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Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, did you know the difference between psychic and

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Speaker 1: physics is only one letter? I feel like I should

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Speaker 1: have sensed that. Well, let's try what number am I

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Speaker 1: thinking of? I gotta go with forty two. No, not

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Speaker 1: even closed colder zero point forty two. Um. Starting to

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Speaker 1: think the difference between psychic and physics is a lot

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Speaker 1: more than one letter. You know, after all these years

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Speaker 1: working together, sometimes I still have no idea what you're thinking.

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Speaker 1: And that's probably for the best. Hi am more handmade

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Speaker 1: cartoonists and the creator of PhD comics. Hi, I'm Daniel.

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Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist and not particle psychics. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you can read the minds of particles, or you can

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Speaker 1: predict what particles will do. I can do neither, actually,

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Speaker 1: and I don't think either of them are possible in

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Speaker 1: our universe. I guess it makes sense to be a

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Speaker 1: psychic of not particles, because everything's made out of particles.

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Speaker 1: That's true. And I noticed that a lot of psychics

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Speaker 1: tend to like to use physics like sort of pseudo

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Speaker 1: terms in their you know, marketing. I once sat next

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Speaker 1: to somebody on an airplane and told me she was

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Speaker 1: a quantum psychic. Really, it was like, that's better than

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Speaker 1: all those classical psychics out there, you know. I mean

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Speaker 1: she was lying and not lying at the same time.

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Speaker 1: She was both full of it and full of it

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Speaker 1: at the same time. Well, I guess that that's better

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Speaker 1: than being a Newtonian psychic. But welcome to our podcast

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Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio in which we take the whole universe and

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Speaker 1: try to insert it into your brain. We're not relying

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Speaker 1: on your psychic powers. Instead, we are taking you on

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Speaker 1: an audio tour of everything that's incredible, that's amazing, that's

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Speaker 1: mind blowing about the universe. We think that wonder belongs

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Speaker 1: to everybody, that your curiosity is just as deep and

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Speaker 1: powerful and as important as those of us toiling away

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Speaker 1: in the scientific trenches, and so we want to answer

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Speaker 1: your questions and help you explore all the incredible stuff

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Speaker 1: in our universe. Daniel, are you saying that we're all

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Speaker 1: connected mentally? You knowing we are, I hope, all living

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Speaker 1: in the same universe and working on the same science. Right,

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Speaker 1: So in that sense, yes, we do have a shared

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Speaker 1: mental challenge and including our curiosity about the world. About

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Speaker 1: the universe, about the cosmos, and so in this podcast,

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Speaker 1: we like to talk about all the amazing and incredible

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Speaker 1: things out there for us to discover and to learn about,

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Speaker 1: but we also like to kind of sometimes think about

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Speaker 1: what could be or what might be in the far future. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because a big part of exploring the universe, about satisfying

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Speaker 1: your curiosity is tapping into your creativity to thinking about

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Speaker 1: what could be out there were kinds of ideas. Should

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Speaker 1: we be thinking about what is the future of the

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Speaker 1: universe and of humanity? Yeah, because you know, sometimes I

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Speaker 1: think people associate signs not with creativity, or they think

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Speaker 1: they're the two of them are separate, But actually sciences

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Speaker 1: are very creative. I mean they have kind of have

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Speaker 1: to be when facing the unknown. They have to come

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Speaker 1: up with possible ideas of what could be or what

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Speaker 1: might explain what we're seeing out there. And so today's

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Speaker 1: episode is another one of our series of interviews with

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Speaker 1: science fiction authors. That's right, and we like to tap

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Speaker 1: into a broad set of creative minds out there. Everybody

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Speaker 1: has a different idea for what the future might hold,

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Speaker 1: or how we might react to it, or what life

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Speaker 1: would be like under various circumstances, which hey is important

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Speaker 1: because if we're designed in the future, if we are

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Speaker 1: steering the fate of our humanity, we should think about

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Speaker 1: what it would be like to live under various futuristic regimes,

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Speaker 1: even if they are a little trippy. So to the

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Speaker 1: on the podcast, we'll be tackling the science fiction universe

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Speaker 1: of Karen Lord. That's right. Karen Lord has written a

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Speaker 1: wonderful book. It's called The Best of All Possible world

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Speaker 1: Olds and I recently had a chance to read it

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Speaker 1: and to chat with her about So the Best of

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Speaker 1: All Possible world So it's definitely fiction. I feel like

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Speaker 1: we're definitely not living our best sells right now. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, there's dystopian fiction, and then there's optimistic fiction,

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Speaker 1: and the opposite of dystopian utopian fiction. Utopian fiction. Yeah. Absolutely.

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Speaker 1: I heard a wonderful interview actually by Kim Stanley Robinson,

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Speaker 1: a famous science fiction author, and he felt like dystopian

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Speaker 1: fiction was sort of lazy because it just makes you

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Speaker 1: feel better about our world than the world in the

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Speaker 1: show you're watching or the novel you're reading. And he

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Speaker 1: prefers to write utopian fiction because it inspires us to

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Speaker 1: try and make our world better. I see regular fiction

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Speaker 1: is more like comfort fiction, whereas maybe it should be

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Speaker 1: more like fomo fiction exactly, should be like, look what

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Speaker 1: they have achieved. Everybody in this novel has healthcare and

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Speaker 1: the house and all this great stuff. Surely we can

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Speaker 1: do that. Look how green their grass they've genetically engineered

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Speaker 1: to be. That's amazing. That's right. Sometimes you just want

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Speaker 1: to keep up with the science fiction. Jones is right,

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Speaker 1: and there are definitely things we can do to improve

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Speaker 1: our world, and sometimes it's the role of science fiction

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Speaker 1: to think about that. So Karen Lord is a science

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Speaker 1: fiction author, and she hails from Barbados. That's where you

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Speaker 1: conducted the Enemy. You didn't go there, but that's where

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Speaker 1: she was. That's right. The budget for trips to Barbados

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Speaker 1: was set to zero for some reason. I'm not quite

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Speaker 1: sure your chat, Daniel, and this is your chance to

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Speaker 1: cook the books and get a vacation. No. So I

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Speaker 1: chatted with her over the internet, as I always do.

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Speaker 1: But I got a little bit of the taste of

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Speaker 1: Barbados because you could hear the sound of it in

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Speaker 1: the background. Wow. Just doubles as an m m R.

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Speaker 1: What's the right s mr SMR. That's right. I'm not

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Speaker 1: a fan of acronym. That's funny you said that because

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Speaker 1: I heard that some folks listen to our podcast as

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Speaker 1: they go to sleep because our voices soothed, not because

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Speaker 1: we lack excitement in our because before That's right, So

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Speaker 1: sit straight up and listen to this important podcast interview.

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Speaker 1: Stop falling asleep, Wake up, Wake up. And Karen Hard

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Speaker 1: has an interesting background. She's also sort of an academic

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Speaker 1: kind of like you. Definitely, she has a couple of degrees,

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Speaker 1: including a doctoral degree I read in the sociology of religion. Yes,

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Speaker 1: she has a really eclectic and fascinating background. I mean

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Speaker 1: she has an undergraduate degree in physics. Let's like really

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Speaker 1: set her science, you know, in the appropriate context. But

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Speaker 1: then she also has degrees in sociology and religion and history,

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Speaker 1: and so it's really fascinating and you can definitely feel

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Speaker 1: it in her writing. Her writing is different from the

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Speaker 1: kinds of writing I've read before. So it's really a

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Speaker 1: pleasure for me to sort of branch out and read

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Speaker 1: something different. And it's different in sort of two ways.

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Speaker 1: One is that it really focuses on what it's like

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Speaker 1: to be there, and the interpersonal connections and how society

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Speaker 1: is built and you know, how people treat each other

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Speaker 1: in this new context where life is very different from

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Speaker 1: our own. More about relationships kind of yeah, and what

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Speaker 1: it would be like to live there. It's less about

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Speaker 1: like how do you build this kind of starship and

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Speaker 1: traverse the universe? And more like, well, what's it like

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Speaker 1: to sit next to somebody for sixty years on a

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Speaker 1: spaceship and argue with them about it makes the coffee

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Speaker 1: or whatever? You know? I feel like maybe have a

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Speaker 1: good idea of that. Daniel han't hand um. And also

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Speaker 1: it's quite different because it's really infused with her knowledge

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Speaker 1: of her culture. This is the second book she wrote.

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Speaker 1: The first book she wrote was actually a retelling of

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Speaker 1: some of her cultural mythology in a science fiction content.

