Human beings have long been thinking: In the vast universe, will there be life on other celestial bodies, is there civilization? These questions are both the cornerstone of countless science fiction works and have attracted many famous scientists in history. But are these scientists "not doing their jobs"? Where is the boundary between science and science fiction? Can science fiction advance science? Mu Yunqiu, associate professor of the Institute of Science History and Culture of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Jiang Xiaoyuan, the first dean of the institute and chair professor of Jiaotong University, previously sorted out the main "science fantasies" and scientific explorations on extraterrestrial civilizations, and the relevant results were recently published. Cen Shaoyu, a popular science author of the Observer Network, chatted with two scholars about the new book "Exploration of Extraterrestrial Civilizations - From Science to Fantasy".
【Interview/Observer Network Cen Shaoyu】
Observer Network: This book is based on Professor Mu's doctoral dissertation. It should be said that at the beginning of the study in 2004, human enthusiasm for the exploration of extraterrestrial civilizations has greatly faded compared with the peak period. Why did you choose all of this entry point at that time?
Do you think that since the exploration of extraterrestrial civilizations is less hot, it is time to make a "phased summary"; or is it more driven by the two interests in science fiction?
Jiang Xiaoyuan: At that time, I wanted to academicize the scientific research on science fiction, and one of the indicators of academicization was, of course, to publish academic texts, and I had already published several articles at that time. The next indicator of academicization is to get a ph.D. out, so find someone to do a phD thesis on this topic.
Mu Yunqiu was my Ph.D. student at that time, she had seen a lot of science fiction movies, and she was more senior than me, so I suggested that she do this project. After thinking about it for a while, she decided to do it.
But to really do science fiction topics, you have to consider academics, not consider cold and hot, some hot things, it is difficult to academicize.
Relatively speaking, the exploration of extraterrestrial civilization is a scholarly, even in today's frontier of astronomy, the exploration of extraterrestrial civilization still has a place, choose it to do, academicization will be guaranteed.
Mu Yunqiu: Let me add a little, because the history of science is actually divided into many directions under the discipline, and the strongest in history is the direction of astronomical history.
In fact, I was doing science fiction at that time, and after I first entered such a general direction, I didn't know what to do, and I was very confused for a long time, because there were so many science fictions. Finally, I found that the interface between the exploration of this thing by extraterrestrial civilizations and the history of astronomy is the closest.
After the paper is made, it also faces the problem of reviewing the manuscript, to have the "legitimacy" of the discipline, if the professional connection with the history of science itself is not very close, it will be a problem. The exploration of extraterrestrial civilizations can be combined with the history of astronomy at once.
Observer Network: The moon closest to us is certainly where humanity first concentrated on imagining extraterrestrial civilizations. Both Galileo and Kepler "let go of themselves", imagining the moon and exploring whether life existed. Galileo chose the form of "dialogue" ("Dialogue on the Two World Systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus", hereinafter referred to as "Dialogue"), and Kepler chose the form of "dream" ("Dream of the Moon") to unfold, does this mean that in their time science and science fiction actually had some kind of distinction?
Jiang Xiaoyuan: You can't say that there was no science fiction at all in that era. The concept or product of science fiction did not exist in the time of Galileo and Kepler. It's just that after the concept of science fiction is already available today, we will think that Kepler's "Dream of the Moon" is science fiction. Some in the West also trace science fiction back even further, such as the ancient Babylonian Gilgamesh.
"Dialogue on the Two World Systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus", Image source: wiki
Observer.com: But did they deliberately choose an "informal" text? Even if there was no concept of science fiction at that time, was it not understood that there were two types of works with huge differences in form, content, and so on, one that was less formal and close to the science fiction we now understand, and the other that the text was more formal, close to the science that is now understood?
Mu Yunqiu: There is no concept of "science fiction" in Galileo's mind, which is certain. Why did he discuss the question of whether the moon was habitable in the Dialogue? The question was serious for him, because he was the first person to point a telescope at the sky to see the moon, and then he would think about it. Here in Galileo, you can think of it as a scientific problem.
