the immutable science fiction

When I first claimed The Picture (Portrait) of Dorian Gray was an excellent example of early science fiction I was mocked. Vilified almost.

Every book club since, my name has been tainted with the brush of science fiction.

"Oh Poms." They say, "Has this something to do with science fiction."

And laugh, laugh like an episode of the US office, which is surprisingly consistent.

To those doubters I turned the laughing tables tonight, when, not really thinking too carefully about what I was saying, I came up with a theory that will put that feverish doubt so hungrily dumped at my door in the same coffin as the fantasy authors utility to society.

About when Newton was sitting under apple trees, Gottfried Leibniz was postulating just as interesting theories on the other side of the Channel, particularly involving the possibilities of there being other worlds existing parallel to our own. While his theories, revolving around our own forming some kind of perfect vision of God, Kripke and others converted the ideas into semantic tools, allowing us to logically deal with concepts like "possibility."

X is possible, means there exists a possible world, where x is true. X is necessary, means X is true in all possible worlds. Neat, tidy, wonderful. And from this idea, stems a befuddling idea that effectively states all these worlds might exist. The many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics effectively postulates the physical existence of all possible worlds.

This is beside the point slightly, my point is that every piece of fiction, postulates a possible state of the world. The novel is a peek into a world that actually exists beyond our potential observation and probably beyond my understanding of the principle, but nevertheless states something profound about the nature of consciousness and how we shape worlds according to our perception of what is possible.

Can we create these worlds by placing them on paper or what appears to be more logical, are we actually desecribing actual worlds and events, whether in the far off junk fantasy of Jordan's Wheel of Time or the near autobiographical approach of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited.

A subject that has absolutely no potential impact in the real world, but is worth thought, if only after a bottle of wine.