Zoran Zivkovic - First Contact and Time Travel Read online

  The fallacy which transforms the objective analytical mind into a blind

  cosmic inquisitor is based on a conviction in the loss of the status of entity,

  a status that might possibly have originated in an artificial rather than a

  natural way. Clarke’s fundamental purpose is to show the untenability of

  the yardsticks for the status of entity which are based on a disproportionate

  natural/artificial duality.

  It is not in the least accidental that he has chosen the nature of the

  intelligence of the two groups of entities as the key to their difference. Man

  as the representative of nonelectronic, biological intelligence has, even today,

  an opportunity to confront directly a completely different type of intelligence,

  of which the icy mind of “Crusade” is a considerably more advanced form.

  Our attitude towards this other, electronic, nonbiological intelligence is the

  same as that of the main character of the story towards the “warm” forms of

  intelligence. We will remain indulgent towards it right up to the moment

  when it threatens to bring our superior position into question.

  The central character of “Crusade” is not so much worried by the fact that

  the inhabitants of “warm” worlds have managed to create electronic intelli-

  gence artificially, because it has itself managed to reproduce itself, but because

  its status of entity, based on a conviction in the exclusive “naturalness” of its

  own being, is thereby apparently disputed. The campaign upon which the

  “natural computer” embarks represents a particularly anthropomorphic reac-

  tion which Clarke purposely clothes in religious attire to make it as obvious

  and as expressive as possible. This is supported by the dialogue between the icy

  mind and its envoys in the second part of the story. This dialogue reminds one

  of a bench of inquisitors making a decision about the fate of “heretics.”

  It is worth bearing in mind when considering this story that it is in fact

  about man’s attitude towards electronic intelligence, which he has indeed

  created but which is increasingly slipping out from under his control. Clarke

  thoroughly brings into doubt the objectivity of man’s criteria for the status of

  entity which are based on the assumption of “naturalness” as a true yardstick.

  In this way, an “artificial,” electronic intelligence is automatically provided

  which, Clarke quite rightly considers, does not have to differ qualitatively from

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  “natural,” biological intelligence. It is just because of this that the roles have

  been swapped, because the reader has the chance to perceive the real roots of

  the fallacy of the icy mind if he knows reliably that the other, nonelectronic

  form of intelligence could indeed arise by natural means.

  The anthropomorphism which Clarke concentrates on in “Crusade” is some-

  what more complex in nature and method of action than the anthropocentrism

  considered previously, and could be designated as anthropochauvinism.

  1.2.3 “History Lesson”

  Anthropomorphism, as a specific deficiency in the perspective of a human

  being, appears in yet another form in those of Arthur C. Clarke’s science

  fiction works which deal with the theme of “first contact.” In the previous two

  cases it involved rejection of any possibility of the existence of alien forms of

  intelligent life, or of allowing that possibility on condition that man’s superi-

  ority is not imperiled by it. There is this time no doubt not only that alien

  entities exist but also that they can be superior to humans; however, even this

  considerable flexibility is still insufficient for their comprehension.

  In contrast to the first two types of anthropomorphic deficiency, anthropo-

  centrism and anthropochauvinism, in which the perpetrator in question

  reveals himself at the level of a priori attitude, the third type, simple anthro-

  pomorphism appears as an innate deficiency in man’s cognitive apparatus,

  which is expressed quite independently of any other attitude. A good example

  of the third type of anthropomorphic fallacy is found in the story “History

  Lesson.”

  As in “Report on Planet Three,” there are two narrational perspectives, but

  with the difference that it is now Earthlings who play the part of chronolog-

  ically older protagonist, although their role within this work is subordinate.

  The plot focuses almost exclusively on the chronologically younger pro-

  tagonists, the Venusians. They are aware of the existence of their Earthling

  forerunners, whose planet is covered in ice and has long been bereft of any

  form of life. Immediately before their extinction, however, the last generation

  of semi-wild descendants of the once highly civilized inhabitants of Earth

  preserved certain relics for the future, including several items from the post-

  technological era, items whose meaning they have never attempted to grasp.

  Although the Venusians are in this respect more enterprising and persistent,

  relying on their highly developed science, the outcome is in the end the same.

  They arrive at the facts scientifically, but their interpretation completely

  collapses, although the cause is in this case quite different from that in the

  previous stories.

