The SF Universes of Vandana Singh

Daniel and Jorge talk about the creative science in the short stories of Vandana Singh's collection "Ambiguity Machines"

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hey, Orkay, if we're living in a simulation, whoa, whoa,
whoa Wait, if what do you mean? Is it a
foregone conclusion that we are in a simulation? Just hear
me out. If we're living in a simulation, do you
ever wonder why why you're so paranoid? No? Why are
the masters of this simulation doing this to us? Are

(00:30):
we part of some crazy experiment? Oh? Man, I hope
we're not like an experiment in a middle school science project,
because I know how those go. Given how this year
has gone, I'm thinking it's probably some bitter grad students somewhere. Man,
I need it. It's all the follows the professor out
there right ignoring their grad students Blame the professor. It's
so easy. I am more handmade cartoonists and the creator

(01:06):
of PhD comment. I. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist,
and I'm always kind to anything in my simulated universes,
in case, in case there's a point system, you mean,
like a score, in case they're experiencing it. Right, when
you build artificial intelligence in your simulated universe, you don't know.
Maybe they really are alive, and when you pull the plug,

(01:27):
maybe they really do die. I thought maybe you were
worried that somebody's watching the simulation and judging you. Well,
if I'm in a simulation, that, yeah, maybe somebody will
punish me for treating my simulations badly. Karma. The universe
does work on karma, on some kind of point system.
I should teach the folks in my simulation to treat
their simulations well. Welcome to a podcast Daniel and Jorge

(01:50):
Explain the Universe, a production of I Heart Radio, in
which we talk about all the amazing things in our universe,
the way it works, the way it doesn't work, the
things that we understand about it, and the things that
we don't understand about it, and all the hidden mysteries,
all the things that we're hoping to understand, the future
revolutions in knowledge that will change the very nature of

(02:10):
the universe as we know it. Yeah, we like to
talk about all the amazing things to discover out there,
and we like to talk about the things that are
especially a real and sometimes that's right. And in the
group of folks trying to figure out the universe is
of course you. Your curiosity helps power the human experiment
that is science, pushing forward on the boundary of knowledge

(02:32):
and science fiction authors who are thinking about the ways
that the universe might be. Could it be this way,
could it be that way? What kind of incredible technology
or science discoveries are waiting around the corner. Yeah, because
I think, you know, somebody needs license to do that.
You know, just come up with random things and see
how it looks on the page without having to worry
about pesky things like the laws of physics. You think

(02:54):
there should be a license for that, Like you gotta
take a test see if you can come up with
good ideas. Otherwise you're not allowed to write science pictures.
To make complete stop at the end of paragraphs or
do you signal plot points? That's important. If you can't
parallel park the ending, you shouldn't even get in the car. Yeah,
but we like to talk about not just the big
ideas that's science to start thinking about, but even maybe

(03:14):
the ideas that science fiction authors are thinking about way
way in the future and way way out in the
creative spaces that exists in between science theories. That's right,
because there's a lot in common between science and science fiction.
In science, we are playing detectives, we are trying to
figure out what are the rules of the universe? Are
they this? Are they that? Could they be this other thing?

(03:36):
Does the evidence line up with one theory or the other?
And science fiction authors are doing the same thing. They're
wondering what would the universe be like if it worked
this way or that way? What would the human experience
be if we could do this thing or had this technology.
It's really very similar and they build off of each other. Yeah,
do they ever talk, Daniel, Do you ever have like
science science fiction conferences or do you just do it

(03:58):
in chat rooms online? That's what novels are for, right,
They write their ideas down, we read them and we go, oh,
I like it. I'm gonna go see if that's real,
or I'm gonna go make that technology happen. I see.
But there is a small overlap. There are practicing scientists
who are also published science fiction authors, and there are
successful science fiction authors who have a real training in

(04:21):
science history a career of doing science. And that's especially
amazing and impressive to me. Do you think they need
to put an asterisk maybe next to their fictional work,
you know, just to be clear, because it could be
a little confusing. It's kind of like when you know,
like a CNN anchor will be pitching their you know,
government political thriller. I'm always like, well, you know, most

(04:42):
of the stuff put out by theoretical physicists is fiction anyway.
I mean, very little of it corresponds to reality. So
I see it just lacks a plot and characters and
dramatic attention. Yeah, but you know, they don't know if
it's real. They're just like they're trying to build old
hypothetical universe. They're trying to see could this be reality?

(05:03):
Could it work? And in the same way, at least,
good science fiction tries to build a self consistent hypothetical
reality and asks what would it be like to live
in that reality? And also could it be ours? Interesting?
All right, Well, today we'll be continuing our series of
episodes in which Daniel talks to well known science fiction
authors about their work, about their process, about the science

(05:26):
in their work. And we like to talk about the
science of those stories here on the podcast. That's right,
because we are curious about how the universe works, and
we wonder why does it work this way and not
the other way? And so for the masters of these universes,
the authors of these crazy ideas. We like to hear,
why did you build your universe this way? Or does
this really work with that? Or where do these ideas

(05:49):
come from? So to be on the podcast, we'll be
talking about the science fiction universe of Vandana sing the
That's right, and I really enjoyed reading her stories. She's
a bit of an unusual entry in our series because
she doesn't write novels. She's mostly an author of short

(06:10):
fiction novellas and short stories. But her stories are really
deeply scientific, Like each one is actually science fiction, not
technology fiction. It's like, imagine if the science of the
universe were this way, not what if we invented this
gizmo or had this technology? Wow, So do you think

(06:30):
that's like a step further than most science fiction, Like
most science fictions you're saying, just kind of makes technology up.
But she's here like changing the laws of physics. Yeah,
most science fiction really is engineering fiction. It's you know,
could we build this thing? Could we figure out how
to make this kind of ship or that kind of
laser or whatever. But I think the most interesting and
fascinating kind of idea is, yeah, let's change the laws

(06:52):
of physics, or what if the laws of physics were
different from what we imagined. There's another author we've talked
about on the podcast before, Greg Egan, who writes really deep,
fascinating ideas like that, And I think that dev and
Dennising is in that same category. Interesting. You know, normally
I would argue for a name change to give engineering
its due, but I don't think I want the word

