Some Molecular Self-Assembly Required

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Some Molecular Self-Assembly Required

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

Throw enough junk in the hopper, and who knows what you might end up with. In this piece, Mr. Tornello suggests that we have messed with Mother Nature for so long that She might have found ways to turn our carelessness against us. (Excuse me, I need to close the window. That pigeon is giving me a really dirty look.)

RM
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Italics fixed!

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

As was speculated, I missed a close-italics tag after the thought-paragraph for THE DETECTIVE (Richard's preferred designation for the character).

RM
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Re: radioactive comments

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

Bill_Wolfe wrote:
rick tornello wrote:...Though I still can’t figure out why the critters killed Fenwick...

Bill Wolfe[/size]
Um, it was a crime of opportunity (one car, on a lonely road that ran through an area with a large enough population of assorted critters). Also, he was playing Pat Boone's hard rock album on his car stereo. And his car was NOT a hybrid. And then there were the traces of blood and fur on his tires and front bumper from the miscellaneous critters he had callously run over in just the past week. (What? Did Rick forget to mention that?)

Would you believe it was a terrorist strike meant to instill fear through its very randomness? (Not only do the animals (at least collectively) have a better grasp of grammar than most people, they are also students of Che Iquana, the great lizard revolutionary.)

Re: the grammar, perhaps telepathic communication does not actually involve 'words' and sentences, but (per the operating theory of the Star Trek Universal Translator) common concepts. Hence the human 'receiving' the wolf's thoughts supplied the grammatical structure. OR the wolf is only a local node of a worldwide animal telepathic group mind, and the group mind has absorbed a great deal of knowledge from humans in range of its myriad parts (including those with knowledge of technology, drugs, nanochemistry, etc., as well as grammar).

Of course, this raises the question of how the group mind would distinguish the pseudo-knowledge (called "common sense" by the neo-'conservatives' up here, and "nonsense" by more rational and educated people) held by the majority from the actual knowledge held by the relative few. I guess them critters must be collectively intelligent enough to know crap when they smell it...

RM
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Warp drive, wormholes, etc. ...

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

Star Trek, especially The Next Generation, was famous for its technobabble, but was guilty of some whoppers in areas that did NOT depend on future technology. (Case in point: the episode where the crew encountered Montgomery Scott, preserved in a continuously-refreshing transporter buffer on the surface of a Dyson sphere. Problem: the Enterprise was falling into the star at the center of the sphere with both warp and impulse engines offline. Solution: the ship, large enough for a crew of about 1,000, is diverted using the maneuvering thrusters. Them there maneuvering thrusters must have had a ferocious delta-v to have made any significant difference at all...) As Richard says, the 'science', while often central to the plot, was never intended to be taken seriously.

In Stargate, the original movie and the "SG-1" TV series, the "stargates" supposedly create artificial wormholes (but are really equivalent to really long range, more-or-less fixed-location "transporters"). Again, the "science" is central to / essential to the whole premise, and occasionally a major plot element, but aside from using (or abusing) scientific terminology, is not intended to be taken seriously.

Richard mentions some scientific facts, but only as a vague jumping-off point for the purposes of his story (which is, in essence, a Mother Nature Strikes Back tale in the tradition of (look up at imdb.com, if you haven't heard of these) "Frogs", "The Night of the Lepus"*, etc., etc., etc., etc., ....)

He wanted to have some justification, however thin, for the sudden coordinated action by multiple species (some rival predators, some normally prey). Now, assuming that the chemicals caused a mutation rather than a functional change in one generation, that mutation would have been highly advantageous (likely to "breed true")... On the other hand, in the continued and increasing presence of the mutagens, each generation would have had many non-viable changes, so...

The "talking", professorial wolf was a "telling, not showing" shortcut to explain things, the Mad Scientist's soliloquy to the Hero just before he turns on the Death Ray.

And to think poor Richard was upset when people WEREN'T commenting on his story! I bet he's sorry now...

RM

(*A real 'classic' that includes a scene where the protagonists crash a drive-in theater (sadly, some people will have to look THAT up in Wikipedia) and announce "There's a horde of giant killer rabbits coming this way! I need everybody to follow me!" (or words to that effect). (They need a bunch of cars to help them to ...) What makes the scene so wonderful is that ALL THE PEOPLE AT THE DRIVE-IN IMMEDIATELY DO AS INSTRUCTED.)
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I knew you were going to say that...

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

unforgibbon wrote:Hey Robert,
I have a question regarding those TV series. Do you know for a fact that the writers didn't intend for the audience to take the science seriously? Did they reveal that in interviews or something? Or are you assuming that must be the case given the ludicrousness of it (which would allow you to enjoy the shows without any angst :D )?

