The Unknown and the Unknowable
In Lord of Light, Yama and Tak have a discussion about whether it matters if a demon is of supernatural origin or not. Yama argues that it does matter because: "It is the difference between the unknown and the unknowable, between science and fantasy..."
When I read that, my brain did a little switcheroo and came up with: "The difference between science fiction and fantasy is the difference between the unknown and the unknowable."
I've been turning that over in my head for the past several hours, trying to decide if that's a valid statement or not. I'll admit that it's been hard slogging for me and not entirely fruitful--I don't usually give a lot of thought to the difference between the two genres, except when other people bring it up. But at the same time, I haven't seen many definitions of the boundary between the two that I find entirely satisfying--mostly because they're either too clunky and complicated or they're too vague and vaporous. I'm looking for a definition that's easy to apply and doesn't let half the examples I think of fall through the cracks. Or worse yet, challenge me to create a story of my own as counterexample.
Of course, part of the reason I don't give this issue much thought is that I realize hard boundaries don't exist; there are too many exceptions and fuzzy areas. Still, perceivable differences do exist (esp. in the eyes of editors who only publish one or the other), and not having a satisfying way of defining them does vex me a bit. So, to try and sort all this out for myself, I thought I'd write out my thoughts so far.
Both sci-fi and fantasy deal with speculative elements that do not exist in the world as we know it. Some definitions say that in sci-fi those elements could exist, whereas in fantasy they are impossibilities, but there are plenty of examples where either our understanding of the scientific facts underpinning an speculative element has changed and rendered it an impossibility or where we know from the outset that the science is impossible, but the story in either case can still feel like sci-fi. So the theory I'm playing around with is that the difference in whether a given impossibility feels more like sci-fi or fantasy is whether it's presented as something that is unknown to us but still fathomable given enough time and study and knowledge, or is ultimately unknowable, a mystery of existence that just is.
If we go with that theory, then in science fiction the dominant worldview is one in which all things are comprehensible to the human mind with the proper application of the scientific process. Nothing exists for which there is no explanation possible. If we don't know something, it's because it hasn't been studied enough yet, but with enough patience and diligence, the answer will become clear. In sc-fi the nature of an impossibility may be unknown, but the underlying assumption is that it is possible to find out. What may appear to be magic to us is not, because the mechanism behind it is discoverable.
In fantasy, the worldview accepts that some things are unknowable. There is no mechanism behind the magic, no matter how much we try to study the matter; it simply exists. Whether the impossible comes in the form of sorcery, gods, or unnatural creatures, fantasy assumes a fundamental mystery which cannot be explained. The scientific process fails in the face of these breaks with our understanding of reality.
So, in a fantasy story, even if we dissected a dragon, we'd never discover how it managed the trick of breathing fire; in sci-fi, the dissection would show the chemical and physical processes involved. We don't need to see the dissection happen in either case, but we can usually tell from the way the story is told which is true in that world. When we can't tell, we've entered the fuzzy areas between the two genres where we aren't given the clues to tell if something is unknown or unknowable or the cross-genre realm where elements of each exist in the same story.
What I like best about this "unknown vs. unknowable" distinction is its succinctness, which I've now muddied up with my rambling. Probably others have given this idea more thought than me and discussed it more clearly and thoroughly, and I just haven't gotten around to finding those discussions yet. Or the truth/untruth of it is just plain obvious to everyone else and not worth discussing.
At any rate, it's been an interesting thought problem for me and helps explain why some people I know with very scientific worldviews hate reading fantasy. In a world where we believe that reason can unravel all mysteries, it's hard to believe in magic. But I think that, at the same time, when you really stop and wonder about the mysteries life and death, it's hard not to.
When I read that, my brain did a little switcheroo and came up with: "The difference between science fiction and fantasy is the difference between the unknown and the unknowable."
I've been turning that over in my head for the past several hours, trying to decide if that's a valid statement or not. I'll admit that it's been hard slogging for me and not entirely fruitful--I don't usually give a lot of thought to the difference between the two genres, except when other people bring it up. But at the same time, I haven't seen many definitions of the boundary between the two that I find entirely satisfying--mostly because they're either too clunky and complicated or they're too vague and vaporous. I'm looking for a definition that's easy to apply and doesn't let half the examples I think of fall through the cracks. Or worse yet, challenge me to create a story of my own as counterexample.
Of course, part of the reason I don't give this issue much thought is that I realize hard boundaries don't exist; there are too many exceptions and fuzzy areas. Still, perceivable differences do exist (esp. in the eyes of editors who only publish one or the other), and not having a satisfying way of defining them does vex me a bit. So, to try and sort all this out for myself, I thought I'd write out my thoughts so far.
