:30
Speaker 1: And so in this back story you've imagined, how do
37:33
Speaker 1: humans get on those other planets? Is it's some sort
37:36
Speaker 1: of panspermia where humans have come to Earth and other
37:39
Speaker 1: planets from somewhere else and we are a common thread
37:42
Speaker 1: of evolution. I didn't have a connection between the planets
37:46
Speaker 1: except for between Earth and Singus data and that's when
37:49
Speaker 1: I use the old hand wavy portals thing. As for
37:53
Speaker 1: humanity springing up on those other worlds, I kind of
37:55
Speaker 1: couched him myth. It is sort of an egg met
37:58
Speaker 1: is sort of you know, authors on this actually these
38:01
Speaker 1: four core planets and walla um. But there's nothing to
38:05
Speaker 1: suggest that it's reality. Is probably just a story that
38:09
Speaker 1: you know, parents to older kids or something from some
38:12
Speaker 1: old religion, and nobody really takes it seriously. I like,
38:15
Speaker 1: I like to leave those things a little vague. But
38:18
Speaker 1: but then again, you get this idea that it's not
38:20
Speaker 1: a case of except for you know, three three the planets.
38:25
Speaker 1: It's not a case that there's a slow tradition of
38:27
Speaker 1: interconnection and that allows you to have, um, some quite
38:31
Speaker 1: separate cultures, which is fascinating to play within his own way. Yeah, absolutely,
38:35
Speaker 1: that was that was really fun to read about. I
38:37
Speaker 1: see now that you're saying it's a sort of a
38:39
Speaker 1: structure of a story where we're talking about divergent evolution
38:43
Speaker 1: and how these cultures become different and then they come
38:45
Speaker 1: together and they have those clashes, which is definitely a
38:48
Speaker 1: familiar kind of story. Um. But thinking about the future
38:51
Speaker 1: of humanity, do you think you know in a hundred
38:54
Speaker 1: years or a thousand years that these are things that
38:56
Speaker 1: might happen to humanity, that we might evolve scion abilities
39:00
Speaker 1: or telepathic powers, or or anything else that features in
39:04
Speaker 1: your novel. You know, I am both interested in actually
39:09
Speaker 1: prediction the future and quite terrified vacarium because just just
39:16
Speaker 1: last year I wrote a story which got published in
39:18
Speaker 1: January called the Plague Doctors about a pandemic um. So, yeah,
39:22
Speaker 1: so I'm really careful about that. But the other thing
39:25
Speaker 1: I was riffing off is that nothing that ive described
39:28
Speaker 1: in those books hasn't already been claimed by humans on
39:31
Speaker 1: Earth right now. Different degrees and it, of course, but
39:34
Speaker 1: aspects of of empathy, aspects of you know, twins reading
39:38
Speaker 1: each other's minds across the distance, what have you. That's
39:41
Speaker 1: why it's one of our most loved tropes because it
39:44
Speaker 1: doesn't come out of nowhere. It comes out of people
39:47
Speaker 1: in real life saying but I have this ability, or
39:50
Speaker 1: I have a little touch of this ability. Um. So
39:53
Speaker 1: I thought, well, you know, maybe we too. Maybe it's
39:55
Speaker 1: in process of being developed. Let's just imagine it got
39:58
Speaker 1: a little further now what a society looks like. Yeah, fascinating,
40:02
Speaker 1: And I like how you connected it also to the
40:05
Speaker 1: transportation technology. You made all these references to these mind ships,
40:09
Speaker 1: and I was desperate to know more about this. Can
40:12
Speaker 1: you tell us a little bit about your faster than
40:13
Speaker 1: light mindships, what they are, how they work? I can, indeed.
40:16
Speaker 1: But you know, the scary thing is that first one
40:19
Speaker 1: you invited me and you said, Oh, that's what the
40:21
Speaker 1: science invest for all possible world. I thought, how am
40:23
Speaker 1: I going to talk about the science invest without talking
40:26
Speaker 1: about the science in the Galaxy game, which is a sequel,
40:29
Speaker 1: because that's when I really started to talk about the
40:31
Speaker 1: transportation technology and the mind ships without spoiling too much
40:35
Speaker 1: of a sequel. Um, what comes out about why how
40:39
Speaker 1: the mindships work and how certain other forms of transportation
40:43
Speaker 1: work is that you have to have a collective consciousness.
