
The Future According to Stanisław Lem - dnetesn
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/09/12/the-future-according-to-stanislaw-lem/
======
yummyfajitas
Just an interesting aside: Lem is famously known for Solaris, mainly due to
the movie adaptations. According to Lem the movies don't really reflect his
vision:

 _..to my best knowledge, the book was not dedicated to erotic problems of
people in outer space... As Solaris ' author I shall allow myself to repeat
that I only wanted to create a vision of a human encounter with something that
certainly exists, in a mighty manner perhaps, but cannot be reduced to human
concepts, ideas or images. This is why the book was entitled "Solaris" and not
"Love in Outer Space"._

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(novel)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_\(novel\))

~~~
przemoc
Book was great, I really liked it. I haven't seen the older adaptation yet,
but the more recent one (with Clooney) was IMHO terrible. Such adaptations
make more harm than good.

~~~
mtalantikite
The Tarkovsky version is fantastic, definitely find time to watch it. It's
visually stunning. Kurosawa wrote about how much he aesthetically loved
Solaris, particularly the way Tarkovsky captured water.

~~~
rdtsc
I am a bit late to the conversation, but apparently Mosfilm has made Solaris
available online:

Part 1:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG9Anstjlro&feature=youtu.be](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG9Anstjlro&feature=youtu.be)

Part 2:

[http://youtu.be/yOGHMmKpASk](http://youtu.be/yOGHMmKpASk)

(Links are from:

[http://www.openculture.com/2010/07/tarkovksy.html](http://www.openculture.com/2010/07/tarkovksy.html)

there are more Tarkovsky film links there).

Word of warning: do not expect Star Wars or Inception type special effects.
And this is Tarksovky's reading which, if you know Tarkovsky, he was concerned
more about the human condition, than technological aspects of Sci-Fi.

------
lkrubner
Stanisław Lem had a genius for making fun of bureaucracy. I strongly recommend
his novel Memoirs Found in a Bathtub. He could not criticize the Communists,
so he made it about the USA, but I think it works perfectly well as criticism
of any large bureaucracy. The story is about a man who is just joining The
Organization and looking for his first assignment, however, everyone he runs
into is unsure if they have been told the truth about him, and if they have
been lied to about his assignment, and can they trust that he is who he says
he is, or they don't know the assignment, but they can not reveal their
ignorance, and if they are being kept ignorant, does it mean that they have
been marked for elimination? The man spends the novel trying to find out what
his assignment is. It's both funny and sad. Check it out:

[http://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Found-Bathtub-Stanislaw-
Lem/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Found-Bathtub-Stanislaw-
Lem/dp/0156585855)

~~~
stared
IMHO it is the best book by Lem (but not the most typical one).

In any case, for me it was more cognitive/philosophical: about trying to
reach/understand the reality, after passing (yet another) layer of illusion.

~~~
tjradcliffe
It's hard to pin down a "typical" book of Lem's, but there are certain themes
he returned to time and again.

1) The role of probability in life: "Chain of Chance" and "The Investigation"
(the former is much the better book)

2) The role of scale in our understanding of the universe: "His Master's
Voice", "Fiasco" and "Solaris" all touch on this, and are all excellent (I
have a special fondness for HMV as a book that describes how scientists
actually think and work in a way that nothing else I've encountered does)

3) The role of systems of control in the future of humanity: "Memoirs..." and
most of the Ijon Tichy stories fall into this category, and are in my view his
weakest work, although "Return from the Stars" is a brilliant book on this
theme.

4) The role of cybernetics in the future of evolution: "The Cyberiad" etc.

The problem of the "silent universe" (explored mostly deeply in "Fiasco") is
also one that comes up repeatedly, including a long and interesting essay in
"Imaginary Magnitude".

------
kcovia
For anyone who doesn't speak Polish and is curious, Lem's name is pronounced
'Stan-ee-swav Lem". The l with a slash is similar to a "w" sound, and the w is
similar to a "v/f".

Here's a great free course for anyone interested in learning the language:
[http://polish.slavic.pitt.edu/firstyear/](http://polish.slavic.pitt.edu/firstyear/)

~~~
thejdude
Thanks a lot for that! In my current project there are quite a few Polish
people, so I always thought it would be nice to learn a bit of the language.

So far we're only picking up the swearwords, so this may be a good complement.

------
qwerta
I think Lem wrote sci-fi just by coincidence. Soviets would not allow any sort
of criticism on serious stuff. But they adored sci-fi and cosmic future of
mankind. Lem could write undisturbed on this field.

Western sci-fi authors such as Asimov and Clarke were great, but they were not
best what literature can offer. In many cases they use story as boilerplate to
present some technical marvel. Lem was one of the best authors, even outside
sci-fi.

~~~
idlewords
Lem had a genuine and lifelong interest in technology. Polish authors found
plenty of ways to be critical without having to divert into genre fiction. Lem
wrote it because he loved it.

I wholeheartedly agree that the need to read between the lines politically,
and the belief that science fiction is a serious literary endeavor, put Polish
and Soviet scifi on a completely different level of quality than in the West.
(The same is likely true for other countries in the Eastern Bloc, but I'm out
of my depth there).