Both sci-fi and fantasy deal with speculative elements that do not exist in the world as we know it. Some definitions say that in sci-fi those elements could exist, whereas in fantasy they are impossibilities, but there are plenty of examples where either our understanding of the scientific facts underpinning an speculative element has changed and rendered it an impossibility or where we know from the outset that the science is impossible, but the story in either case can still feel like sci-fi. So the theory I'm playing around with is that the difference in whether a given impossibility feels more like sci-fi or fantasy is whether it's presented as something that is unknown to us but still fathomable given enough time and study and knowledge, or is ultimately unknowable, a mystery of existence that just is.
If we go with that theory, then in science fiction the dominant worldview is one in which all things are comprehensible to the human mind with the proper application of the scientific process. Nothing exists for which there is no explanation possible. If we don't know something, it's because it hasn't been studied enough yet, but with enough patience and diligence, the answer will become clear. In sc-fi the nature of an impossibility may be unknown, but the underlying assumption is that it is possible to find out. What may appear to be magic to us is not, because the mechanism behind it is discoverable.
In fantasy, the worldview accepts that some things are unknowable. There is no mechanism behind the magic, no matter how much we try to study the matter; it simply exists. Whether the impossible comes in the form of sorcery, gods, or unnatural creatures, fantasy assumes a fundamental mystery which cannot be explained. The scientific process fails in the face of these breaks with our understanding of reality.
So, in a fantasy story, even if we dissected a dragon, we'd never discover how it managed the trick of breathing fire; in sci-fi, the dissection would show the chemical and physical processes involved. We don't need to see the dissection happen in either case, but we can usually tell from the way the story is told which is true in that world. When we can't tell, we've entered the fuzzy areas between the two genres where we aren't given the clues to tell if something is unknown or unknowable or the cross-genre realm where elements of each exist in the same story.
What I like best about this "unknown vs. unknowable" distinction is its succinctness, which I've now muddied up with my rambling. Probably others have given this idea more thought than me and discussed it more clearly and thoroughly, and I just haven't gotten around to finding those discussions yet. Or the truth/untruth of it is just plain obvious to everyone else and not worth discussing.
At any rate, it's been an interesting thought problem for me and helps explain why some people I know with very scientific worldviews hate reading fantasy. In a world where we believe that reason can unravel all mysteries, it's hard to believe in magic. But I think that, at the same time, when you really stop and wonder about the mysteries life and death, it's hard not to.
posted by tinatsu at 4:31 AM
5 Comments:
All of that's interesting because, well, in fact, it seems to me to be backwards, bless Zelazny's old heart.
See, I probably unfairly tend to think of the SF/fantasy dichotomy in comparison to another dichotomy, the science vs. religion one.
In religion, people have all kinds of answers cooked up for all kinds of phenomena. Those answers don't need to be tested, they just need to resonate with the human psyche on a particularly deep level.
In science, though, no amount of deep resonance will get you anywhere without repeatably observable results. You can theorize all you want, but you can only test certain kinds of things... and therefore only (really) ask certain kinds of questions.
Which means that science is about the knowable, and discards the unknowable as a nonentity, whereas religion conflates the unknown and the unknowable into one thing, and then offers deeply resonant -- but untestable, and in the end somewhat arbitrary -- explanations for phenomena.
Of course, religious concepts aren't all half-baked. Christianity has lots of interesting notions about culpability for actions, responsibility, and human nature; Buddhism has a lot of interesting ideas about the nature of perception (even if its notions about reality are more suspect in my opinion); and so on.
But it seems to me religious claims about reality are based on, well, all kinds of things extraneous to reality; scientific claims about reality start out constrained from the get go -- scientific claims are always about how facets of reality appear to behave.
So then... to bring this back to the difference between fantasy and SF could it be that both of them are about the unknown, but the real dichotomy is all in the basic assumptions about reality... but on whether the knowable, or the unknowable, is more important or interesting? It seems to me that, like with religion (which is, after all, at the bottom a kind of magical sense of the world), fantasy takes the unknowable as being more inherently interesting, whereas SF tends to take the (in principle) knowable as more inherently interesting.
There are probably spots where this break down, of course. I'm thinking in SF, for example, there are a host of "technically unknowable by humans" problems that might be explored... but still, those problems would be in principle knowable by someone with enough computing power.
(Or, in the example of alternate history, the notion that such a series of events is plausible, depends on no absolutely supernatural events, but simply on a series of different events occurring, ranging from a difference in the weight of hydrogen or the number of spatial dimensions in our universe, all the way Lincoln not being assassinated, or Socrates having died in his youth, or what have you. While "What would have happened" is technically unknowable, "What could have happened" is at least valued for plausibility... though here, if anywhere, the genre boundary stretches. My current favorite alt-history novel is The Years of Rice and Salt but it's also full of all kinds of religious notions which, personally, I see mainly present to propel the "plot" across many generations but which are still inescapably present in the book.)
