Profile of Ted Chiang: The Perfectionist | Hacker News Reader

Profile of Ted Chiang: The Perfectionist

stories.californiasunday.com

89 pointssohkamyung20 comments

In the 2010 Boréal conference Ted Chiang had an interesting take on the singularity and the computable brain. There is a transcript (in french) here : http://www.actusf.com/spip/article-9802.html.

To sum it up that is what he says : "There is this thing called ethnobiology, a sub-dicscipline of anthropology, that studies the way civilizations understand and represent the living things. Ethnobiology reveals a constant in History : we tend to compare our brain to the most complex technology we know. At the Renaissance, philosopher assimilated the brain to a very complex and subtle clockwork, Freud compared it to a steam engine, which pressure should be evacuated to avoid explosion. In the 40's, schoolboy and schoolgirls were told that brain was like a telephone exchange. Today, computers are the most advanced technology we know, so we tend to compare our brain to it. But like our predecessors, it's very likely that we are wrong. Let just think forward, and admit that we are totally biased by the fact that computer are now inherent part of our life. Let's admit that there is a chance that our brain may never be modeled by a computer."

This reminded me of Chiang's 2008 story "Exhalation" (http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/), which explores cognition and entropy through the idea of minds which are built as pneumatic engines.

> But like our predecessors, it's very likely that we are wrong.

Each metaphor was less wrong than the one before.

Stories of your life and others is a must read - truly beautiful, deep and thought provoking writing that I can highly recommend. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/223380

As can I, Story of Your Life is one of the best pieces of fiction I've read. He's always good at communicating interesting (and often provocative) ideas, but that story also blends it with a wonderful portrayal of grief. On top of that, the structure of the story itself is a reflection of the ideas discussed in the story.

As I said when I reviewed that book on Goodreads, if I'd spent the £11.40 for the book and only received that story, it would have been more than worth it.

I read that as a short story in the Nebula anthology, and then again when "Story of your life and others" came out.

That was more than a decade ago, and I still think about it more often than most sci-fi stories I've read.

My favorite story by Chiang, "Liking What You see", is available online: http://www.ibooksonline.com/88/Text/liking.html

As is The Lifecycle of Software Objects: http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2010/fiction_the_...

Interesting, so he's still a (part-time) technical writer for Microsoft? Does he write MSDN articles? I might have read more of his works than I thought...

The news about the planned hollywood adaptation is both exciting and frightening. These are really not cinematic stories as far as I can tell, unless you're ready to transform a story that happens inside someone's mind, like "Understand", into a graphical adventure like "Lucy". But after all, why not. I'm not one to say that a bad movie adaptation can really hurt a book - the book doesn't care.

> The news about the planned hollywood adaptation is both exciting and frightening. These are really not cinematic stories as far as I can tell

I don't know, I think some of them could be adapted to screen really quite well ("Tower of Babylon" and "Seventy-two Letters" spring to mind). But regardless, honestly I'm just grateful Hollywood is tackling more challenging material more than anything.

I was thrilled to find out Denis Villeneuve is doing the adaptation. He's a fantastic director, with complex, morally challenging films.

I'm not so sure that Villeneuve is such a great fit. I find the dominant feeling in his films is always one of dread or disgust, or both. In a way, I'd rather have a more "neutral" director tackle this. Take Carl Sagan's Contact for example. I know it's not exactly like Story of Your Life, but it's something of a reference in the way it was adapted to cinema. One of the things that give the movie its power and beauty is the director's humility: he doesn't try to make a cinematic experiment out of it. Granted, the fact that Sagan was involved in the production and originally intended the story to be adapted to cinema is also an important factor.

In fact, the best thing would probably be Ted Chiang getting similarly involved in the production!

I stumbled upon Ted Chiang's stories completely randomly about 10 years ago -- perhaps it was a periodical like Asimov's or perhaps someone linked a story to me online in an IRC chat. I read 'Understand' and instantly fell in love. Ted Chiang is nowhere as prolific as other writers, but he writes really excellent short stories. It's exciting how 'Story of Your Life' is being made into a film!

One of my favourite writers, even though I've only read a few of his short stories. He's a very striking writer who manages to combine very big ideas with really fluid prose, which is something that seems quite rare.

I understand he's written several short stories available only online (freely available) rather than in print. If anyone knows of a Kindle version that collects his online stories I'd be very grateful!

Had recently got introduced to Ted's work through a recommendation made no the "Rationally Speaking" podcast.[1] Can't wait to read his work.

[1] http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.in/2012/10/rationally-spe...

Obligatory Metafilter post with collection of links to original material: http://www.metafilter.com/98974/This-isnt-your-grandfathers-...

I'd like to see what his take would be on a Groundhog's Day scenario.

Why does the author of that article use such stupid punctuation in the byline? "Ted Chiang’s science fiction wins piles of awards. When he publishes, which is hardly ever."

Am I the only one sick of singularity writers? Its been explored since at least the 1990s and its just... boring. No wonder weirdo dystopian sci-fi/fantasy and "sci-lit" is so popular now. This ground has been retread so many times, I'm not sure where it can go or who is truly enjoying it. Heck, Accelerando is practically a parody of singularity writing fads and its ten years old!

I think this is how people felt in the 50s and 60s when "monster/alien of the week" type potboilers ruled sci-fi until a new generation of writers like Bester, Dick, Lem, Roddenberry, and others started to break away from selling trends that had a roadmap to nowhere and started taking chances with original concepts, engaging stories and characters, character development, moral ambiguity, relationship stories, etc.

Maybe its just me, but my god, is "hard" or "not soft/fantasy" sci-fi hard to read nowadays. There's very little soul or characterization or creative breakthroughs. Its like we all decided a near futurish singularity/robots/space-ships scenario is all we can handle. That said, I really did enjoy Stephenson's Anathem. I think we're going to look back at this period and wonder why we didn't demand more from sci-fi. Somewhat ironically, the best sci-fi writing I've been seeing in the last decade is in video games and not in novels, film, or short-stories. I guess that industry, at least in parts, still has an appetite for chance-taking and a young-ish fanbase that appreciates such things. I'd rather, say, play Mass Effect or Bioshock Infinite than read what's popular today or play Alien: Isolation than watch Prometheus.

Perhaps I'm too critical, but when I ask for recommendations I get the same 20 or so novels, all of which way beyond their fresh date. /r/printsf just seems like a bunch of old guys recommending Dune over and over, or the same six or seven old Stross, Watts, or Banks novels.

Wait, I'm confused, are you calling Ted Chiang a singularity writer? I can't think of many of his stories that comfortably sit in that category.

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