(07:13):
engineering associated with fiction. You know, maybe let's just keep
it at science fiction. That's right. I don't want my
bridge designed by somebody who also writes fiction. And you don't, right,
or like you don't want your doctor, your medical doctor,
to also be you know, a fantasy author. Right, here's
your prescription and here's my littist fiction. Hoops, wait, I

(07:34):
switched them up. Which is which Again, it's about really
handsome and beautiful magical healer that uses quantum stones to
cure your diseases. But trust me, this medicine, Wilwards, Oh boy,
quantum stones. But anyways, she is an interesting author of
science fiction because she is also a scientist. She's a
professor of physics, that's right. I know her because I

(07:57):
found her stories and I read and then I enjoyed them.
Then I went to track her down to see if
she'd be willing to appear on the podcast, and I
discovered not only does she have a PhD in theoretical
particle physics, so wow, she knows her stuff. She's a
professor of physics. Like right now when I spoke to her,
she had just finished teaching a class, So she's a
practicing physicist today as well as a practicing science fiction author. Wow,

(08:20):
you have now two members in your club, Danniel of
physics Professors. Wait, now, don't you have several? Aren't there
several of you? There are several. Yeah, we have Greg
Benford here at u c I. He's a pretty well
known science fiction author and until recently an active member
of our department. There was Alistair Reynolds. He worked at
E s A doing astrophysics before leaving that actually to

(08:42):
pursue science fiction writing and becoming massively successful. So yeah,
there's a good number of folks who have done this crossover.
And so we'll get into her stories. And as you said,
she's a little bit different that she write short stories.
So today we'll be talking about two of her stories
in this episode, and they're titled Sailing and Tarsa and
Perry Peteria. Now, Daniel, how can we read our work? Well,

(09:05):
she's got collections of short stories out. These two stories
appear in a collection called Ambiguity Machines. She also has
another collection which is really wonderful, which even the title
is fantastic. It's called The Woman Who Thought She Was
a Planet. Wow, that is pretty intriguing just from the title. Yeah,
and it's not like somebody went to the buffet and

(09:26):
over eight and then felt like a planet. It's a
much deeper, interesting dive into what aliens could be like.
So I totally recommend both collections. I thoroughly enjoyed both
of them are interesting. All right, so let's talk about
the first of these stories. But you said that there's
a general theme about these stories that she writes. Yeah,
the general theme in all of her stories is that
the universe contains mysteries, that what we see is not

(09:50):
everything that is, and that scientists can crack this open
and reveal deep new truths about the universe. And this
is definitely a concept up that resonates with me. I mean,
you just look back into the history of science and
you see, like the revolution of quantum mechanics where we
revealed that the universe works completely differently from the way
our intuition works, or relativity that tells us that nonsensical

(10:14):
things like different people can have different accountings of events
and both be correct. You know, these moments where we
shake the foundations of our understanding and our intuition and
realize that the way we're looking at the universe is
more a product of how our brains work and how
we've developed than the fundamental truth. Those are exciting moments
in science, and I think that those lie ahead, and

(10:36):
it's really fun in her stories to see her speculate
about potential future revolutions or how we might reveal new
truths about the universe. Interesting. Now, are her stories and
kind of about those moments of discovery or do they
sort of assume those moments and then you know, figures
out how the world would be like if we made
those discoveries. Yeah. Both. She explores both kinds of things

(10:59):
and other kinds of relationships with it. Sometimes they're about
the scientists who are making those discoveries, and sometimes it's
about how the world is different deep into the future
after you've made that discovery and you have to sort
of unpack it for yourself to realize, Wow, my universe
is different from the one in this story. What is
the difference? What is the thing that they figured out
that makes their world different. So she's explored from a

(11:21):
lot of different angles. Right. So the first story is
called Sailing the n Tarsa and it's kind of about
some an interesting concept that I've never heard about. It's
called invisible particles. Yeah, it's about invisible particles. So in
this story, we live in the universe far in the
future where science has discovered something fascinating that the universe

(11:44):
is filled with invisible particles we hadn't been aware of previously.
And more than just that, these invisible particles have currents,
so they are flying through the universe, carrying with them
vast amounts of energy because they're flowing through the universe.
Now are they invisible? And also like they can't interact
with electro magnetic energy or you just can't see them,

(12:07):
but you can interact with them. You can't see them,
and we can't use current ideas about physics or our
technology to interact with them, which is why they went
undiscovered for so long. And you know, this is really
reminiscent of where we are today in science, though we'll
dig into that more in a moment. You know, you
can imagine, for example, before we knew about new trinos,

(12:28):
our universe is filled with new trinos passing through us.
Like you hold your hand out and there are billions
of new trinos passing through your fingernail at every moment,
carrying vast amounts of energy. But because we can't interact
with them very much, we hardly notice. They don't bounce
off our thumbs, they don't push us, they don't give
us cancer. And so in this story, the scientists have

(12:49):
found some new kind of particle previously unknown to humanity
or to science that's flying through the universe and they
can't really interact with it. But you know, to just
discover this kind of particle, you have to be able
to interact with it, otherwise it might just exist and
you don't even know about it. Right, So in this story,
they have figured out some way to interact with this

(13:12):
invisible particle, some way to discover it and then take
advantage of it to harness it. How do they take
advantage Well, she doesn't get into the gory details of that,
but they build something which in the story is called
alt matter, some new kind of matter which can interact
both with us and with these invisible particles. And if
you fashion it into big sheets, for example, then it

(13:34):
can capture the momentum of these particles. It's like sailing
through the universe on light, but instead it's capturing the
energy of these previously invisible particles. And so they are
you saying, there are currents, like over here, it's flowing
this way, and over there it's this invisible matter is
flowing the other way. Precisely, it's like you discover that
you're on an island and the water around you is flat,

(13:56):
but there are currents of air. And if you just
build a sale, you can get pushed from one island
to the other. But you have to build something which
can capture the momentum of the wind. So here the
wind are these previously unknown invisible particles, and if you
build something which can interact with them, something which captures
their momentum, then you can capture the momentum and transfer

(14:17):
it to your spaceship. For example, go with the flow
of the universe. Yeah, the invisible flow. Yeah. And it's
fascinating because you know we have this idea of a
solar sale, like that you could fly through the universe
on light that comes from the sun. You build a
big reflective sheet and when photons hit it, they bounce off,
and that gives you momentum and you fly forward. We

(14:38):
have a whole fun podcast episode about that. But the
big problem with that is that you can't really travel
between the stars that way very easily, because once you
get far from the star, there's not much light anymore. Right, Yeah,
you run out of solar wind. Yeah, you run out
of solar wind. But if the universe is filled with
these currents of particles and you know where those currents are,

(14:59):
then you can ride those currents between the stars. So
in the story, this creates this new opportunity to build
small ships that don't have to carry a lot of
fuel but can get between stars pretty efficiently. Right, And
so this lets humanity in this story sail between stars
because now we have like this kind of like free

(15:19):
source of energy almost that we can used to get
to other stars because it's hard to like bring all
the fuel with you. Yeah, it's like the development of
a sailboat, you know, beats a rowboat every time because
you can just chill out and have the wind push you,
and you can sail across the ocean without having to
bring folks that are going to row you across the ocean.

