March 12, 2020 • 41 mins
In this very special new series of episodes Daniel and Jorge interview famous authors. Today we discuss "Ancillary Justice" the debut novel of the talented Anne Leckie. It's the only novel to ever win the Hugo, Nebula and Arthur C. Clarke awards. You can find it here.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's take a quick break, and when we get back,
we'll find out how important scientific consistency is to readers
of science fiction. Daniel, you read a lot of science fiction, right,
I certainly do. Is there a phrase in a science
fiction novel that, when you're reading it you just automatically cringe?
Oh man, I have got quite a list that really
(00:22):
has a physicist if you If you read this, it
makes you a little bit scared. It makes me worried.
You know that I'm not gonna be able to enjoy
the novel if they don't treat it right. What are
some of these phrases that make you afraid? Like the
Higgs boson If somebody mentions the Higgs boson, Oh man,
I tossed the book across the room almost every time
I see automatically. How about quantum mechanics or the quantum realm?
(00:45):
Oh boy, don't get me started on that other dimensions?
That is definitely near the top of stuff that's handled
badly in science fiction. What if I write a novel
about a quantum Higgs Boson dimension, I'm not even cracking
that book open. Hi'm or handmad. Cartoonists and the creator
(01:18):
of PhD commics. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist
and I love reading science fiction, especially when it has
actual science in it, but the fiction. No, it's awesome
if you can have science and then build fiction around it.
That's why it's called science fiction. Well, welcome to our podcast,
which is a work of unfiction or unfiction. We strive
(01:40):
at least to make this podcast about the real universe
and not about fictional universities. Welcome to Daniel and Jorge
Explain the Universe, a production of our Heart Radio in
which we usually take you on a tour of the
real universe that we find ourselves in all the incredible,
all the amazing, all the mind blowing things that exist
out there in the real universe. And sometimes we like
(02:02):
to talk about um sort of a crazy ideas that
maybe physicists have or or you know, wishful thinking that
physicists have about how the universe might work or what
it what could be out there in the universe. That's right,
aspirational universes. Maybe we live in this universe, Maybe we
live in a universe where there are tiny strings librating
at the smallest scale, or maybe we live in an
(02:24):
infinite universe. The truth is we just don't really know,
and so it's fun to consider a whole spectrum of
possible What is it universe I Universes University. Yeah, yeah,
you know. They call it now a speculative sign. It's science.
We call it speculative science. This is not a speculative podcast.
(02:44):
We uh, we don't just speculate. We go out and test,
We do experiments. One day people will know the truth,
the real answer to how the universe works. But until
then we rely on clever people to imagine other possible universes.
And that exists sometimes in the mind. It is a
theoretical physicists, but sometimes those ideas begin elsewhere. Because it
is sort of fun to understand the universe as we
(03:06):
know it and to see to know and to see
what's out there. But it's also fun to think about
what could be, or what might be or what um
you maybe know it's impossible, but it's fun to think
about the what would happen? How would what would the
universe look like if a crazy idea was actually true? Yeah,
and it's more than just like does the universe work
this way or that way? It's also like, what do
(03:27):
we do with the universe. If it does work this way,
what kind of awesome tech can we develop? How can
we change our lives and the way that we interact
with and live in the universe given our mastery of
the physical laws. Yeah, and so as you said, Daniel,
it exists not only in the minds of physicists and philosophers,
but authors and artists that are out there trying to
(03:49):
think about these ideas and what would they mean for
the human condition. That's right, and everybody's familiar with creativity
in the minds of artists, but also, of course authors
require creativity. They imagine an entire new universe, maybe with
different physical laws, maybe with new technology, and that creativity
in some ways is parallel to the creativity that's going
on at the forefront of physics, and those ideas bleed in.
(04:11):
Sometimes we get awesome ideas from reading science fiction and
we think, oh, maybe the universe does work that way,
or maybe we could build a ray gun. Do you think, Daniel,
is a big overlap between science fiction readers and physicists
or is it like overlap. I don't think every science
fiction reader is a physicist, but I think everything is
(04:33):
a science fiction reader that might be true. That's right.
Not all nerds are physicists, but all physicists are. And
I know of more than one sort of practicing professional
physicist who then became a successful science fiction author. So
that is a pathway, Like Alistair Reynolds, for example, he
was an astrophysicist in Europe before he started writing. And
(04:56):
there's one here in my department, Greg Benford's actually kind
of famous. He's a professor in my department. For you guys,
is it sort of fun to not be shackled by
the laws of physics and just be able to kind
of spin stories and not have to worry about being
completely scientific. Well, you know a lot of theoretical physicists
already don't feel shackled by the laws of physics because
(05:16):
they propose things we can never test, like the laws
of physics they're authoring them. Yeah, but I think that
there's a creativity that's required in physics, and it's a
similar creativity that's required in writing science fiction to imagine
the way the universe might work. And so yeah, sort
of stretches a different muscle. Um. But also, I think
(05:38):
we're just all fanboys and fan girls because we read
so much science fiction. It's fun to think about writing
some right, because I imagine it's a lot of fun
to explore other universes, you know, not just the one
we live in, but to imagine new universes. Absolutely. And
so today on the podcast, it will it's the first
of a new kind of episode that we're going to
try out in which we talk about famous science fiction
(06:02):
authors and famous science fiction novels that are out there,
and we actually are going to be talking to each
of the authors. That's right. I reached out to some
famous science fiction authors and gasp, imagine they actually wrote
back to us. And so we have the honor and
privilege to talk to some of the brightest minds in
science fiction and to explore how they build their science
(06:23):
fiction universes. How much physics goes into it? Yeah, because
that's a big question I think a lot of people
might have, which is um. You know, when you read
one of these science fiction novels, you you sort of
wonder how much of this is true and how much
of this is just totally made up? I know, how
much of this is They just say quantum mechanics when
they don't know what to write. The quantum realm yeah,
(06:44):
I read a lot of science fiction. And you can
tell when the author has consulted a scientist, and you
can tell when the author has not as as consulted
Wikipedia or not even you know, relied on the readers
to like not really know what these words mean and
sort of accept them as a word salad that says
plot hole fixed here. And so, yeah, you're a big
(07:07):
science fiction fan, right, Daniel? You read a ton of
science fiction? Do I read a couple of novels a week? Well? Wow,
I read a couple as a kid, mostly eyes like asama. Um.
But yeah, I read I think almost every I sid
asthma of work that's out there. Why did you stop?
I'm not sure. I think I got into a fantasy
for a while, and then I started reading other things
(07:29):
in comics. Well, I guess I never grew up, and
I'm still reading science fiction. And in fact, now on
our website you can find a list of science fiction
novels that I have enjoyed. Um. I only put novels
on there that I liked. I don't pan anybody's work
because I know that every novel that's out there is
somebody's life and heart and soul. Went into that book,
so I'm not gonna say negative things about them. So
(07:50):
you can go on our website and under about you
can find a list of novels that I recommend. Yeah,
and so this is the first in our series. And
so today on the podcast, we'll be tackling the question
it's science fiction scientific The core question we're asking is,
you know, how important is it that science in a
(08:12):
science fiction story be logical and self consistent and or
is it a sort of okay because it's science fiction
to be sort of hand wavy. Yeah, And it's not
a question that has a universal answer. You will find
people out there, like particle physicists who want the science
to be real or to be logical, or at least
to be self consistent, especially when it's a crucial element
(08:33):
in the story. And I think you'll find other people
out there that just wants stuff to blow up and
zoom across the screen. Page Smith in a spaceship, Yeah,
send Bruce Willis out there, doesn't really matter if his
mission makes sense. Um. And so you'll hear a spectrum
of answers, I think, and it's totally valid to have
a spectrum of opinions. Let's take a quick break, and
(08:54):
when we get back, we'll find out how important scientific
consistency is to readers of science fiction as usual. I
was curious what people have thought about this question, so
(09:16):
I walked around campus and I asked people how important
it was to them that the science and the story
be logic, will be self consistent. Here's what people had
to say. I think it should make sense, but sometimes
I will not always notice, and other times it's not
as sleep as they deal. I think it's okay if
it's a bit like not real, yeah, because it's pi'
(09:38):
not based on a true like actual story or and
if it's trying to be like legitimate, then yeah. But
if it's like a science fiction, I guess it's a
little bit okay. For Tunoby, it's okay. If it's hand wavy.
It should be consistent within the story, but not necessarily
with reality. It probably should be a little consistent so
it remains kind of realistic or factual. Is it okay
(10:00):
if they just sort of say quantum mechanics sometimes and
and wave away some problems, yeah, that's okay. I would
like it to be plausible and actually like realistic. I
know that a lot of times that doesn't really work
for the story. But I think as long as it's
(10:20):
reasonably almost there, then it's fine with me. Um. Actually
it does matter to me because I want to imagine
a future work could happen, so I don't get my
hopes up, so to speak. All right, cool, it must
be logical or plaus bow All right. People seem pretty
relaxed about the design has been real or not. That
(10:41):
was a little bit infuriating. I was hoping more people
would with me. He didn't interview in the physicist. I
purposely didn't. People are like, I don't care about the
physics of light sabers. I just think lightsabers are cool.
