editor at Quark & science fiction writer – Slovenia
LECTURE WITH COMMENTARY
Dear friends, let me start by explaining that for the introductory part of my presentation, I have chosen a commentary on an important part of my novel „AFTERLIFE „Hm?“ The reason is that I want to enable a faster transition to the world of science fiction, which I intend to talk about today. This introductory part should therefore also facilitate an understanding of my other works and thinking. 1 One of the decisively important moments arose when I was faced with the dilemma of whether there are such rich fantasy environments in Sci-Fi that a transition to the afterlife, within a Sci-Fi framework, is not just some fantasy projection, but that the narrative is provided on a basis that indicates the evolutionary development of mankind.
It is common knowledge that since prehistoric times, thinking about a possible afterlife has always been present in humanity, as an integral element of religion. It’s been like this since the Stone Age, hasn’t it? That’s how it was, wasn’t it? And finally, with my narrative, with the imaginative ability of a Sci-Fi writer, Hard Sci-Fi joins in with all its might.
I need to clarify here a little about science fiction. Sci-Fi has developed in so many completely different directions that it’s necessary to say in which branch of science fiction the narrative belongs. My narrative must be defined as Hard Science Fiction (Hard Sci-Fi), i.e., not a fairy tale or a mere cartoon creation without the presence of an interesting storyline, such that we often see on television.
So it’s necessary to explain that Hard Science Fiction is a branch of science fiction that stays close to science. It is recognized by its proximity to science. Well, it’s not science, but the way of thinking and the way of interpreting events are present in a way that is usually recognizable as scientific. In other words, there is a constant desire to appear in a scientific light, though it must be recognised, of course, that science fiction is not science.
Let me continue with a summary and an explanation of one part of the text from my story, in Part II of the story AFTERLIFE „Hm?“, „The Great Battle at the Great Wall of Eternity“. There are some original dilemmas here that determined the unfolding of my entire narrative.
As follows from my story, one of the space civilizations directed its development only on the basis of its scientific activity, i.e., including with the help of artificial intelligence, and rejected the possibility of a transition to eternal life, as chosen by a space civilization more friendly to people.
So what was the difference between them? The Sensins realized that by simply building mind worlds, even though including the use of AI, they would not be able to achieve eternal life. They decided to „lean“ periodically on a younger civilization, in our case Earthlings. How? They chose the path of approaching an Earthling at his death and „sucking“ all his essence from him, recording all the 2 events, the entire process of dying, including the extinguishing of the spark of life.
Yes, that’s exactly what is present, they’re capable of hologram recording – copying and duplicating – the extinguishing of the spark of life so precisely that all the information gained in doing so helps them to supplement the knowledge needed to create the reverse process.
The reverse process of dying initiates the process of birth. The Sensins, with all their knowledge and with all their developmental achievements, together with the information obtained during the dying of an Earthling, are able to turn this dying process in its opposite direction, i.e., into a process of revival, and thus triggering the spark of life. The spark of life obtained in this way is the key to the revival of Earthlings and their transition to a continuation of life after death.
Taken as a whole, all of this allows the Sensins to throw the Earthling back to death, or to do the opposite and, because of the feeling that enters them during the process of creation of the „spark of life“, they can enable Earthlings to revive. So Earthlings can continue life after their death.
As is clear from the narrative, the Sensins decided that after the process and transfer of the »spark of life« had been completed, they would resurrect the Earthlings and therefore enable them to revive and continue life.
In the battle in front of the Great Wall of Eternity, the two civilizations, that of the Sensins and that of the Acutins, must each pass a test of their ability to survive. Both the Sensins and the Acutins are faced with a decisive test of whether or not they possess sufficient vital energy. Both are put to a test of their survival life force. Every individual who participates in the battle before the Great Wall of Eternity, the wall that is contained and embedded in the Great Wall of Eternity’s guardian network, is put to the test. How much life force an individual still carries within him is under question. It is checked there who is a vital being and who is just inanimate matter capable of reasonable speech and movement.
All this also calls into question which of the two paths, the path of the Sensins or that of the Acutins leads to eternal life and which does not? The Acutins rejected the Sensin’s path to eternity. According to them, the Sensin’s path is merely an easier way that doesn’t suit their nature.
Which one is right?
There’s a lot going on in space. Very interesting events are possible in the vastness of space. Science fiction allows us to travel with the power of unbridled imagination through these science fiction worlds, both those that are purely fictional and those that are, or will be possible in the future.
For us Earthlings, it is more important that the Sensins, after the death of an Earthling, and after they have been given a sip of life, which they call „a sip of eternity“ enable us Earthlings to pass into the afterlife.
