# Hard Science Fiction? Singularity Science Fiction?



## Lynxsie (Jan 30, 2018)

What is Hard Science Fiction? What is Singularity Science Fiction?


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## The Judge (Jan 30, 2018)

Um... are you going to win anything in this quiz?  Because if you're expecting us to do all the work, we should get some of the prize.  

Meanwhile, this isn't a writing matter, so I'll move the thread to SFF Lounge.


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## Lynxsie (Jan 30, 2018)

I'm broadening your Sci fi Spectrum.  I also won't win anything in this quiz, besides credit for it being done. So I will definitely share that credit with you.  I'm hoping to get 100% on the quiz, and the teacher said it was an "Impossible quiz" because nobody has ever gotten 100% on it. So I'm up for the challenge!


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## Lumens (Jan 30, 2018)

Hard scifi is not easy.

Singularity scifi is about artefisial intnellignese.


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## Dennis E. Taylor (Jan 30, 2018)

Hard science fiction is SF that's hard to write. 

But seriously (Thank you, I'm here until Thursday. Try the beef), very probably the reason no one gets 100% is because even SF readers and writers can't agree on exactly what hard SF is.


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## tinkerdan (Jan 30, 2018)

Singularity science fiction seems mostly centered on humans transcending what is human. (Sort of like the only AI in the shell comes is from the consciousness of a human who has transcended the need for a body.)

An example might be Accelerando by Charles Stross
And perhaps John Shirley's Song Called Youth
Oh and don't forget Ruddy Rucker

As mentioned Hard Science Fiction is a difficult thing to define as even the experts vary.

Going way back I suppose most of Jules Verne's books could be classed as such at least when they were written and now they seem more classics than Hard Science.

My thought is that no matter how hard the science in a novel there will always be elements that look like magic and so we are left with a sort of conundrum about whether it is hard based and would truly look magical from our perspective. Also one has to consider the thought of it being based on science as we know physics today--which may prove troublesome tomorrow when we know better. This is why Speculative fiction works better because most Sci-fi novels are speculating about future knowledge.


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## Brian G Turner (Jan 30, 2018)

Hard Science Fiction usually has some emphasis on science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, as an integral part of the story, and in a way that is consistent, believable, and explainable in terms of current scientific understanding.

So, in _Star Trek_, Scotty talking about Dilithium Crystals powering the Warp Drive isn't Hard Science Fiction because there's no explanation of the scientific principles involved and especially not in a way consistent with current scientific theories - whereas Arthur C Clarke's novel _Imperial Earth_ would be, not least because maths problems form a significant part of the storytelling, among other things.

That's just my initial thought, anyway.


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## tinkerdan (Jan 30, 2018)

I agree with this::


Brian G Turner said:


> Hard Science Fiction usually has some emphasis on science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, as an integral part of the story, and in a way that is consistent, believable, and explainable in terms of current scientific understanding.
> 
> So, in _Star Trek_, Scotty talking about Dilithium Crystals powering the Warp Drive isn't Hard Science Fiction because there's no explanation of the scientific principles involved and especially not in a way consistent with current scientific theories - whereas Arthur C Clarke's novel _Imperial Earth_ would be, not least because maths problems form a significant part of the storytelling, among other things.
> 
> That's just my initial thought, anyway.


::However I find that maths are a core in many such as Heinlein's work and that other sciences often deviate from the hard in the works of Heinlein, Clark and even Asimov to the extent that maybe we should call it MM Science fiction. Soft science with hard shell of maths around it.


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## Serendipity (Jan 30, 2018)

Hard science fiction can be defined as Brian suggested. For some it has another meaning, which I personally don't like, namely it relies heavily on the science of the mid-twentieth century and its extrapolations. You know like Apollo spacecraft extended kind of thing, i.e. lot of 'hard science fiction' aficionados seem to be stuck in a time warp of last century. 

The trouble with hard science fiction as Brian defines it, is that it is difficult to write it in language that non-science-orientated readers would enjoy, without it getting too long-winded and therefore boring for the reader.


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## J Riff (Jan 30, 2018)

Never heard of singularity sf... not to be confused with 'the singularity' which trips up a lot of novice SF writers. Hard SF tends to verifiable science, or at least very believable tech-babble. * )


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## Dennis E. Taylor (Jan 31, 2018)

True "Hard SF" purists will state that hard SF doesn't use anything that isn't explainable by current knowledge. Then they'll sometimes point to "Rendezvous with Rama", which unfortunately contains some magic (all the tech in Rama is unexplainable).

As such there's probably a continuum of hard SF, with people disagreeing loudly about every point on the spectrum. Star Trek is certainly harder SF than Star Wars, and both are harder than Space 1999. McDevitt's_ Moonfall_ would be hard SF by most definitions, since all the technology in it is present-day possible--except that the thingamajig that rams the moon in the first place, maybe not so much.

So pick your line in the sand and defend it to the death.


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## Lumens (Jan 31, 2018)

Dennis E. Taylor said:


> True "Hard SF" purists will state that hard SF doesn't use anything that isn't explainable by current knowledge.



So what you are saying is that the hardest scifi of them all, isn't scifi at all.


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## tinkerdan (Jan 31, 2018)

I've always mused over and laughed about this::


Lumens said:


> So what you are saying is that the hardest scifi of them all, isn't scifi at all.