~~~
cageface
What other Polish or Soviet authors are worth reading? (and translated into
English)

I love Lem's work but that's the extent of my familiarity with Eastern Bloc
sci-fi.

~~~
ajuc
Jacek Dukaj is great, but I don't know when he will be translated.

He mostly writes hard sci-fi with political and philosophical elements, often
about transhumanism, but he also did weird philosophical alternative history
book - "Lód" (Ice).

Some English reviews of his books:

[http://greglewicki.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/perfect-
imperfec...](http://greglewicki.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/perfect-imperfection-
jacek-dukaj-and-power-of-mind/)

[http://www.terminally-
incoherent.com/blog/2012/02/10/black-o...](http://www.terminally-
incoherent.com/blog/2012/02/10/black-oceans-czarne-oceany-by-jacek-dukaj/)

~~~
mtobi
Actually, on a polish fantasy convention Polcon Dukaj told a story about the
attempted translation of "Lód". Hea gathered a group of seven people, Polish
to English translators, russophiles, cultural experts and what not. He said,
that after two days they gave up after not being able to agree on the first
page. The historical and cultural baggage this book carries is just too great
to be even remotely translated into english, although he also mentioned that
there is a steggering amount of pirate translations into russian.

~~~
ajuc
Yeah I wonder how you can translate "Pomyślało się" :)

------
cageface
Lem is easily my favorite science fiction author. His intelligence, breadth,
and sense of humor are unsurpassed in the genre and rarely found in any
writer.

Anybody with a math or software bent that hasn't read his "Cyberiad" should
rush out and buy/download a copy right now.

~~~
impassebreaker
Agree. It's a fantastic book. The "Electronic Bard" (one of the stories in the
Cyberiad) is one of my all time favorites. It features a computer that learns
to write poetry. (The translation is masterful, too). Don't read it while
drinking coffee as you will snort it out your nose. It's brilliant and wise
and you're right -- few writers match Lem.

------
flohofwoe
I anyone wants to get into reading Lem and finds Solaris too heavy (dare I say
'boring') I recommend to start with:

\- The Invincible

\- all of the Pilot Pirx short stories

\- all of the Ijon Tichy short stories

\- Peace on Earth (the conclusion to Tichy's story)

\- Fiasco (the conclusion to Pirx' story)

Also of note is that Lem essentially "invented" Virtual Reality in the mid
60's (he called it Phantomology).

~~~
idlewords
_His Master 's Voice_ is also a good entry point, especially if you've read
_Contact_ by Carl Sagan. Same conceit taken in two completely different
directions.

~~~
tjradcliffe
HMV also is the best single book ever written about the process of science,
and the way scientists actually think. I can't over-state this. I read first
read it while an undergrad in engineering in early 80's and during my graduate
work in physics slowly came to realize it was the only book I'd ever read that
accurately described what I was learning to do as a scientist.

Even though the narrator is nominally a mathematician, his approach to
problems is fundamentally that of an empirical scientist, and has nothing at
all to do with the cartoon hypothetico-deductive nonsense that philosophers
have foisted upon the world as "scientific method".

~~~
DonHopkins
>it was the only book I'd ever read that accurately described what I was
learning to do as a scientist

What, politics? ;)

I read it as truly brilliant and scathing social commentary about what's wrong
with the "scientific process" as practiced (and corrupted) by academic and
government institutions.

The initial premise of the book, how the message was discovered, is deeply
hilarious: somebody was fraudulently selling some old computer tapes of raw
space telescope data as truly random numbers, and then one of their customers
got pissed off that the numbers were't random enough because they repeated,
and demanded their money back.

------
api
“because forbidden thoughts may circulate in secret, but what can be done when
an important fact is lost in a flood of impostors … ?”

This accurately describes one of the main failings of the Internet. It was
supposed to give us an age of transparency, but instead it's delivered a
choking fog of contradictory nonsense and rumors. It's almost impossible to
see what's actually happening through all the propaganda, spin-doctoring,
rumor-milling, fear-porn, and wild speculation.

The Fukushima meltdown really drove this home to me. While it was unfolding --
and after -- the Internet was simultaneously telling me everything from "it's
not a big deal" to "this is an issue of human survival!" I suspected the truth
might be somewhere in between, but this is a fallacy as well as an admission
of profound ignorance. Somewhere in between nothing and doomsday is not saying
much.

~~~
pdonis
This problem has always existed; the only difference with the Internet is that
it's now harder to ignore it.

------
mindcrime
I started reading _Summa Technologiae_ last year, after a copy showed up at
the local Barnes & Noble. I was not familiar with Lem at the time, but it
caught my eye anyway. I'm ashamed to admit I got distracted, set it aside, and
haven't finished it yet. My initial impression is that it's a great work, and
now that I've been reminded, I plan to pick it back up and finish it sooner
than later.