And hell, in both genres we have those wonderful things called characters, which balance the knowable and the unknowable on a knife's edge. But the nature of people (characters) is one thing, and the nature of the universe is another. It seems to me characters without both elements end up lifeless. But it seems to me that universes that try too hard to fit both in seem to come off as unconvincing.
But to that end, I'm wondering if you could recommend any books that do manage to have sfnal and fantastical (supernatural, say) elements without their respective universes falling apart? I liked Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio/Darwin's Children duology but the religious stuff in the second book had me wondering whether I was seeing the prot go insane. And the quasi-science in Mieville's Perdido Street Station was so close to falling flat (which in my opinion made it a masterpiece when it didn't). But what are other texts that balance this? Is the Zelazy one? (I've never yet read Lord of Light, tho it's in the pile.)
Also, I should say that while I, too, don't spend much time of definitions of genre, relying more on "I know it when I see it", I think there's something to the notion that SF deals with things that "could" (for several definitions of "could") be, which are reasonably possible within a certain degree of speculation; whereas fantasy stories deal with what those of us who are not schitzophrenic (or brainwashed by cults) know to be patently unreal (magic, resurrection, fae creatures, etc.).
What's interesting is how differently the two genres explore the same basic obsessions we have. Aliens/nonhuman intelligence/other early hominids vs. faeries, deities, and magical beings, for example -- they both address something deep-seated in us. The only thing is, aliens could exist, and nonhuman hominids did coexist with us -- and are probably, in terms of evolutionary psychology, part of the root of our interest in the subject of nonhuman intelligences, I'd bet. Meanwhile, people who assert that magical faeries and dragons could exist, and people who insist that whole pantheons of deities do exist and are fighting over control of the world, would get funny looks and, finally, get put into the mental health care system.
(Funny how monotheists' claims of the existence of deities is treated otherwise. Suggestive that the exception proves the rule.)
Uh, I could blather on, but... nah. Quick, quick! Recommend me something that has both SF and fantasy elements in juxtaposition!
So, wait, then... not backwards, just... not properly differentiated. And bless no Zelazny's heart but yours, since it's your riff on his notion.
cool hmmms...
try these: If you encounter a "dragon" in a sci-fi story, you're like "holy sh!t, that really looks like a dragon, is that really a dragon? where the hell am I?" Clearly, you must either be on another planet, in another time, or hallucinating. There are no dragons in real life! Maybe this story is about genetic engineering, like something beyond Jurassic Park. Or I've fallen into some alternate timeline in which the pterosaurs were on vacation when the asteroid hit and evolved into dragon-like thingies. Whatever it is, *clearly there is an explanation for all this!*
On the other hand, say you're following a troop of wizards and elves through an enchanted forest and upon turning a corner, find yourself face-to-face with a grey alien.
After getting past your initial shock, what happens in your mind as you incorporate this new character?
I'm guessing that you quickly gear into predictive mode, maybe wondering if this story is about a race of grey aliens, and maybe they played a role in creating this world of wizards and elves, maybe even as ancestors of the magical races.
It's amusing to me that what would shock me most about a grey alien in a wizards-and-elves story, is that because of our sci-fi culture of the last few decades, I'm accustomed to thinking that a grey alien *is totally possible!* But wizards and elves... as much as I'd love to believe otherwise... No, they're nothing more than archetypal metaphors for universal parts of our humanity, and that's all I really need them to be.
Same with the alien in the fantasy story. I don't feel pressed to explain how it got there. I just want to know WHY it's there? What is its role in the story? Is it somehow related to the charaters in some distant way? What's its name?? The literal reality of this character doesn't even cross my mind. I'm not concerned with that. I don't care how it evolved. It's not important. I know it's just a character, and by the end of the story, I'm sure it will play out as some sort of archetypal metaphor about how our alienation plays an important role in our lives, and which will give me a grander appreciation for humanity and life. I'm not reading it for literality. I have no notion that what I'm reading COULD be true. Instead, what I enjoy in fantasy is that when I'm successfully able to read between the lines -- it IS true!
Hmmm...
r,
This idea of fantasy stories giving one a better appreciation of humanity and life... it reminds me of religious talk about religion giving people a better appreciation of humanity and life. I don't know, I figure I have a pretty decent appreciation of both without religion, and fantasy tropes don't seem to summon that kind of response from me either. :)
Also, I don't think I can take greys (grey-skinned hominid aliens from popular culture), wizards and elves, or dragons seriously anymore. In satire, I feel pretty free for anything to be mixed together, but in terms of anything else, they seem to me too much like shorthand, the borrowed trappings of a genre rather than the core spirit of it.
Most of the time, if I am to read a story about dragons, it will not involve a spaceship or robot; meanwhile, stories involving aliens that I'm likely to read at all are very likely not involve wizards or elves. There are exceptions, but they'd be far outnumbered by the examples proving the rule.
By the way, it's spooky how this post keeps on reappearing on the RSS feed as unread, no matter how many times I mark it as read.
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