I know that sounds kind of challenging, but I'm not trying to be. You're making a strong point so I'm curious.
...Because I'm psychic. Call my 1-900 number and I will prove it at length (at $3.99 for the first minute, and $1.99 for each subsequent minute. A real bargain!).

Most writers for TV series know about as much about science as, say, the bastard offspring of Dubya and a certain former Governor of Alaska. They probably read the series "bible", then break some of THOSE rules, and the series "science advisor" (fellows whom I often wanted to smack upside the head) would say, "Sure. Whatever." This is why Steve Austin could run 60 miles an hour without having his (non-bionic) hip joints disintegrate or without falling on his ass (Martin Caidin's books were considerably more realistic) or lift a 600-pound engine block with his one bionic arm without blowing out his non-bionic back and shoulder (or worse, read at super-speed because he had a bionic eye and his bionic hand could turn pages really really fast).

No doubt there were, and are, exceptions, but I would contend that the writers did not, as a rule, care if the 'science' in their scripts would make Von Daniken blush, or if they DID want the 'science' in their stories to be taken seriously, they didn't KNOW how bad it was.

RM
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In other words...

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

So what Bill is saying is that we shouldn't introduce a tidbit of factual information, which raises some expectation that any further technical / scientific discussion will be at least somewhat plausible, then go off on a fantastic tangent that contradicts current science.

See, this is why I had fun with the Al Majius stories -- I present magic as a given, try to establish my own rules for how it works*, and then try to stick to those rules. Nobody can say "That's not consistent with Yablarglekovski's Third Law of Thaumaturgy!" I have done some research on particular magical traditions, but for the most part, most of my efforts go into trying to use real words (if not correct grammar) in the languages for Al's spells (Latin, Romanian, Hebrew, and Arabic).

(*For those who haven't read any of the Majius stories, the rules are simple: magic is real; some people can draw on magical energy (mana) that exists all around them, some can't; the amount of mana may actually be finite (so it can be exhausted locally), but is very large and will tend toward equilibrium (exhausted areas will recover to their "natural" levels over time). People who can't do magic can use objects prepared by people who can (hence pre-charged wands and amulets)...)

On the other hand, one of my few cash-money-garnering stories was a near-future piece in which firefighters could use powered armor (based on deep-sea diving hard-suits, space suit, and experimental exoskeleton technology) to perform rescues in extreme circumstances. I didn't do a LOT of research, because all the technology was an extrapolation of stuff featured in Popular Science and the like, applied to a different purpose, but I did try to keep the suit's capabilities within reasonable bounds.

What seems to bug Bill about "Some Molecular..." is that there is a hint of real science in the reference to FOXP2 as a gene that (a) exists in some form in many species (suggesting the possibility that a single trigger mechanism might induce changes in multiple species, including humans) and (b) is related to the ability to communicate. Bill does NOT buy that some random chemical/nanomolecular synergistic effect could induce telepathy (presumably by affecting FOXP2 or some similar gene) AND that this change could be genetic and inheritable rather than an induced change due to direct effects on developing or even mature animals.

While it would be a trillion-to-one shot that (a) the telepathy mutation would arise in multiple species, including humans, and (b) that the mutation would allow the formation of a cross-species group mind, I don't think it would be impossible. It could be that the detective and his son (and many others claiming telepathic contact) were the results of a series of mutations. For the animals, with much faster sexual maturation, the time for two or three human generations (say 20 - 25 years each) would accommodate ten times that number. In many other individuals, the mutagenic effects might have resulted in cancers and birth defects, some minor (the birth defects, that is), some fatal.

I've noticed that a rather high percentage of children born over the past 20 or 30 years to people I know have congenital defects of one sort or another -- heart murmurs, Down Syndrome, unusual environmental sensitivity, extreme allergies... The incidence of fish and amphibians with deformities has been climbing. Who knows how many benign or beneficial mutations have been accumulating over the past hundred years or so?


Hey, "Creation Science" adherents refuse to believe that a billion-year sequence of random mutations could give rise to complex life forms... Richard is just postulating an improved ability to communicate with relatively minor physical changes.

Bill (hoooooohaaaaaah hooooooohaaaaaah) I find your lack of faith disturbing...

RM
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A rewrite challenge?

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

(Evil grin) It occurs to me that it might be entertaining, in a gawking at a train wreck kind of way, to see what Bill's scientifically-rigorous version of the story might look like... And to be fair, to let Richard do a more literary, less science-bound, version of one of Bill's stories.

As Tao noted, there have been many subgenres of "Science Fiction" over the years, from the all-tech (if purely speculative), no plot or characters stuff of Gernsback's "Ralph 124C 41+" to the New Wave, where mainstream "literary" techniques overshadowed any "scientific" elements. Bill favors the hard-science school of Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, et al. (although most of the "hard sf" writers also wrote fantasy (I don't care whether you call Asimov's Azazel an alien, he was basically a mischievous/inept genie / demon.). Richard prefers (say) Silverberg, Ellison, and the like, where a science fiction concept or term might be part of the setting or even a driver of the plot, but where scientific rigor is optional at best.