------
Cyph0n
One of the amazing things abut Lem's "Solaris" is how invested humanity became
in Solaris, the planet that housed the being they chanced upon. In the story,
all of science basically revolved around Solaristics - the study of Solaris.
By the time the events in the book take place, Solaristics had existed for
over a hundred years. In one scene somewhere in the middle of the book, the
protagonist actually sits in a library and starts to describe the key works of
the field, but in an indirect way of course. Lem depicts humanity's obsession
with the being perfectly, yet never actually spoon feeds the reader. Even so,
the reader ends up investing himself/herself into humanity's struggle of
understanding the being. I was simply amazed at how he was able to achieve
this using only words. I've read a good amount of sci-fi, yet no author, not
even the great Asimov, was able to execute such a thing so flawlessly. I'll be
sure to read more of Lem's work as soon as I can.

~~~
mgulaid
I think Solaristics is basically a metaphor for religion or God. How people
would be able to communicate with God or a super-being if we get the chance to
experience it directly. Solaris keeps cloning the psychic/memories of the
visiting scientists. It can’t communicate with people, but it digs through
memories to understand, what are the most important thing to each scientist.
But this is freaking them out. Memories are the DNA of the individuality.
Without memories people would like a bulb of collective consciousness, like
Solaris itself. I think Tarkovsky avoided the religion subplot because the
Soviet Union's restriction to discuss religoin. Highly recommended read or
watch.

funny note: it seems no one reads posted articles on hacker news... people
just talk about other stuff related to the topic of the article..

~~~
Cyph0n
That makes sense I guess.

------
galfarragem
A bit off-topic, but one great polish writer/journalist that deserves to be
more known is Kapuściński. His style mixes journalistic objectivity with
fiction in a brilliant way.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryszard_Kapu%C5%9Bci%C5%84ski](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryszard_Kapu%C5%9Bci%C5%84ski)

His most known book:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor_(book)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor_\(book\))

~~~
dang
> A bit off-topic, but one great Polish writer

I'll pipe up for another, the dazzlingly imaginative Bruno Schulz. His work is
half an evocation of his family's life in a small early 20th-century Polish
city, and half cosmic and out-there. He's like a Polish Kafka, but more
whimsical, less austere. He haunts his own writing like a ghost because of his
shocking death and the fact that his major work was lost. This adds poignancy
to reading him that wouldn't otherwise be there, like a painting that was
damaged in a way that became part of the art and made it a different whole.

Two other Polish modernists that I've been meaning for years to read are
Gombrowicz (Ferdydurke) and Witkiewicz (Insatiability). Both are said to be
fabulous.

~~~
idlewords
Gombrowicz is a genius. It's nice to see him mentioned since we just had a
Borges thread, and the two were the greatest living authors in Argentina for
years.

There's a recent translation of Ferdydurke that's supposed to be good. Be
careful not to get the earlier translation, which was translated indirectly
from a French intermediate and really doesn't have much to do with the
original as a result.

~~~
piokuc
Gombrowicz was a genius, indeed, and I cannot recommend his books strongly
enough. However, honestly, I think that a good translation of his books is
something extremely hard to do, and I am not too sure if possible at all. For
me a hugely important aspect of his writings is a creative attitude to the
Polish language, he was playing with it (and at times, forgive me, taking a
piss of it) like no one else. I just cannot imagine how this can be translated
to a different language. But it's not the only aspect of his works and I
believe his dramas were successful not only in Poland.

------
MORGELD
This is a great introduction to Lem & his writings:

[http://lib.ru/STERLINGB/catscan02.txt](http://lib.ru/STERLINGB/catscan02.txt)

------
te0006
Alas, another thread on Lem and again no-one mentions the one text of his most
pertinent to HN: Golem XIV. Think transhuman intelligence, think quantum
computing, think singularity, and imagine Lem thought about this stuff in the
_seventies_ and published in 1981. See
[http://www.bohemiandrive.com/excritement/1/](http://www.bohemiandrive.com/excritement/1/)
for a short review and summary; the e-book is available on Amazon.

------
dobbsbob
I know about this author from growing up listening to 'Hans Kloss Misery Hour'
who is a Polish student that runs an apocalyptic/dystopian broadcast that has
consistently recommended Lem.

I like his Patrick Allen narrated post-atomic disaster intros.
[http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Citr--
MiseryHour/~3/gWL4KB91Z...](http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Citr--
MiseryHour/~3/gWL4KB91Zhk/20140827-230214-to-20140828-010122.mp3)

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otakucode
>As in Lem’s novella, however, this future promises not social and scientific
progress, but technological hedonism and senescence.

How does one qualify such an extensive and penetrating understanding of human
consciousness as to make books an edible substance as "not ... scientific
progress"?

------
sixQuarks
I take offense with the last sentence in that article: "Nobody can really know
the future. But few could imagine it better than Lem."

This simply can't be true. Lem did have a great imagination, coupled with huge
talents as a writer. You could say that he was a writer with the greatest
imagination.

In a world consisting of 7 billion people, it is very likely there are people
out there that have much better and much more accurate imaginations, perhaps
people who are correctly predicting detailed outcomes for the next 50 or 100
years.

The problem is that they are not great communicators.

~~~
g8oz
taking exception maybe more proportionate to the claim rather than taking
offense

~~~
sixQuarks
true, I was feeling dramatic