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Speaker 1: And so you'll see as we talk about the details

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Speaker 1: of this book that actually blends mythology and science fiction

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Speaker 1: a little bit. And she starts from mythology and then

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Speaker 1: takes it forward using science fiction, which is quite fast.

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Speaker 1: Is it kind of like explaining mythology as science fiction

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Speaker 1: or just taking it further? It's just sort of taking

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Speaker 1: it further. It's like you don't have to explain the

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Speaker 1: beginning of the universe and the whole context of how

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Speaker 1: things were made, because you can just sort of assume

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Speaker 1: mythological origin for things, but then going forward everything has

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Speaker 1: to follow the physical rules of the universe. So it's

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Speaker 1: a really fascinating blend. Interesting alright. So her book is

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Speaker 1: called The Best of All Possible World, and a big

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Speaker 1: part of it is this idea of psychic powers and telepathy,

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Speaker 1: and so we were sort of wondering what people think

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Speaker 1: of telepathy out there. Yeah, I was curious if people

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Speaker 1: thought if somehow in the far future, humans might evolve

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Speaker 1: this kind of power, and so I asked a bunch

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Speaker 1: of volunteers on the Internet to speculate baslessly on this

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Speaker 1: possible future scenario. And if you'd like to participate in

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Speaker 1: baseless speculation, please write to us two questions at Daniel

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Speaker 1: and Jorge dot com. I think you just renamed our

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Speaker 1: podcast Daniel Baseless Speculation with Daniel and Jorge. That's the subtitle, alright,

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Speaker 1: So think about it for a second before you listen

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Speaker 1: to these answers. If someone asks you if you thought

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Speaker 1: humans would ever evolve telepathy, what would you answer. Here's

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Speaker 1: what people had to say. I believe that it's possible,

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Speaker 1: but it would be thousands or millions of years from now.

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Speaker 1: I think at that point we would qualify as a

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Speaker 1: very different species. I think it's definitely not impossible. UM

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Speaker 1: or something that will take a lot of time to develop,

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Speaker 1: maybe like thousand or maybe a million years time humans

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Speaker 1: we have developed a chip or something that we could

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Speaker 1: implant in humans UM to use for telepathy. I do

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Speaker 1: not believe that humans will ever evolve telepathic powers evolved

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Speaker 1: as kind of a loaded word there. Evolution takes place

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Speaker 1: over many, many generations, so that kind of thing would

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Speaker 1: taken extremely long time for any kind of evolution. Could

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Speaker 1: be possible that we could a genetically engineer some sort

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Speaker 1: of heightened intelligence, heightened brain abilities. Humans have already evolved

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Speaker 1: telepathic powers. I don't want to brag, but at Burning

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Speaker 1: Man one year, there was a girl about fifty yards

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Speaker 1: away riding her bike away from me, wearing a bikini

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Speaker 1: and a cowboy hat, and in my head I said,

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Speaker 1: please come talk to me, and she turned and looked

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Speaker 1: at me, turned her bike, rode over park next to me,

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Speaker 1: got off her bike and gave me a hug. Boom.

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Speaker 1: I wish I had telepathic powers to know the answer

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Speaker 1: to that question, but I'm pretty sure science will come

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Speaker 1: to prove that that just cannot happen. I don't think

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Speaker 1: we could evolve telepathic powers unless we embraced human enhancement

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Speaker 1: and achieved it through something like cyberessic augmentations. Keyword here

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Speaker 1: is evolved, And I would say to that no, because

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Speaker 1: I don't see how telepy telepathy would in any way

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Speaker 1: aid any human survival and reproduction. However, I could imagine

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Speaker 1: us using technology to develop this ability, but in terms

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Speaker 1: of natural evolution, now, I don't think so. I kind

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Speaker 1: of hope not, because part of what's so fun is

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Speaker 1: figuring out when someone else was thinking, not knowing it.

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Speaker 1: All right, now, Daniel, did these people record their answers

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Speaker 1: and send to you or did they just beam it

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Speaker 1: straight to your brain? I am in tune with the

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Speaker 1: whole universe, man, so I didn't even need to reach out.

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Speaker 1: It just like just set downs, free streamed all these

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Speaker 1: universes just speaking to me. You know, these were all

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Speaker 1: emailed to me over the internet. All right, Well, pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people seem to have a lot of

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Speaker 1: optimism about this, Like nobody said it's impossible, and you know,

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Speaker 1: they think that maybe one day you could happen. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: people feel like there's obviously potential out there for all

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Speaker 1: sorts of crazy stuff to happen, that it's not physically

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Speaker 1: impossible in our universe. And then there's a whole other

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Speaker 1: thread of people wondering if it's better done with technology.

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Speaker 1: Right right, I guess there's two ways that we can

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Speaker 1: evolve telepathy. One is through evolving our brains biologically, and

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Speaker 1: one is is kind of augmenting our brain. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: I was curious what you thought about these various options

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Speaker 1: that we're going to dig into, giving your background in

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Speaker 1: engineering and of course in bio mimicry and so, so

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Speaker 1: how you saw these various options going forward. Right, So

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Speaker 1: let's get into his book. Um, So the title again

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Speaker 1: is the best of All Possible world And so, Daniel,

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Speaker 1: what's the basic premise of it? So the basic premise

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Speaker 1: is that the book takes place in a sort of

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Speaker 1: our universe and in our galaxy, but humans or human

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Speaker 1: like aliens are distributed through the galaxy. It's sort of

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Speaker 1: a setting like Star Trek the next Generation. They are

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Speaker 1: all these worlds and they're all populated by human like creatures.

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Speaker 1: You know, they have two legs, and they have a head,

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Speaker 1: and they speak various languages, etcetera. But they have mostly

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Speaker 1: ten fingers. But there are big differences. Some of them

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Speaker 1: are much taller and stronger and faster, some of them

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Speaker 1: are smaller. Some of them have telepathic or other psionic pounders.

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Speaker 1: Now do they say that they all came from Earth

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Speaker 1: or people on Earth came from some other source? So

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Speaker 1: she doesn't describe this in detail in the book. She

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Speaker 1: leaves it a bit of a mystery, which I sort

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Speaker 1: of like, I like being dropped into a universe and

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Speaker 1: not just like having it explained to me. I like

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Speaker 1: figuring it out for myself. And for me, it was

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Speaker 1: a mystery I was trying to solve while I was

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Speaker 1: reading the book, Like is this the far future where

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Speaker 1: humans have spread through the galaxy and then evolved into

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Speaker 1: these various forms because of their separation, or is this

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Speaker 1: some alternative universe where you know, humans evolved in parallel

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Speaker 1: and lots of different places. And so I was trying

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Speaker 1: to figure that out through the book, and I never

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Speaker 1: actually put my finger on and you'll hear in the interview,

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Speaker 1: I asked her about that very question. And it's kind

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Speaker 1: of interesting because you see you wrote here that Earth

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Speaker 1: is embargoed. It means that we're we're like blocked or canceled.

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Speaker 1: They canceled, that they canceled Earth. Yes, so the book

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Speaker 1: takes place from the point of view of one of

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Speaker 1: these human like aliens, and in the book, nobody's allowed

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Speaker 1: to go to Earth and Earth is like embargoed, Do

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Speaker 1: you know, allowed to to interact with Earth because the

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Speaker 1: folks who live there are not very well behaved? What

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Speaker 1: exactly we were on a timeout? Yeah, precisely, So nobody's

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Speaker 1: allowed to visit us or you trade with us or

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Speaker 1: communicate with us, but like Earth links know that they're

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Speaker 1: embargoed and canceled, you know, or did we do something?

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Speaker 1: And no, we didn't. It's not dealt with directly in

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Speaker 1: the book. And then I asked her about it in

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Speaker 1: the interview, and it's actually her personal explanation for maybe

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Speaker 1: our current situation, you know, the Fermi paradox, Like if

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Speaker 1: the galaxy is filled with lifelike planets, how become nobody

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Speaker 1: is talking to us, nobody has visited, we've overseen anybody.

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Speaker 1: She thinks that maybe because we're on a time out.

