Short Stories by Robert A. Heinlein Vol 1 Part 17

For things do change. And words which we consider utterly indecent today may very possibly simply be used as tags, as terms with no emotional connotation to them, twenty years from now.

We happen to live in a period of sudden and drastic change in a good many of the things that happen to us. I think it is extremely important that we be prepared for that change and for that reason, I think that science fiction fans are better prepared to face the future than the ordinary run of people around them, because they believe in change.

To that extent, I think that science fiction, even the corniest of it, even the most outlandish of it, no matter how badly it's written, has a distinct therapeutic value because all of it has as its primary postulate that the world does change. I cannot overemphasize the importance of that idea.

Unless you believe that, unless you are prepared for it-as I know all of you are-you can't retain your sanity these days. When a man makes predictions and they keep failing to come true, time and again, he goes insane, functionally insane. It has been proved in laboratories time and again. It has been proved with respect to men, but I'll give an ill.u.s.tration with respect to animals.

The well-known experiment was performed with rats, an experiment in which a rat was disappointed in his predictions time and again. He went crazy. It happens to work the same way with men. Things do not necessarily work the same way with animals as they do with men, but in this case, there is data to prove it. The inability to believe in change makes absolutely certain that your prediction will disappoint you. That does not apply to this group, but it does apply to a great many people.

For that reason, I believe we are in a period in which large portions of the human race will be in a condition of, if not insanity, at least un-sanity. We see that over a large portion of the world today. I think we have seen it crawling up on us for a number of years. In 1929 we had the market crash and people jumped out of the window as a result of not being able to predict things which were perfectly obvious, written on the face of the culture, something that would happen.

The Depression came along, and the madhouses filled up again. Other only slightly less slaphappy individuals proceeded to be a bit unsane by concocting the most wildly unscientific schemes for making everybody rich by playing musical chairs.. Not quite crazy-they could still find their way around and take street cars and not get lost, but not quite sane either. That can lead, if it goes on long enough, to a condition of ma.s.s insanity that none of us is going to like.

Nevertheless, we science fictionists, I think, are better prepared for it than others. During a period of racial insanity, ma.s.s psychoses, hysteria, manic depression, paranoia, it is possible for a man who believes in change to hold on, to arrest his judgment, to go slow, to take a look at the facts, and not be badly hurt. Things will probably happen to us, very unpleasant indeed, we can't separate ourselves from the matrix in which we find ourselves. Nevertheless, WE stand a chance, for I am very much afraid that a great many people of the type who laugh at us for dealing with this stuff, will not be able to hang on.

The important thing is to hang on to your sanity, to preserve sanity while it happens-no matter what bad things happen to the world.. As individuals it may be difficult for us to do anything about it, even though all of us in our own ways, and according to our lights, are trying. But this series of wars that we find the world in now may go on for another five years, ten years, twenty years-it may go on for fifty years-you and I may not live to see the end of it.

I, personally, have hopes-wishful thinking-that it will terminate quickly enough so that I can pa.s.s the rest of my lifetime in comparative peace and comfort. But I'm not optimistic about it. During such a period, it is really difficult to keep a grip on yourself, but I think that we are better prepared to than some of the others.

I can speak more freely here than I could in a political. meeting, because it's a highly selected group. I've known a good many science fiction fans, and I've observed, statistically, certain things about them. Most of them are young as compared with other groups, most of them are extremely precocious-quite brilliant. I'd be very much interested to see IQs run on a typical group of fans.

But, even without IQs I know that most of the people here are way above average in intelligence. I've had enough data on it to know. I'm not trying to flatter you, I'm not interested in that. I am interested in the fact that you have unusually keen minds. However, that lays us open, and I am including myself in this, lays us open to dangers that don't hit the phlegmatic, the more stolid. Unless we are able to predict, we are even more likely to be subjected to functional unsanities than those around us.

I'm preaching, sure. I know that. I could have filled a speech with wisecracks and with stories and anecdotes, but I feel very deeply about this. And if you can bear with me for a few minutes more, I still want to talk about it.

There's a way out, there's something that we can do to protect ourselves, something that would protect the rest of the human race from the sort of things that are happening to them, and are going to happen to them. It's very simple, and it's right down our alley: the use of the scientific method.

I'm not talking about the scientific method used in the laboratory. The scientific method can be used to protect ourselves from serious difficulties of other sorts-getting our teeth smashed in-in our everyday life, twenty-four hours of the day.

I should say what I mean by the scientific method. Since I have to define it in terms of words, I can't be as clear as I might be if I were able to make an extensional definition. But I mean a comparatively simple thing by the scientific method: the ability to look at what goes on around you. Listen to what you hear, observe, note facts, delay your judgment, and make your own predictions. That's all there is, really, to the scientific method: to be able to distinguish facts from non-facts.

I used the term "fact." I used it in a technical sense, and I should say what I mean by a fact. A fact is anything that has happened before this moment, on July 4th, 1941. Anything that has already happened before this moment. Anything after this moment is a non-fact. Most people can't distinguish between them. They regard as a fact that they're going to get up and have breakfast tomorrow morning. They get the difference between facts and non-facts completely mixed up, and in particular, these days people are getting very mixed up between facts and. theories, isms, ologies and so forth, so-called "laws of nature," depending on what year you happen to be speaking.