Richard got his chocolate in Bill's peanut butter, and Bill didn't like the taste...

:twisted:
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Re: New Entry to the Terminology game!

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

Bill_Wolfe wrote:...So, if I write a time-travel story where two Elizabethan characters (not time-travelers, themselves) meet on the street and one of them says: 'Waasap, Homey?' and the other answers: 'Nuttin', Bee-Ach!' or whatever my admittedly-lame grasp of early 21st street lingo might be. . .nobody is going to mind because it's just a story?

Seriously?

You don't have to be an expert on "Hale fellow, well met!" to know that I didn't get it right. The story is flawed because I didn't do the research to even make the most casual reader believe that this is a real conversation between two 16th century Londoners...

Once again, the point is to either avoid detail or get it right. Out there somewhere is a reader who will be kicked-out of the story by details that just don't make sense, for whatever reason...

Bill Wolfe
Um, you mean "HAIL fellow, well met!" Unless the person addressed is hale, and hearty, too.

Oddly enough, your example works as a counterexample, too. Attempts to use language appropriate for a particular era are more often wrong than right (scrambling the "thees" and "thous" (which are not interchangeable, although I don't recall which is which), puttingeth "eth" on the ends of things for the hell of it), and very few readers know the difference. On the other hand, I have advised more than one author that the dialog (or behavior) they attribute to (say) a person who is supposed to be a corporate executive or a top scientist does not "sound" right. How many readers would know (or care) that Richard's science is bad? Well, there's you, and I guess unforgibbon...

Personally, I liked the weirdness of the multi-species swarming attack enough to just go with it. I didn't think about whether chemically or nano-chemically triggered telepathy would be an "acquired" characteristic versus a genetic change that would be at least potentially inheritable. (Richard never mentioned whether mature individuals of any species became telepathic due to exposure to the chemical soup-from-a-nail, so I assumed that it was a gradual development over generations.)

Now, in the immortal words of Rodney [s]Queen[/s] King, [s]"Can't we kiss and make up?"[/s] "Can't we all just get along?"

RM
Last edited by Robert_Moriyama on July 12, 2009, 09:19:00 PM, edited 1 time in total.
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A Late entry

Post by kailhofer »

I was gone for the weekend, then forced to work 60 hours this week to catch up for being off last week, so I was unable to keep up on this whole fracas. I've read this story, and the back forth on all the comments.

"Getting the Science Right" is an important point of view, but no more than the "Hey, It's Just A Story" one. The real problem in this story and what probably sparked all this, in my opinion, was not being true to the universe of the story.

I myself do not know the science necessary to turn animals into vengeful, super-intelligent telepaths, and don't want to. Don't get me wrong, a story may be hard SF, and then should be expected to get it all right. Likewise, a story may be rather limp in its SF quotient and be fine. Heck, it may be full of absolute absurdity and become a beloved classic.

What I do know a thing or two about is story craftsmanship.

Regardless of the skill level of the writer, a vitally important part of the audience's enjoyment are the rules of the universe of the story, and not having those rules broken while they're reading. That is, the story needs to not break their suspension of disbelief, so we as writers have to get them in the right mindset first.

If I can force my somewhat jellied brain into some semblance of its former self, I will explain. (Why didn't someone tell me printing can jelly your brain? I digress.)

In beginning of every story, and it's not something restricted to any specific word count, an author establishes a setting for the reader. A part of that setting gives the reader a sense of what is or what isn't possible in the universe of the story. That sets the reader in a frame of mind of what to expect--"the rules" of the world.

If a story starts out with a talking rubber ball, then the reader rolls with it (sorry, couldn't resist the pun). If it's Obi-wan in a lightsaber duel, we know what to expect. Kipling started The Jungle Book in the minds of the wolf pack, so we knew the story would be about animals that could talk straight off.

Unfortunately, the links have changed with the month and the new issue so I can't check my facts, but as I recall the story started with the guy in the truck getting lynched by animals. I couldn't say if the animals "talked" at this point or not. I don't remember them doing so. Regardless, we know from this that animals can conduct coordinated attacks and that it's a serious threat. Next, we're introduced to the hero.

So as I understand it as a reader, I'm going to read a story about an overworked, slightly-dim detective up against an inexplicable animal attack. Between recollections of his wife and talking with his son, we know that the rules of nature are changing. The detective himself seems to be developing telepathy. Finding it all too hard, the detective gives up and goes on vacation, falling prey to the same animal trap.

To this point, everything works as a story for me.