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Speaker 1: What people people are avoiding us. Boy, So she wrote

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Speaker 1: this a little bit as likely, Hey, maybe this is

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Speaker 1: what's happening in our universe, that there are aliens out there,

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Speaker 1: but they're choosing not to. We don't shave up, we

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Speaker 1: won't get invited to the party, that's right. And so

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Speaker 1: in this world that she's built, you have all these

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Speaker 1: different kinds of human like aliens, and they have all

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Speaker 1: these different powers. Some of them can read minds, some

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Speaker 1: of them can influence what you think. They can do

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Speaker 1: like emotional control and feel things or coerce you into

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Speaker 1: doing things. It's really quite interesting. And then she builds,

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Speaker 1: you know, a realistic society. She builds workplaces and relationships

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Speaker 1: and all sorts of stuff and takes you through really

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Speaker 1: what it would be like to live in that world.

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Speaker 1: I guess my biggest question would be how do you

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Speaker 1: trust anyone? You know? Like, how do you trust that

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Speaker 1: they're not reading your mind or influencing you or making

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Speaker 1: you say some things. It's hard and it really changes

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Speaker 1: the nature of relationships. And she has really interesting examples

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Speaker 1: in there about like abusive marriages where one person controls

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Speaker 1: the other or you know, romances and what that's like

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Speaker 1: and infidelity, and so it's really an interesting deep dive

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Speaker 1: into what it would be like to live in that society.

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Speaker 1: And that's what I meant earlier, that she's really thought

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Speaker 1: carefully about the experience of a person in that situation.

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Speaker 1: And I'm always really impressed when somebody pulls that off,

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Speaker 1: because you have to do too hard things at once.

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Speaker 1: One is imagine what it's like to be a completely

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Speaker 1: different kind of person with a different kind of brain,

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Speaker 1: and also make it accessible to us, right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you imagine what it's like to live as a

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Speaker 1: weird o blabo alien, it would be totally incomprehensible to us.

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Speaker 1: You couldn't write a novel, you know, from the point

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Speaker 1: of view of something that thinks fun to mentally different.

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Speaker 1: So you have to sort of like bridge that gap

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Speaker 1: to make it accessible to like, you know, the readers,

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Speaker 1: us actual human beings. Right. It's not an easy thing

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Speaker 1: to do, you know, from a literary construct point. You

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Speaker 1: depend translate in a way a whole different way of thinking. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so they play mind games with each other and we're

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Speaker 1: the ones getting a time out. Who's making these decisions? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well you know, the ones with the power are the

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Speaker 1: ones making the decisions. Um. But as you read it,

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Speaker 1: you'll also find that these characters, even though they're not

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Speaker 1: technically human or they're very different from us, their society

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Speaker 1: is a lot in common with ours. You know, they

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Speaker 1: build bureaucracy to have conflicts. The book begins with a

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Speaker 1: really devastating act of war and genocide, and so then

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Speaker 1: there's politics and factionalism and you know, like workplace romance

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Speaker 1: and all sorts of stuff. So it's very relatable and unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: I think you know what. Fortunately, all right, well let's

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Speaker 1: get into the science of this novel, The Best of

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Speaker 1: All Possible World by Karen Lord, and that's get into

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Speaker 1: your interview with Karen Lord. But first let's take a

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Speaker 1: quick break. All Right, we're talking about science fiction author

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Speaker 1: Karen Lord and her book The Best of All Possible World.

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Speaker 1: And so it's it's a world where everyone has psychic

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Speaker 1: powers in a way, Daniel, And so what's the science

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Speaker 1: of it? How do you explain the psychic ability that's

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Speaker 1: pervasive among all these aliens species. Yes, so one question

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Speaker 1: is just like physically or biologically, is it possible to

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Speaker 1: evolve this kind of ability? I mean, evolution essentially explores

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Speaker 1: random mutations and chooses the ones that are best fit

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Speaker 1: for the environment. But it can't do things that are impossible.

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Speaker 1: You can't spontaneously evolve the ability to travel faster than

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Speaker 1: the speed of light, right because it breaks the laws

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Speaker 1: of physics, or like evolve the anti gravity or maybe

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Speaker 1: or maybe it's called legs Daniel. But you know, you

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Speaker 1: can't break the laws of physics even with evolution. But

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Speaker 1: you know, fundamentally, I don't think there is anything physics

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Speaker 1: wise that would be preventing us from communicating more directly

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Speaker 1: brain to brain. Interesting. We have a lot of ways

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Speaker 1: to translate the thoughts in our brain into information and

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Speaker 1: transmit them, so we recreate the thoughts in somebody else's brain.

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Speaker 1: We're doing one right now. I'm boiling down my thoughts

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Speaker 1: into these sound waves and sending them into your brain

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Speaker 1: through your device, through the internet, you know, through the

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Speaker 1: error in cell phone signals, and then into my ears

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Speaker 1: and into my brain precisely. And so that's a little indirect,

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Speaker 1: and I guess telepathy would just be like somewhat more direct.

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Speaker 1: You know. Imagine your brain broadcasts something invisible instead of

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Speaker 1: using it through sound waves we use electromagnetic radiation or something.

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Speaker 1: It's not inconceivable to imagine evolving a new part of

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Speaker 1: the brain that can transmit e M waves because, after all,

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Speaker 1: you know, the brain is a bunch of wires, right

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Speaker 1: that you use electromagnetic signals to interact. It's basically a

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Speaker 1: little circuit. Wait, so you're talking not not through tech

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Speaker 1: but through actual biology. Do you think there's a way

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Speaker 1: to have a biological like radio transmitter and receiver. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think there's no physics objection to having a biological

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Speaker 1: radio antenna in your head. Yeah, I guess, yeah, maybe,

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Speaker 1: I guess. You know, your body could learn to I

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Speaker 1: don't know what, like make an antenna inside of your head,

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Speaker 1: like accumulate metals in a certain way. And you don't

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Speaker 1: even necessarily need metals, right to generate a signal radio signal,

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Speaker 1: you just need a current current that's oscillating and then

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Speaker 1: to be receptive to it. And so there are lots

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Speaker 1: of ways to do that, and lots of things that

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Speaker 1: are conductive. You know, water for example, is very conductive,

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Speaker 1: and so there you could certainly engineer if you were

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Speaker 1: going to sit down and design it. There's no physics

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Speaker 1: or engineering principle I'm aware of that would prevent it

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Speaker 1: from happening. The whole separate question of whether it would evolve,

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Speaker 1: whether it's the benefit to it and the energy use

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Speaker 1: you know, makes it worth it, whether there you could

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Speaker 1: find yourself in an environment that would need that, and

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Speaker 1: evolution would provide the selective pressure to encourage that. But

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Speaker 1: from a physics point of view, I don't see why

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Speaker 1: you couldn't have telepathy. Wow, yeah, I guess that there

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Speaker 1: are studies of birds, right, birds who can sort of

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Speaker 1: sense the banetic field of the earth, and they do

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Speaker 1: it by repredating some you know, some metal inside of

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Speaker 1: the brain reading the right currents, I think, right, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: And this is different from other things, you know, like telekinesis,

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Speaker 1: the ability to move objects with your mind. Like, I

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Speaker 1: don't see a physical basis for that at all, you know,

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Speaker 1: sending messages back and forth emailing brain to brain. Yeah, totally,

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Speaker 1: we could in theory evolve that using our brain. I see.

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Speaker 1: So telepathy yes, so like kinesis no, But that's the

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Speaker 1: phone that's the more fun, because you want to tap

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Speaker 1: on somebody's shoulder from the other side of the room

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Speaker 1: and trick them. I just be like, if you're telekinetic,

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Speaker 1: the best thing you can do with it is move yourself.

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Speaker 1: You can fly, right right, of course? I wonder telekinesis

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Speaker 1: is basically flying, yeah, Or you could just sit on

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Speaker 1: your couch and clean your room at the same time.

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Speaker 1: You could, yes, technically, would you though? It brings the

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Speaker 1: whole new challenge to being lazy? Right Like you do

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Speaker 1: you think it feels like an effort to lie in

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Speaker 1: bed and clean your room without moving your body? Well,

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Speaker 1: I always wondering, you know, because these things take energy, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: even if you're theopathic, you would need to You would

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Speaker 1: be burning a lot of energy to send these signals

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Speaker 1: out probably, And and I don't know what it would

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Speaker 1: be like from the evolutionary point of view, whether evolving

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Speaker 1: this thing would be efficient or not. But you know,

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Speaker 1: you could imagine some scenario where it's really crucial to

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Speaker 1: survival because you can't communicate using sound for whatever, they

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Speaker 1: find themselves on a really noisy planet or or something,

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Speaker 1: and you have to evolve some alternative way to communicate

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Speaker 1: or in response to some you know, predator or something.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you can imagine vary scenarios, but it would

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Speaker 1: take a lot of time, right, Like evolution takes generations

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Speaker 1: and generations and generations. So this is not like by

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Speaker 1: this is like far in the future of humanity, or

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Speaker 1: if humanity exists on different planets, they would have to

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Speaker 1: have split a long time ago in order to have

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Speaker 1: a chance to have this court of evolution. All right, So,

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Speaker 1: but then it's also possible to get telempathy through technology. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think, you know, engineering will probably beat biology in

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Speaker 1: the race. They're like, if you wanted to design and

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Speaker 1: implement something to make it possible to send a message

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Speaker 1: without talking to just think it. I think it's not

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Speaker 1: that far in the future to be able to do that.