Kepler's writing of "Dream of the Moon" is actually the same, but Kepler's style is different from Galileo's, and it has some mystical paths in it. Later, people went back to "Moon Dream", and some scholars used it as an alternative to the pioneering work of science fiction. We usually think of the first science fiction novel as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, while in the West, many people think that Moon Dream was the first science fiction novel. But discussing creatures on the moon and the like is also very serious for Kepler, and does not mean that it is regarded as a kind of "science fiction".
The 1634 edition and the 2017 reprint of Dream of the Moon, Somnium is latin for "dream," courtesy of Wiki and Amazon
Jiang Xiaoyuan: At that time, there was no boundary between science fiction and scientific exploration in people's minds, and they were very serious about people on the moon, people on Mars, and even people on the sun, and they wouldn't think it was informal. When they discuss it this way, there is no concept of science fiction, but it is actually discussed as a frontier issue of science.
This is something we want to emphasize in our book. Because many modern people think that if they were thinking about this thing at the time, they were doing science fiction, in fact, in that era these were not "science fiction".
Observer Network: The boundaries are now so obvious that it may be difficult for the average reader to go back in time and look at their old works.
Mu Yunqiu: It can be said that it is an artificial distinction now. To give you two examples of classic works, both of which are very large, one is Flamarion's Popular Astronomy in France, and the other is Nuucon's Popular Astronomy.
Flammarion's Popular Astronomy, the fourth part, Planetary Worlds, image source: catawiki
When these two astronomers wrote popular science books, they very seriously discussed whether the moon was habitable, whether the moon was another small earth, and whether it was similar to the earth.
When they wrote the book, this was a scientific problem, and later when we introduced these two books in China, the publishing house deleted the relevant chapters. Why delete? Because it was absurd for two astronomers of such a name to discuss such a question, and to stay in their classic works would damage their image, so they simply deleted it.
Observer Network: So for many scientists now, will they have such a clear distinction in their hearts as science fiction and science because of the changes in the background of the times? Consciously avoiding certain content?
Jiang Xiaoyuan: In today's scientific community, even in their own minds, science and science fiction have been separated, but this is still not excluded, and people find out afterwards that the boundary between certain scientific research activities and science fiction is still unclear.
Especially now, many cutting-edge theoretical discussions in brain science and artificial intelligence may be regarded as science fiction in the future, and this possibility still exists. It doesn't have to do with whether you have these two things in your head or not.
Observer Network: I also saw a very interesting story in the book, which took up a lot of space, that is, The New York Sun made up new discoveries about life on the moon. Astronomer John Herschel did go to the southern hemisphere to observe, but the New York Sun used this excuse to serialize a large number of fabricated content, "soaring into a shining new star in the American newspaper industry." This does not seem to reflect the positive interaction between science and fantasy that this book wants to emphasize, and it feels like science is only being used unilaterally...
Jiang Xiaoyuan: I think you are right in this feeling, because the media is to use other things, and to this day, the media still does not hesitate to take science as the object of use, which is normal.
The New York Sun's original lunar hoax report claimed that Herschel had made a big discovery in the Cape of Good Hope. Image source: hoaxes.org
Observer Network: We Observer Network do not have such a use...
Jiang Xiaoyuan: You should have talent, if you don't, it is wrong, this is a normal phenomenon. The media is to find a variety of resources to use, of course, science is also one of the resources, it does not matter if you use it.
Of course, the New York Sun series used a whole beyond some norm that we usually recognize today, for example, your Observer Network certainly wouldn't do that.
After it did so, Herschel became a "victim." He had wanted to write a letter to the other person. But the last letter was found in their family museum and never sent. In other words, he didn't think it hurt him much, otherwise he would have sent this letter.
This may show that this matter has little to do with Herschel, and perhaps he thinks—of course, that is my conjecture—that it is not bad.
Mu Yunqiu: I can find evidence for Teacher Jiang's inference, and the evidence is that Mrs. Herschel Margaret also wrote a letter for this matter, which was written to Caroline Herschel. Caroline was John Herschel's aunt and an astronomer. The letter talked about the story of the moon scam, and in the letter she did not say that she was angry, but said that it was very interesting, but unfortunately it was not true, she just expressed regret.