40:48
Speaker 1: So going back to your question to me, but the
40:50
Speaker 1: Star Trek transport technology, Um, where's your consciousness school when
40:54
Speaker 1: your corporal forms is disassembled? So the idea there is that, Okay,
41:00
Speaker 1: if we have a form of technology or form of ability,
41:04
Speaker 1: you let's say, in this kind of basically a space whale,
41:07
Speaker 1: but it's more like a sting ray, so we won't
41:09
Speaker 1: call it, won't call a space whale. But if we
41:11
Speaker 1: have that ability and we're moving across di mensions, because
41:16
Speaker 1: of course to make this work we have to have
41:17
Speaker 1: our faster than light transportation, how do you could your
41:21
Speaker 1: consciousness together? And that was why I say it came
41:26
Speaker 1: maybe we have to have a larger than human consciousness
41:30
Speaker 1: to survive that kind of travel that has to be
41:33
Speaker 1: collective consciousness. I wasn't fact inspired by something in real life.
41:38
Speaker 1: There's something called Portuguese Man of War, which is like
41:42
Speaker 1: a jellyfish, but not a jellyfish. It's actually a collective organism.
41:45
Speaker 1: It's not one creature. It's like a colony creature. It
41:48
Speaker 1: also gives you the most horribly painful and vile sting
41:51
Speaker 1: you can imagine. But um, you know, I got over
41:54
Speaker 1: that and I took a science and I put it
41:57
Speaker 1: into the book and I said, you know what if
41:59
Speaker 1: you know there were these advantages to becoming a colonic creature,
42:02
Speaker 1: so that not only do you have a future where
42:05
Speaker 1: humanity has these kind of scionic powers developing, but you
42:09
Speaker 1: also have a creature that has a form of intelligence
42:13
Speaker 1: that can combine with human intelligence to form a collective consciousness.
42:18
Speaker 1: And this has some benefits in some way. This has
42:21
Speaker 1: some advantages of um, you know, going through the galaxy
42:25
Speaker 1: at but an ease that just ordinary mechanical solutions would
42:30
Speaker 1: not achieve. So so that was what I was playing with,
42:33
Speaker 1: And that then begins to explain why, for example, the
42:38
Speaker 1: humans of that planet develop in a certain way because
42:40
Speaker 1: it's partly their interaction with the animals that become the
42:44
Speaker 1: mindships that cause them to become so strong telepathically. It's
42:48
Speaker 1: a fascinating twist that the mindships themselves are sent into
42:51
Speaker 1: their essentially animals. When you construct the universe of your novels,
42:56
Speaker 1: and you're building this and putting your story into it,
42:59
Speaker 1: how important is it to you that the science in
43:02
Speaker 1: there be plausible, not necessarily that it follows the same
43:05
Speaker 1: laws of physics that we have, but that there are
43:08
Speaker 1: some laws of physics of that universe that it obeys.
43:11
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I find important. There has to
43:12
Speaker 1: be a cost. There has to be a cost, because, um,
43:16
Speaker 1: if you have free and easy travel, for example, then
43:20
Speaker 1: you almost cannot build a similar to Earth society and
43:24
Speaker 1: and play with it as a story. You've removed some
43:27
Speaker 1: of the constraints that make us who we are. So
43:31
Speaker 1: in some respects you are. You're even when you're making
43:33
Speaker 1: up a technology, you're using something that mirrors a present
43:37
Speaker 1: day constraint and restriction that we have in terms of
43:40
Speaker 1: technology that we're using. As for the details, as for
43:44
Speaker 1: the you know, exactly how does this work? I often
43:48
Speaker 1: say to people, you know, ask someone how a TV works,
43:52
Speaker 1: They don't know. I don't know. It doesn't affect their lives.
43:55
Speaker 1: You know, they're just happy that they get their entertainment.