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Speaker 1: We have the basic elements of that, I think already

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Speaker 1: in hand, right, No, I mean we have it right now.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if you've seen those studies or those

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Speaker 1: experiments for people who are like paraplegic, they put a

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Speaker 1: brain sensor under in their cortex and they send you know,

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Speaker 1: spatial signals and they are able to sort of move

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Speaker 1: a robot arm around. It's like, that's happening right now. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's sort of two steps you need there. One is

429
00:22:42,320 --> 00:22:45,880
Speaker 1: like to control an external device to use your brain

430
00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:49,200
Speaker 1: signals to send information right to some prosthetic for example,

431
00:22:49,520 --> 00:22:51,480
Speaker 1: And you're right, we can do that. You can train

432
00:22:51,560 --> 00:22:55,440
Speaker 1: your brain to send the right signals to control a prosthetic,

433
00:22:55,520 --> 00:22:58,359
Speaker 1: which is amazing. And the other side of it is

434
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:02,160
Speaker 1: to interpret messages in your brain, like to receive messages.

435
00:23:02,640 --> 00:23:05,320
Speaker 1: And people have been doing this already with like cochlear implants.

436
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:08,760
Speaker 1: They attached a fake ear to somebody's head and just

437
00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:11,399
Speaker 1: like zap it into the brain the nerve, and the

438
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:15,080
Speaker 1: brain learns to interpret those messages as sound. Yeah, they

439
00:23:15,119 --> 00:23:17,520
Speaker 1: did that with the like retinel I implants too, And

440
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:20,160
Speaker 1: so you know, there's a lot of steps between here

441
00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:24,160
Speaker 1: and you know, brain email your friend, but it's there.

442
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:26,639
Speaker 1: But the technology is there. The technology is there, and

443
00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:29,800
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, complicated signal processing, like how

444
00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:32,080
Speaker 1: do you take what's in somebody's brain interpret in a

445
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:34,560
Speaker 1: way to send it out and all this kind of stuff.

446
00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:37,720
Speaker 1: But there's really fascinating studies they've done there. They did

447
00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:40,760
Speaker 1: one with movie trailers where they showed people a bunch

448
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:43,480
Speaker 1: of movie trailers and image their brains while they were

449
00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:46,560
Speaker 1: doing it. Yeah, and then they tried to train and

450
00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:49,719
Speaker 1: network to guess which movie trailer they were watching just

451
00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:52,560
Speaker 1: from the brain image, and they could totally tell. They

452
00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:55,800
Speaker 1: could totally tell you really probably just depending on the

453
00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:59,520
Speaker 1: voice of the narrator in the world they all start

454
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:03,800
Speaker 1: with in or the voice changes a little bit. Yeah,

455
00:24:03,880 --> 00:24:06,960
Speaker 1: but so I think that technologically, you know, I don't

456
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:08,800
Speaker 1: know how many years away we are, you should say,

457
00:24:08,840 --> 00:24:11,480
Speaker 1: because you're the engineer. But I don't see an obstacle

458
00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:14,160
Speaker 1: to making this happen. If we wanted to know, if

459
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 1: you're willing to drill into your brain and add some

460
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:19,800
Speaker 1: sort of prosthetic device to your brain, then yeah, you

461
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:22,200
Speaker 1: could probably tap into the Internet with your mind. Yeah.

462
00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:23,879
Speaker 1: I don't know if you noticed, but I actually worked

463
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:26,320
Speaker 1: in the lab after my PhD. I was a research

464
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:29,840
Speaker 1: scientist at a neural prosthetic lab. I wasn't aware that

465
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:32,199
Speaker 1: did you work on the human phase? I just tell

466
00:24:32,240 --> 00:24:34,840
Speaker 1: people I worked in the little base port that in

467
00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:38,159
Speaker 1: the matrix where you insert the connector that that was

468
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:41,360
Speaker 1: my thing. I see, So you're actively working for our

469
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:45,600
Speaker 1: AI overlords. I was. That's why. That's why I quit it.

470
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:49,600
Speaker 1: Until they like the matrix. You pull the plug. I

471
00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 1: pulled the plug. Yeah, But you know, the hard part

472
00:24:52,119 --> 00:24:55,880
Speaker 1: in all of this is actually your body rejects anything foreign,

473
00:24:56,520 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 1: So you can put implant in your brain, but after

474
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:00,399
Speaker 1: a while, your body is going to be like, this

475
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:02,800
Speaker 1: is not supposed to be here, and it it actually

476
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 1: like covers it in cells and scar tissue that makes

477
00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:08,920
Speaker 1: it unusable, and so they have to like pull it

478
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:11,639
Speaker 1: out again, insert it again, or figure out one way

479
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 1: for either your body to accept it or for it

480
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:16,280
Speaker 1: to kind of adapt to your body. Do those folks

481
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:21,440
Speaker 1: have to take immuno suppressants forever um? Yeah? Probably, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well.

482
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:23,720
Speaker 1: I also thought it was interesting, like how long have

483
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 1: people have been thinking about telepathy, Like is it a

484
00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 1: new idea or an ancient one? And I was surprised

485
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:31,840
Speaker 1: to learn that it's sort of a recent concept. The

486
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:36,280
Speaker 1: idea of like sending messages invisibly burined brain sort of

487
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 1: appeared like about a hundred and fifty years ago. Really

488
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:41,760
Speaker 1: was the first mention it. It was sort of in

489
00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:44,000
Speaker 1: the late eighteen hundreds when people realized that like X

490
00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:47,560
Speaker 1: rays and radio waves and invisible particles were actually real,

491
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:50,680
Speaker 1: that you really could send invisible information, that we were

492
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:55,440
Speaker 1: basically living in an invisible universe. It's constantly surrounded by

493
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:59,160
Speaker 1: things happening around us. We weren't aware of that. They thought, well, oh,

494
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:02,120
Speaker 1: maybe it's possible then to send information brain to brain.

495
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:04,639
Speaker 1: And if you look at like the history of science fiction,

496
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: this kind of concept didn't appear in science fiction until

497
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:11,080
Speaker 1: about the late eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds. But there

498
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:15,760
Speaker 1: have been sort of like mystics, right, and mythology also

499
00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:19,199
Speaker 1: that must have you know, talked about this idea of

500
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:23,119
Speaker 1: reading your mind or making you controlling you. Yeah, and

501
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:26,040
Speaker 1: those people always have like special magic powers. But the

502
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:28,520
Speaker 1: idea is that it entered, you know, sort of science

503
00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:31,440
Speaker 1: fiction across the threshold into like, maybe this is something

504
00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 1: which could actually happen in the future for normal, regular

505
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:38,120
Speaker 1: people once we realized that we were surrounded by these

506
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 1: invisible fields and particles that maybe we could learn to manipulate.