(15:39):
So it suddenly makes your ships have a much, much
greater range. Yeah cool, all right. So then in the story,
I mean, they discover this technology and these invisible particles,
but it's not the first time that they send people
on into space. Yeah. So this is like the core
nuggetive the idea, right that she's really thought deeply about
how to build an alternative universe, and then she thought

(16:00):
about what would that be, Like what story can you
tell in that universe? And the story takes place at
a time just after this discovery, and so previously humanity
has sent some big slow ship an arc to some
other star before they have this technology, and they haven't
heard back from it, and they wonder like, is it alive,
did it crash? Did survived? Are they they're building things

(16:21):
happily or is it totally dead? So they send a
pilot in the ship equipped with these matter sales to
catch up to it and to figure out what's going on.
And so most of the story is her journey and
wondering what happened to this art. It's like they send
out a huge rowboat out first, and then they're like, wait,
we discovered sailboats. Let's go tell them, or let's catch

(16:41):
up to them, or what's the purpose. Can't they just
talk to them on the radio. Well, you know, light
speed is very slow, but this is just to send
somebody out to investigate, to say what happened to make
a connection. Can't the radio back? They haven't heard anything back,
So I see they're not picking up the phone. Yeah,
nobody's responding, and so the next step investigation is, you know,
send some out there and see what happens. Maybe they're
transmitter broke or maybe they're all dead. Case it's about

(17:04):
the cable, guys. What you're saying, and he's going out there.
The Internet is down on Alpha Centauri. Somebody go fix it.
Somebody's got to do it. All right, let's get into
the signs of sailing the entarsa and then these invisible particles.
But first let's take a quick break. All right, we're

(17:34):
talking about this science fiction universe of Vandana Singh, and
we're talking about a couple of her stories, and this
first one it's called sailing the Atarsa and Daniel. You
were saying that they discovered invisible particles that have been
there in the universe that we had no idea about.
It sounds really familiar. It does sounds familiar. It sounds
a lot like dark matter. Right. We know that the

(17:57):
universe is filled with all sorts of stuff we don't understand,
and we know that there are kinds of matter that
we are not familiar with. We know that dark matter
is out there from how it's gravity affects the rotation
of galaxies and the structure of the universe and the
shape of things very very early on, and all sorts
of other evidence. So we know it's there, but we
don't know what it is. So there really are currents

(18:21):
of invisible particles out there. Now. This idea of currents
is interesting to me because I remember that he told
me dark matter is cold, meaning it's not moving very much.
That's right. Dark matter is pretty slow moving and heavy
in order to be consistent with how the universe forms.
But it doesn't have to be totally stationary. Most likely

(18:42):
it's sort of like floating in diffused clouds and not
really going very far. But there might still be dark streams.
There might be still be motion of the dark matter,
and you know, those speeds could be significant on cosmological scales.
You know, you can be moving pretty fast compared to
the think that's the title of your next novel, Daniel,
dark winds. And even if dark matter is totally stationary,

(19:07):
we actually do expect to feel a dark matter wind
because the Earth is moving right right. Dark matter is
stationary with respect to the galaxy. We're moving around the
center of the galaxy and we're moving around the Sun.
Even if dark matter is rotating the same speed around
the sider of the galaxy as we are, then you
would expect to be going sort of headways into the
dark matter as you go around the Sun, and then

(19:28):
the other direction through the dark matter. And so you
would feel a differential dark matter wind at different parts
of the year. So it would be sort of like
popping a parachute when you're in the middle of a
speedboat or something. Yeah, exactly, it could be. And so
if we discover dark matter and we find some way
to interact with it, and that's key, it might be
possible to take advantage of it. Because it's very massive,

(19:51):
it has an enormous amount of energy just in being there.
We might find some way to take advantage of it
to propel ourselves. But the key quest in there is
like to catch it? How to catch it? Yeah, because
we don't know how to interact with dark matter. All
we know is that dark matter feels gravity, and we
have no other way to see it. We have all
these experiments that are trying to interact with dark matter

(20:13):
in some other way. Maybe there's a new force, maybe
they use the weak force. So far none of those
have been successful. So even if dark matter is real,
even if dark matter is out there, even if dark
matter is in a wind, the only way to make
this story real would be to be able to build
these alt matter sales, these things which somehow can interact
with our matter and the dark matter. And that's a

(20:36):
huge question mark, I guess maybe how would you see
it even plausible? Like would you have to like what
do you think it could be? Like you discover a
new kind of element maybe that interacts with it somehow,
or or a new kind of particle that interacts with
both us and dark matter? Is that any way possible? Absolutely,
we think that there might be some new particle like
a dark photon which could interact with dark matter and

(20:59):
our kind of matter. But the problem is that we've
been looking for that for a long time and we
haven't seen it, which means that if it does exist,
it's pretty weak. And so this whole concept of sailing
on dark matter requires dark matter to push our matter,
because we want to push ourselves and our ships, which
are made of our kind of matter, and so we

(21:20):
don't want that to be too weak. But it could be.
It could be that it's very weak, but it happens,
and then you just need to build like incredibly vast
sales in order to capture it. The way you could
try to capture neutrino energy, because neutrinos interact with us,
but they're also again very very weak. So even though
there's a lot of energy pumped out by the Sun

(21:40):
in terms of neutrinos, we can't really capture it because
we have no way to interact with those neutrinos at
a high level. And yeah, we know neutrinos are going
by really fast, right, those we do know for sure
they have a lot of energy, that's right, They do
have a lot of energy. Mostly they're fast because they
have very low mass like neutrinos are almost massless, so
it doesn't take a lot of energy to make them
go really really fast. And that's actually how we know