43:57
Speaker 1: So you you need to be careful how much you
44:01
Speaker 1: immerse yourself in the details of even the stuff you
44:04
Speaker 1: make up as well as the stuff that is real,
44:07
Speaker 1: and ask yourself, Okay, to what extent is this going
44:10
Speaker 1: to advance the story or development to the plot. However,
44:14
Speaker 1: I want to put in a good word for social science,
44:18
Speaker 1: because I might read a story which expronunced to me
44:23
Speaker 1: in great detail how a TV works, and that's nice.
44:27
Speaker 1: But if the relationship between two of the characters is
44:31
Speaker 1: simply implausible, or if the society has this weird gap
44:35
Speaker 1: of who's doing this labor or where is this money
44:38
Speaker 1: coming from, that's what trips me up. Because even though
44:44
Speaker 1: we don't necessarily know the have the vocabulary to understand
44:48
Speaker 1: exactly how our world is structured and and why it
44:50
Speaker 1: works the way it does. When the gaps are there,
44:53
Speaker 1: you can sense it and it doesn't feel quite real,
44:56
Speaker 1: doesn't feel quite right. So for the proper or suspension
45:00
Speaker 1: of disbelief, at least on my side, and I think
45:03
Speaker 1: it's gotten worse and more hung head into sociological study.
45:07
Speaker 1: I need to have a plausible society. I need to
45:09
Speaker 1: have a plausible psychology of the individual as well, and
45:14
Speaker 1: that has to be all affecting how the plot unfolds.
45:18
Speaker 1: If the science of the individual and the collective isn't right,
45:21
Speaker 1: I definitely can't write it. That's fascinating. I agree with
45:24
Speaker 1: you that the story has to take place in the
45:27
Speaker 1: context of some obstacles, some constraints that make the story
45:30
Speaker 1: move forward, that those have to be consistent for the
45:33
Speaker 1: story to make sense, even if you haven't worked out
45:35
Speaker 1: the scientific details. But I think that touches in it
45:38
Speaker 1: really fascinating way on something you said earlier. You're telling
45:41
Speaker 1: me that you're wanting to construct a story that makes
45:43
Speaker 1: sense to us here today, that resonates with us, that
45:45
Speaker 1: makes sense to us, that speaks to who we are
45:47
Speaker 1: as people in our struggles. But also, science fiction is
45:50
Speaker 1: about extrapolating into the future and wondering what we'd like
45:53
Speaker 1: to be human in the five years or a thousand years.
45:57
Speaker 1: Are we limited in our ability to think about what
45:59
Speaker 1: the US are like for humans in a hundred years
46:02
Speaker 1: and five hundred years, and considering the enormous changes and
46:05
Speaker 1: experiences of our person just over the last fifty or
46:08
Speaker 1: hundred years. I think that not every writer, not have
46:12
Speaker 1: respectative fiction writer has the gift to really extrapolate to
46:16
Speaker 1: see what things look like. But I also think that
46:20
Speaker 1: if you write something to show, to hold up a
46:23
Speaker 1: mirror toory your society as as it is now, sometimes
46:26
Speaker 1: that is what survives. And the reason I mentioned this
46:29
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite books is flat Land. And
46:34
Speaker 1: for a book that was written in like, you know,
46:36
Speaker 1: the mid eighteen hundreds, that book holds extraordinarily well, not
46:40
Speaker 1: just of course, in terms of mathematics, which is entirely accurate,
46:44
Speaker 1: but the sociology and all he's doing is critiquing Victorian society.