507
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:43,879
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's get back to Karen's book, and

508
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:45,720
Speaker 1: so what I guess, what's the basic story of the

509
00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:47,800
Speaker 1: book before we get into her interview. The basic story

510
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:49,359
Speaker 1: of the book is that one of these planets with

511
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 1: human like aliens is devastated by an attack that wipes

512
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 1: out almost the entire species, and so refugees from that

513
00:26:56,600 --> 00:26:59,200
Speaker 1: planet then come to another world, and they have to

514
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:01,880
Speaker 1: learn to sort of live on that planet and interact

515
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 1: with those folks. It's a lot of like clash of

516
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:08,120
Speaker 1: cultures and acclamorization. It brings different kinds of aliens into

517
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:10,720
Speaker 1: contact and conflict and have to learn to live together

518
00:27:10,760 --> 00:27:13,639
Speaker 1: and find a new home. So it really highlights in

519
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 1: a nice way the differences between them as to figure

520
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:18,000
Speaker 1: out how to learn together and get to know each

521
00:27:18,040 --> 00:27:22,120
Speaker 1: other and have some romance, all right, some refugee romance,

522
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:26,840
Speaker 1: some pan alien romance. Oh boy. All right. Well, let's

523
00:27:26,840 --> 00:27:30,159
Speaker 1: get into your interview with Karen Lord, author of the

524
00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:34,000
Speaker 1: Best of All Possible world and here it is. Well,

525
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:37,119
Speaker 1: it's my absolute pleasure to welcome today to our program,

526
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:41,639
Speaker 1: doctor Karen Lord, the author of today's featured book, The

527
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:45,119
Speaker 1: Best of All Possible Worlds, and also the book Redemption

528
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:48,120
Speaker 1: in Indico. Dr Lord, thank you very much for joining

529
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:50,479
Speaker 1: us and welcome to our program. Thank you so much

530
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:52,439
Speaker 1: for inviting me. First, we just like to get to

531
00:27:52,440 --> 00:27:54,280
Speaker 1: know you a little bit. Tell us how did you

532
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:57,280
Speaker 1: get into science fiction writing. You have a sort of

533
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:00,920
Speaker 1: impressive academic background of a PhD and a master's in

534
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: philosophy and a master's in science well, I think that

535
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 1: any time you grew up as a reader, you kind

536
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:11,280
Speaker 1: of end up I'm going this direction anyway. So I

537
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:15,480
Speaker 1: was reading Satisfiction from very very far back. And as

538
00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 1: for writing it, I think you do that thing in

539
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:20,159
Speaker 1: school where you try to write things and you just

540
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:22,720
Speaker 1: realize how extremely bad you are, so you wait to

541
00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:27,359
Speaker 1: grow up a bit and then um. It was quite

542
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:30,919
Speaker 1: by accident that I, you know, sometimes I would go

543
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 1: back to writing, and then I would get busy and

544
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:34,600
Speaker 1: how about the work to do? And then I'll go

545
00:28:34,680 --> 00:28:39,120
Speaker 1: back to it. And then one month I was actually

546
00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:43,000
Speaker 1: doing Um, I was taken a pause from a master's

547
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 1: and I said, I need to keep my hand in

548
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:49,480
Speaker 1: writing long documents. So this month I'm going to try

549
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:53,480
Speaker 1: National Novel Writing Month, and I'm going to tackle that

550
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 1: that folk tale that I always loved as a kid

551
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 1: and see if I can expand it. And that's how

552
00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 1: the draft of Redemption an Indigo came to being. And

553
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 1: I didn't have any particular plans for it except to

554
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 1: just try to see what I could do yes, and

555
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 1: just sort of snowball from there. Hopefull that's wonderful. What

556
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:14,719
Speaker 1: is your academic background? What fields do you have your

557
00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:18,719
Speaker 1: degrees in oh dear, so this is going to make

558
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 1: me look like a dilatant. And my only excuse is

559
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:24,040
Speaker 1: that this is all over very long period of years.

560
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 1: My first degree is a batult of science. It's actually

561
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 1: a specialist in history of science of technology, a major

562
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:35,280
Speaker 1: in physics and a minor in astronomy. Then after that

563
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:40,120
Speaker 1: my first masters is Science and Technology and Policy. And

564
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:43,480
Speaker 1: then I did an m film which was actually in

565
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 1: sociology religion. Um that there was a bit more history

566
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 1: plus sociology. And then my PhD also sociology religion. Wow, fascinating.

567
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:56,920
Speaker 1: That is quite an amazing collection of topics for our listeners.

568
00:29:56,960 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 1: We usually like to ask a science fiction author to

569
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 1: sort of orient them cells in the science fiction in

570
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:04,520
Speaker 1: the space of science fiction writers. So let me ask

571
00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 1: you a few questions that we ask all the authors. You,

572
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:10,680
Speaker 1: I assume, of course, are familiar with the transporter technology

573
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 1: in Star Trek. Yes, and so is it your view

574
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: that those transporters actually transport your atoms somewhere else or

575
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 1: kill you, disassembly you kill you, and then clone you,

576
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 1: recreate you somewhere else. Well, to answer that question properly,

577
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:26,880
Speaker 1: you would have to talk about the nature of being

578
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 1: wouldn't share, yes exactly. So um, I do have some

579
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:33,600
Speaker 1: writings in fact, something I'm working on right now with

580
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:36,080
Speaker 1: the colleague where I am talking about what does it

581
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 1: mean to be discorporate? But so conscious, Um, where does

582
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:43,200
Speaker 1: your consciousness reside when you're not in a physical body.

583
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:45,560
Speaker 1: Some of that can be looked at mystically, and some

584
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:48,280
Speaker 1: of it could be looked at scientifically, especially if you

585
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 1: plan to go forward a few centuries. So in that case,

586
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 1: would you if somebody invented this technology, would you be

587
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 1: willing to step into a transporter? So that's an excellent

588
00:30:56,760 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 1: question because right now I wouldn't be willing to step

589
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:05,120
Speaker 1: into a plane. I think. I think that part of

590
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:07,320
Speaker 1: it depends on who built it, because it still has

591
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 1: to be reliable there, and we've had plenty of episodes

592
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 1: about what goes wrong when it doesn't work properly, so

593
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 1: you understand that there's always sort of risk once it's

594
00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 1: sort of built by human hands. But then again, sometimes

595
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:24,320
Speaker 1: it's a question of balancing your risk of your opportunity.

596
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 1: How else are you're gonna get to see the universal

597
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 1: so you're gonna go there into the galaxy? So let's

598
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:33,280
Speaker 1: just say it would be very, very tempted, and depending

599
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 1: on how much I could trust the manufacturers, I might

600
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 1: to go for it. Right, So you look at the

601
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 1: brand name before you step in exactly. I want to

602
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 1: dig into that a little bit more, but at first

603
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 1: we have to take a quick break. Okay, and we're back.

604
00:31:56,960 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 1: I'm interviewing doctor Karen Lower, the author of the book

605
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:03,680
Speaker 1: The Best of All Possible World. Well, you have some

606
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 1: knowledge of the history of science, which is fascinating. So

607
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 1: I'd like to ask you, then, what technology exists in

608
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:12,480
Speaker 1: science fiction only that you would like to see become

609
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 1: reality in our future. That's a tough one because you know,

610
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:20,000
Speaker 1: we've had our jet taxs phase, and then we realized

611
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 1: we didn't really want those that much, and then we

612
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:27,880
Speaker 1: had our kind of whole busness would you call it again? Well,

613
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:30,160
Speaker 1: that that thing which became the iPad, which basically came

614
00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:33,400
Speaker 1: off of Star Trek, that kind of came into being.

615
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:36,320
Speaker 1: I almost feel as if I want to be surprised.

616
00:32:36,360 --> 00:32:39,959
Speaker 1: I don't want the things that we think we can

617
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:42,440
Speaker 1: invent just from our point of view. I want something

618
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 1: to come completely unimagined and unimaginable. I surprised me. That's

619
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 1: the sort of thing I really want to say. I'm

620
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:52,880
Speaker 1: asking your question, is really bad we are? I'm not

621
00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 1: doing it, yes or no. I'm just sort of always

622
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 1: she was in the weird option. You know, the weird

623
00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 1: option is always the most interesting one. So, and the

624
00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 1: last in this series of questions, what's your personal answer

625
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 1: to the Fermi paradox? If the galaxy is so big

626
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of earth bike planets, why

627
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:12,160
Speaker 1: haven't we been visited yet by aliens? So well, I

628
00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:14,600
Speaker 1: wrote that into my books. Because we're so badly behaved,

629
00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 1: we don't deserve to be visited. We're too dangerous to

630
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:23,640
Speaker 1: be visited. Where do you go into that ant's nest

631
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 1: in the garden that you know, the waver between avoiding

632
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:29,040
Speaker 1: it and wondering if you should call the exterminator. Well,

633
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 1: that's sort of terrifying and disappointing to think that they're

634
00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 1: aliens out there with great knowledge that they're just keeping

635
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:37,719
Speaker 1: from us because of our poor behavior. Wow, I'm disappointed

636
00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 1: in us. Well, then let's tear into your novel, which

637
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:42,360
Speaker 1: I read and thoroughly enjoyed. It's called the Best of

638
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:46,360
Speaker 1: All Possible Worlds and The novel takes place sort of

639
00:33:46,360 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 1: in the deep future, where humans have a wide variety

640
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:53,360
Speaker 1: of mental and physical abilities, including like psionic powers like

641
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:56,960
Speaker 1: telepathy and emotional manipulation. What gave you the idea to

642
00:33:57,040 --> 00:33:59,680
Speaker 1: use this concept new novel. Did you start from the

643
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:02,600
Speaker 1: acience and the concept and then developed the story, or

644
00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:04,560
Speaker 1: was there a story you wanted to tell and you

645
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 1: created sort of this concept in framing in order to

646
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 1: tell that story. I think it was a little bit

647
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 1: of both. I didn't want my aliens to be fully alien.