(22:03):
the neutrinos are not the dark matter, because we think
the dark matter is heavy and slow moving, and neutrinos
are not that. But the underlying concept here that the
universe could be filled with invisible stuff and if we
crack those mysteries, then we might potentially give ourselves incredible
new powers. That is totally true that I think is

(22:23):
our situation. I think people will look back in a
hundred years or five hundred years and say, wow, look
how clueless those folks were. They had no idea everything
that was around them and all the things they can
do with right, And it has happened in the past
a lot too. Write Like you know, before physics in
the last century, we didn't know there was so much
energy in the nuclei of atom, for example, or we

(22:44):
didn't know that you can use quantum tunneling to take
photographs of atoms and small things. Absolutely, nuclear energy is
the perfect example because as you say, it's a vast,
vast source of energy. Turns out all the matter around
us is very dense with energy, and it's not that
hard to crack it open. And so yeah, absolutely we
had no idea, Right, we had no idea. You understand

(23:06):
the way a matter works, in the way the universe works,
then you can bend it to your will. So yeah,
there's a payoff for basic science research and science fiction writing,
science fiction writing and both. All right, let's talk about
her second story that you picked for this episode. It's
called Perry Peta da am I pronouncing that right? Yes?
I think so, parapatea. It's a crazy story. And as

(23:29):
you'll hear in my interview with her crazy name for
a story, she even admits that this story is a
little bit nutty, but I loved it because it had
an idea in it I had never heard before. I'm intrigued.
What's the idea? So the idea starts with one that's
fairly familiar, which is, what if our universe is a simulation?
So instead of being real, instead of everything we're discovering

(23:51):
and learning and seeing and experiencing being the product of
like actual physical things bouncing into each other, it's just
a simulation fed to us by some hute or somewhere,
meaning that we don't actually interact with things. It's just
something that is made up by another set of actual
physical things in somewhere else. Yeah, exactly. And there's lots

(24:12):
of variations of this this, you know, from the matrix
where you're a brain in a vat plugged into a
computer simulation, or a deeper idea where your brain itself
is part of the simulation, and all sorts of variations
on that. But she came up with what I thought
was a really clever innovation on this idea, and that's
that the aliens are a little bit lazy. What do

(24:34):
you mean, I mean that they haven't quite finished the job.
And so in her version, we are scientists in this simulation.
We're trying to uncover the rules of the universe, which
turned out to be just you know, the source code
of the simulation. But they didn't quite finish the job.
They haven't quite figured out how does this universe work?
You know, they have like a few functions that they
didn't quite rite or are a little bit sloppy. What

(24:57):
they pay attention as we the scientists in the simulation
try to figure it out. And when a scientist in
the simulation has a good idea thinks maybe the universe
works this way and comes up with some clever mathematical formulation.
If the aliens like it, they make it real. What
and to you're the plot is like we are in
the simulation figuring out what's happening, and the universe is

(25:21):
changing around us, like there's an update and then suddenly
everything is different. Yes, there's an update. And so if
you have a good idea, not only could you discover
that it's real, you could have been responsible for making
it real. Oh weird, it's pretty weird and nutty, and
you know, it gets into all sorts of hilarious stuff.
Like she talks about these anecdotes about people predicting particles

(25:42):
and then they're observed, and sometimes that just takes a
few years, and sometimes it takes like fifty years, Like
there's fifty years between predicting the hats boson and discovering it.
And she's like, well, maybe it took the aliens a
little while to write that code. You know, it could
be hard, and it's like for sure that it wasn't
there before, Like somehow our scientists know for sure that

(26:02):
this feature wasn't in the software before, but now it is, Yeah,
but now it is, and it's pretty fun. And it
takes place from the point of view of one of
these scientists, and she's thinking about the way the world works,
and she starts to suspect that maybe this is the
way the world works. And then it goes into all
these deep layers because if she has come up with
this idea that this is how the universe works and
it's true, then has she is she responsible for making

(26:26):
this be the way the world works? Has she invented
the aliens by thinking of them? And so there's all
sorts of like philosophical layers there. What do you mean
she can invent the aliens like she thought aliens simulating
this was a good idea, and so somehow the aliens
made the aliens. Yeah, exactly. And then at the end,
maybe she goes a little crazy. I don't want to
spoil it, but she wonders if she is actually one

(26:48):
of the aliens creating this universe. And so anyway, it
goes into fascinating little wrinkles of ideas. But it's definitely
a bit nutty. Nia would say, whoa, whoa, But it's
not something I've heard of before, you know, I think
of theoretical physicists as just proposing ideas and experimentalists figuring

(27:08):
out if they're true or not not, like theorists are
responsible for their ideas becoming true. I see, well, so
I guess what you're saying. It's our universe is kind
of like the beta version? Is that possible? Like can
you make a universe that's not self consistent? Like that's
prone to bugs. It's a fascinating idea. There are some
issues with it, right as you say, don't you need

(27:29):
to work out all the details before you turn the
thing on? Well, you know, sometimes you turn something on
and you leave things fuzzy, right, You're like, I'll figure
that part out later, and then you flesh it out
when you get there. And you could imagine doing a
simulation is sort of like different levels of reality, different greeniness.
Like maybe the universe five thousand years ago, before we
were better at looking and stuff was a little fuzzier,

(27:51):
you know. And as our technology developed, the aliens like
added more pixels to the universe, and as we develop
space telescope are like, oops, we better put something in
those other galaxies around than just having smudges. Let's brain
storm quick is the universe finite or anything. I don't
know what are the humans thinking. Whatever they do, you know,
we'll follow that, like, let's invent the speed limit to

(28:13):
the speed of lights, therefore they can't look out that far.
All right? That sounds good, exactly exactly. It's awfully realistic,
because you know, maybe these folks are just a bunch
of bitter, procrastinating grad students and they just haven't worked
out the details yet, I see. Or they're like, what
if we make it free to play? But then you
have to pay to get extra stuff in it? Oh? Man,
I hate in universe purchases. That's a bummer. Another fascinating

(28:36):
angle is what if this is true? But what if
there are multiple intelligent species out there? What if some
other race of aliens are trying to figure out the
universe and they're coming up with different ideas, So like
their galaxy is now following a different set of laws
of physics than our galaxy. What happens if we ever
meet them? You know? It's confusing? Oh wow, So that happens.