Well that's true, you know, lightsabers are cool, whether or
not you could ever actually make them. Um. But yeah,
some people are like, yeah, whatever, I don't really care
(11:02):
for his hand wavy. You know. It's like they expect
to be fed spoonfuls of random science sounding words, you know,
and there's a place for that. Like I enjoy Star Trek,
even though the science on that show is ridunculous. You know. Yeah,
they're like reverse the transponder on the polarization ion beam,
a matic or something which you're like you can't make it,
(11:22):
so that's impossible. Yeah, but they're being so ridiculous that
it sounds like they're sort of trying to be ridiculous.
They don't take themselves seriously, and so I guess part
of it is just sort of what are you're aiming for? Yeah, well,
I think that's kind of what you're saying earlier, which
is that's kind of the point of science fiction, which
is to just kind of tickle our imagination and to
make us wonder about what's other, because you know, sometimes
(11:45):
the science fiction stuff inspire scientists and engineers to make
it real, to make it so, as Pricard would say,
and then it becomes like a real thing. It certainly does,
and it also sort of warns us of the dangers
of technology. These days, we have a lot of dystopian
science fiction with the robots of tape can over or
everybody's online and getting deleted and stuff, and so it's
helpful to sort of think through the consequences of technology.
(12:07):
And to me, that's what science fiction is about. It's like,
what stories could you tell in a universe where the
rules are different, either the science is different, like the
laws of physics have changed or you have new kinds
of tech which change what it's like to be human,
and then explore that, like what stories are there, what
is it like to grow up in that world? What
can you do or can't do that it's weird compared
(12:29):
to the world you come from, Right, It's all like
a big thought experiment, Right, could you guess what if
this would happen? And it kind of tells you about
how things are right now. Yeah, And that to me
is why it's important to be consistent, because that's the
whole experiment. Like, if you're trying to figure out what
is it like to live in a world where you
can teleport around the world to visit your brother in
(12:50):
you know, Australia in two seconds, Well, then you've got
to have some rules that's constrained that world so that
you can explore what it's like. Because if you're actually
living in that world, there are rules, right, and if
you want to know what it's actually like to live
in that world, when you gotta follow that world's rules.
So if you're just making up rules all the time
and they violate each other don't make any sense, then
you're not really exploring that world. In my opinion. And
(13:12):
if I had a secret brother in Australia, that would
be the shocking part of that novel for me. That
would be the huge reveal. Yeah, but the all right,
so these are all super interesting questions, and Daniel thought
that it would be great to kind of get into
that with with a real science fiction author and a
famous science fiction author. And so today on the program,
we are going to play an interview with Ann Lecky,
(13:33):
who is the author of a famous science fiction nolical
ancillary Justice. That's right, I think she pronounced the ancillary
injustice ancillary. Sorry. And this is not just any book.
This is a book which won a series of awards.
It's sort of famous in science fiction circles because it
won all the major awards. That won the Hugo Award,
won the Nebula Award, won a bunch of other awards.
(13:55):
And that's that's pretty unusual. Um. And I think also
he was her debut novel. Oh, this is the first
novel she ever wrote, is the first novel she ever published.
First time up in bat like hit a home run,
the biggest home run anybody's ever hit. That's pretty awesome.
It made quite a splash. Wow, and so it sounds
like a super interesting books, Daniel, So before we play
(14:15):
the interview, tell me a little bit about what the
book has done, what the kind of the science inside
of the science fiction novel is about. Yeah, So this
book you would categorize as space opera because it takes
place over vast scales and distances, and it's far in
the future, and humanity has conquered a big fraction of
the galaxy. So humans have spaceships and lots of solar
(14:38):
systems and were spread out all over the galaxy. Wow,
like the Milky Way. Yeah, like the Milky Way. Though
it's never actually named, it could have been a galaxy
far far far away, a long time ago. It could
have been. But you know, the point is that we
occupy several different solar systems. And the key new idea
in this book, the key new element of technology that
(14:59):
changes what it's like to be a person is that
in her universe, they've developed technology to connect brains to
each other, so like I can have a consciousness which
is not just in my body, but I can also
take over other bodies, so I can like spread my
mind across like five different people. So you're here now,
but suddenly, if you wanted to be the Daniel in
(15:20):
Alpha Centaur, you could just flip a switch and suddenly
you feel like you're there. No, I think you are
simultaneously in all of them. So it's like you have
five pairs of eyes and you're controlling five bodies. Me
as a conscious entity, I'm experiencing what five people are
experiencing at the same time. That's right. Yeah, you have
five brains at your disposal and ten hands, and you know,
(15:43):
fifty toes and all that stuff, and they're all human.
Are are are we robots? What am I? Well? In
the book, a lot of the characters are human and
the and the ancillaries are the ones that are slaved
to you. So if you have five ancillaries, that means
it's you plus five other bodies. So you can take
your human body and your human mind and experience, you know,
control six different bodies at once. But you can also
(16:06):
connect humans to AI. So, for example, there are these
spaceships that have really intelligent AI in them, and they
can also have humans that they control. So the mind
of an AI can also exist across a ship and
these bodies. So there's me, like me, the brain that
the body that my brain was born in. But then
I also have like puppets that I can control. Yes, yes,
(16:28):
they're just like puppets. They're like biological puppets or robot puppets,
their biological puppets. So you know, there's a lot of
discussions of the of the morality of this in the
book because basically, you go to war, you take prisoners,
and then you just basically delete those personalities from the
bodies and use them for yourself. It's like you're wiping
a floppy disk or something. Oh, I see, so it's
like another human body, but it's sort of like deactivated. Yeah,
(16:52):
it's like you've written your consciousness onto their hardware. Yeah.
So it's like, for example, if you deleted my personality
and took me over, then they would just be Daniel
and Jorge would just be Jorge in Daniel and Whore's
bodies be Jorrie and Jorge Explain the Universe a new
podcast from my Heart Radio. Huh okay, So this it
imagines the future where this technology is possible that I
(17:14):
can somehow wipe out the consciousness of a human and
then reimposed I guess the consciousness of another person in
it or an artificial intelligence, yeah, or an artificial intelligence.
So you take prisoners in a war, and then you
can make those prisoners be like soldiers of your AI
powered ships, or you can take them for yourself and
make them your own slaves. So you can exist in
(17:36):
several places. So these people are sort of like zombies
or like if I if you were to meet another Jorge,
would would you feel like you're talking to Jorge or
do you feel like you're talking to a robot? You
would feel like you're talking to Jorge, because Jorge would
be in several places. Yeah, And so you can do
several things at once, and you can take like two
of you to go shopping while one of you is
staying home cooking, and everybody's sort of mentally connected to
(17:58):
each other because you have one consciousness stretched across several bodies. So,
and how is this technology made possible? Is it like
we have Is it like implants or you know, biological
or is it magic? It's not magic. She's tried to
think it through technologically, and she's imagined that if you
put implants into the brain, they can receive the signals
(18:19):
necessary to control the body and send the signals necessary
to sort of transmit the experience of that body. It's
like having a brain walkie talkie, yeah, sort of, or
like an internet of brains, right, instead of having a
single brain in the body, you sort of become a
larger virtual brain, I guess right away. My question is like,
how do you deal with the delays? Because like to
(18:39):
talk to our set spaceship and Jupiter, it takes like,
you know, thirty minutes, doesn't it. Yes, And that is
a key element of the novel that the leader of
this empire, this lord of this empire, has become so
spread out across hundreds or thousands of bodies that she
can no longer sort of keep a single consciousness going.
She's fractures into two and ends up with like her
(19:01):
mind being split. And so one of the really awesome
things about this book is that she's really thought through
what this would be like and the consequences of it,
And as in what I think the best science fiction
does is she's found some sort of surprising or counterintuitive
consequences of this technology if it was possible, interesting things
that nobody had thought about happened in this novel. Yeah, exactly,
(19:23):
And she really explores in depth and imagines what it
be like, and also imagines how people would talk to
each other and treat each other, and how you would
talk to ancillaries and how you would talk to AI,
and so that the interactions in this world feel real.
I mean, they feel like somebody went out and lived
this world and it's coming back to tell you stories
about their experience. It feels like a real world. It's
(19:45):
it's very well done storytelling interesting. But how did she
deal with the time? Like, like, if you were talking
to a Jorge and Jupiter that I'm controlling, wouldn't it
just take thirty minutes between each response? You'd be like,
hey Jorge, wait thirty minutes for me to get it,
and and send the response back to that horror and see,
hey Daniel, how's it going. Yeah, it would. And so
essentially what you end up doing is like splitting off
(20:07):
into sub versions. So you like send a bunch of
yourselves off on a mission and you don't hear back
from them for a while, and then they come back
and you try to reintegrate what they've learned back into
your central consciousness. But I sent them with my consciousness.
