
Ted Chiang's Soulful Science Fiction - samclemens
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/ted-chiangs-soulful-science-fiction
======
hammerzeit
I really enjoyed the frustration of the article's author in trying to
attribute Ted Chiang's writing to his personal life or history.

We as humans seem to have this unceasing tendency to essentialize -- to
believe that everything we do comes from deep-seated psychological needs. We
project every action onto some event from years past with a parent, a lover, a
friend.

I feel like this is borne out of a desire to believe that behavior is
deterministic. That if only we too had undergone the experiences of the person
who we're reading about, we too would be that acclaimed sci-fi writer, or
famous entrepreneur, or asshole president. It excuses, to some extent, the
fact that we are not that person.

But sometimes that's not the case. Sometimes we just build shit for fun. It
doesn't all have to be us coming to terms with our distant father.

Zuckerberg, of all people, once had a quote vis-a-vis The Social Network
(can't seem to find it) that basically amounted to the idea that they had to
make the entirety of Facebook be about his rejection by a girl because the
idea of people building something cool for its own sake doesn't make a good
movie.

What's interesting for me is I feel like this armchair psychologizing we all
do is getting worse. I don't have any evidence to back this up, just a feeling
-- as we're exposed to more people's behaviors, we fall back to essentialist
attributions of that behavior more and more.

~~~
tux1968
> What's interesting for me is I feel like this armchair psychologizing we all
> do is getting worse.

I'm sorry, but you have to admit if you read back your own comment, it's
mostly filled with armchair psychologizing.

~~~
jessaustin
That's fun, but surely TFA can be held to a higher standard than an HN
comment? It read like a Terry Gross interview, for goodness' sake.

------
djhworld
Tower of Babylon was superb, I read it with the other short stories (can't
remember the name of the collection) a month or so ago.

Wasn't so sure about the rest of them though, I felt the Babylon story kind of
eclipsed all of them.

~~~
exhilaration
I got the audiobook from Audible [1] after reading about it on HN and that's
the only story I asked my wife to listen to - she loved it and she's not a
science fiction fan.

[1] [http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Stories-of-Your-
Lif...](http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Stories-of-Your-Life-and-
Others-Audiobook/B00I5S2PI4)

~~~
iwintermute
Interesting - i've tried to find Ted's books on Audible several times with no
results. And it happens to be regional restriction.

"We're sorry. Due to publishing rights restrictions, we are not authorized to
sell this item in the country where you live."

Sigh.

------
sohkamyung
"Exhalation" is my favourite Ted Chiang story. It can be read at Lightspeed
[1].

I'm probably in the minority here, but I didn't really enjoy "The Lifecycle of
Software Objects". I though it was too long and, while I work in firmware, the
story's software model didn't connect with me.

[1]
[http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/](http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/)

~~~
dagw
_I 'm probably in the minority here_

Are you? I've never met anyone who includes Lifecycle of Software Objects in
their favorite Ted Chiang stories

~~~
sohkamyung
Well, the reviews of it that I've read have been complimentary, like those on
Goodreads [1] and other SF related publications. So I naturally assume that I
was in the minority since I didn't enjoy it as much as Ted Chiang's other
stories.

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7886338-the-lifecycle-
of...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7886338-the-lifecycle-of-software-
objects)

------
Jun8
Wow, there are _so_ many interesting bits here that I felt compelled to
comment on some:

1\. "... they gave thanks that they were permitted to see so much, and begged
forgiveness for their desire to see more.” When I discover with mind-blowing
physical discovery (e.g.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules%E2%80%93Corona_Boreal...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules%E2%80%93Corona_Borealis_Great_Wall))
I sometimes feel this way about humanity's great foray into the universe.

2\. "He writes the science fiction that would have existed in an earlier era,
had science existed then." I interpret this to be a very insightful comment on
what SF is. Some people take SF to be inventing stuff, humans _always_ did
that sort of thing through mythology (in fact one can argue that in the past
we had much more of it and science kills it). OTOH I think the real SF is
taking a scientific framework and tweaking parts of it what-ifs to demonstrate
aspects of humanity, in way any other work of literature operates. This does
require science.