(28:57):
Do we meet other aliens in the simulation? We do
not not in this story, but she speculates about what
that would mean. Does this mean we're the only intelligent
people in this simulation. Doesn't mean that the universe would break.
It would like crash if we ever met other intelligent
aliens and top physits with them. It's a pretty fun
investigation of this idea. Are we like the customers or

(29:17):
we just like the fish in the fish bowl? I
don't know, that's a deep question. Are we the customers
or the captives? Right? Since we can't leave the simulation,
I would say we're more like captives than customers. But
then again, we wouldn't exist without the simulation, so you
know we kind of benefit from it in an existential way. Yeah,
that's a dangerous argument. I think historically that's the pretty

(29:38):
slippery slop. All right, Well, let's talk about the science
of it. And you said, Daniel that this is like
a quantum simulation. What does that mean? How is that
different than a regular simulation. Well, I think she's latching
onto the sort of the uncertainty and the fuzziness of
quantum mechanics. She's focusing on this idea that if you
haven't looked at something, maybe it's left undetermined, and you know,

(30:00):
we're familiar with that, where like an electron couldn't go
left or could go right based on some fixed laws
of physics we just haven't looked yet, and so the
universe hasn't decided if it's gone left or right. She's
taken that one step deeper and saying, well, what if
the laws themselves are not fixed until we think about
them clearly? Right? What if the quantum mechanical nature the

(30:20):
universe extends to the definition of the laws. Interesting. Well,
I have a lot of questions for her. I'm sure
you had a lot of questions for her, Daniel, So
you talked to her on the phone. I did. I
called her up and we chatted about this. We had
a great time, and we talked a lot about whether
we can understand the universe and what we'd be like
to talk to aliens. And you know, I really enjoyed

(30:40):
her writing. Not only is it really clever and full
of new ideas I hadn't seen before, which is something
I'm always looking for in science fiction, but it's also
just beautifully written. It's like lyrical in this way. And
what was really fun is that speaking to her, she's
also very lyrical, just you know, extemporaneously. Everything she says
is sort of poetic. So it was really a pleasure
you to talk about. And so again you can find

(31:02):
our work in collected editions of our short stories and
the one collection is called Ambiguity Machine, that's right, and
the other one is called The Woman Who Thought She
Was a Planet. Wow, that is a great title. All right. Well,
here is Daniel's interview with science fiction author Vandana Singh.
So it's my great pleasure to introduce to our podcast
Professor Vandana Singh. Please say hello to our audience. Hi everyone,

(31:25):
it's a pleasure and an honor to be here. Well,
thanks very much for joining us and for talking to
us about how you build the science of your universes.
But before we dig into the stories that we're talking
about today, we want to get to know you a
little bit better as a science fiction author. So first
tell us a little bit about your background. How you
got into science fiction writing. Well, I've always been really

(31:47):
fascinated by the physical universe and by the non human
and you know, I was raised in a sort of
what you might call a Renaissance like atmosphere in India
where I grew up, So you know, we read literature,
We appreciated poetry, um, you know, science, learning of all
kinds was encouraged, including science, and particularly my brother and

(32:10):
I were really interested in the sciences, and there was
no literature that seemed to speak to all of these
things at once except for science fiction, and so I
got interested in it at an early age because it
seemed to have an unbroken kind of gaze in terms
of not worrying about disciplinary boundaries. And also the other

(32:32):
thing is that it evoked for me a sense of wonder,
which science also does, which physics also does, And in fact,
that was my primary reason for going into the sciences
because of that sense of wonder. So science fiction allowed
me to play with ideas in a way that no
other literature can. I guess that's how I ended up

(32:52):
writing it. But first, you took a detour to doing
actual hard science, didn't you. Yeah, yeah, I did. My
background is in theoretical particle physics. I studied the mysteries
of quarks and why nature seems to forbid quarks from
being lonely, which is otherwise known as cork confinement. And

(33:14):
you know, I'm not in particle physics anymore, but I
do teach physics, and I think about physics all the time,
so that definitely informs my stories, as does my more
recent academic work on climate science and prodigog wonderful. All right, See,
have a real hardcore science background, but a long love

(33:37):
for science fiction. So let me ask you some questions
about sort of the science fiction universe. You're familiar, of course,
with transporters in Star Trek. My question for you is,
do you think that transporters in Star Trek actually move
you to another location? Or that they kill you, disassemble you,
and recreate you, effectively cloning you somewhere else. You know,

(33:59):
that's lovely question. I love that question. I think it
points to, you know, the kinds of answers we might
give to that question points to how we think about
mind and matter, and whether mind is an emergent phenomenon
due to the interactions of matter, due to the complexity

(34:19):
of those interactions, or whether the two are separate. And
I tend not to be a mind matter dualist, but
I have thought actually about and I'm a fan of
Star Trek, especially the next generation at Deep Space nine,
so I have thought about that question. I think that
they both possibilities, and since one of the things we

(34:42):
learned from physics is that anything that is possible will happen.
If not in our universe, then in another. Then I
think I think that probably both things happened. Perhaps one
thing happens in this universe and another happens in another universe.
That's a fascinating idea, never even thought of before. All Right,
But and philosophy aside. Somebody builds one. They invite you

(35:04):
to take a trip to the moon or two Mars
by stepping in this transporter. Are you willing to do it?
Would you actually step into such a transporter? No? I
don't think I would, because I mean, in part because
whenever possible for me, the journey is just as important.
So the fun of actually going in a spaceship with

(35:24):
outweigh the rapidity of arrival the other way. All right, Well,
while we're talking about future technology, what technology that you
see in science fiction would you most like to see
actually become reality? That's another great question, and it's a
deep question which I'm I know I won't be able
to do justice too, but I'll try. I think that

(35:47):
we cannot look at technology as being good or bad
without looking at the social context of technology, like who
benefits where does it arise from what needs? Does it satisfy?
Who gets their pockets fattened by it? And so on
and so forth. So it's a complex question. And in fact,
I think if I may posit a technology that doesn't

(36:09):
exist today, which is a technology that helps us appreciate
interconnections between human and human and between human and nature
in a way, that is that is actually better than
social media, because social media does some extremely harmful things.
But something that can get give us a sense of,