648
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:15,720
Speaker 1: I wanted it to be a concept where the aliens

649
00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 1: are still human. They're so recognizably human. But then you

650
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:21,720
Speaker 1: needed to have a degree of difference that would allow

651
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 1: for the usual fare of the other. That is always

652
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 1: an interesting thing to play within story. So I remember

653
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 1: someone telling me that people had kind of abandoned the

654
00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:35,920
Speaker 1: psionics aspect of science fiction for a while. Then I

655
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:37,719
Speaker 1: was sort of bringing back this old school thing, and

656
00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:40,000
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought of it that way. I was just

657
00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:42,400
Speaker 1: interested in something that would allow me to play with

658
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 1: the power dynamics between people, the question of you know

659
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:49,120
Speaker 1: what if this person really did have some kind of

660
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:52,959
Speaker 1: superior or different mental ability that made you feel at risk,

661
00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:55,839
Speaker 1: made me feel as if they could harm you, And

662
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:58,520
Speaker 1: how would that play out in terms of being in

663
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:01,359
Speaker 1: a society with them. It's really a story will fall

664
00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 1: of empire in some ways, so the people from the

665
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 1: empire have to look as if they are somehow ahead,

666
00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:10,799
Speaker 1: and being just technologically ahead wasn't cuting it for me.

667
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 1: And so I noticed that in the in the story

668
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:15,680
Speaker 1: you tell in this future, you describe the problems these

669
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:19,400
Speaker 1: folks face are sort of familiar. There's culture, class, there's conflict,

670
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:23,880
Speaker 1: there's identity questions, there's workplace romance. Is that because you

671
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:26,440
Speaker 1: think that those problems will be with us forever, that

672
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: they're part of what makes us human? Or is that

673
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:30,439
Speaker 1: just because you wanted to tell a story to people

674
00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:32,520
Speaker 1: who live today and you wanted to make it sort

675
00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 1: of accessible. Well, I kind of hate to tell you this,

676
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:37,520
Speaker 1: but it's not as far in the future as you think,

677
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:41,360
Speaker 1: because remember it doesn't take place on Earth, right because

678
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:44,280
Speaker 1: Earth is embargoed because we're kind of, you know, so immature,

679
00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:46,799
Speaker 1: we need to be left ourselves for a bit. So

680
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 1: although I haven't come out and said exactly when it

681
00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 1: takes place, there are some hints in terms of where

682
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:58,120
Speaker 1: the cultural references stop to make you kind of realize that,

683
00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:00,040
Speaker 1: wait a minute, it might not be as far in

684
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 1: the futures. I think. So it's it's close enough for

685
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:07,200
Speaker 1: people to have the same flaws and foibles and usual pitfalls,

686
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:10,000
Speaker 1: and so there was one sort of factual detail I

687
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:12,439
Speaker 1: was a little bit confused about in the stories are

688
00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:16,360
Speaker 1: these humans or are these aliens? Because they're sometimes described

689
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:19,640
Speaker 1: as human cultures, but they do definitely seem like they

690
00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 1: have abilities that humans don't currently have, which is what

691
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:24,400
Speaker 1: made me think maybe it happened in the far future.

692
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:28,600
Speaker 1: They are definitely human. At the time, I was interested

693
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:31,920
Speaker 1: in some genetic research that was coming out talking about

694
00:36:32,560 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 1: I'm gonna mispernounce all these names. By the way, I'm

695
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 1: an author. I always read my words. I never seen them,

696
00:36:36,960 --> 00:36:40,719
Speaker 1: and then just up front it's a sign of being

697
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 1: well read. Yeah they'll go with that. Um, but yes,

698
00:36:45,160 --> 00:36:47,840
Speaker 1: I was. There was there was research on the genetic

699
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:51,839
Speaker 1: traces that the neander dolls and the dinners with them

700
00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 1: had left behind, and part of me was thinking, um,

701
00:36:55,719 --> 00:36:58,360
Speaker 1: what if there was a template that they were supposed

702
00:36:58,400 --> 00:37:02,360
Speaker 1: to be at least three or form closely related human

703
00:37:02,400 --> 00:37:05,759
Speaker 1: species that could in fact, you know, to use the

704
00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:09,600
Speaker 1: cruster into breeding and mixed a mixed genetic material and

705
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 1: what have you. What if there was another planet that

706
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:15,600
Speaker 1: was like mostly in Neantal or mostly Dinnis within what

707
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:18,839
Speaker 1: would that look like? So in the back of my head,

708
00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 1: although I haven't put it in the story, that's what

709
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 1: these different so called alien planets are, These different strains

710
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 1: of humanity that are somehow kind of you know, hard

711
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:30,640
Speaker 1: hardwired into that the whole egg of creation I see.

712
00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:33,440
Speaker 1: And so in this back story you've imagined, how do

713
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 1: humans get on those other planets? Is it's some sort

714
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:39,200
Speaker 1: of panspermia where humans have come to Earth and other

715
00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:42,480
Speaker 1: planets from somewhere else and we are a common thread

716
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:46,120
Speaker 1: of evolution. I didn't have a connection between the planets

717
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:49,080
Speaker 1: except for between Earth and Singus data and that's when

718
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 1: I use the old hand wavy portals thing. As for

719
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:55,719
Speaker 1: humanity springing up on those other worlds, I kind of

720
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:58,799
Speaker 1: couched him myth. It is sort of an egg met

721
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:01,319
Speaker 1: is sort of you know, authors on this actually these

722
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:05,680
Speaker 1: four core planets and walla um. But there's nothing to

723
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:09,360
Speaker 1: suggest that it's reality. Is probably just a story that

724
00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:12,480
Speaker 1: you know, parents to older kids or something from some

725
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:15,799
Speaker 1: old religion, and nobody really takes it seriously. I like,

726
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:18,279
Speaker 1: I like to leave those things a little vague. But

727
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:20,680
Speaker 1: but then again, you get this idea that it's not

728
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:25,160
Speaker 1: a case of except for you know, three three the planets.

729
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:27,719
Speaker 1: It's not a case that there's a slow tradition of

730
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 1: interconnection and that allows you to have, um, some quite

731
00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:35,320
Speaker 1: separate cultures, which is fascinating to play within his own way. Yeah, absolutely,

732
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:37,440
Speaker 1: that was that was really fun to read about. I

733
00:38:37,560 --> 00:38:39,319
Speaker 1: see now that you're saying it's a sort of a

734
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:42,960
Speaker 1: structure of a story where we're talking about divergent evolution

735
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:45,520
Speaker 1: and how these cultures become different and then they come

736
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:48,279
Speaker 1: together and they have those clashes, which is definitely a

737
00:38:48,320 --> 00:38:51,760
Speaker 1: familiar kind of story. Um. But thinking about the future

738
00:38:51,760 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 1: of humanity, do you think you know in a hundred

739
00:38:54,080 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 1: years or a thousand years that these are things that

740
00:38:56,600 --> 00:39:00,719
Speaker 1: might happen to humanity, that we might evolve scion abilities

741
00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:04,000
Speaker 1: or telepathic powers, or or anything else that features in

742
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:09,920
Speaker 1: your novel. You know, I am both interested in actually

743
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:15,960
Speaker 1: prediction the future and quite terrified vacarium because just just

744
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:18,000
Speaker 1: last year I wrote a story which got published in

745
00:39:18,080 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 1: January called the Plague Doctors about a pandemic um. So, yeah,

746
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:25,480
Speaker 1: so I'm really careful about that. But the other thing

747
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:28,440
Speaker 1: I was riffing off is that nothing that ive described

748
00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:31,040
Speaker 1: in those books hasn't already been claimed by humans on

749
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:34,040
Speaker 1: Earth right now. Different degrees and it, of course, but

750
00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:38,239
Speaker 1: aspects of of empathy, aspects of you know, twins reading

751
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:41,520
Speaker 1: each other's minds across the distance, what have you. That's

752
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 1: why it's one of our most loved tropes because it

753
00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:47,120
Speaker 1: doesn't come out of nowhere. It comes out of people

754
00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 1: in real life saying but I have this ability, or

755
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 1: I have a little touch of this ability. Um. So

756
00:39:53,239 --> 00:39:55,600
Speaker 1: I thought, well, you know, maybe we too. Maybe it's

757
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:58,279
Speaker 1: in process of being developed. Let's just imagine it got

758
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 1: a little further now what a society looks like. Yeah, fascinating,

759
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:05,319
Speaker 1: And I like how you connected it also to the

760
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:09,600
Speaker 1: transportation technology. You made all these references to these mind ships,

761
00:40:09,920 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 1: and I was desperate to know more about this. Can

762
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:13,759
Speaker 1: you tell us a little bit about your faster than

763
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:16,880
Speaker 1: light mindships, what they are, how they work? I can, indeed.