3\. "Chiang’s vision of a world without faith, in which the certain and proven
existence of God is troubling, rather than reassuring." This is absolutely
true, if the existence of God were to be proven beyond doubt (which, if you
think about it seems paradoxical) existence would be intolerable, _much_ more
so than if the reverse was proven.

4\. "I believe that the universe is deterministic, but that the most
meaningful definition of free will is compatible with determinism”. Spot on!
"We must believe in free will -- we have no choice." \- Isaac Bashevis Singer

5\. “There’s a book by Umberto Eco called ‘The Search for the Perfect
Language,’ ” he said. Great book that I would recommend to anyone.

6\. "In “Understand,” he pointed out, the protagonist learns to reprogram his
own mind." After finishing _Snow Crash_ I have been thinking that some form of
brain hacking should be possible using light pulses and linguistics as input
([http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/11187/are-the-
langu...](http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/11187/are-the-language-
elements-in-snow-crash-supported-by-science)).

Altogether an amazing guy, ordering his books from Amazon right now.

~~~
mirimir
> the protagonist learns to reprogram his own mind

You'd want a backup before trying anything substantial.

~~~
smallnamespace
Probably, but it doesn't protect you against bad edge cases, like screwing
with your own mind so much that you no longer can or want to activate the
backup.

~~~
adrianN
Kind of like when you could set your screen resolution to a value that wasn't
supported by your screen and it didn't reset automatically after 30 seconds.

------
frgtpsswrdlame
_Hell is the Absence of God_ is really great and I don't normally go for that
sort of thing. There used to be an audiobook version on youtube which looks
like it's been taken down now. Anyways hunt it up if you can, it's great
commute material.

------
cqlchess
Chiang's "Understand" and "Story of Your Life" are two of the best stories
ever written in my view. They evince a mastery of prose craftsmanship that's
incredibly rare, combined with fascinating but logical plot ideas.

Being a Chiang fan is frustrating though because he writes so little!

~~~
kbenson
I specifically read "Story of Your Life" a few months back prior to watching
Arrival, as some people here claimed they liked the movie Adaptation better. I
have to say I agree. It was a fine short story, and had some very good
conceptual elements, but I found his explanation of the phenomenon and it's
consequences for people subject to it lacking (or perhaps I misunderstood a
portion of it). The movie skirted actual explanations with respect to this,
but thus wasn't subject to scrutiny that may have shown it to be less solid
than was supposed.

~~~
StavrosK
SPOILERS AHEAD

I don't like how the movie makes her daughter to be dying of a disease. In the
book, she dies in a climbing accident, which the protagonist knows full well
will happen but does nothing to prevent it, thus demonstrating how committed
she was to an immutable, deterministic future.

I liked the story better. I think it helped that the actress reading the story
in the audiobook was excellent.

~~~
kbenson
I think some aspects of that are covered that well in the movie, in that she
knew her daughter would die, and made a choice to have one anyways, _and
subject her husband to that pain_ presumably without his knowledge or consent.

The problem I had with the story, if I understood it correctly, is not that
she chose to be committed, but that she actually had no choice. This is,
essentially the part of the story I found problematic. It was explained enough
to bypass my suspension of disbelief, but not enough to provide an explanation
I could accept. How do you have free through without free action?

I would love to revisit the story and find evidence to support that point, or
to find that I misread or misunderstood, but I unfortunately don't have a way
to do that right now. :/

~~~
StavrosK
This is directly addressed in the books, sufficiently, in my opinion:

> The heptapods are neither free nor bound as we understand those concepts;
> they don't act according to their will, nor are they helpless automatons.
> What distinguishes the heptapods' mode of awareness is not just that their
> actions coincide with history's events; it is also that their motives
> coincide with history's purposes. They act to create the future, to enact
> chronology.

> Freedom isn't an illusion; it's perfectly real in the context of sequential
> consciousness. Within the context of simultaneous consciousness, freedom is
> not meaningful, but neither is coercion; it's simply a different context, no
> more or less valid than the other. It's like that famous optical illusion,
> the drawing of either an elegant young woman, face turned away from the
> viewer, or a wart-nosed crone, chin tucked down on her chest. There's no
> "correct" interpretation; both are equally valid. But you can't see both at
> the same time.

> Similarly, knowledge of the future was incompatible with free will. What
> made it possible for me to exercise freedom of choice also made it
> impossible for me to know the future. Conversely, now that I know the
> future, I would never act contrary to that future, including telling others
> what I know: those who know the future don't talk about it. Those who've
> read the Book of Ages never admit to it.