(36:30):
even imperfectly, what it's like to be, saying, orangutan in
a Southeast Asian forest, or what it's like to be
a forest, you know. So so if there was something
like that, I think I would really really enjoy seeing
that in the near future. All Right, I have a
lot more questions for Professor Saying, but first let's take

(36:52):
a quick break. All Right, this is Daniel, and we
are interviewing Professor seeing other fascinating short stories. So my

(37:13):
next question for you is what's your personal answer to
the Fermi paradox? Like, if the universe is so vast
and filled with livabole planets, why haven't aliens contacted us yet?
How do we know they haven't? Um? Right, um. And
the other is that they probably have better things to

(37:34):
do well. As we know, our broadcasts have been going
out into space, probably mostly since I don't know, the
end of the Second World War or something like that,
and they haven't maybe they haven't had enough time to
get far enough away that that people are listening, or
and maybe on the basis of listening to the broadcast,

(37:56):
the aliens don't think that they're worth contacting. Maybe we
need to improve our our TV and radio programming. But
can you imagine hearing some alien messages and decoding them
and thinking they seem boring? I don't want to reach
out to them. I mean, I'd like to talk to
aliens no matter what. They're terrible TV programming choices are right,

(38:18):
And I agree with you there, because you know, that's
why we have things like setting, for instance, or metting,
which is messaging extraterrestrial intelligence. I think that it may
have something to do with culture in one sense that
not all cultures, even on Earth, are necessarily interested in

(38:39):
reaching out to see who's out there. Maybe it's a
cultural thing. Maybe it's a question of technology as well,
because as you said, the gulfs of space are indeed
very vast and um. And then it could be that
the messages they are sending, if they are sending messages,
are just so in you know, so convoluted and so

(39:03):
different that we can't even tell their messages. I mean,
you know, I remember my dog giving me a look
several times to indicate as far as I could tell that,
don't you get what I'm what I'm trying to say here,
I mean, like, why are you humans so stupid? You know? So,
I don't know if all we know, perhaps the messages

(39:23):
are all around us and we just don't know how
to how to pick them up. Maybe the aliens are
after all, very alien, but well be yeah, wonderful. Then
I'd like to turn to the topic of today's podcast,
which is a couple of the stories that you wrote. Specifically,
are we really enjoyed the two stories Sailing the Antarsa

(39:44):
and Parapatea? And I noticed something of a theme between
these and and tell me if I'm misreading this, but
I have sense that both of these stories have something
to do with an invisible universe around us, that there
are things about the universe that we have not yet discovered,

(40:05):
or that we grand realizations we could make about the
nature of the universe that challenge our assumptions and are
sort of parochial experience for hundreds or thousands of years
as humans. You said it beautifully, and I think that's
that's exactly what motivated me to write those two stories,
and in fact, that comes from what motivates me to

(40:26):
be in the field of the sciences, which is this
unending sense of wonder because there really is no end
to what we discover and what we learn. I think
that I think that's very true. I agree with you there,
And so do you think that there are still I mean,
in our universe and our reality, huge mysteries, remaining things

(40:47):
that science will crack open that will change our entire
relationship with the universe. I think they are out there,
and I think that that's what makes science so exciting
as a process of discovery, but also as a process
as a way of being with the universe and seeing
the universe. I'm reminded of a series of long conversations
I once had with the George suthersion of weak interactions

(41:11):
fame particle physicists, and also did a lot of work
in quantum optics. Came up with the idea of tacons,
and for him too, inhabiting the universe was simultaneously a
process of discovering things that were otherwise or earlier invisible
to us, and also a way of being where you

(41:32):
simply enjoyed being part of such a fascinating universe. It
gave you a sense of kind of belonging to something
as vast and wonderful as the universe we inhabit. So
I feel like there's so much out there that we
don't know, and that are schemes as they are at present,
cannot embrace because always the model is a model, after all,

(41:55):
it's not a substitute for the phenomenon that we are studying.
And so you know, we go in with certain conceptual structures,
and if you think of those conceptual structures as fishing
nets in the vast c of the unknown, then you
know we're going to catch some things with them, but
we're not going to catch everything with them. And so

(42:15):
you know, that's why I think that philosophy is also
important to science, because if we change our conceptual structures,
which the history of science tells us has always been done,
then we may catch other things. So to me, this
is endlessly fascinating because what we discover about the universe
seems to be an interplay between our conceptual structures, which

(42:37):
come from our our human and cultural backgrounds in part,
and between the stuff of the universe. So I think
there's a lot out there, probably right around us, is
stuff that we we simply don't even can't even detect
or let alone imagine. I'm sure that future scientists will
look back at our ignorance and they will laugh at us,

(43:00):
clueless we were how much information, how many clues there
were swimming around us that we couldn't even imagine understanding,
You know, the way caveman and cave women looked up
at the stars and had no idea how much information
about the universe was being literally beamed at them. But
this is a fascinating concept in your story Parata, where
the characters are discovering that the universe is perhaps a

(43:22):
fascinating quantum simulation by aliens. But then you flip it
at the end you think, well, actually, maybe it's all
just in my head. Tell me about your thought process there. Well,
that story is such a nutty story, love, But I'm
so glad that you did, you know, especially coming from
a fellow physicist, because I wanted to have some fun

(43:43):
with these concepts, and you can't do that in an
academic paper, right. You have to behave when you're writing
an academic paper. But the cool thing about science fiction
is that you don't have to behave, right. So, so
I imagined, and you know, I love Rube Goldberg machines.
I love the notion of having a complicated way to
do something simple. And so I imagined a universe that,

(44:06):
you know, where there were these aliens that are somewhat clueless,
that rely on the intelligence and the imagination of various
species to help finish the construction work of the universe,
because much of it is an illusion, illusion cast by
these aliens. And and then at the end, you know,
not to give away too much of it, but at

(44:27):
the end, the notion is, the possibility is that we
are among those aliens, and that while we are trying
to understand the universe, we're also co constructing it. And so,
you know, I just I just wanted to have some
fun with this notion. You know, also because if you
if you look at the history of particle physics in particular,

(44:47):
there are all these fun predictions that occur as people
build their conceptual structures, right, like the omega particles and
things like that. So I wanted to think about it
as you know, aliens waiting to see. Okay, so this
scheme works. Oh so they've they've come up with that particle,
but let's bring it into being, you know, and uh,
you know, so I just it's just so fun in