It's like a copy thing I copy my consciousness. Well,
it's sort of fractures, and there are moments of the
novel where, for example, the communication breaks down because somebody
(20:29):
develops technology that blocks the jams this kind of communication,
and all of a sudden, all of the bodies feel
just like individuals, and they all they're not zombies. They
all feel like they are the one that just all
of a sudden, each one is isolated in its own body.
It's like Dropbox. You gotta think it. You can sever
the connection, you can rewrite all you want. It feels
like you have the dropbox. That's the drop box, and
(20:51):
then when you rethink, then everything has to settle. It's
exactly like personality drop Box. Yeah. But something that's interesting
is that she also allows people to go from solar
system to solar system using these gates, which are basically
like wormholes, for faster than light travel, because it's pretty
hard to have an interstellar empire if it takes, you know,
(21:12):
a thousand years to get from one side to the other.
So she has this shortcut. You can get from solar
system to solar system and a reasonable amount of time.
But within a solar system, she really wanted to play
with the sort of time lag element. It's the core
part of her story. And so there's no faster than
like communication or travel within the solar system. But then
you have these gates to go from one solar system
(21:33):
to the other. Oh, I see, and in which you
can send information to you can send information to. Yeah,
And so you'll hear about what I asked her in
the interview. I asked her if she ever thought about
using that faster than like communication technology between the ancillaries,
like a pocket wormhole. Yeah, like a pocket wormhole for
instantaneous updates across all of your people, Right, wouldn't you
(21:53):
like wormhole powered jop box. Wouldn't that be awesome? I'm
not sure that would help me be more productive, but
it sounds like a good IDEA quantum drop box. That's
what thanks boson quantum in other dimensions. All right, I
have a few more questions for you about this technology
and about this plot, and then we'll get into the
(22:15):
interview with and Lecky. But first let's take a quick break,
all right. Then we're talking about the universe, not the
universe we live in, but the universe of Ancillary Justice,
(22:36):
which is uh the debut novel by author and Lecky,
which won all kinds of science fiction awards. And there's
a super well known in the science fiction world, and
you're teld me that it relies on this technology of
like controlling other brains and faster than light travel through formals,
that's right, speed of light communication between brains, and then
faster than like travel between solar systems, which I'll be
(22:59):
honest is a bit of a friction for me. Like,
you know, she wanted to have both things in her
world and they slightly contradict each other, but she separated
them sort of in space. Like you can go fastened
light between solar systems, but inside a solar system you're
limited to speed of light communication. Well, and I guess,
like my question is, are these technologies implossible or impossible?
(23:20):
They're not right, Like you could maybe imagine developing wormholes
in the future, and you can maybe imagine developing like
brain implants that can do all these things to your brain. Yeah,
I think the big picture is that this could be
our future. I mean, we could be all drop bug links,
personality zombies in the future. Um, I don't see a
physics reason why it couldn't, Like you said, wormholes totally
(23:43):
a possibility. We dug into that in a podcast episode.
Never been actually observed, but theoretically could happen. I think
the trickier bit is this implant. Like, imagine you developed
an implant which could sense everything that's happening in your brain.
I don't know how plausible it is that I could
understand to what's going on in somebody else's brain. Like,
even if you say, like I can develop an implant
(24:04):
which senses all that stuff, how am I going to
process it? Like, it's not clear to me that your
brain works in a way is similar to mind, so
that it even makes sense to me, right, Like how
do you translate it? Yeah? How do you translate it?
That is a hard problem, um, And then how do
you control it? It's a hard problem, but it's not implausible,
Like maybe we'll figure it out. It could be it
could be that we figure it out. Um. In her book,
(24:26):
it doesn't take very long, Like you turn on a
new ancillary and you get control of it pretty fast.
But you know that babies or whatever, when they turn
on their bodies and need to learn to control it, it
it takes them a while to get used to it
and and familiar with it and comfortable with it. So
I think, at a very minimum, even if you could
capture all that information and translate it and experience it,
(24:46):
it would take you a while to get used to
controlling those bodies. But no, not impossible. And these implants,
are they like chips or do they like take over
your brain too? They're like chips. Yeah, they're inserted into
your brain somehow. They do some surgery to make these
ancillaries to take a human body, and they plant all
this stuff in them to turn them into an ancillary.
I also wonder what it's like to have a hundred
(25:07):
bodies and a hundred brains, and you know, two hundred
pairs of eyeballs. Where do you feel like you are?
Like right now, I feel like I'm in my head.
But if I had two bodies that are looking at
each other, then do I feel like I'm sort of
floating between them? Or I mean both? Or That's the
coolest thing about this book is that it tries to
give you a sense for what that would be like
(25:27):
like if you, as a conscious mind, had multiple experiences. Yeah,
and so in the book, she really tries to give
you a sense or what this is like and it's
a challenge because she's writing from the point of view
of something that has multiple experiences simultaneously, but she's telling
it to you, the reader that can only experience one
thing at a time, in a format of a story
where she has to write, you know, one word at
(25:49):
a time. She can't like layer ten sentences on top
of each other. Did she didn't use columns? Two columns
and the chapter could be interesting? All right? So Daniel,
so you interview, You got to interview, and like you
and you were very excited about this because you're you're
a fan of the book. Oh yeah, I'm a huge fan.
I love this book. When it came out, I reread
it just before I talked to her. I was again
(26:11):
impressed with the depth of the universe that she imagined
and just the sort of craft of the writing of
pulling off such an ambitious thing. And then the book
is just fun to read. It's like it's an adventure.
You want to know what happens. There's mysteries, there's you know, drama,
this politics as personalities. It's an impressive book. It deserves
these awards, So hats off to her. I was very
(26:31):
happy to get to talk to her. Oh, and so
what kind of what kinds of questions did you did
you ask her? Well, you know, I'm an aspiring science
fiction author, so of course I asked her like, how
did you get this idea? And what did you like
about it? And I was really also interested in how
important it was to her that the technology was plausible,
Like how much did she drill down and think about
how this could work and what would be needed and
(26:53):
how that affected her story or was it okay to
her that it was just sort of like a little
bit handwavy in the details. I see. I wonder which
answer would disappoint you or get you more excited. Well,
if I had two bodies, I could be simultaneously excited
and disappointed. You could have a pessimist Ancillary and an
optimist Ancellary. All right, well, here is Daniel's interview with
science fiction author and like, it's my pleasure to welcome
(27:17):
to the show, and Lucky, And once you introduce yourselves
to our listeners, I'm and Lucky. I'm the author, most famously,
I guess, the author of the novel Ancillary Justice and
its sequels Ancillary Sword and Ancellery Mercy. Well, I'm a
huge fan of your book and of the universe that
you've created. Congratulations on this wonderful creation and all of
(27:37):
your success. But before we dive into the physics of
the universe that you've built, we want to ask you
a couple of questions to sort of get to know
you as a scientist or as a science thinker. And
these are questions we're gonna ask every author. The first
question is sort of a philosophical question that bounces around
the science fiction community, and it has to do with
Star Trek transporters. Do you think when you go into
(28:01):
a transporter on Star Trek do you think it actually
moves you from one place to another? Or do you
think it tears you apart, effectively killing you and recreates
a clone somewhere else. I actually feel like you're killing
somebody and creating a new person. But I mean, it's
all ship of theseus that's wonderfull. I totally agree. Um.
And then the second question I have for you is
(28:23):
about science fiction technology in general. You must read a
lot of science fiction, and so I'm wondering what element
that you see in science fiction are you most excited
about actually becoming real? Would you like to actually see
scientists build one day medical tech, like the kind of
oh wee can just heal wounds by spraying a thing
over it? That would be really fabulous. Uh. And actually
(28:46):
food replicators, food replicators would be amazing, And I'm kind
of suspicious of the way they're often handled. Like in
Star Trek, it's this really amazingly miraculous technology, but it's
always Oh but the food is not really as good
as when you like it yourself. Well, if it's molecular,
I mean it's it's absolutely indistinguishable, then why should it
(29:06):
not be as good? Right? I find that kind of
an interesting. Oh, but mom has to make it slaving
for hours over the stove or it won't taste as good, Like, yeah,
mom's tears aren't really that delicious. All right. So let's
talk about the science fiction universe that you created in
this wonderful novel Ancillary Justice. I was wondering first if
you could describe to our listeners. So, what is the
(29:29):
key element of the technology that you've created that changes
what it's like to be in that universe? There's technology
for slaving brains to a central or to each other
or to a central uh authority isn't the right word,
so that those brains experience themselves as not having an
individual identity, but as being part of the larger identity.
(29:50):
That's an amazing idea and one that plays out in
a fascinating way in your novel. But I was wondering,
sort of, how did you come up with that idea?
Where's that idea come from? Do you start from the
concept of the technology and then come up with the
story or think about the story you wanted to tell,
and then sort of reverse engineer the technology that could
make it happen. It started out my imagining beings that
(30:12):
could be in more than one place at a time,
Like I think a lot of stories started out with
just sort of idly fantasizing about different cool things. You know,
you're in line of the post office or whatever in
your board and you're making up cool stuff. Uh, And
of course eventually it builds up into something more complicated,
and then all of a sudden, I'm like, well, wait,
I've built up this character and they're here, but they
also need to be this other place. And then I thought,
(30:34):
well could I make that work? And that became really
fascinating to me, and the story sort of built out
from there? And what is it that's so fascinating to
you about that idea? What drew you into that idea
and made you want to create this entire universe around it?