The printed copy sold by the New York Sun is a temple known as built with sapphire, image source: hoaxes.org
Observer Network: However, does the media have to hold a "use" mentality? Can't you introduce scientific discoveries to you like you would introduce a friend?
Mu Yunqiu: The problem is that Herschel didn't have enough fascinating discoveries. His telescope was very powerful, but he just went to South Africa to count the stars in the southern sky, and classed the stars and so on. The discoveries he has made, if truthfully presented, are of no interest to the public.
Jiang Xiaoyuan: Sometimes real discoveries are tedious. So maybe he thought it was funny, maybe he told his wife that they were a bit excessive... But I wasn't angry.
Another work depicting creatures on the surface of the moon, image source: hoaxes.org
Mu Yunqiu: If you look back, the bureau set up by the New York Sun is actually very exquisite. The imaginary results obtained with telescopes in the series are very imaginative, and in addition to life on the moon, they also include extrasolar planets in the Milky Way. When were extragalactic planets discovered? 1995, how ahead, 100 years! This shows that Herschel's telescope is very powerful. Moreover, Herschel was far away in South Africa at the time, and no one else could ask him for confirmation, and the public could believe it.
Herschel's 20-foot telescope in South Africa, Credit: G.H. Prints by Ford
Observer Network: This serial about the life of the moon can also be said to be an epoch-making science fiction work in itself.
But I think of another problem, in traditional Chinese culture, there are also some stories about the moon, such as Chang'e Running Moon and Guanghan Palace, but we don't seem to have any imagination of "civilization" on the moon later, and the book does not mention China's later science fiction works.
Jiang Xiaoyuan: This was decided by the original research topic, if it is "exploration of extraterrestrial civilizations." There are many Chinese in the late Qing Dynasty who have written science fiction works, but that is different, those late Qing authors know that they are writing science fiction, and many of the examples we discuss here are discussed as the frontiers of science, and they are also published in academic journals.
This situation is completely different from his own consciousness of writing science fiction, he does not think that he is writing science fiction, but thinks that he is engaged in scientific research and scientific exploration. There really were no such people in China at that time.
Late Qing Dynasty Novel of the Moon Colony
Observer Network: Can we put forward two statements: one is that after Chinese contact with modern science, the content of the imagination has undergone a cultural rupture, and it is impossible to produce an imagination of "extraterrestrial civilization" with Chinese characteristics; the other is that Chinese has also come into contact with Western science fiction when contacting science, and the imagination space has been occupied, at least in modern times, writing science fiction cannot jump out of the Western box.
Mu Yunqiu: On the issue of culture, I have an idea. Texts like "Moon Fantasy" probably appeared in the 17th century, and from that time to modern times, there were probably hundreds of texts that imagined the moon. But there is a question, why did not such a text appear before the 17th century?
So far, there is an explanation that I can accept. Before the 17th century, in the West or in China, there were no texts of this kind of moon travel fantasy, which was related to the concept of the universe. The set of cosmological concepts before the 17th century, like the ancient Chinese that has always been mainly "Hun Tian Theory", is not conducive to the production of such texts.
Jiang Xiaoyuan: I think it is better to say the second way. There have been many people who have compiled anthology of science fiction works from the late Qing Dynasty, and from the anthology, I can see that they are actually imitating it completely according to the Western model.
When we start imitating Western works, it actually means that it has taken up space, you will only go to its space, and our original worldview is different from it.
This western worldview, even when Ptolemy was in his time, thought that what was outside was an external world, that world itself was a static, inanimate thing.
But ancient Chinese believed that the whole natural world outside of us was a living, willful thing, a "heaven", as if we were living in a huge creature, so we would not imagine this "creature" as external. Why do we talk about the induction of heaven and man, the unity of heaven and man, because we feel that it is not external, so the path we fantasize about is different from theirs.
Observer Network: But when Christianity arose, everything was created by God, and did the Ptolemaic worldview, which was different inside and outside, change? Or is it just a "formal" unity of interior and exterior?
Jiang Xiaoyuan: For them, in fact, the existence of the concept of "external world" is not necessarily related to the emergence of Christianity. The world that God created is actually the same as the world before the original Christianity, when there was no concept of God.
Observer Network: The "outside world" is still in its bones, or there is a difference between inside and outside...
(To be continued)
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