(45:10):
one way. But fun is also a serious business. Um,
so it's both. Well. One thing I really enjoyed about
the stories is that they had ideas in them I
had never seen before. And that's to me what's fascinating
about the universe is that potentially nature has in its
ideas we haven't yet considered. And so you described earlier
this process of discovering nature by building up our conceptual

(45:33):
phishing nets and then using them to trawl. And you know,
you can imagine that's an iterative process. As our ideas shift,
we we discover new things. But my question to you
is do you think it's possible for humans to understand
the universe? Like first positive that there is a theory
of everything, an explanation for the universe that is simple
and compact. Is it possible that we are capable of

(45:56):
understanding it at its deepest level. What do you think
it's more likely that it's beyond our capability. That's a
great question. I love your questions this, they are so
thoughtful and so deep. Well, I think we have to
look at what we mean by understanding before we can
jump into the question. And often what we mean by
understanding is can we find an analogy that works for us,

(46:20):
that allows us some predictive power and some explanatory power.
And if we can find those analogies, then we say
we have understood that phenomenon. But I think that the
analogies that we usually look for are things that we
are familiar with at our microscopic scales, as we know.
And also they come also from a socio cultural impulse,

(46:43):
which I know as scientists is hard for us to
admit to. But I mean, I think I think that
it's it's true because when we even conceptualize the notion
of one grand theory that explains everything, you know, the
idea of the prime mover, you know, the origins of that,
other cultures might not might think instead of a grand

(47:05):
unified theory. Instead of that, they might think of an
unfolding tapestry or a weaving, So you know, our metaphors
would be different, Our analogies may be different, coming from
different backgrounds, and whether nature respects those analogies or those
particular fishing fishing nets, we don't know until we throw
that net out into the ocean of nature, right, So

(47:27):
I think, because what we find and how we conceptualize
them relate to what our conceptual nets look like, the
process of understanding is unending, you know. I mean, just
think about the difference between Newtonian gravity and Einstein's conception
of gravity, which are so drastically different describing the same phenomenon,

(47:50):
and of course one has a wider domain of validity
than the other. But nevertheless, the things that we might
find casting one net versus another would be differ things,
and we would conceptualize them in different ways. So I
really think that firstly, there is no theory of everything.
They may instead be a tapestry in which we weave

(48:12):
in different threads and the threats keep changing as we
angle and look at them in different ways, and so
moving dynamic tapestry, which I think would be more useful
as a fishing net than a theory of everything, because
we know, for instance, that a theory of everything, at
the at least how I've seen back when I was
a grad student and we talked about grand unified theories,

(48:35):
is that we know already that they don't explain and
they cannot predict what happens on our scale in the
sense of you know, what exactly is the snow flick
going to look like? We know that, And that's because
the universe is complex, right, And complexity as a science
is a relatively new phenomenon, even though it has its

(48:56):
roots in pan curae in the eight hundreds, and yet
much of the development has happened in the twentieth century,
which is one reason why we don't understand climate change
as a phenomenon as well as we could have, because
it does not subject itself to reductionism as well as
you know, other more idealizable systems and physics too. So

(49:20):
I think that you know, just as science has moved
through the ages and emerges with certain notions, think about
the ancient Greeks and geocentrism and heliocentrism, and then you
know Newtonian physics and and then the incomplete revolutions of
quantum physics and relativity and then complexity science. I think

(49:40):
that already the theory of everything is not the theory
of everything, um so, so I don't really believe that
there is one. I think there's something much more profound
than that, that hopefully we'll find our way towards. Wow,
that's a very poetic and I also wonder imagine that
we stumble our way towards that peper understanding. If we

(50:01):
ever do meet a race of intelligent alien physicists, they
will naturally have different ways of approaching this problem and
building up their own tap history. Do you imagine that
it would be possible to relate our thoughts and our
ideas to alien theories of everything? Do you think there's
one universal concept we all sort of fault awards, or

(50:24):
that we could have equivalently effective but totally conceptionally different frameworks.
I think that's a lovely thought experiment, because I think
it would be extremely difficult if the aliens were really
very different from us, to understand their conception of the universe,
and I think it would be very interesting to find out.

(50:46):
I don't know if you saw the movie Arrival, of Course,
which is based on Ted Chiang's amazing story. The story
of your life, and which I think it really helps
us to see how difficult it would be to communicate
with aliens in general, let alone about science, and it
would be it would be interesting to look for things

(51:07):
that may be universal. But again, even things that among
human cultures that we thought were universal turn out not
to be so universal. So I think it would be
very interesting, and I think it would be a long
process of building a hybrid world where the aliens and
us could understand each other, you know, because we have

(51:27):
our kind of bubble world of conceptual frameworks and they
have their world of conceptual frameworks. And for the two
to intersect, we would have to work at it, and
we'd have to kind of deliberately try to come up
with commonalities, ask the other for interpretation, try to interpret
the interpretations because the same thing, you know, I wonder,

(51:47):
you know, whether there's a universal interpretation for the Pythagorean theorem.
Maybe not, you know, triangles could mean something totally different
to some other you know, alien culled. Sure, And I
can't tell if I'm hoping to discover that our understanding
is universal or that it's totally parochial and there's a

(52:08):
completely different way of looking at the universe. I don't
know which would be more fun. Yeah, I know, Well,
I think I'd be a little disappointed if our understanding
was really universal, because that means that, you know, there's
less for us to learn, and so it's it's always
it's always good to be surprised, I think. So, I
think it would be fun to discover new horizons through

(52:30):
trying to look, however, imperfectly at the universe from an
alien lens. Wonderful. Well. One of the things I really
enjoyed about your stories, other than the incredible creativity, was
your portrayal of physicists in action. Way too often in
science fiction, the scientist is just there to motivate the
sort of mindless pursuit of knowledge at the expense of

(52:53):
everything else, you know, the Jurassic Park sort of thing.
And so I really appreciate your portrayal of scientists as curious,
intellectual explorers, you know, pushing forward and the boundary of
knowledge because of their own personal desires to understand the universe.
What do you think about the portrayal of scientists in
science fiction, and since you sit in both communities, what

(53:14):
do you think about the interplay between these two groups,
the science fiction authors coming up with crazy ideas not
having to behave well in papers, and then the actual
scientists trying to push forward the boundary of knowledge. It's
a very interesting interplay. I think that the portrayal of
scientists in popular fiction has gotten better. It's definitely better
in science fiction than it is in popular fiction in general,