The idea of being in more than one place is
really interesting. But then when I came up with a
mechanism for how that would work, that was really kind
(30:56):
of horrifying, uh and upsetting. That's a terrible thing to
do to a person. So then, of course I wonder
how deeply did you think about how to actually implement this,
Like did you think about the technology in great detail
to figure out whether this was plausible. Once I decided
how it was going to work, at least the sort
of hand wavy version of how it was going to work,
(31:16):
because it's all hand wavy, I started looking into human neurology.
And it's really horrifying when you realize how much of
our identities and sense of ourselves are contingent on a
couple of very delicate connections in our brains. And so
how important is it to you that this could actually
work in our universe? How important is it to you
(31:37):
that the science of it is like all really logical
and consistent or is it all right for some of
it to be sort of hand wavy and approximate? In
some ways it's important to me, and in some ways
it's not so. As I said, I spent a fair
amount of time looking at the neurological implications for how
this sort of thing would work, But in terms of
(31:57):
how do ancillary implants actually do the work, like what
connections do they cut, how do they communicate with each other?
I have no freaking idea that's just reverse the polarity
on the whatever that's Star Trek techno babble um. But
I did want the neurology and the psychology to be
fairly realistic because I feel like one of the cool
(32:20):
things about science fiction is you can do that. You
can just stand up and say and now talking cows,
and your audience will buy and large they'll take it.
You don't always have to explain how that happens. But also,
if I want my audience to continue to believe in
those talking cows, I feel like I need to make
other things around them very realistic. So the grass ought
(32:40):
to be you believe it's grass, and the cows ought
to talk in a way that makes sense for the cows,
and if I explain anything, it really should make sense.
But I'm never going to explain why the cows are talking. Well,
maybe I will, I don't know. There's a lot of
power in just being able to say handwavy thing, But
there's also a lot of power and being able to
describe exactly how it's happening. And then of course I
(33:01):
have to ask, do you think this could actually happen
in our universe? Do you think in a thousand or
five thousand years this might be a reality brains slave
to a central intelligence? I kind of hope not. But
at the same time, I actually don't think. Given if
you could make the things small enough, the equipment, if
(33:23):
you could miniaturize it enough and have the kind of
sophistication with neurosurgery that we don't yet have, maybe you
could do it. I don't know how you empower it.
That's another most science fiction doesn't stop to think how
you power things? Right? They just say, oh, my, my
ray gun works all the time, like yeah, and how
big is the battery? And why are you not always
changing it? Right? I say nothing about how any of
(33:44):
that is powered. In science fiction. One of the ways
you don't get people to ask those questions, is you
don't mention it? And in your book the point of view,
the main narrator is an artificial intelligence. That makes me wonder,
do you think artificial intelligence in today's world could actually
have a point of view, could have a first person experience?
Do you think that if we developed an AI now
(34:06):
that was sufficiently complex enough that it seemed human, that
it would actually be having a first person experience like
you and I? I feel like that's really hard to
say because from a certain point of view, and understand
I don't subscribe to this point of view, but it's
logically makes sense. I don't know that anybody around me
is actually having a first person experience except for me,
(34:26):
because I'm experiencing mine. And the only way that I
can know that anybody else is having that experience is
that they tell me. And so I go through life
when I meet another person assuming that they're having a
first person experience, Uh, partly because it just makes life easier,
and I would rather make that my default assumption than
the other. So I think if an AI were to
(34:48):
pass the interiority touring test and sound really like it
was having an actual first person experience, then it would
seem to me prudent to accept that. All right, well,
thank you very much and for human hearing my questions
about your science fiction universe and for coming on our show.
All right, pretty cool. Um sounds totally fascinating her process
and what she thought about the world and the universe
(35:10):
and science. What was your takeaway from talking with her, Daniel,
I think that she did a good job imagining sort
of the important bits of how her universe worked and
making those consistent without getting into the weeds of like,
you know, how would you actually build this thing? You know,
basically the engineering like is there a battery in this thing?
Or do you need to recharge every four hours? And
you're like where does the triple A fit inside of
(35:34):
your brain? And that's why there's no genre called engineering fiction.
Oh maybe maybe there should be, Maybe there should be
a good talk to your agent. Um. So I think
she did a good job. She sort of thought about
the details, try to make a world that was consistent,
follow those rules in her story, but not get bogged
(35:55):
down in all this little trivia. And you know she
you can hear she's saying like she thought the audience
would accept that the audience didn't want to hear more
details that you can say talking cows and the audience
would be like, all right, cool, what happens when you
have talking cows? Basically tries to avoid the topics she
doesn't want to get into. She says, if you don't
want people to ask questions about it, just sort of
(36:15):
don't bring it up. But then again, I asked her
questions that apparently nobody had asked her before, so some
people do bring it up. That's what happens when physicists
read your book. Well, what do you think is the
sort of the core idea or the core lesson from
her novel that she was trying to get at, you know,
is it's sort of about what does human consciousness means?
Or you know, how how does technolog once we go
(36:36):
across the universe and across the galaxy, what does that
do for our maybe our collective conscious is the human species. Yeah,
I think that the core idea of the book is
that technology can really change what it means to be human,
and that what it means to be human can change,
and you know it has, right, our experience of living
in this world is very different than the experience of
(36:57):
the world ten years ago, just because of the knowledge
and the tools that we have and how big the
world feels and how accessible the stars field really changed
what it's like to be human. And this sort of
extrapolates that out to a crazy extreme and reminds you
that technology is not just a tool, but it sort
of defines who we are and how we live, right,
It redefines it changes what it means. Right. Yeah, it's
(37:20):
completely like even just our listeners listening to this podcast.
I mean, it's a totally different human experience than they
that humans had, you know, three years ago. Yeah, just
like dropbox change what it means to work together, right, Um, lightsabers,
draw box, it's all fantasy. Hey can you put that
lightsaber in the drop box so I can use it? Also? Awesome? Yeah,
(37:42):
you just make sure you turn it off, don't put
it don't put it activated. Oh I've made that mistake,
let me tell you. But yeah, it's it is an
interesting to think as we explore more of the universe,
as we learn more about the universe, how is that
changing our conception of what it means to be human. Yeah,
the answer is that it would be very different. But
(38:02):
of course as a challenge there. If you're going to
write a novel to be read by today's humans about
the experience of future humans, you have to make it
at least a little bit relatable. I mean, if your
point is, wow, in a billion years or whatever, it's
going to be impossible to understand future society, well, then
the book is just gibberish, Like if you just wrote
it in a future language nobody knows now. Yes, so
(38:23):
you have to bridge. You have to make it accessible
enough to today's humans that we can get a glimpse
for what it might be like to them. And that's
also what's fascinating about old science fiction. Like you read
science fiction from the nineteen fifties, it's like it's dated.
It tells you not just what they thought about what
the future would look like, but what was hard for
(38:44):
them to imagine, what was easy for them to think about.
It gives you a sense really for what it was
like to be back there in the nineteen fifties. The
way they extrapolated to the future missed a little bit
from what where we are now. Yeah, and if she
had written this book in a hundred years or in
two hundred years, you would probably have different challenges writing
it to extrapolate from that society to her future society.
(39:05):
So science fiction, in this way, it sort of depends
on both time points, the time point in the book
and the time point of the reader. And so that's
why the best science fiction is the ones that that
works well, not just in one year, but you know
over ten years, or over twenty or fifty years. If
it's really timeless, then you've captured something that's essential about humanity,
not something which is like, oh, here's what Twitter looks
(39:26):
like today, and how annoying it is, and let me
write a science fiction novel about this moment. It's about
being human. Yeah, I think I'm just going to write
a science fiction novel where the future doesn't have Twitter.
That's my fantasy. That would That's called utopian fiction. Utopian
that's right. All right. Well, we hope you enjoyed this
(39:46):
trip down to the consciousness of other people and like
science fiction authors as they take you to other star
systems across the galaxy yep. And so if you enjoyed this,
let us know, and if you'd like for us to
talk about us ses fiction novel that you really enjoyed,
send it to me, I'll read it and maybe we
will talk about it on the podcast and into your
view the author. Yeah, it'll give us an excuse to
(40:09):
reach out to these famous people and talk to them. Yeah,
which is always fun. It's such an honor. I was
so glad that Anne was so friendly and so willing
to spend her time explaining her universe two hours. So again.
The book is called Ancillary Justice by Anne Lecky, And
if you enjoy it, it's part of a trilogy. There's
two more books in that same universe, all of excellent quality.
All right, well, thank you for joining us. See you
(40:30):
next time. If you still have a question after listening
to all these explanations, please drop us a line. We'd
love to hear from you. You can find us at Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge that's one word, or
email us at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com.