46:49
Speaker 1: But so many of the aspects that he talks about
46:53
Speaker 1: and the guys of flat Land society are still with
46:56
Speaker 1: us today. So you could say, you know, if you're
46:59
Speaker 1: just going forward a hundred fifty years, you can talk
47:01
Speaker 1: about society and it's still will have some of the
47:04
Speaker 1: same problems and the same challenges, some of the same
47:07
Speaker 1: things that we're trying to work out. I think in
47:09
Speaker 1: a way that's why I wanted to introduce these alien
47:13
Speaker 1: humans who had constructed such different societies that they were
47:17
Speaker 1: influencing the mostly Earth societies to think differently, to to
47:22
Speaker 1: imagine a different way of being. Sometimes I do wonder
47:26
Speaker 1: whether we need some kind of I don't want to
47:28
Speaker 1: call it quite an external shock or maybe an external
47:31
Speaker 1: inspiration to realize, okay, this is how it can be
47:34
Speaker 1: done differently. Well it certainly we'll be fascinating when the
47:36
Speaker 1: aliens decide that we're worth it and come talk to
47:38
Speaker 1: us and tell us wonderful. Well, thank you very much
47:42
Speaker 1: for talking to us about your book. When you tell
47:45
Speaker 1: us a little bit about the projects that you have
47:46
Speaker 1: going on now that might be coming out soon. There
47:48
Speaker 1: is a manuscript that I have just written which would
47:50
Speaker 1: be touching again on the world of bestwell possible wills
47:53
Speaker 1: in the Galaxy game, but you know, with the pandemic
47:57
Speaker 1: and all things, but all delayed, so I probably shouldn't
47:59
Speaker 1: talk about it yet because we're looking at two or
48:02
Speaker 1: so before you'll see it. Um. I've been working on
48:06
Speaker 1: plenty of zoom Tight conferences and festivals and so forth.
48:12
Speaker 1: So coming up in September, the Focuslet Fest, which is
48:16
Speaker 1: based on for them Tobago, is going to be happing
48:18
Speaker 1: an all virtual festival and you could expect to see
48:22
Speaker 1: me there. I'll probably tweet about it closer to the
48:24
Speaker 1: time when I can can give up the dates and
48:26
Speaker 1: what have you. And and prior to that, there's also
48:29
Speaker 1: the Booklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. I may have called that wrong,
48:33
Speaker 1: but I think I have it right. That is going
48:36
Speaker 1: to be the weekend before. So again, those are things
48:38
Speaker 1: that if anybody follows on my Twitter, I'll be sure
48:41
Speaker 1: when I have, like you know, the nice shiny graphics
48:43
Speaker 1: and all the all the right dates and times, I'll
48:46
Speaker 1: be tweeting forward about that. Sounds good. Well, we're looking
48:48
Speaker 1: forward to reading the next book in your series and
48:51
Speaker 1: anything else. You're right, Frankly, it was a pleasure to
48:53
Speaker 1: read your book and the pleasure to talk to you today.
48:56
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Alright, awesome interview, Daniel. It's on
49:00
Speaker 1: interesting her background and also how she kind of used
49:03
Speaker 1: the science fiction to talk about societal issues and like
49:07
Speaker 1: human character issues. Yeah, at the same time an exploration
49:10
Speaker 1: in the future of our society and also like shining
49:12
Speaker 1: a light on how we live and the issues that
49:15
Speaker 1: we face today. And I think one of the points
49:17
Speaker 1: she's making is that as humans were likely to face
49:20
Speaker 1: the same kind of struggles and conflicts no matter what
49:23
Speaker 1: the setting, whether it's on another planet or on a
49:25
Speaker 1: spaceship or just here on Earth trying to survive. Yeah.
49:28
Speaker 1: I like how she totally avoided the question of why
49:31
Speaker 1: do all these Anians look like humans? As I feel
49:33
Speaker 1: like most science fiction authors due, Yeah, like I don't know,
49:36
Speaker 1: or is that a central part of the story. Yeah,
49:39
Speaker 1: I like that. Actually that she owned that. She was like,
49:41
Speaker 1: you know, assuming mythological beginning to my universe and then
49:44
Speaker 1: take it forward from the science at that point. It's
49:47
Speaker 1: a cool It's a really a fascinating blend of like
49:49
Speaker 1: cultural heritage and mythology and then you know, hardcore science fiction.
49:53
Speaker 1: So it's definitely not like any other book I've read,
49:56
Speaker 1: but I really enjoyed. Well again, the book is the
49:58
Speaker 1: best of all possible war World by Karen Lord. All Right, Well,
50:02
Speaker 1: we hope you enjoyed that and give it a try.
50:04
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, see you next time. Thanks for listening,
50:16
Speaker 1: and remember that Daniel and Jorge explained. The Universe is
50:18
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from
50:22
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio Apple Apple
50:25
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