(53:37):
where we still have this ridiculous notion of the scientists
as this white male guy with crazy white hair. You know,
Poul Einstein would probably be spinning in his grave, because
we know that scientists are humans, and scientists are more
complicated than that, and that they come from all kinds
of backgrounds, and also science these days, we know, especially

(53:58):
in our era, is in teams rather than the loan
scientists trying to break the boundaries of the unknown. Although
in many of my portrayals I do portrays scientists on
their own thinking about things, partly because theoretical physicists still
kind of work that way and that's my background. But

(54:18):
I think that in science fiction, at least, that interplay,
that portrayal is getting better. It's getting more diverse, partly
because the field is getting more diverse. We have a
lot more African American writers. We have writers from all
over the world whose works are being translated or who
are writing in English and getting hurt by people around
the world. So the conception of a scientist is becoming

(54:43):
more complex, as it should be. I think that also
reflects real science. We know that in the physical sciences
there's still a massive amount of gender imbalance in many countries.
Actually in India and some other countries India and Iran.
When I looked up the figures last some year ago,
the numbers were much better with regard to undergraduate degrees

(55:04):
in physics than they were in the United States. So
but you know, it's still not reflect the demographic of
the population. And that's also true for people who are
underrepresented minorities in the sciences. Physical sciences are the worst
in that respect. So the more portrayals we have of

(55:25):
actual scientists working and you know, living complex human lives
and working on complex scientific questions from different backgrounds, bringing
their different lenses to the problem, the better it is
for all of us because the field will inevitably be
in read enriched by that diversity. I totally agree. And

(55:47):
how do you feel about the diversity in science fiction?
You know, I'm very thankful that it's growing. I live
in Massachusetts and I go regularly to a science fiction convention,
or well at least semi regularly, which is focused on
the literary aspect of science fiction called reader Con, and

(56:08):
it's really wonderful. Many years ago, when I first started
going there, and that was in the early two thousand's,
I was one of the few brown faces out there,
you know, and I was one of the few women
writing hard science fiction. And at that time it and
even now to some extent, my work is not recognized
as hard science fiction because my style is different and

(56:30):
I bring in the poetic and philosophical and wondrous aspects
of it. But at that time, it was a lonely
experience going to a science fiction convention, and now it's
very different. And I'm very grateful, in particular to African
American writers for just really helping change science fiction from
the inside um as well as two writers from multiple countries. Recently,

(56:53):
there was an international online science fiction convention called future
Con where you got to hear science fiction writers from
all over the world. So people are writing in Argentina,
they're writing and they've been writing in China for a
very long time. They have the largest circulation science fiction
magazine anywhere in the world in China, and then you

(57:13):
know people writing from Eastern Europe, from Brazil, and it
was really really exciting to see that diversity happening and
to be able to be influenced by their stories as
well as the stories of the canonical science fiction writers.
So I think it can only be to the good
to have so many different voices coming in, and particularly

(57:36):
Afro futurism and indigenous futurisms and indigenous people's conceptualizations of
their universe, which increasingly is contributing to our scientific understanding,
which I think is very exciting. So it's a very
exciting time to be a science fiction writer, for sure. Wonderful.
I totally agree, and I really enjoy reading stories from

(57:57):
all over the world in different voices, and just the
way we talked about, aliens might have different ideas about physics,
different humans have different ideas about what we might explore
in the universe. So it's been a lot of fun
for me as well. So thanks very much for joining
us today. Before we let you go, do you have
projects coming out soon that our readers can look forward to?

(58:17):
I wish I had a positive answer to that. Right now,
I'm figuring out how to teach online labs, so immediately,
I don't have anything major brewing, but I always have
stories kind of simmering on the back burner. Hopefully I
will have some new novelas this year. I have a

(58:38):
story coming out in the Salt Asian Book of Science
Fiction that's coming out from Goal Lens Hatchet, India, and
so that is something to look forward to. Well. Congratulations
on balancing academia and science fiction and your success in
both worlds. And thanks again very much for joining us
on the program today. Thank you so much. It was

(58:58):
a pleasure. All right, pretty cool. She had a lot
to say, and you're right, she does sound really lyrical. Yeah,
she's really well spoken. And as a person of color
and a woman in a mostly male and white field,
both physics and science fiction, I thought you had a
lot of interesting things to say about increasing diversity in
those communities. I didn't think I heard you talk about

(59:19):
actual physics, like, did you guys also a nerd out
and talk about the actual particle theories not just science
fiction stories. No, not so much. She has a PhD
in theoretical physics. That's her background, but recently she's actually
shifted more to working on climate change because she thought
that's actually more relevant for humanity. But you know, Grant
is probably true. Yeah, I guess if you're writing science fiction,

(59:42):
you kind of want your audience to be there in
the future. That's right. It's purely selfish and cynical. I'm sure.
All right, Well, what do you make of this idea
of you know, scientists writing science fiction, Like, do you
do you feel like it's another part of your brains
or do you feel like it's the same brain that's
coming up with these ideas? Is what do you think
is happening inside? I think it's a harmonious combination. I

(01:00:04):
think science takes creativity to solve a problem, you have
to think about a new direction. When things aren't making sense,
you're like, all right, well, I'll have to go back
to the basic building blocks and think about what am
I misunderstanding, What idea am I missing? What new perspective
would let all this evidence fit together in a way
that makes sense. And that's a lot of the creativity

(01:00:24):
behind in my opinion, good science fiction, science fiction that
has like a clever new idea in it, something we
hadn't considered before, a new way of looking at the universe,
or a new way the universe might actually be so
to me, That's probably why I enjoyed both science and
science fiction, because they have this element of like creatively
exploring the universe right desperately trying to get out of

(01:00:47):
this one or to make it, to understand it more.
Can I speak to the manager, please? Can I speak
to the lazy aliens who are totally occlusion this and
making it up as we go. I have a few ideas, right,
I got some notes, I got my ideas. All right. Well,
we hope you enjoyed that interview, and we hope you

(01:01:07):
check out her work. Vandana Sings science fiction stories collected
in the Ambiguity Machine and also the Woman who Thought
she was a planet. Thanks for joining us, See you
next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and

(01:01:28):
Jorge explained. The Universe is a production of I Heart Radio.
Or more podcast from my Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.