(40:54):
Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain
the Universe is a production of I Heart Ready for
More podcast from my Heart Radio. Visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Yeah,
Let's take a quick break, and when we get back,
we'll find out how important scientific consistency is to readers
of science fiction. Daniel, you read a lot of science fiction, right,
I certainly do. Is there a phrase in a science
fiction novel that, when you're reading it you just automatically cringe?
Oh man, I have got quite a list that really
(00:22):
has a physicist if you If you read this, it
makes you a little bit scared. It makes me worried.
You know that I'm not gonna be able to enjoy
the novel if they don't treat it right. What are
some of these phrases that make you afraid? Like the
Higgs boson If somebody mentions the Higgs boson, Oh man,
I tossed the book across the room almost every time
I see automatically. How about quantum mechanics or the quantum realm?
(00:45):
Oh boy, don't get me started on that other dimensions?
That is definitely near the top of stuff that's handled
badly in science fiction. What if I write a novel
about a quantum Higgs Boson dimension, I'm not even cracking
that book open. Hi'm or handmad. Cartoonists and the creator
(01:18):
of PhD commics. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist
and I love reading science fiction, especially when it has
actual science in it, but the fiction. No, it's awesome
if you can have science and then build fiction around it.
That's why it's called science fiction. Well, welcome to our podcast,
which is a work of unfiction or unfiction. We strive
(01:40):
at least to make this podcast about the real universe
and not about fictional universities. Welcome to Daniel and Jorge
Explain the Universe, a production of our Heart Radio in
which we usually take you on a tour of the
real universe that we find ourselves in all the incredible,
all the amazing, all the mind blowing things that exist
out there in the real universe. And sometimes we like
(02:02):
to talk about um sort of a crazy ideas that
maybe physicists have or or you know, wishful thinking that
physicists have about how the universe might work or what
it what could be out there in the universe. That's right,
aspirational universes. Maybe we live in this universe, Maybe we
live in a universe where there are tiny strings librating
at the smallest scale, or maybe we live in an
(02:24):
infinite universe. The truth is we just don't really know,
and so it's fun to consider a whole spectrum of
possible What is it universe I Universes University. Yeah, yeah,
you know. They call it now a speculative sign. It's science.
We call it speculative science. This is not a speculative podcast.
(02:44):
We uh, we don't just speculate. We go out and test,
We do experiments. One day people will know the truth,
the real answer to how the universe works. But until
then we rely on clever people to imagine other possible universes.
And that exists sometimes in the mind. It is a
theoretical physicists, but sometimes those ideas begin elsewhere. Because it
is sort of fun to understand the universe as we
(03:06):
know it and to see to know and to see
what's out there. But it's also fun to think about
what could be, or what might be or what um
you maybe know it's impossible, but it's fun to think
about the what would happen? How would what would the
universe look like if a crazy idea was actually true? Yeah,
and it's more than just like does the universe work
this way or that way? It's also like, what do
(03:27):
we do with the universe. If it does work this way,
what kind of awesome tech can we develop? How can
we change our lives and the way that we interact
with and live in the universe given our mastery of
the physical laws. Yeah, and so as you said, Daniel,
it exists not only in the minds of physicists and philosophers,
but authors and artists that are out there trying to
(03:49):
think about these ideas and what would they mean for
the human condition. That's right, and everybody's familiar with creativity
in the minds of artists, but also, of course authors
require creativity. They imagine an entire new universe, maybe with
different physical laws, maybe with new technology, and that creativity
in some ways is parallel to the creativity that's going
on at the forefront of physics, and those ideas bleed in.
(04:11):
Sometimes we get awesome ideas from reading science fiction and
we think, oh, maybe the universe does work that way,
or maybe we could build a ray gun. Do you think, Daniel,
is a big overlap between science fiction readers and physicists
or is it like overlap. I don't think every science
fiction reader is a physicist, but I think everything is
(04:33):
a science fiction reader that might be true. That's right.
Not all nerds are physicists, but all physicists are. And
I know of more than one sort of practicing professional
physicist who then became a successful science fiction author. So
that is a pathway, Like Alistair Reynolds, for example, he
was an astrophysicist in Europe before he started writing. And
(04:56):
there's one here in my department, Greg Benford's actually kind
of famous. He's a professor in my department. For you guys,
is it sort of fun to not be shackled by
the laws of physics and just be able to kind
of spin stories and not have to worry about being
completely scientific. Well, you know a lot of theoretical physicists
already don't feel shackled by the laws of physics because
(05:16):
they propose things we can never test, like the laws
of physics they're authoring them. Yeah, but I think that
there's a creativity that's required in physics, and it's a
similar creativity that's required in writing science fiction to imagine
the way the universe might work. And so yeah, sort
of stretches a different muscle. Um. But also, I think
(05:38):
we're just all fanboys and fan girls because we read
so much science fiction. It's fun to think about writing
some right, because I imagine it's a lot of fun
to explore other universes, you know, not just the one
we live in, but to imagine new universes. Absolutely. And
so today on the podcast, it will it's the first
of a new kind of episode that we're going to
try out in which we talk about famous science fiction
(06:02):
authors and famous science fiction novels that are out there,
and we actually are going to be talking to each
of the authors. That's right. I reached out to some
famous science fiction authors and gasp, imagine they actually wrote
back to us. And so we have the honor and
privilege to talk to some of the brightest minds in
science fiction and to explore how they build their science
(06:23):
fiction universes. How much physics goes into it? Yeah, because
that's a big question I think a lot of people
might have, which is um. You know, when you read
one of these science fiction novels, you you sort of
wonder how much of this is true and how much
of this is just totally made up? I know, how
much of this is They just say quantum mechanics when
they don't know what to write. The quantum realm yeah,
(06:44):
I read a lot of science fiction. And you can
tell when the author has consulted a scientist, and you
can tell when the author has not as as consulted
Wikipedia or not even you know, relied on the readers
to like not really know what these words mean and
sort of accept them as a word salad that says
plot hole fixed here. And so, yeah, you're a big
(07:07):
science fiction fan, right, Daniel? You read a ton of
science fiction? Do I read a couple of novels a week? Well? Wow,
I read a couple as a kid, mostly eyes like asama. Um.
But yeah, I read I think almost every I sid
asthma of work that's out there. Why did you stop?
I'm not sure. I think I got into a fantasy
for a while, and then I started reading other things
(07:29):
in comics. Well, I guess I never grew up, and
I'm still reading science fiction. And in fact, now on
our website you can find a list of science fiction
novels that I have enjoyed. Um. I only put novels
on there that I liked. I don't pan anybody's work
because I know that every novel that's out there is
somebody's life and heart and soul. Went into that book,
so I'm not gonna say negative things about them. So
(07:50):
you can go on our website and under about you
can find a list of novels that I recommend. Yeah,
and so this is the first in our series. And
so today on the podcast, we'll be tackling the question
it's science fiction scientific The core question we're asking is,
you know, how important is it that science in a
(08:12):
science fiction story be logical and self consistent and or
is it a sort of okay because it's science fiction
to be sort of hand wavy. Yeah, And it's not
a question that has a universal answer. You will find
people out there, like particle physicists who want the science
to be real or to be logical, or at least
to be self consistent, especially when it's a crucial element
(08:33):
in the story. And I think you'll find other people
out there that just wants stuff to blow up and
zoom across the screen. Page Smith in a spaceship, Yeah,
send Bruce Willis out there, doesn't really matter if his
mission makes sense. Um. And so you'll hear a spectrum
of answers, I think, and it's totally valid to have
a spectrum of opinions. Let's take a quick break, and
(08:54):
when we get back, we'll find out how important scientific
consistency is to readers of science fiction as usual. I
was curious what people have thought about this question, so
(09:16):
I walked around campus and I asked people how important
it was to them that the science and the story
be logic, will be self consistent. Here's what people had
to say. I think it should make sense, but sometimes
I will not always notice, and other times it's not
as sleep as they deal. I think it's okay if
it's a bit like not real, yeah, because it's pi'
(09:38):
not based on a true like actual story or and
if it's trying to be like legitimate, then yeah. But
if it's like a science fiction, I guess it's a
little bit okay. For Tunoby, it's okay. If it's hand wavy.
It should be consistent within the story, but not necessarily
with reality. It probably should be a little consistent so
it remains kind of realistic or factual. Is it okay
(10:00):
if they just sort of say quantum mechanics sometimes and
and wave away some problems, yeah, that's okay. I would
like it to be plausible and actually like realistic. I
know that a lot of times that doesn't really work
for the story. But I think as long as it's
(10:20):
reasonably almost there, then it's fine with me. Um. Actually
it does matter to me because I want to imagine
a future work could happen, so I don't get my
hopes up, so to speak. All right, cool, it must
be logical or plaus bow All right. People seem pretty
relaxed about the design has been real or not. That
(10:41):
was a little bit infuriating. I was hoping more people
would with me. He didn't interview in the physicist. I
purposely didn't. People are like, I don't care about the
physics of light sabers. I just think lightsabers are cool.