764
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:19,319
Speaker 1: But you know, the scary thing is that first one

765
00:40:19,360 --> 00:40:21,040
Speaker 1: you invited me and you said, Oh, that's what the

766
00:40:21,080 --> 00:40:23,880
Speaker 1: science invest for all possible world. I thought, how am

767
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 1: I going to talk about the science invest without talking

768
00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:28,760
Speaker 1: about the science in the Galaxy game, which is a sequel,

769
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 1: because that's when I really started to talk about the

770
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:35,480
Speaker 1: transportation technology and the mind ships without spoiling too much

771
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:39,759
Speaker 1: of a sequel. Um, what comes out about why how

772
00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:43,879
Speaker 1: the mindships work and how certain other forms of transportation

773
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:47,040
Speaker 1: work is that you have to have a collective consciousness.

774
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 1: So going back to your question to me, but the

775
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:53,879
Speaker 1: Star Trek transport technology, Um, where's your consciousness school when

776
00:40:54,000 --> 00:41:00,320
Speaker 1: your corporal forms is disassembled? So the idea there is that, Okay,

777
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 1: if we have a form of technology or form of ability,

778
00:41:04,560 --> 00:41:07,800
Speaker 1: you let's say, in this kind of basically a space whale,

779
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:09,759
Speaker 1: but it's more like a sting ray, so we won't

780
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:11,640
Speaker 1: call it, won't call a space whale. But if we

781
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:15,960
Speaker 1: have that ability and we're moving across di mensions, because

782
00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:17,920
Speaker 1: of course to make this work we have to have

783
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:21,719
Speaker 1: our faster than light transportation, how do you could your

784
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 1: consciousness together? And that was why I say it came

785
00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:30,200
Speaker 1: maybe we have to have a larger than human consciousness

786
00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:32,359
Speaker 1: to survive that kind of travel that has to be

787
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:38,160
Speaker 1: collective consciousness. I wasn't fact inspired by something in real life.

788
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 1: There's something called Portuguese Man of War, which is like

789
00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:45,800
Speaker 1: a jellyfish, but not a jellyfish. It's actually a collective organism.

790
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:48,680
Speaker 1: It's not one creature. It's like a colony creature. It

791
00:41:48,760 --> 00:41:51,680
Speaker 1: also gives you the most horribly painful and vile sting

792
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 1: you can imagine. But um, you know, I got over

793
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:57,200
Speaker 1: that and I took a science and I put it

794
00:41:57,239 --> 00:41:59,120
Speaker 1: into the book and I said, you know what if

795
00:41:59,160 --> 00:42:02,200
Speaker 1: you know there were these advantages to becoming a colonic creature,

796
00:42:02,320 --> 00:42:05,200
Speaker 1: so that not only do you have a future where

797
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:09,279
Speaker 1: humanity has these kind of scionic powers developing, but you

798
00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:13,160
Speaker 1: also have a creature that has a form of intelligence

799
00:42:13,360 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 1: that can combine with human intelligence to form a collective consciousness.

800
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:21,359
Speaker 1: And this has some benefits in some way. This has

801
00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:25,320
Speaker 1: some advantages of um, you know, going through the galaxy

802
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:30,439
Speaker 1: at but an ease that just ordinary mechanical solutions would

803
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:33,640
Speaker 1: not achieve. So so that was what I was playing with,

804
00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:37,239
Speaker 1: And that then begins to explain why, for example, the

805
00:42:38,239 --> 00:42:40,680
Speaker 1: humans of that planet develop in a certain way because

806
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:44,239
Speaker 1: it's partly their interaction with the animals that become the

807
00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:48,600
Speaker 1: mindships that cause them to become so strong telepathically. It's

808
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:51,319
Speaker 1: a fascinating twist that the mindships themselves are sent into

809
00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:56,280
Speaker 1: their essentially animals. When you construct the universe of your novels,

810
00:42:56,280 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 1: and you're building this and putting your story into it,

811
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 1: how important is it to you that the science in

812
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:05,399
Speaker 1: there be plausible, not necessarily that it follows the same

813
00:43:05,520 --> 00:43:08,080
Speaker 1: laws of physics that we have, but that there are

814
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:10,880
Speaker 1: some laws of physics of that universe that it obeys.

815
00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:12,840
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I find important. There has to

816
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:16,719
Speaker 1: be a cost. There has to be a cost, because, um,

817
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 1: if you have free and easy travel, for example, then

818
00:43:20,719 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 1: you almost cannot build a similar to Earth society and

819
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:27,560
Speaker 1: and play with it as a story. You've removed some

820
00:43:27,600 --> 00:43:30,960
Speaker 1: of the constraints that make us who we are. So

821
00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:33,839
Speaker 1: in some respects you are. You're even when you're making

822
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:37,880
Speaker 1: up a technology, you're using something that mirrors a present

823
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:40,840
Speaker 1: day constraint and restriction that we have in terms of

824
00:43:40,920 --> 00:43:44,880
Speaker 1: technology that we're using. As for the details, as for

825
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:48,799
Speaker 1: the you know, exactly how does this work? I often

826
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:52,040
Speaker 1: say to people, you know, ask someone how a TV works,

827
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:55,240
Speaker 1: They don't know. I don't know. It doesn't affect their lives.

828
00:43:55,320 --> 00:43:57,600
Speaker 1: You know, they're just happy that they get their entertainment.

829
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 1: So you you need to be careful how much you

830
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:04,880
Speaker 1: immerse yourself in the details of even the stuff you

831
00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:06,759
Speaker 1: make up as well as the stuff that is real,

832
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:10,799
Speaker 1: and ask yourself, Okay, to what extent is this going

833
00:44:10,840 --> 00:44:14,560
Speaker 1: to advance the story or development to the plot. However,

834
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:17,760
Speaker 1: I want to put in a good word for social science,

835
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:23,440
Speaker 1: because I might read a story which expronunced to me

836
00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:27,320
Speaker 1: in great detail how a TV works, and that's nice.

837
00:44:27,760 --> 00:44:31,680
Speaker 1: But if the relationship between two of the characters is

838
00:44:31,760 --> 00:44:35,720
Speaker 1: simply implausible, or if the society has this weird gap

839
00:44:35,760 --> 00:44:38,800
Speaker 1: of who's doing this labor or where is this money

840
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:43,360
Speaker 1: coming from, that's what trips me up. Because even though

841
00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:48,080
Speaker 1: we don't necessarily know the have the vocabulary to understand

842
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:50,600
Speaker 1: exactly how our world is structured and and why it

843
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:53,160
Speaker 1: works the way it does. When the gaps are there,

844
00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:56,399
Speaker 1: you can sense it and it doesn't feel quite real,

845
00:44:56,480 --> 00:45:00,759
Speaker 1: doesn't feel quite right. So for the proper or suspension

846
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:03,279
Speaker 1: of disbelief, at least on my side, and I think

847
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:06,360
Speaker 1: it's gotten worse and more hung head into sociological study.

848
00:45:07,040 --> 00:45:09,640
Speaker 1: I need to have a plausible society. I need to

849
00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:13,719
Speaker 1: have a plausible psychology of the individual as well, and

850
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:17,560
Speaker 1: that has to be all affecting how the plot unfolds.

