The Evolution of Human Science
This short-short was written for the British science journal Nature. Throughout the year 2000, Nature ran a feature called ‘Futures’; each week a different writer provided a short fictional treatment of a scientific development occurring in the next millenium. Nature happens to be a distant corporate cousin of Tor Books, so the editor in charge of ‘Futures,’ Dr. Henry Gee, asked Patrick Nielsen Hayden to suggest some possible contributors. Patrick was kind enough to mention me.
Since the piece would appear in a scientific journal, making it about a scientific journal seemed like a natural choice. I started wondering about what such a journal might look like after the advent of superhuman intelligence. William Gibson once said, ‘The future is already here; it’s just not evenly distributed.’ Right now there are people in the world who, if they’re aware of the computer revolution at all, know of it only as something happening to other people, somewhere else. I expect that will remain true no matter what technological revolutions await us.
(A note about the title: this short-short originally appeared under a title chosen by the editors of Nature; I’ve chosen to restore its original title for this reprint.)
Hell Is the Absence of God
I first wanted to write a story about angels after seeing the movie The Prophecy, a supernatural thriller written and directed by Gregory Widen. For a long time I tried to think of a story in which angels were characters, but couldn’t come up with a scenario I liked; it was only when I started thinking about angels as phenomena of terrifying power, whose visitations resembled natural disasters, that I was able to move forward. (Perhaps I was subconsciously thinking of Annie Dillard. Later on I remembered she once wrote that if people had more belief, they’d wear crash helmets when attending church and lash themselves to the pews.)
Thinking about natural disasters led to thinking about the problem of innocent suffering. An enormous range of advice has been offered from a religious perspective to those who suffer, and it seems clear that no single response can satisfy everyone; what comforts one person inevitably strikes someone else as outrageous. Consider the Book of Job as an example.
For me, one of the unsatisfying things about the Book of Job is that, in the end, God rewards Job. Leave aside the question of whether new children can compensate for the loss of his original ones. Why does God restore Job’s fortunes at all? Why the happy ending? One of the basic messages of the book is that virtue isn’t always rewarded; bad things happen to good people. Job ultimately accepts this, demonstrating virtue, and is subsequently rewarded. Doesn’t this undercut the message?
It seems to me that the Book of Job lacks the courage of its convictions: If the author were really committed to the idea that virtue isn’t always rewarded, shouldn’t the book have ended with Job still bereft of everything?
Liking What You See: A Documentary
Psychologists once conducted an experiment where they repeatedly left a fake college application in an airport, supposedly forgotten by a traveler. The answers on the application were always the same, but sometimes they changed the photo of the fictitious applicant. It turned out people were more likely to mail in the application if the applicant was attractive. This is perhaps not surprising, but it illustrates just how thoroughly we’re influenced by appearances; we favor attractive people even in a situation where we’ll never meet them.
Yet any discussion of beauty’s advantages is usually accompanied by a mention of the burden of beauty. I don’t doubt that beauty has its drawbacks, but so does everything else. Why do people seem more sympathetic to the idea of burdensome beauty than to, say, the idea of burdensome wealth? It’s because beauty is working its magic again: even in a discussion of its drawbacks, beauty is providing its possessors with an advantage.
I expect physical beauty will be around for as long as we have bodies and eyes. But if calliagnosia ever becomes available, I for one will give it a try.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Michelle for being my sister, and thanks to my parents, Fu-Pen and Charlotte, for their sacrifices.
Thanks to the participants of Clarion, Acme Rhetoric, and Sycamore Hill for letting me work with them. Thanks to Tom Disch for the visit, Spider Robinson for the phone call, Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm for the guidance, Karen Fowler for the anecdotes, and John Crowley for reopening my eyes. Thanks to Larret Galasyn-Wright for encouragement when I needed it and Danny Krashin for lending me his mind. Thanks to Alan Kaplan for all the conversations.
Thanks to Juliet Albertson for love. And thanks to Marcia Glover, for love.
Copyright Acknowledgments
‘Tower of Babylon,’ copyright © 1990 by Ted Chiang; first appeared in Omni.
‘Understand,’ copyright © 1991 by Ted Chiang; first appeared in Asimov’s.
‘Division by Zero,’ copyright © 1991 by Ted Chiang; first appeared in Full Spectrum 3.
‘Story of Your Life,’ copyright © 1998 by Ted Chiang; first appeared in Starlight 2.
‘Seventy-Two Letters,’ copyright © 2000 by Ted Chiang; first appeared in Vanishing Acts.
‘The Evolution of Human Science,’ copyright © 2000 by Ted Chiang; first appeared in Nature under the title ‘Catching Crumbs from the Table.’
‘Hell Is the Absence of God,’ copyright © 2001 by Ted Chiang; first appeared in Starlight 3.
Praise for Arrival (aka Stories of Your Life and Others)
‘United by a humane intelligence that speaks very directly to the reader, and makes us experience each story with immediacy and Chiang’s calm passion’
‘Shining, haunting, mind-blowing tales… This collection is a pure marvel. Chiang is so exhilarating, so original, so stylish he just leaves you speechless. I always suggest a person read at least fifty-two books a year for proper mental functioning but if you only have time for one, be at peace: you found it’
‘Ted is a national treasure… Each of those stories is a goddamned jewel’
‘Meticulously pieced together, utterly thought through, Chiang’s stories emerge slowly… but with the perfection of slow-growing crystal’
‘Essential. You won’t know SF if you don’t read Ted Chiang’
‘Chiang is the real deal. His debut collection, Stories of Your Life and Others, is one of the finest collections of short fiction I have read in the last decade’
‘His stories mirror the process of scientific discovery: complex ideas emerge from the measured, methodical accumulation of information until epiphany strikes… The best science fiction inspires awe for the natural properties of the universe; it renders the fundamentals of science poignant and affecting. Mr Chiang’s writing manages all of this. He deserves to be more widely read’