Well that's true, you know, lightsabers are cool, whether or
not you could ever actually make them. Um. But yeah,
some people are like, yeah, whatever, I don't really care
(11:02):
for his hand wavy. You know. It's like they expect
to be fed spoonfuls of random science sounding words, you know,
and there's a place for that. Like I enjoy Star Trek,
even though the science on that show is ridunculous. You know. Yeah,
they're like reverse the transponder on the polarization ion beam,
a matic or something which you're like you can't make it,
(11:22):
so that's impossible. Yeah, but they're being so ridiculous that
it sounds like they're sort of trying to be ridiculous.
They don't take themselves seriously, and so I guess part
of it is just sort of what are you're aiming for? Yeah, well,
I think that's kind of what you're saying earlier, which
is that's kind of the point of science fiction, which
is to just kind of tickle our imagination and to
make us wonder about what's other, because you know, sometimes
(11:45):
the science fiction stuff inspire scientists and engineers to make
it real, to make it so, as Pricard would say,
and then it becomes like a real thing. It certainly does,
and it also sort of warns us of the dangers
of technology. These days, we have a lot of dystopian
science fiction with the robots of tape can over or
everybody's online and getting deleted and stuff, and so it's
helpful to sort of think through the consequences of technology.
(12:07):
And to me, that's what science fiction is about. It's like,
what stories could you tell in a universe where the
rules are different, either the science is different, like the
laws of physics have changed or you have new kinds
of tech which change what it's like to be human,
and then explore that, like what stories are there, what
is it like to grow up in that world? What
can you do or can't do that it's weird compared
(12:29):
to the world you come from, Right, It's all like
a big thought experiment, Right, could you guess what if
this would happen? And it kind of tells you about
how things are right now. Yeah, And that to me
is why it's important to be consistent, because that's the
whole experiment. Like, if you're trying to figure out what
is it like to live in a world where you
can teleport around the world to visit your brother in
(12:50):
you know, Australia in two seconds, Well, then you've got
to have some rules that's constrained that world so that
you can explore what it's like. Because if you're actually
living in that world, there are rules, right, and if
you want to know what it's actually like to live
in that world, when you gotta follow that world's rules.
So if you're just making up rules all the time
and they violate each other don't make any sense, then
you're not really exploring that world. In my opinion. And
(13:12):
if I had a secret brother in Australia, that would
be the shocking part of that novel for me. That
would be the huge reveal. Yeah, but the all right,
so these are all super interesting questions, and Daniel thought
that it would be great to kind of get into
that with with a real science fiction author and a
famous science fiction author. And so today on the program,
we are going to play an interview with Ann Lecky,
(13:33):
who is the author of a famous science fiction nolical
ancillary Justice. That's right, I think she pronounced the ancillary
injustice ancillary. Sorry. And this is not just any book.
This is a book which won a series of awards.
It's sort of famous in science fiction circles because it
won all the major awards. That won the Hugo Award,
won the Nebula Award, won a bunch of other awards.
(13:55):
And that's that's pretty unusual. Um. And I think also
he was her debut novel. Oh, this is the first
novel she ever wrote, is the first novel she ever published.
First time up in bat like hit a home run,
the biggest home run anybody's ever hit. That's pretty awesome.
It made quite a splash. Wow, and so it sounds
like a super interesting books, Daniel, So before we play
(14:15):
the interview, tell me a little bit about what the
book has done, what the kind of the science inside
of the science fiction novel is about. Yeah, So this
book you would categorize as space opera because it takes
place over vast scales and distances, and it's far in
the future, and humanity has conquered a big fraction of
the galaxy. So humans have spaceships and lots of solar
(14:38):
systems and were spread out all over the galaxy. Wow,
like the Milky Way. Yeah, like the Milky Way. Though
it's never actually named, it could have been a galaxy
far far far away, a long time ago. It could
have been. But you know, the point is that we
occupy several different solar systems. And the key new idea
in this book, the key new element of technology that
(14:59):
changes what it's like to be a person is that
in her universe, they've developed technology to connect brains to
each other, so like I can have a consciousness which
is not just in my body, but I can also
take over other bodies, so I can like spread my
mind across like five different people. So you're here now,
but suddenly, if you wanted to be the Daniel in
(15:20):
Alpha Centaur, you could just flip a switch and suddenly
you feel like you're there. No, I think you are
simultaneously in all of them. So it's like you have
five pairs of eyes and you're controlling five bodies. Me
as a conscious entity, I'm experiencing what five people are
experiencing at the same time. That's right. Yeah, you have
five brains at your disposal and ten hands, and you know,
(15:43):
fifty toes and all that stuff, and they're all human.
Are are are we robots? What am I? Well? In
the book, a lot of the characters are human and
the and the ancillaries are the ones that are slaved
to you. So if you have five ancillaries, that means
it's you plus five other bodies. So you can take
your human body and your human mind and experience, you know,
control six different bodies at once. But you can also
(16:06):
connect humans to AI. So, for example, there are these
spaceships that have really intelligent AI in them, and they
can also have humans that they control. So the mind
of an AI can also exist across a ship and
these bodies. So there's me, like me, the brain that
the body that my brain was born in. But then
I also have like puppets that I can control. Yes, yes,
(16:28):
they're just like puppets. They're like biological puppets or robot puppets,
their biological puppets. So you know, there's a lot of
discussions of the of the morality of this in the
book because basically, you go to war, you take prisoners,
and then you just basically delete those personalities from the
bodies and use them for yourself. It's like you're wiping
a floppy disk or something. Oh, I see, so it's
like another human body, but it's sort of like deactivated. Yeah,
(16:52):
it's like you've written your consciousness onto their hardware. Yeah.
So it's like, for example, if you deleted my personality
and took me over, then they would just be Daniel
and Jorge would just be Jorge in Daniel and Whore's
bodies be Jorrie and Jorge Explain the Universe a new
podcast from my Heart Radio. Huh okay, So this it
imagines the future where this technology is possible that I
(17:14):
can somehow wipe out the consciousness of a human and
then reimposed I guess the consciousness of another person in
it or an artificial intelligence, yeah, or an artificial intelligence.
So you take prisoners in a war, and then you
can make those prisoners be like soldiers of your AI
powered ships, or you can take them for yourself and
make them your own slaves. So you can exist in
(17:36):
several places. So these people are sort of like zombies
or like if I if you were to meet another Jorge,
would would you feel like you're talking to Jorge or
do you feel like you're talking to a robot? You
would feel like you're talking to Jorge, because Jorge would
be in several places. Yeah, And so you can do
several things at once, and you can take like two
of you to go shopping while one of you is
staying home cooking, and everybody's sort of mentally connected to
(17:58):
each other because you have one consciousness stretched across several bodies. So,
and how is this technology made possible? Is it like
we have Is it like implants or you know, biological
or is it magic? It's not magic. She's tried to
think it through technologically, and she's imagined that if you
put implants into the brain, they can receive the signals
(18:19):
necessary to control the body and send the signals necessary
to sort of transmit the experience of that body. It's
like having a brain walkie talkie, yeah, sort of, or
like an internet of brains, right, instead of having a
single brain in the body, you sort of become a
larger virtual brain, I guess right away. My question is like,
how do you deal with the delays? Because like to
(18:39):
talk to our set spaceship and Jupiter, it takes like,
you know, thirty minutes, doesn't it. Yes, And that is
a key element of the novel that the leader of
this empire, this lord of this empire, has become so
spread out across hundreds or thousands of bodies that she
can no longer sort of keep a single consciousness going.
She's fractures into two and ends up with like her
(19:01):
mind being split. And so one of the really awesome
things about this book is that she's really thought through
what this would be like and the consequences of it,
And as in what I think the best science fiction
does is she's found some sort of surprising or counterintuitive
consequences of this technology if it was possible, interesting things
that nobody had thought about happened in this novel. Yeah, exactly,
(19:23):
And she really explores in depth and imagines what it
be like, and also imagines how people would talk to
each other and treat each other, and how you would
talk to ancillaries and how you would talk to AI,
and so that the interactions in this world feel real.
I mean, they feel like somebody went out and lived
this world and it's coming back to tell you stories
about their experience. It feels like a real world. It's
(19:45):
it's very well done storytelling interesting. But how did she
deal with the time? Like, like, if you were talking
to a Jorge and Jupiter that I'm controlling, wouldn't it
just take thirty minutes between each response? You'd be like,
hey Jorge, wait thirty minutes for me to get it,
and and send the response back to that horror and see,
hey Daniel, how's it going. Yeah, it would. And so
essentially what you end up doing is like splitting off
(20:07):
into sub versions. So you like send a bunch of
yourselves off on a mission and you don't hear back
from them for a while, and then they come back
and you try to reintegrate what they've learned back into
your central consciousness. But I sent them with my consciousness.
It's like a copy thing I copy my consciousness. Well,
it's sort of fractures, and there are moments of the
novel where, for example, the communication breaks down because somebody
(20:29):
develops technology that blocks the jams this kind of communication,
and all of a sudden, all of the bodies feel
just like individuals, and they all they're not zombies. They
all feel like they are the one that just all
of a sudden, each one is isolated in its own body.