~~~
kbenson
> Similarly, knowledge of the future was incompatible with free will. What
> made it possible for me to exercise freedom of choice also made it
> impossible for me to know the future. Conversely, now that I know the
> future, I would never act contrary to that future, including telling others
> what I know: those who know the future don't talk about it. Those who've
> read the Book of Ages never admit to it.

That right there pretty much sums up the point I had trouble with. How does
knowledge make it impossible to exercise free will? Or since it's stated the
other way around, is it that you just don't know the things you would be
compelled to change, so it's not that you see all of the future, but that you
only see the future that you can't or won't change?

In any case, I find "Conversely, now that I know the future, I would never act
contrary to that future" hard to accept at face value. I find it hard to
reconcile how free will will coexists with a system like this, since I imagine
someone will try to fight that purely on principle. Maybe those people would
know little or nothing about the future though, since their desire to change
it would prevent it's knowledge in the first place.

Finally, "including telling others what I know: those who know the future
don't talk about it. Those who've read the Book of Ages never admit to it." is
odd to me. Why do they not talk about it? To me, this implies a lack of free
will, otherwise again, someone would talk about it, even after the fact. Is it
really that people _do not_ or is it that they _can not_ , because I can't
really see _do not_ being followed.

In the end, I'm left with a very muddy and inconsistent view of how this works
because of those explanations. Then again, doing this well may have been an
impossible task for me. If there isn't an explanation that blends free will
and knowledge of the future that exists, or in a way I can understand and
accept, the alternative for this story is no free will, and while consistent,
it's also bleak and disconcerting, since I'm not sure there's much that's
quite as bad as knowledge of the future and along with it knowledge that you
can do nothing to change it. Either you never want to change it, which points
to sentience being a lie, or you do but cannot, in which case you are a
prisoner in your own body. :/

~~~
StavrosK
I read it differently from you. What I read is that there are two "modes", one
with free will but with no knowledge of the future, and one with knowledge of
the future but that effectively "forces" you to play your part in what you
know the future to be. I feel that this explanation agrees with the two
"interpretations" of refraction mentioned in the book.

However, then the question arises: How do you reconcile the fact that some
beings can see the future when there are other beings in the world that have
free will (and thus are able to change the future that the former see)?

I consider the explanation in the book sufficient, though. I don't expect my
fiction to be _perfectly_ consistent with everything, and this particular
story passes my personal, subjective bar.

~~~
kbenson
> I consider the explanation in the book sufficient, though. I don't expect my
> fiction to be perfectly consistent with everything, and this particular
> story passes my personal, subjective bar.

Sure, and that's your prerogative. For me, the explanation made me think about
some of the mechanics more than I had bothered to up to that point, and what I
viewed as inconsistencies actually detracted from the story and ruined some of
the immersion. It changed my opinion of the story from "great" to just "very
good, with some problems".

In the end, the movie was a bit more hand-wavey on the specifics, but in this
case, I found that to provide for a tighter story, and one in which I wasn't
plagued by some confusion at some point. So, I subjectively liked the movie
_as a story_ more, as it was more able to sustain a suspension of disbelief in
my opinion, but that's not to imply I disliked the short story.