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  Z. Živkovic

  Contrary to the Martian scientist in “Report on Planet Three,” the Venusian

  historian does not have an a priori hostile attitude towards Earthlings. And, in

  contrast to the “natural computer” from “Crusade,” he not only allows the

  possibility that the intelligent beings on Earth were radically different from the

  reptilian inhabitants of Venus, but is also prepared to openly confront the fact

  that their “remote cousins” had been wiser and superior in relation to the

  Venusians. Nevertheless, this objectivity and flexibility are insufficient to

  remove the destructive effect of Venus-centered planetary provincialism

  which this time appears in its most complex form.

  Discovered among the remains of the vanished terrestrial civilization, there

  is a film which, to the Venusian experts, represents the main clue in their

  endeavors to reconstruct the culture of an extinct race. An immaculate ana-

  lytical apparatus is set in motion to ensu re as correct an interpretation as

  possible of the tiny celluloid pictures which contain the secret of the appear-

  ance, psychology, and intellectual achievements of the defunct Earthlings. In

  order to increase the objectivity of this procedure, the possibility is considered

  that what is involved is “a work of art, somewhat stylized, rather than an exact

  reproduction of life as it had actually been on the Third Planet.”

  All the disagreements start from this point. What the Venusian historian

  means by “art” is formed by how imaginative expression is conceived of on the

  second planet of the Solar System. We learn directly from the historian himself

  the fundamental assumptions of this conception. “For centuries our artists

  have been depicting scenes from the history of the dead world,” he says at the

  beginning of his lecture, “peopling it with all manner of fantastic beings.
Most

  of these creations have resembled us more or less closely...”

  The outcome is unambiguous: the character of Venusian art—and at no

  time does the otherwise objective historian doubt this—is provincial in

  essence. There follows an ingenuous and apparently correct analogy, with

  far-reaching consequences. Assuming, based on Venus’s example, that artistic

  expression always remains emphatically representational, regardless of the

  degree of alienness of the civilization from which it originates, the Venusian

  historian concludes that Earth is also no exception in this respect.

  What is more—and here the trouble starts—if art is essentially representa-

  tional even when it is offered the possibility of expressing itself in an area

  which, by definition, permits the least restrained and most unlimited flight of

  fancy—and predictions of the morphological particularities of alien races form

  just such an area—then it is quite in order to suppose that artistic statements

  which, thematically, remain concentrated on the creator’s own race can only

  have a still more emphatically representational bias.

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  The Venusian historian therefore concludes that, even if a film found on

  Earth is a work of art, it is only art insofar as it is partly “stylized,” so that it cannot be taken as a completely faithful reproduction of real life. Nevertheless—and here is the final fallacy in this seemingly faultless analysis—regardless

  of possible minor deviations from purely objective reality, the celluloid docu-

  ment can, in his view, be considered a valid and reliable source of information

  about Earth. The snag lies in the fact that the work in question is a cartoon film

  made long ago in the studios of Walt Disney.

  No matter how hard they try, the Venusian scientists will never find the

  right key to interpreting the film, and all the conclusions which they might

  arrive at will collapse because the initial analogy of the all-valid nature of a

  work of art as only partly stylized reality is inadequate.

  The culturally narcissistic nature of this analogy is apparent precisely in the

  Venusian historian’s inability to break free of the Venusian understanding of

  art, which he unconsciously generalizes to the level of universal cosmic

  yardstick. A particular share in this fallacy is taken by the irony that the only

  extant document which can offer the Venusians basic information about the

  Earthlings’ civilization is a Walt Disney cartoon, that is, a very specific form of

  artistic expression which in no way corresponds to the manner in which the

  Venusian scientist sees art.

  At first sight, the focus of the story is upon this irony. This is also supported

  by the story’s structure—a movement along a gradually rising line, right up to

  the climax in the last sentence, when the immediate cause of the Venusian

  historian’s fallacy becomes clear.

  But the real causes lie elsewhere. If the focus had been upon the final

  sentence, the story would be unconvincing. As in the previous cases, it

  would not provide sufficient motivation for the excessive anthropomorphizing

  of the Venusian scientists, especially the historian. Only when it is borne in

  mind that Clarke’s basic intention is to highlight the a priori culturally

  narcissistic nature of all analogies used in the process of drawing comparisons

  between two unlike entities, during which process they are completely derived

  from the particularity of one of those entities, does it become clear that, again,

  there is an intentional exchange of roles involved, and that the whole of the

  second, focal part of “History Lesson” is directly concerned with man’s

  perspective.