It's like Dropbox. You gotta think it. You can sever
the connection, you can rewrite all you want. It feels
like you have the dropbox. That's the drop box, and
(20:51):
then when you rethink, then everything has to settle. It's
exactly like personality drop Box. Yeah. But something that's interesting
is that she also allows people to go from solar
system to solar system using these gates, which are basically
like wormholes, for faster than light travel, because it's pretty
hard to have an interstellar empire if it takes, you know,
(21:12):
a thousand years to get from one side to the other.
So she has this shortcut. You can get from solar
system to solar system and a reasonable amount of time.
But within a solar system, she really wanted to play
with the sort of time lag element. It's the core
part of her story. And so there's no faster than
like communication or travel within the solar system. But then
you have these gates to go from one solar system
(21:33):
to the other. Oh, I see, and in which you
can send information to you can send information to. Yeah,
And so you'll hear about what I asked her in
the interview. I asked her if she ever thought about
using that faster than like communication technology between the ancillaries,
like a pocket wormhole. Yeah, like a pocket wormhole for
instantaneous updates across all of your people, Right, wouldn't you
(21:53):
like wormhole powered jop box. Wouldn't that be awesome? I'm
not sure that would help me be more productive, but
it sounds like a good IDEA quantum drop box. That's
what thanks boson quantum in other dimensions. All right, I
have a few more questions for you about this technology
and about this plot, and then we'll get into the
(22:15):
interview with and Lecky. But first let's take a quick break,
all right. Then we're talking about the universe, not the
universe we live in, but the universe of Ancillary Justice,
(22:36):
which is uh the debut novel by author and Lecky,
which won all kinds of science fiction awards. And there's
a super well known in the science fiction world, and
you're teld me that it relies on this technology of
like controlling other brains and faster than light travel through formals,
that's right, speed of light communication between brains, and then
faster than like travel between solar systems, which I'll be
(22:59):
honest is a bit of a friction for me. Like,
you know, she wanted to have both things in her
world and they slightly contradict each other, but she separated
them sort of in space. Like you can go fastened
light between solar systems, but inside a solar system you're
limited to speed of light communication. Well, and I guess,
like my question is, are these technologies implossible or impossible?
(23:20):
They're not right, Like you could maybe imagine developing wormholes
in the future, and you can maybe imagine developing like
brain implants that can do all these things to your brain. Yeah,
I think the big picture is that this could be
our future. I mean, we could be all drop bug links,
personality zombies in the future. Um, I don't see a
physics reason why it couldn't, Like you said, wormholes totally
(23:43):
a possibility. We dug into that in a podcast episode.
Never been actually observed, but theoretically could happen. I think
the trickier bit is this implant. Like, imagine you developed
an implant which could sense everything that's happening in your brain.
I don't know how plausible it is that I could
understand to what's going on in somebody else's brain. Like,
even if you say, like I can develop an implant
(24:04):
which senses all that stuff, how am I going to
process it? Like, it's not clear to me that your
brain works in a way is similar to mind, so
that it even makes sense to me, right, Like how
do you translate it? Yeah? How do you translate it?
That is a hard problem, um, And then how do
you control it? It's a hard problem, but it's not implausible,
Like maybe we'll figure it out. It could be it
could be that we figure it out. Um. In her book,
(24:26):
it doesn't take very long, Like you turn on a
new ancillary and you get control of it pretty fast.
But you know that babies or whatever, when they turn
on their bodies and need to learn to control it, it
it takes them a while to get used to it
and and familiar with it and comfortable with it. So
I think, at a very minimum, even if you could
capture all that information and translate it and experience it,
(24:46):
it would take you a while to get used to
controlling those bodies. But no, not impossible. And these implants,
are they like chips or do they like take over
your brain too? They're like chips. Yeah, they're inserted into
your brain somehow. They do some surgery to make these
ancillaries to take a human body, and they plant all
this stuff in them to turn them into an ancillary.
I also wonder what it's like to have a hundred
(25:07):
bodies and a hundred brains, and you know, two hundred
pairs of eyeballs. Where do you feel like you are?
Like right now, I feel like I'm in my head.
But if I had two bodies that are looking at
each other, then do I feel like I'm sort of
floating between them? Or I mean both? Or That's the
coolest thing about this book is that it tries to
give you a sense for what that would be like
(25:27):
like if you, as a conscious mind, had multiple experiences. Yeah,
and so in the book, she really tries to give
you a sense or what this is like and it's
a challenge because she's writing from the point of view
of something that has multiple experiences simultaneously, but she's telling
it to you, the reader that can only experience one
thing at a time, in a format of a story
where she has to write, you know, one word at
(25:49):
a time. She can't like layer ten sentences on top
of each other. Did she didn't use columns? Two columns
and the chapter could be interesting? All right? So Daniel,
so you interview, You got to interview, and like you
and you were very excited about this because you're you're
a fan of the book. Oh yeah, I'm a huge fan.
I love this book. When it came out, I reread
it just before I talked to her. I was again
(26:11):
impressed with the depth of the universe that she imagined
and just the sort of craft of the writing of
pulling off such an ambitious thing. And then the book
is just fun to read. It's like it's an adventure.
You want to know what happens. There's mysteries, there's you know, drama,
this politics as personalities. It's an impressive book. It deserves
these awards, So hats off to her. I was very
(26:31):
happy to get to talk to her. Oh, and so
what kind of what kinds of questions did you did
you ask her? Well, you know, I'm an aspiring science
fiction author, so of course I asked her like, how
did you get this idea? And what did you like
about it? And I was really also interested in how
important it was to her that the technology was plausible,
Like how much did she drill down and think about
how this could work and what would be needed and
(26:53):
how that affected her story or was it okay to
her that it was just sort of like a little
bit handwavy in the details. I see. I wonder which
answer would disappoint you or get you more excited. Well,
if I had two bodies, I could be simultaneously excited
and disappointed. You could have a pessimist Ancillary and an
optimist Ancellary. All right, well, here is Daniel's interview with
science fiction author and like, it's my pleasure to welcome
(27:17):
to the show, and Lucky, And once you introduce yourselves
to our listeners, I'm and Lucky. I'm the author, most famously,
I guess, the author of the novel Ancillary Justice and
its sequels Ancillary Sword and Ancellery Mercy. Well, I'm a
huge fan of your book and of the universe that
you've created. Congratulations on this wonderful creation and all of
(27:37):
your success. But before we dive into the physics of
the universe that you've built, we want to ask you
a couple of questions to sort of get to know
you as a scientist or as a science thinker. And
these are questions we're gonna ask every author. The first
question is sort of a philosophical question that bounces around
the science fiction community, and it has to do with
Star Trek transporters. Do you think when you go into
(28:01):
a transporter on Star Trek do you think it actually
moves you from one place to another? Or do you
think it tears you apart, effectively killing you and recreates
a clone somewhere else. I actually feel like you're killing
somebody and creating a new person. But I mean, it's
all ship of theseus that's wonderfull. I totally agree. Um.
And then the second question I have for you is
(28:23):
about science fiction technology in general. You must read a
lot of science fiction, and so I'm wondering what element
that you see in science fiction are you most excited
about actually becoming real? Would you like to actually see
scientists build one day medical tech, like the kind of
oh wee can just heal wounds by spraying a thing
over it? That would be really fabulous. Uh. And actually
(28:46):
food replicators, food replicators would be amazing, And I'm kind
of suspicious of the way they're often handled. Like in
Star Trek, it's this really amazingly miraculous technology, but it's
always Oh but the food is not really as good
as when you like it yourself. Well, if it's molecular,
I mean it's it's absolutely indistinguishable, then why should it
(29:06):
not be as good? Right? I find that kind of
an interesting. Oh, but mom has to make it slaving
for hours over the stove or it won't taste as good, Like, yeah,
mom's tears aren't really that delicious. All right. So let's
talk about the science fiction universe that you created in
this wonderful novel Ancillary Justice. I was wondering first if
you could describe to our listeners. So, what is the
(29:29):
key element of the technology that you've created that changes
what it's like to be in that universe? There's technology
for slaving brains to a central or to each other
or to a central uh authority isn't the right word,
so that those brains experience themselves as not having an
individual identity, but as being part of the larger identity.
(29:50):
That's an amazing idea and one that plays out in
a fascinating way in your novel. But I was wondering,
sort of, how did you come up with that idea?
Where's that idea come from? Do you start from the
concept of the technology and then come up with the
story or think about the story you wanted to tell,
and then sort of reverse engineer the technology that could
make it happen. It started out my imagining beings that
(30:12):
could be in more than one place at a time,
Like I think a lot of stories started out with
just sort of idly fantasizing about different cool things. You know,
you're in line of the post office or whatever in
your board and you're making up cool stuff. Uh, And
of course eventually it builds up into something more complicated,
and then all of a sudden, I'm like, well, wait,
I've built up this character and they're here, but they
also need to be this other place. And then I thought,
(30:34):
well could I make that work? And that became really
fascinating to me, and the story sort of built out
from there? And what is it that's so fascinating to
you about that idea? What drew you into that idea
and made you want to create this entire universe around it?
