You want Hard Science Fiction for all Literature?

quote:

Readers of "hard SF" often try to find inaccuracies in stories, a process which Gary Westfahl says writers call "the game". For example a group at MIT concluded that the planet Mesklin in Hal Clement's 1953 novel Mission of Gravity would have had a sharp edge at the equator, and a Florida high-school class calculated that in Larry Niven's 1970 novel Ringworld the topsoil would have slid into the seas in a few thousand years.[10] The same book famously featured a devastating inaccuracy: the eponymous Ringworld is not (in) a stable orbit and would crash into the sun without active stabilization. Niven fixed these errors in his sequel The Ringworld Engineers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction

That group was properly educated and scientifically-minded so it clearly didn't matter if the work contained even a single, subtle inaccuracy, they would spot it. Most people wouldn't even bother to attempt fact checking anything they read, they'll just rely on their intuition. The problem has nothing to do with the literature, and everything to do with the readers who assume academic correctness in everything they read. Educate the readers, don't condemn the authors. Factual accuracy != Literary merit.

quote:

Originally posted by TheTrinity

Shut the fuck up.

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Then stop coloring and visit Meat187's mix archive!

quote:

Originally posted by Meat187 Shut the fuck up.

im sorry that my words cause violence towards your stupidity.

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quote:

Originally posted by pointPi There is no such thing as truth.

of course there is. truth is a prerequisite for existence.

what puzzles me is that you don't demand the same from other forms of expression like say music. You criticize literature yet listen to rather low brow music. Kinda weird.

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"This is why Superman works alone." GC
old stuff from days gone by (2001-2004)
Mad For Brad's gay little contest

quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney what puzzles me is that you don't demand the same from other forms of expression like say music. You criticize literature yet listen to rather low brow music. Kinda weird.

You've either failed to read the thread properly, or failed to understand it. Neither would be a surprise.

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Mixes:
> Live @ J00F Editions, 30.03.13 [Chill Out]
> Time & Space [Mixtape]
> Ain't Nothing Going On But The Funk [Breakbeat Classics]
> The Singularity [Drum & Bass]
> Distant Places [Progressive Trance]

I Am Not A Music Journalist.

because both situations encapsulate all possibilities ? genius. I don't think anyone would be surprised.

I assumed it was a bunch of pseudo intellectuals demanding that writers be less like Dan Brown. I find this demand on art quite ironic considering EDM is what many would consider the lowest form of music. I guess the aesthetic demands on just one form of art to me seems a little hypocritical. But you are right , did not read a single post. I glossed the first page.

ps: i took about 1 minute just to see , and yup, my post outlines exactly what i thought would be going on. Which is why i asked why you hold one art to such levels yet are rolling in the mud with another. Rather strange to me.

___________________
"This is why Superman works alone." GC
old stuff from days gone by (2001-2004)
Mad For Brad's gay little contest

quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney ps: i took about 1 minute just to see , and yup, my post outlines exactly what i thought would be going on. Which is why i asked why you hold one art to such levels yet are rolling in the mud with another. Rather strange to me.

Amazingly, you're still wrong. This thread is about literary authors abusing or misusing science and other academic subjects. I think you've inadvertantly brought up another worthwhile point to add to the discussion though: some readers are just so stupid they can misinterpret even the most clear and accurate writing, on any subject.

___________________
Mixes:
> Live @ J00F Editions, 30.03.13 [Chill Out]
> Time & Space [Mixtape]
> Ain't Nothing Going On But The Funk [Breakbeat Classics]
> The Singularity [Drum & Bass]
> Distant Places [Progressive Trance]

I Am Not A Music Journalist.

quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney You criticize literature yet listen to rather low brow music.

Actually, you may have misunderstood me here (I'll let Jack handle the other bit, because he can spot flaws way better than I ever could).

Now, I don't listen exclusively to low brow music. I really like minimalism, from the likes of Arvo Pärt, for example, but I usually try to avoid what I call the "Blender-Fan error": That is, complaining a blender doesn't cool off the air even if it's got a small propeller - just like a fan. Likewise, I try to avoid judging a genre for what it is not. Cheesy fun music, most of the time, doesn't try to save the world, doesn't try to bring something new to the table, it doesn't try to do anything whatsoever - other than making people dance. And, if the genre manages to do just that, then awesome!

For some reason, this kind of music does grab more attention than, let's say, the Japanese ambient producers I love (and which I don't think are low brow). That's why I talk about it more often. The thing is, I can't find a single genre of edm I genuinely hate. Except, maybe, for noise. And deep house (don't ask).

My point here is when literature aims to instruct, in a way or another, and ends up doing the exact opposite. That's why I'm saying this is an exigent problem in literature.

Address this, Meat makes a great point:

quote:

Originally posted by Meat187 See, and I want art to kick science in the balls whenever it feels like it. Yes, I want Dan Brown to lie to me, to tell me his twisted conspiracy crap and convince me its really true. Because that's what good literature does, it forces the author's vision upon the reader. That Dan Brown's ideas, despite being wrong, gained more popularity than any serious research on the subject matter is not his problem but rather an achievement. Contrarily, the serious researchers failed to make anything out of their stuff, despite having the truth on their side. Losers! And when people start believing some wrong theory from literature it's again an achievement for literature and people's fault for being gullible. The author should not write more scientifically, the reader should switch his brain on and either take fiction as fiction or verify the information he gets from there.

I could be completely off, but literature's aim has never been to instruct or to educate, and if you truly suspect that is its directive, I finally see why your initial premise is such a mess that sent people so many directions. As an art form, it is purely reflective, and like your confused projection of the author-audience tautology, it is indeed reflective of the kind of parabolic meta-narrative on literature's charge and very right to misdirect or to deceive.

You, Lira, see fit to comment that beauty's seeming fixation with truth is misguided, but I think it's more pertinent to consider that instead untruth holds far more beauty, and this is in itself a truth that literature's principal reason has been beholden of since the first lie ever submitted.

Confusing information with education is at the forefront of delightful fallacies. And one that ought to be at the tip of everyone's minds, in the embryonic internet.

Last edited by Halcyon+On+On on May-22-2012 at 18:47