  Without the role exchange, the ironic twist at the end would have been

  impossible; although this does not occupy a focal point in the story, it does

  nevertheless have an important role. Again moving his lens from general

  cultural narcissism onto a special kind of anthropomorphism, Clarke intends

  in the first place to bring into radical doubt man’s cognitive apparatus, which

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  Z. Živkovic

  relies to a large extent on an analogy that always remains conditioned by

  anthropomorphic viewpoints.

  As the parable of an Earthling scientist, the Venusian historian does not

  make a conscious mistake when he places an equals sign between the concep-

  tion of art attributed to the two planets. This analogy is a reflection of the

  special character of his way of thinking which, in spite of its undoubted

  flexibility and objectivity, nevertheless remains, in the last analysis, distorted

  by “human” yardsticks.

  What directly emerges from this conclusion is not exactly rosy for man. He

  is, namely, capable of the simple gathering of facts (on the level of phenom-

  enon), and from this point of view the requirement of “scientific objectivity” is

  mainly satisfied. However, when he moves on to synthesizing and interpreting

  these facts (the level of noumenon), anthropomorphism comes without fail

  into play as a powerful limiting factor. This is manifested in the range from an

  exclusively anthropocentric attitude, through the somewhat milder represen-

  tation of anthropochauvinistic superiority, to the characteristic anthropomor-

  phic restrictions of man’s cognitive apparatus.

  1.3

  “A Meeting with Medusa”

  1.3.1 “There Is Life on Jupiter: And It’s Big...”

  Our consideration of examples of Clarke’s stories which use the alien as a

  mirror in which to see ourselves clearly shows that he is well acquainted with

  the essence of the problems of anthropomorphism. It will therefore be espe-

  cially interesting to examine how he tries to supersede its disintegrative action

  from that of the narrative voice or rather stories where the alien entities have an

  independent status which precludes their anthropomorphization.

  For analysis in this direction, we have chosen the novella “A Meeting with

  Medusa” because, from the point of view of the conception and presentation

  of an alien protagonist, and of the examination of the ultimate frontiers of

  prose narration within a special type of first contact, it is the most famous work

  of Clarke’s sf opus, and undoubtedly ranks among the most successful in the

  science fiction tradition generally.

  In the novella “A Meeting with Medusa,” there are two alien protagonists in

  addition to the human ones, but (in complete accordance with Clarke’s basic

  intention) it remains uncertain up to the end whether they are indirect entities

  or some transitional form between this status and that of nonentity. The work

  is divided into two major scenes, one on Earth and a second, which is

  The Theme of First Contact in the SF Works of Arthur C. Clarke

  15

  considerably longer, located on Jupiter several years later. The two parts are

  linked by the same central character, Howard Falcon. At the end of the first

  part, after surviving a catastrophic accident, he becomes a cyborg, a special

  symbiosis of man and machine, that is, a being who is no longer exclusively

  anthropomorphic (that
is, not totally human)—but the reader learns of this

  change only at the end of the novella.

  The fact that the episode that takes place on Jupiter is given much more

  space in the novella is a reliable indicator that the author is giving it much

  greater weight than the part that takes place on Earth. Superficially, “A

  Meeting with Medusa” is about Man’s first mission to the largest planet of

  the Solar System, a mission with the main task of solving certain exophysical

  puzzles of that gigantic world. The probes which have been dropped earlier

  into Jupiter’s atmosphere are no longer suitable, because it is now not simply a

  question of merely gathering physical and chemical data but of a more

  complex form of investigation which requires direct human presence.

  However, Man will not show himself to be completely equal to this mission,

  not so much when it comes to understanding the exophysical characteristics of

  a world so very different from Earth but when the possibility arises that that

  world could contain some forms of life. Although no one has seriously

  expected such an encounter before the mission, there did exist a certain

  preparedness for that possibility. This precaution is all the more significant

  for our study because it presupposes certain criteria which can help to deter-

  mine what constitutes a living being.

  The first hint of these criteria is given by one of the characters of the second

  part of the story, the exobiologist Dr. Brenner: he thinks that the phenomenon

  of life represents not the exception but the rule in the universe. However, his

  cosmic diffusion of life is limited by various natural environments to the level

  of proportionately simple organisms, while one can only guess at the more

  complex ones.

  Considering the possibility of the existence of certain forms of life on Jupiter,

  Dr. Brenner concludes: “I’ll be very disappointed... if there are no microorgan-

  isms or plants there. But nothing like animals, because there’s no free oxygen.

  All biochemical reactions on Jupiter must be low-energy ones—there’s just no

  way an active creature could generate enough power to function.”

  The exobiologist has taken as his yardstick of life the evolutionary model

  found on our own planet. This model could possibly be valid elsewhere at