The idea of being in more than one place is
really interesting. But then when I came up with a
mechanism for how that would work, that was really kind
(30:56):
of horrifying, uh and upsetting. That's a terrible thing to
do to a person. So then, of course I wonder
how deeply did you think about how to actually implement this,
Like did you think about the technology in great detail
to figure out whether this was plausible. Once I decided
how it was going to work, at least the sort
of hand wavy version of how it was going to work,
(31:16):
because it's all hand wavy, I started looking into human neurology.
And it's really horrifying when you realize how much of
our identities and sense of ourselves are contingent on a
couple of very delicate connections in our brains. And so
how important is it to you that this could actually
work in our universe? How important is it to you
(31:37):
that the science of it is like all really logical
and consistent or is it all right for some of
it to be sort of hand wavy and approximate? In
some ways it's important to me, and in some ways
it's not so. As I said, I spent a fair
amount of time looking at the neurological implications for how
this sort of thing would work, But in terms of
(31:57):
how do ancillary implants actually do the work, like what
connections do they cut, how do they communicate with each other?
I have no freaking idea that's just reverse the polarity
on the whatever that's Star Trek techno babble um. But
I did want the neurology and the psychology to be
fairly realistic because I feel like one of the cool
(32:20):
things about science fiction is you can do that. You
can just stand up and say and now talking cows,
and your audience will buy and large they'll take it.
You don't always have to explain how that happens. But also,
if I want my audience to continue to believe in
those talking cows, I feel like I need to make
other things around them very realistic. So the grass ought
(32:40):
to be you believe it's grass, and the cows ought
to talk in a way that makes sense for the cows,
and if I explain anything, it really should make sense.
But I'm never going to explain why the cows are talking. Well,
maybe I will, I don't know. There's a lot of
power in just being able to say handwavy thing, But
there's also a lot of power and being able to
describe exactly how it's happening. And then of course I
(33:01):
have to ask, do you think this could actually happen
in our universe? Do you think in a thousand or
five thousand years this might be a reality brains slave
to a central intelligence? I kind of hope not. But
at the same time, I actually don't think. Given if
you could make the things small enough, the equipment, if
(33:23):
you could miniaturize it enough and have the kind of
sophistication with neurosurgery that we don't yet have, maybe you
could do it. I don't know how you empower it.
That's another most science fiction doesn't stop to think how
you power things? Right? They just say, oh, my, my
ray gun works all the time, like yeah, and how
big is the battery? And why are you not always
changing it? Right? I say nothing about how any of
(33:44):
that is powered. In science fiction. One of the ways
you don't get people to ask those questions, is you
don't mention it? And in your book the point of view,
the main narrator is an artificial intelligence. That makes me wonder,
do you think artificial intelligence in today's world could actually
have a point of view, could have a first person experience?
Do you think that if we developed an AI now
(34:06):
that was sufficiently complex enough that it seemed human, that
it would actually be having a first person experience like
you and I? I feel like that's really hard to
say because from a certain point of view, and understand
I don't subscribe to this point of view, but it's
logically makes sense. I don't know that anybody around me
is actually having a first person experience except for me,
(34:26):
because I'm experiencing mine. And the only way that I
can know that anybody else is having that experience is
that they tell me. And so I go through life
when I meet another person assuming that they're having a
first person experience, Uh, partly because it just makes life easier,
and I would rather make that my default assumption than
the other. So I think if an AI were to
(34:48):
pass the interiority touring test and sound really like it
was having an actual first person experience, then it would
seem to me prudent to accept that. All right, well,
thank you very much and for human hearing my questions
about your science fiction universe and for coming on our show.
All right, pretty cool. Um sounds totally fascinating her process
and what she thought about the world and the universe
(35:10):
and science. What was your takeaway from talking with her, Daniel,
I think that she did a good job imagining sort
of the important bits of how her universe worked and
making those consistent without getting into the weeds of like,
you know, how would you actually build this thing? You know,
basically the engineering like is there a battery in this thing?
Or do you need to recharge every four hours? And
you're like where does the triple A fit inside of
(35:34):
your brain? And that's why there's no genre called engineering fiction.
Oh maybe maybe there should be, Maybe there should be
a good talk to your agent. Um. So I think
she did a good job. She sort of thought about
the details, try to make a world that was consistent,
follow those rules in her story, but not get bogged
(35:55):
down in all this little trivia. And you know she
you can hear she's saying like she thought the audience
would accept that the audience didn't want to hear more
details that you can say talking cows and the audience
would be like, all right, cool, what happens when you
have talking cows? Basically tries to avoid the topics she
doesn't want to get into. She says, if you don't
want people to ask questions about it, just sort of
(36:15):
don't bring it up. But then again, I asked her
questions that apparently nobody had asked her before, so some
people do bring it up. That's what happens when physicists
read your book. Well, what do you think is the
sort of the core idea or the core lesson from
her novel that she was trying to get at, you know,
is it's sort of about what does human consciousness means?
Or you know, how how does technolog once we go
(36:36):
across the universe and across the galaxy, what does that
do for our maybe our collective conscious is the human species. Yeah,
I think that the core idea of the book is
that technology can really change what it means to be human,
and that what it means to be human can change,
and you know it has, right, our experience of living
in this world is very different than the experience of
(36:57):
the world ten years ago, just because of the knowledge
and the tools that we have and how big the
world feels and how accessible the stars field really changed
what it's like to be human. And this sort of
extrapolates that out to a crazy extreme and reminds you
that technology is not just a tool, but it sort
of defines who we are and how we live, right,
It redefines it changes what it means. Right. Yeah, it's
(37:20):
completely like even just our listeners listening to this podcast.
I mean, it's a totally different human experience than they
that humans had, you know, three years ago. Yeah, just
like dropbox change what it means to work together, right, Um, lightsabers,
draw box, it's all fantasy. Hey can you put that
lightsaber in the drop box so I can use it? Also? Awesome? Yeah,
(37:42):
you just make sure you turn it off, don't put
it don't put it activated. Oh I've made that mistake,
let me tell you. But yeah, it's it is an
interesting to think as we explore more of the universe,
as we learn more about the universe, how is that
changing our conception of what it means to be human. Yeah,
the answer is that it would be very different. But
(38:02):
of course as a challenge there. If you're going to
write a novel to be read by today's humans about
the experience of future humans, you have to make it
at least a little bit relatable. I mean, if your
point is, wow, in a billion years or whatever, it's
going to be impossible to understand future society, well, then
the book is just gibberish, Like if you just wrote
it in a future language nobody knows now. Yes, so
(38:23):
you have to bridge. You have to make it accessible
enough to today's humans that we can get a glimpse
for what it might be like to them. And that's
also what's fascinating about old science fiction. Like you read
science fiction from the nineteen fifties, it's like it's dated.
It tells you not just what they thought about what
the future would look like, but what was hard for
(38:44):
them to imagine, what was easy for them to think about.
It gives you a sense really for what it was
like to be back there in the nineteen fifties. The
way they extrapolated to the future missed a little bit
from what where we are now. Yeah, and if she
had written this book in a hundred years or in
two hundred years, you would probably have different challenges writing
it to extrapolate from that society to her future society.
(39:05):
So science fiction, in this way, it sort of depends
on both time points, the time point in the book
and the time point of the reader. And so that's
why the best science fiction is the ones that that
works well, not just in one year, but you know
over ten years, or over twenty or fifty years. If
it's really timeless, then you've captured something that's essential about humanity,
not something which is like, oh, here's what Twitter looks
(39:26):
like today, and how annoying it is, and let me
write a science fiction novel about this moment. It's about
being human. Yeah, I think I'm just going to write
a science fiction novel where the future doesn't have Twitter.
That's my fantasy. That would That's called utopian fiction. Utopian
that's right. All right. Well, we hope you enjoyed this
(39:46):
trip down to the consciousness of other people and like
science fiction authors as they take you to other star
systems across the galaxy yep. And so if you enjoyed this,
let us know, and if you'd like for us to
talk about us ses fiction novel that you really enjoyed,
send it to me, I'll read it and maybe we
will talk about it on the podcast and into your
view the author. Yeah, it'll give us an excuse to
(40:09):
reach out to these famous people and talk to them. Yeah,
which is always fun. It's such an honor. I was
so glad that Anne was so friendly and so willing
to spend her time explaining her universe two hours. So again.
The book is called Ancillary Justice by Anne Lecky, And
if you enjoy it, it's part of a trilogy. There's
two more books in that same universe, all of excellent quality.
All right, well, thank you for joining us. See you
(40:30):
next time. If you still have a question after listening
to all these explanations, please drop us a line. We'd
love to hear from you. You can find us at Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge that's one word, or
email us at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com.
(40:54):
Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain
the Universe is a production of I Heart Ready for
More podcast from my Heart Radio. Visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Yeah,
Hosts And Creators
Daniel Whiteson
Kelly Weinersmith
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