As a point of interest, I should add that my Hard Sci-Fi novel is written in the first person and that, during the writing, I was strongly committed to the belief, which I myself encouraged more than inhibited, that all this was happening to me. Well, yes, I admit that this kind of commitment is questionable because it is often impossible to understand and accept it without the presence of a sense of humour on the part of the reader. We must bear in mind, though, that such commitment strengthens the power of creation. It can be questioned, however, whether the author has the right to ask the reader to have a little more sense of humour. So that he realises that, although the fictional world is not real, a real form of the described event is not so far away that it could not be significantly present with a weighty influence on our current perceptions of the world in which we live. Of course, the suggestion that all this might well await us as humanity, somewhere in the future, can quickly make us smile. Regardless of how my narrative is received, with a hint of humour or an open question without an answer, my opinion is that, in the future, Earthlings will experience many of the events that I have described in my imaginative wanderings into the world of adventure. So it doesn’t matter what kind of smile we have.
However, if we reassure ourselves with doubts and judgments about what is possible in the universe with the light-hearted explanation that »it’s just science fiction«, on the other hand, we encounter equally puzzling questions in our everyday life. We can very quickly become involved in equally difficult to explain mental ramblings. The problem can arise when some events in our daily life give us good results, so good that we stop asking ourselves what is true and what is not and accept such things as certain facts. Let me tell you my experience.
At certain moments, unusual words crept into my consciousness when I was thinking about a possible afterlife, such as occurred to me during the writing of the 13th chapter of my novella „THEY COME TO GET ME“. In a mysterious whisper, the words crept into my consciousness. These were catchphrases: „I was chosen by the Spirit of the Tribe of Levi, to go, with the power of my imagination, for my experience, on the path of the afterlife.“
I’m supposed to use them. At least that’s how I understood these prompts. They were as if sent from the distant past of the tribe of Levi, from which I am descended on my mother’s side. I understood them as coded text, as words that open the door to a space, rich in ideas. I used them. I think that I have used them to good effect.
I was further encouraged to use exclamations by the feeling that writing about a possible afterlife is a dangerous business. I could not escape the fact that a descent into the afterlife, even if only with the power of imagination, was a dangerous undertaking. As it turns out, it was a good thing that I took it into account.
To summarize, then, I mustered all my strength to face the extremely difficult challenge: what is possible? I was faced with the question of what I can achieve with my imaginative abilities. Can I use the power of my imagination to find an environment in the worlds of science fiction, in which the transition to the afterlife will not only be imaginatively possible but also rationally acceptable, especially in the sense that it should also be scientifically feasible in the future?
Yes, the answer given in my novel, AFTERLIFE »Hm?« is possible, and it can also all make sense . I hope I did a good job of presenting this in my SciFi novel. I hope that I managed to do it very well, although only with the starting point of a SciFi environment.
In relation to the “calling words”, now that the novel is written, I have to consider that the catchphrases, the „calling words“, were a powerful source of inspiration.
The second part of my lecture is about my novel “COMMAND: Find the Missing Squadrons”
The distance between science and SciFi has shrunk to within sight. I took advantage of this when adapting my novel for publication on AMAZON. I’ve replaced the „godlike“ computer, which is the easiest to use in science fiction, at least for a SciFi writer, with an AI-powered computer that, at least for now, can’t yet to do everything that the godlike computer did. I think that AI, at the end of its development, will be able to do exactly what, in my novel, a computer of divine capabilities was originally supposed to do.
In the book “COMMAND: Find the Missing Squadrons” the story takes us all the way to the extreme consequences of using empathic abilities, even unwanted ones. One of the possible ultimate goals of the development of Artificial Intelligence is the construction of a supercomputer centre, as represented by EvH in the novel “COMMAND: Find the Missing Squadrons«, with the original title: The Curse of the Two-Headed Clown. EvH is one of the options for the ultimate development of artificial intelligence, which, however, lies in stark contrast to the options for computers to take power over man. The EvH is also something quite different from the computer in ODYSSEY 2001, which wants dominance over man. EvH, however, shows a fusion of human reason with the computational capacities of artificial intelligence into a life form at the highest intellectual level. When ZEJ, an ally of the Earthlings in the fight against the spread of evil among the Timers, spoke to his countrymen about the dangerous change in their characters, he reminded them of the purpose and power of EvH. He said to them: “Let me remind you: after the steep rise in our development, when we established instantaneous mental transfer between individuals from opposite ends of the galaxy and then instantly connected with all mental machines and systems, the possibility of new progress opened up: building thought systems.
We also wanted this glorious rational mind to have the ability to understand living beings, us Timers, to have in its mind all that each of us 7 carries in our hearts. We accordingly stored in this rational world everything we have ever perceived and understood. We built into it the power of perceiving everything as it is given to us. We gave it the ability to create. By doing so we have established a mind that shows us how the world of our values constantly changes and with it how we are changed, along with everything that decides within us: to whom we give a friendly smile and to whom only contempt. Thus, we created a mind that embodies civilization based on our core values.”
Also important in the story are our empathic abilities, which are wonderful because they can invigorate us. However, in our story, they caused unwanted character changes. War was triggered.
Finally, let me add an explanation about my upcoming lectures:
I should add that in one of my next lectures, I intend to focus on a special part of my activity, which is covered in the popular scientific journal Quark, whose editor I have been since its founding in 1990.
Editor note: Dear readers, you can buy the book at the following link.