::However if you take the books written about Apollo 13 and rewrote them with fictitious names and a fanciful title then that would be the closest you could get to pure science fiction: yes.


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## J Riff (Jan 31, 2018)

Heh. Trek and Wars are space opera, nowhere near 'hard' SF. Reads 30s pulps and you will think its SWars minus some modren techtalk. That stuff was lightyears ahead of its time. Today the demographic is big, _Orville _is what you end up with, 75 years later, just goofy fun in a SF setting.


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## WarriorMouse (Feb 7, 2018)

Edit
Lumens wrote....
"artefisial intnellignese"


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## Foxbat (Feb 7, 2018)

I'd have thought that Singularity Science Fiction would be about...well...singularities


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## Parson (Feb 7, 2018)

I would agree that there is no real definition of Hard S.F. For most readers and reviewers it is easy to consign something to space fantasy when no attempt to explain the science is given; ie _Ender's Game. _Something is clearly Hard S.F. when the science that is described is understandable and probably even possible with today's abilities and nearly certainly in the near future; ie _The Martian_. But the huge number of stories which fall between these extremes is mostly personal opinion. 

*Singularity Science Fiction? *.... This is the first I've heard about this niche genre.


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## Lumens (Feb 7, 2018)

Parson said:


> *Singularity Science Fiction? *.... This is the first I've heard about this niche genre.


Same here, I just assumed it had to do with Ray Kurzweil's notion of the singularity event; when computers pass the turing test. Or something like that: The Singularity Is Near - Wikipedia


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## Mirannan (Feb 7, 2018)

Foxbat said:


> I'd have thought that Singularity Science Fiction would be about...well...singularities



And it is. Just a different sort of singularity, that's all. Roughly speaking, a singularity (the term comes from mathematics) is a point on a graph - or the changes which the graph depicts - where some variable goes rapidly off towards infinity. The particular variable being discussed when it comes to a Vingean singularity is computer processing power and intelligence.

The point is that a computer (or network thereof) with sufficiently high processing power and the ability to create or co-opt more - and the right software, which is the real sticking point - would rapidly improve itself and therefore become able to improve itself even faster and...

And it seems that humanity wants computers with the ability to generalise from examples, and "guess" what the meaning of a previously unknown piece of data is. I have actually seen this happen, in a limited way. The scenario was a robot trained to recognise objects and put them into classes, together with machine learning software. And this particular machine was presented with a large number of examples of a class of objects, widely varying in their detailed shape - they happened to be chairs. When presented with a chair it had never seen before, it rapidly (less than a second) and correctly classified it as a chair.

Go Zero is also relevant here, I think.

The problem is that the Singularity makes life difficult for SF authors, particularly as it is probably quite close. Either one has somehow to explain the absence of weakly godlike entities in the setting, or ignore the whole subject, or write stories in which humans are of minor importance in the setting but nevertheless worth writing about.

Transapient AI would not be gods, as various mythologies and religions (not including those with omnipotent deities) have depicted them. Such as the Greek mythos, for example. They would be far more powerful than that. And much more difficult to understand.

This site might be interesting for anyone interested in the subject who has not seen it before. (Warning; there is some seriously difficult material here):

Orion's Arm


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## WarriorMouse (Feb 8, 2018)

So does that mean Terminator(Skynet) and the Matrix are Singularity SF?


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## Mirannan (Feb 8, 2018)

WarriorMouse said:


> So does that mean Terminator(Skynet) and the Matrix are Singularity SF?



I think not, but that's just my opinion. Terminator is about a computer network (Skynet) becoming sapient and going off the rails; the Matrix is about a very large system. Neither addresses the issue (whether it's ever going to be real or not) about exponentially increasing computer power.

Another linked theme is transhumanism, roughly defined as humans (or in later versions, AI) becoming so intellectually powerful that they transition into a different order of being that humans are never going to understand now matter how long they try. A little like the difference between sentience and sapience, often illustrated by something like this:

Imagine having a conversation with various entities, leaving aside the issue of physical ability to speak. Make it about an abstruse subject, if you like; existentialism or quantum chemistry, perhaps. Maybe it would be possible to manage this with a dolphin, but almost certainly not with a dog. The concepts are simply beyond its ability to grasp. Ever.

Now imagine a being who thinks about things of such a high order of abstraction that no human could comprehend them. Maybe for lack of time to process them, maybe simply because humans don't have enough easily available memory storage to hold them. That's a transhuman, or sometimes a transapient.


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## WarriorMouse (Feb 9, 2018)

Mirannan said:


> I think not, but that's just my opinion.  Neither addresses the issue (whether it's ever going to be real or not) about exponentially increasing computer power.
> 
> Another linked theme is transhumanism, roughly defined as humans (or in later versions, AI) becoming so intellectually powerful that they transition into a different order of being that humans are never going to understand now matter how long they try.
> 
> imagine a being who thinks about things of such a high order of abstraction that no human could comprehend them. Maybe for lack of time to process them, maybe simply because humans don't have enough easily available memory storage to hold them. That's a transhuman, or sometimes a transapient.



Hmm...
But while the issue is not directly addressed it can be inferred. Both systems had to start small and then grow into  the massive AI's they are.

As to "transapient". that sounds like the sphere in Independance Day Resurgence or the aliens in Arrival or the Q in Next Generation.


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