------
intrasight
I just finished the audio version of "Stories of Your Life and Others" and did
enjoy it very much.

~~~
thisone
Aye, I read it and it's been a long time since I found a short story
collection that made me miss university. Lots to unpack in those stories.

------
TheGRS
There are major spoilers to the movie Arrival in this article, so make sure
you watch it (or read the short story) before reading this.

------
ismail
Stories of your life and others has got to be one of my favorite collections
of science fiction short stories.

Any other recommendations?

~~~
nyolfen
chiang got me into borges, and i can't recommend him enough if you're a fan of
the former. i love chiang but borges has become my favorite fiction author.
borges also seems quite popular among programmers.

~~~
ryanplant-au
Borges' one-paragraph story "On Exactitude in Science":

"... In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the
map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the
Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no
longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire
whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with
it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of
Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast map was Useless,
and not without some Pitilessness was it that they delivered it up to the
Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today,
there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all
the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography."

------
WCityMike
"He writes the science fiction that would have existed in an earlier era, had
science existed then" made me think with amusement of caveman science fiction
[1].

I've been a fan of Chiang for a very long time. I'm a real fan of
superintelligence fiction [2] and "Understand" [3] was the first to catch my
attention.

[1] [http://dresdencodak.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/09/2009-09-2...](http://dresdencodak.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/09/2009-09-22-caveman_science_fiction.jpg)

[2] [https://ask.metafilter.com/286008/Seeking-Hyperbrain-
Books-F...](https://ask.metafilter.com/286008/Seeking-Hyperbrain-Books-Films-
Chiangs-Understand-Lucy-Limitless)

[3]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20140527121332/http://www.infini...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140527121332/http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm)

------
nyolfen
I dug these up and posted them in the last Chiang thread I saw, here are some
links to his short stories:

Division by Zero:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20110319012240/http://www.fantas...](https://web.archive.org/web/20110319012240/http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/i/division/full/)

> A brilliant mathematician wrestles with the consequences of her
> earthshattering proof.

Understand:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20110527120639/http://www.infini...](https://web.archive.org/web/20110527120639/http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm)

> An experimental treatment bestows a regular person with superintelligence,
> propelling him into a dangerous series of mindgames.

Story of Your Life:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20101206050220/http://guccipiggy...](https://web.archive.org/web/20101206050220/http://guccipiggy.objectis.net/prose/storyofyourlife)

> A talented linguist reflects on her life as she struggles to grasp the
> meaning of an alien language. Nebula Award (Best Novella). [this is the
> story the recent film Arrival is based on]

Seventy-Two Letters:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20010802144026/http://www.tor.co...](https://web.archive.org/web/20010802144026/http://www.tor.com/72ltrs.html)

> In a world where mystical scrolls impart animating power, a shocking
> discovery threatens to upend society.

Hell is the Absence of God:
[http://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/70896/Chiang_-
_Hell...](http://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/70896/Chiang_-
_Hell_Is_the_Absence_of_God.html)

> An unbeliever struggles with the question of faith when God is scientific
> fact and angels routinely visit the earth. Hugo, Locus, Nebula Awards (Best
> Novelette).

What's expected of us:
[http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/w...](http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/whats_expected.html)

> A simple time machine undermines the concept of free will, with disastrous
> consequences.

The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20120911120914/http://www.dregst...](https://web.archive.org/web/20120911120914/http://www.dregston.com/boards/read.php?16,22867,22867)

> An ancient alchemist introduces a traveling merchant to a mysterious time-
> traveling gateway. Hugo, Nebula Awards (Best Novelette).

[I looted these from here, fixing the broken links I could and excluding the
ones I couldn't: [http://www.metafilter.com/98974/This-isnt-your-
grandfathers-...](http://www.metafilter.com/98974/This-isnt-your-grandfathers-
science-fiction) \-- there are a few more links in there, including some
essays.]

------
mind_heist
I just got his book yesterday after realizing that the movie "Arrival" was
based on one of his short stories. Really looking forward to reading it !

------
kaycebasques
Fun fact: he is (or maybe "was", now that his fiction is so successful) a
technical writer.