851
00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:21,279
Speaker 1: If the science of the individual and the collective isn't right,

852
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:24,640
Speaker 1: I definitely can't write it. That's fascinating. I agree with

853
00:45:24,680 --> 00:45:27,040
Speaker 1: you that the story has to take place in the

854
00:45:27,200 --> 00:45:30,640
Speaker 1: context of some obstacles, some constraints that make the story

855
00:45:30,680 --> 00:45:32,960
Speaker 1: move forward, that those have to be consistent for the

856
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:35,560
Speaker 1: story to make sense, even if you haven't worked out

857
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:38,080
Speaker 1: the scientific details. But I think that touches in it

858
00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 1: really fascinating way on something you said earlier. You're telling

859
00:45:41,080 --> 00:45:43,200
Speaker 1: me that you're wanting to construct a story that makes

860
00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:45,759
Speaker 1: sense to us here today, that resonates with us, that

861
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:47,359
Speaker 1: makes sense to us, that speaks to who we are

862
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:50,640
Speaker 1: as people in our struggles. But also, science fiction is

863
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:53,279
Speaker 1: about extrapolating into the future and wondering what we'd like

864
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:56,720
Speaker 1: to be human in the five years or a thousand years.

865
00:45:57,120 --> 00:45:59,560
Speaker 1: Are we limited in our ability to think about what

866
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:02,160
Speaker 1: the US are like for humans in a hundred years

867
00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:05,440
Speaker 1: and five hundred years, and considering the enormous changes and

868
00:46:05,520 --> 00:46:08,080
Speaker 1: experiences of our person just over the last fifty or

869
00:46:08,120 --> 00:46:12,400
Speaker 1: hundred years. I think that not every writer, not have

870
00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 1: respectative fiction writer has the gift to really extrapolate to

871
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:20,120
Speaker 1: see what things look like. But I also think that

872
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:23,520
Speaker 1: if you write something to show, to hold up a

873
00:46:23,520 --> 00:46:26,840
Speaker 1: mirror toory your society as as it is now, sometimes

874
00:46:26,960 --> 00:46:29,520
Speaker 1: that is what survives. And the reason I mentioned this

875
00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite books is flat Land. And

876
00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:36,160
Speaker 1: for a book that was written in like, you know,

877
00:46:36,200 --> 00:46:40,600
Speaker 1: the mid eighteen hundreds, that book holds extraordinarily well, not

878
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:44,120
Speaker 1: just of course, in terms of mathematics, which is entirely accurate,

879
00:46:44,719 --> 00:46:49,560
Speaker 1: but the sociology and all he's doing is critiquing Victorian society.

880
00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:53,080
Speaker 1: But so many of the aspects that he talks about

881
00:46:53,600 --> 00:46:55,920
Speaker 1: and the guys of flat Land society are still with

882
00:46:56,000 --> 00:46:59,040
Speaker 1: us today. So you could say, you know, if you're

883
00:46:59,080 --> 00:47:01,000
Speaker 1: just going forward a hundred fifty years, you can talk

884
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:04,319
Speaker 1: about society and it's still will have some of the

885
00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:07,000
Speaker 1: same problems and the same challenges, some of the same

886
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:09,560
Speaker 1: things that we're trying to work out. I think in

887
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:13,320
Speaker 1: a way that's why I wanted to introduce these alien

888
00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 1: humans who had constructed such different societies that they were

889
00:47:17,239 --> 00:47:22,000
Speaker 1: influencing the mostly Earth societies to think differently, to to

890
00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:26,080
Speaker 1: imagine a different way of being. Sometimes I do wonder

891
00:47:26,160 --> 00:47:28,160
Speaker 1: whether we need some kind of I don't want to

892
00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:31,000
Speaker 1: call it quite an external shock or maybe an external

893
00:47:31,040 --> 00:47:34,080
Speaker 1: inspiration to realize, okay, this is how it can be

894
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:36,360
Speaker 1: done differently. Well it certainly we'll be fascinating when the

895
00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:38,719
Speaker 1: aliens decide that we're worth it and come talk to

896
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:42,920
Speaker 1: us and tell us wonderful. Well, thank you very much

897
00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:44,960
Speaker 1: for talking to us about your book. When you tell

898
00:47:45,040 --> 00:47:46,480
Speaker 1: us a little bit about the projects that you have

899
00:47:46,600 --> 00:47:48,799
Speaker 1: going on now that might be coming out soon. There

900
00:47:48,920 --> 00:47:50,960
Speaker 1: is a manuscript that I have just written which would

901
00:47:50,960 --> 00:47:53,839
Speaker 1: be touching again on the world of bestwell possible wills

902
00:47:53,840 --> 00:47:56,920
Speaker 1: in the Galaxy game, but you know, with the pandemic

903
00:47:57,000 --> 00:47:59,360
Speaker 1: and all things, but all delayed, so I probably shouldn't

904
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:02,160
Speaker 1: talk about it yet because we're looking at two or

905
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:06,440
Speaker 1: so before you'll see it. Um. I've been working on

906
00:48:06,920 --> 00:48:12,360
Speaker 1: plenty of zoom Tight conferences and festivals and so forth.

907
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:16,120
Speaker 1: So coming up in September, the Focuslet Fest, which is

908
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:18,879
Speaker 1: based on for them Tobago, is going to be happing

909
00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 1: an all virtual festival and you could expect to see

910
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:24,239
Speaker 1: me there. I'll probably tweet about it closer to the

911
00:48:24,320 --> 00:48:26,239
Speaker 1: time when I can can give up the dates and

912
00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:29,400
Speaker 1: what have you. And and prior to that, there's also

913
00:48:29,600 --> 00:48:33,839
Speaker 1: the Booklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. I may have called that wrong,

914
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:36,160
Speaker 1: but I think I have it right. That is going

915
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:38,680
Speaker 1: to be the weekend before. So again, those are things

916
00:48:38,719 --> 00:48:40,959
Speaker 1: that if anybody follows on my Twitter, I'll be sure

917
00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:43,560
Speaker 1: when I have, like you know, the nice shiny graphics

918
00:48:43,680 --> 00:48:46,319
Speaker 1: and all the all the right dates and times, I'll

919
00:48:46,320 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 1: be tweeting forward about that. Sounds good. Well, we're looking

920
00:48:48,960 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 1: forward to reading the next book in your series and

921
00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:53,880
Speaker 1: anything else. You're right, Frankly, it was a pleasure to

922
00:48:53,920 --> 00:48:56,160
Speaker 1: read your book and the pleasure to talk to you today.

923
00:48:56,320 --> 00:49:00,040
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Alright, awesome interview, Daniel. It's on

924
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:03,480
Speaker 1: interesting her background and also how she kind of used

925
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:06,960
Speaker 1: the science fiction to talk about societal issues and like

926
00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:10,440
Speaker 1: human character issues. Yeah, at the same time an exploration

927
00:49:10,480 --> 00:49:12,760
Speaker 1: in the future of our society and also like shining

928
00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:15,279
Speaker 1: a light on how we live and the issues that

929
00:49:15,360 --> 00:49:17,160
Speaker 1: we face today. And I think one of the points

930
00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:20,120
Speaker 1: she's making is that as humans were likely to face

931
00:49:20,200 --> 00:49:23,000
Speaker 1: the same kind of struggles and conflicts no matter what

932
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:25,680
Speaker 1: the setting, whether it's on another planet or on a

933
00:49:25,719 --> 00:49:28,359
Speaker 1: spaceship or just here on Earth trying to survive. Yeah.

934
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:30,920
Speaker 1: I like how she totally avoided the question of why

935
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:33,919
Speaker 1: do all these Anians look like humans? As I feel

936
00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:36,560
Speaker 1: like most science fiction authors due, Yeah, like I don't know,

937
00:49:36,760 --> 00:49:38,960
Speaker 1: or is that a central part of the story. Yeah,

938
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:41,080
Speaker 1: I like that. Actually that she owned that. She was like,

939
00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:44,359
Speaker 1: you know, assuming mythological beginning to my universe and then

940
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:47,160
Speaker 1: take it forward from the science at that point. It's

941
00:49:47,160 --> 00:49:49,080
Speaker 1: a cool It's a really a fascinating blend of like

942
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:53,520
Speaker 1: cultural heritage and mythology and then you know, hardcore science fiction.

943
00:49:53,880 --> 00:49:56,399
Speaker 1: So it's definitely not like any other book I've read,

944
00:49:56,440 --> 00:49:58,600
Speaker 1: but I really enjoyed. Well again, the book is the

945
00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:02,399
Speaker 1: best of all possible war World by Karen Lord. All Right, Well,

946
00:50:02,440 --> 00:50:04,560
Speaker 1: we hope you enjoyed that and give it a try.

947
00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:16,120
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, see you next time. Thanks for listening,

948
00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:18,880
Speaker 1: and remember that Daniel and Jorge explained. The Universe is

949
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:22,440
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from

950
00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:25,520
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio Apple Apple

951
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:28,640
Speaker 1: Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,