Then the animals get chatty.

That they talk was not a deal breaker to me, although at this point I wanted to know why they were so focused on killing the first guy, when now they're explaining it to him first. Still, I was into it. The wolf was much smarter than the man, and this is where it all started falling apart for me.

Nothing in the opening prepared me for this. Animals attack. It happens. Sometimes animals attack in groups. I can dig that. But in my human pride, I can't believe that they're smarter than a man. More cunning, more skilled, or more driven, sure, but not smarter and more articulate. Then, the wolf had detailed knowledge of things he should not have a way of comprehending.

(I wish I could see the text while writing this, but...) I mean, what does a typical wolf know, really? What it perceives with with its senses, and what it knows by instinct. If it got smarter by mutation or manipulation, I suspect it would know more about it's prey, more about why it moves the way it does, and when it will. It might know more about where people and places are. It could remember more, and perhaps share that knowledge with others. So in that regard it should have spacial and social abilities. It shouldn't have a knowledge of chemistry, genetics, or anything that one would have to study in books, IMO because books and what they contain would have no relevance. No thumbs for turning pages, if nothing else.

Was the science right? Beats me. Don't care. What broke the disbelief was that according to the "rules" of this universe as I understood it, was that apart from killing in mixed packs, animals were still animals.

Why could Scotty and the USS Jenolen (I'm shocked I remember the name) save the Enterprise and get it out of the Dyson sphere? Because he's Scotty. We know he's a miracle worker, and reality can get out of the way for him. Why does the out of context 'Waasap, Homey?' between the Elizabethan gentlemen bother readers? Because it's against the rules established in their minds. Why doesn't the movie Airplane! set off alarms? Because it's established right away as a farce.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that if the reader expects to see a hard SF story, then one should get his facts as straight as possible. If not, then fast and loose will probably work. The key is letting the reader know what to expect, and that's all about perfecting story craft.

Was any of this coming off as sensible? I'm beginning to doubt the resilience of my jellied gray matter.

Nate
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The wolf is not smarter than the detective...

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

The wolf, whose brainpower is limited by the brain-bodymass ratio in spite of its mutations, is not smarter than the detective. However, the group mind (which may consist of a network of thousands of linked animal minds) is. While individual humans are far more intelligent than individual mutated animals, a single human is not more intelligent than some indeterminate number of networked animal minds.

(Why haven't the telepathic humans formed a group mind? It may be that individual sentience gets in the way -- too many individual egos and divergent motivations. As somebody observed, animals live to eat and reproduce; humans are considerably more complicated.)

RM

By the way, to access the story in that Limbo-like period between the changeover to a new issue and updating of the Back Issue Index, try

http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/shorts/ ... ename.html

yyyy = four-digit year
mm = two-digit month (01, 02, ..., 12)
filename = (usually) the title with spaces removed.

Of course, with long, complicated titles, the filename is usually shortened to include only a few words. But in this case, it's
SomeMolecularSelfAssemblyRequired.html
so the full link is
http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/shorts/ ... uired.html
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Re: The wolf is not smarter than the detective...

Post by kailhofer »

Robert_Moriyama wrote:The wolf, whose brainpower is limited by the brain-bodymass ratio in spite of its mutations, is not smarter than the detective. However, the group mind (which may consist of a network of thousands of linked animal minds) is. While individual humans are far more intelligent than individual mutated animals, a single human is not more intelligent than some indeterminate number of networked animal minds.
How do you know it wasn't just the one wolf's mind? In the text, it said
The wolf continued, All animals can communicate and with each other...
It didn't say the group mind continued, or the wolves together, it just said the wolf, singular. I agree a group mind would indeed have the potential for more intelligence, but must have missed where they actually were that.

The wolf character (if indeed singular) most certainly was smarter.
We all have restructured neural pathways based upon the nano carbon technology you introduced to the planet. It forced the rewiring of all our brains. A little molecular self-assembly, if you will.
From my reading, I didn't think the detective would know what nano carbon technology was. The detective relied on the thinking of Bill, his son, and Annie, his late wife, to explain things to him. The wolf, on the other paw, clearly didn't need any explanation of the world around it.

The story sets him up to be a bit dim, which is why the obvious intelligence of the wolf was so jarring to me.
(Why haven't the telepathic humans formed a group mind? It may be that individual sentience gets in the way -- too many individual egos and divergent motivations. As somebody observed, animals live to eat and reproduce; humans are considerably more complicated.)
The social interactions of a wolf pack are rather complex, plus the interactions between them and environment, them and prey. It's a lot more complicated than one would think, and honestly, humans act a lot more like other primates socially than they would like to admit. Family reunions and teenagers on playgrounds are great to watch as they form groups and interact. Then compare them to the zoo.

Or maybe that's just my relatives...

Nate
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