~~~
state
Someone just told me this yesterday, and I found it so interesting. I'd be so
curious to know what he was writing / who he was writing for. Those must be
some fantastic docs!

~~~
philiplu
Well, 25 years ago, he worked down the hall from me at Microsoft, writing docs
for the Fortran compiler. Not sure if he ever wrote docs for the C/C++
compiler that I worked on (this was pre-Visual C++ or maybe just as VC got
started), nor do I remember how long he was there. But I do remember being
thrilled that a Nebula and Campbell award winner was a co-worker.

~~~
moyix
I asked him about this at a reading he did a few months ago – apparently he
still does technical writing for them, and at least some of it is still in
their C++ documentation.

------
mrkgnao
> In “Understand,” he pointed out, the protagonist learns to reprogram his own
> mind. He knits together the vocabularies of science and art, memory and
> prediction, literature and math, physics and emotion. “He’s searching for
> the perfect language, a cognitive language in which he can think,” Chiang
> said. “A language that will let him think the kinds of thoughts he wants.”

I wonder how many of us have, at some point, harbored the (if poorly formed
and not at all thought-through) beginnings of such an idea.

------
andrewflnr

      A script based on another of his stories,
      “Understand,” is also in development.
    

How in blazes do you make a movie of a story that happens almost entirely in
the guy's head? And what on Earth did they do to the ending to make it
mainstream-palatable? That said, I sort of feel like the author buried the
lede, with this one. It's one of my favorite stories, and I hope they do it
justice.

~~~
andyjohnson0
[Mild spoilers ahead] There's the drama of the initial accident, then the
recovery. Stealing the vials. Pursuit by the government agency. Locating the
opponent, and the final conflict between them. Plenty to work with there, I
think.

The challenge, as you say, would be to do justice to the story and not turn it
into some kind of car-chase/superhero mess.

------
6stringmerc
I've yet to have the chance to read any of his work, mostly because I'm
working on my own things now and don't have a lot of time for pleasure, which
would be the point of reading these first and foremost.

That noted, I'm happy to see people take an interest in reading fiction again.
It was nice with Harry Potter. It's nice with Ted Chiang. My hope is that the
accessibility and popularity inspire additional interest in fiction reading,
and I'm sure it happens as with music. There's a catch though.

The unfortunate part is that both JK Rowling and Ted Chiang are, practically
and reasonably speaking, genre authors and that can be limiting to growth as a
reader. I love genre works of quality, because, just being real here, the
signal-to-noise ratio of quality-to-sub-par in certain genres is abhorrent.
It's like finding a great "Metal" proximity band like Tool, checking out all
their work, and wanting more, going back into the category and
finding...definitely not more Tool.

I'm very happy for him and hope he enjoys the success, fiscal rewards, and,
best of all, freedom to write!

Take careful note, all would-be writers:

> _In 1989, he attended the Clarion Workshop, a kind of Bread Loaf for sci-fi
> and fantasy writers..._

Sure, he's a hobbyist but that's a hobby that's been going for almost 30
years. Practice makes better. He's no overnight sensation...y'all just finally
found him.

> _“But what makes any human being a good, reliable worker?” he asked me. “A
> hundred thousand hours of good parenting, of unpaid emotional labor. That’s
> the kind of investment on which the business world places no value; it’s an
> investment made by people who do it out of love.”_

This is an absolutely wonderful perspective, and can truly be applied to
creative endeavors as well.

~~~
huxley
> the signal-to-noise ratio of quality-to-sub-par in certain genres is
> abhorrent

Sturgeon's Law, 90% of everything is crap

re: overnight success, Ted Chiang got a Nebula Award for "Tower of Babylon"
(1990) which was his first published work when he was 23. He wasn't writing
for extremely long before he was recognized for his talent.

~~~
6stringmerc
1990 to 20XX is a long path. I perhaps mis-spoke in the sense that "people
didn't invest in his work and bring it to a wide audience by way of a film
adaptation until recently" which I intend to mean the concept of 'crossing
over.' Recognition outstide of one's genre is an appreciation of talent and
craft in ways that might be hard to understand, and I don't mean to be
insulting. There are conventions, and rising above them is worth appreciation.

