Science fiction: Prediction or building blocks for the future?

Being an avid fan of science fiction literature (or “speculative fiction” as it’s sometimes called) and having a particular interest in the ways that “sci-fi” literature influences our visions and constructions of the future, John Schwartz’s article in this weekend’s New York Times, “Novelists predict future with eerie accuracy”, was an obvious must-read. Schwartz writes about, and interviews, a few sci-fi authors whose stories, or at least elements of them, seem to have described later events. However, Schwartz’s preoccupation with the apparent prescience of sci-fi authors obscures the real significance of sci-fi writers’ contributions to making sense of current events and shaping the future. Luckily, Schwartz’s interviewees manage to set the record straight even though he still seems to have missed the point. I think few, if any, sci-fi writers have any ambition of predicting the future, or even, in those rare instances where they seem to “get it right”, believe that they have done so.

What sci-fi writers essentially do is to present possible, preferred and even undesirable futures based on trends and indications in the present. Of course, they’re bound to “get it right” sometimes. But, if we reject the view that sci-fi authors predict the future, the few and far-between cases where their visions do materialize begs the age-old question of whether it’s a case of art imitating reality or reality imitating art? The answer is invariably, “yes.” By highlighting the possibilities suggested by current events or circumstances, sci-fi writers often simultaneously describe actual and anticipated realities and sow the seeds for the creation of new realities. In hindsight, these tend to look like accurate predictions, but in actuality they are merely possibilities that, for better or worse, have been realized. At times sci-fi writers have forewarned of the possible negative implications of current actions thereby providing an opportunity to steer events in a different direction. At other times sci-fi writers have suggested new and better ways of doing things that capable scientists and engineers have decided are worth pursuing. Examples of the former include the post-apocalyptic sci-fi that was popularized during the Cold War by authors like Mordecai Roshwald and Andre Norton (Alice Mary Norton). Examples of the latter include Isaac Asimov’s Robots stories, the Star Trek “communicator” which influenced the development of the cell phone, and Arthur C. Clarke’s influence on the development of telecommunications.

In their stories, sci-fi writers do not attempt to “predict” the future, and thinking that they do in some way, shape or form, is naïve. Sci-fi writers create realistic representations of possibilities that might or might not transpire. In that endeavor, they have had a significant influence on our social, economic and technological development. However, it should be remembered that when sci-fi writers do seem to “get it right” it is either because someone was inspired to realize their vision or that their warnings were not heeded. As long as we don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the future is merely something that “happens to us” and can therefore be predicted given the right formula (for ex. if we could just get the quirks in Asimov’s “psychohistory” worked out!), sci-fi literature should remind us that the future is a creation to which we all contribute.