That distinction between fact and fiction, fact and non-fact, is of extreme importance to us now. It has even become a strong issue in the field of science fiction. Without referring to any movement by name, or any person by name, because I wish to make an ill.u.s.tration, I want to invite your attention to the fact that the science fiction field has been very much stirred up by a semipolitical movement which uses the word "fact" quite extensively. But it uses the word fact with reference to what they are-what they predict will happen in the future, and that's a non-fact. And any movement, inst.i.tution, any theory, which does not make a clear and decided distinction between fact and non-fact, cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called a scientific movement. It simply is not because it does not use the scientific method. No matter how complicated their terminology may be, or how much they may use the argot of science.

I'm going to have to make an excursion here. I've wandered somewhat from the talk I had in mind.

I want to make another comment on science fiction and the fact that you and I have to put up with an awful lot of guff from people because of the orthodox point of view with which it is regarded.

I have never been able to understand quite why it is that the historical novel is the most approved, the most sacred form of literature. The contemporary novel is next so; but the historical novel, if you write an historical novel, that's literature.

I think that the corniest tripe published in a science fiction magazine (and some of it isn't too hot, we know that; some of my stuff isn't so hot) beats all of the Anthony Adverses and Gone With the Winds that were ever published, because at least it does include that one distinctly human-like attempt to predict the future.

One would think that the literary critics and the professors of English-those who make a business of deciding what is good and what is bad in literature-had some connection in their ancestry with the Fillyloo Bird. I think you know the Fillyboo Bird: he flew backwards because he didn't care where he was going, but he liked to see where he had been.

I want to mention the fas.h.i.+on in which the scientific method-just the matter of observing what goes on around you-observing it through your own eyes, instead of taking other people's opinions, reserving your judgments until you have enough data on which to make a judgment-can be of real use to you even now, quite aside from any possible worse period in history, in the coming history.

I mentioned that it can keep your teeth from getting knocked in; that's an important point. It can because you'll stay out of controversies and out of arguments that you would otherwise get into. If you are talking with a man who obviously does not bother to use the scientific method, or does not know how to use the scientific method in his everyday life, you'll never get in an argument with him. You'll know there's no point in an argument with him, that you cannot possibly convince him. You can listen-and you'll get some new data from him-and you'll be better able to predict thereafter, if on no other point than the fact that you'll be better able to predict what his reactions will be.

There are other advantages, in the way of keeping yourself cooled down, so you can be a little happier. For example, a man who uses the scientific method cannot possibly be anti-Semitic. I have made that an ill.u.s.tration because it has caused a lot of trouble in the world lately. Why can't he be anti-Semitic? For a very simple reason: he doesn't have enough data, consequently he hasn't formed an opinion. No matter how long he lives he can't hate all Jews, and unless he knows all Jews, he can't hate all Jews, because he doesn't form an opinion unless he has data. It is possible for him to hate an individual Jew as it's possible for him to hate an individual Irishman or Rotarian or man or woman.

But he can't possibly be anti-Semitic. He can't hate all capitalists, he can't hate all unions, he can't hate all women-you can't be a woman-hater, not if you use the scientific method. You can't possibly: you don't know all women. You don't even know a large enough percentage of the group to be able to form an opinion on what the whole group may be!

By the same reasoning, it's very difficult for him to hate at all; and if you can just manage to keep hate out of your life (or a good portion of it-I can't keep it all out of my life myself. I've got to sit down and whip myself about the head and shoulders to get myself calmed down at times-but you can help yourself with this method)-if you can keep hate out of your life, you can keep from; getting your teeth knocked in. You can keep out of a lot of difficulties and take care of yourself in a better fas.h.i.+on.

A man who uses the scientific method cannot possibly believe that all politicians are crooks, for he knows that one datum destroys the generalization. I'll give you one datum on that point: Senator George Norris, whether you like him or not, is a saint on earth. Whether you agree with his opinions or not, he's not a bad man.

And because he's never entirely certain of his own opinions on any subject, a man using the scientific method stays out of arguments, keeps himself from the emotional upsets that cause you to lose sleep and upset your stomach. You get such things as herpes-oh, I'm not an M.D., but there are plenty of functional disorders that a man can avoid, can very well avoid.

Here's a rough picture of the scientific man in everyday life. Such a man stands a better chance of living through our period to a ripe and-happy old age, in my opinion. But I wish to make plain that the use of the scientific method does not depend on any formal education in science. It is an att.i.tude and point of view and not a body of information. You need have no formal education at all to use the scientific method in your everyday life. I am not disparaging the body of scientific information that has been gathered by specialists or the equally enormous body of historical and sociological data that is available. Unfortunately, we can't get very much of it. But you can still use the scientific method, whether you've bad a lot of education or not, whether you've had time to gather a lot of personal data or not.

With respect to the acquisition of scientific training, I've heard people around fan clubs remark, "I wish I knew something about mathematics," or "I wish I understood something about physics." Complaints that they're not fully appreciating some of the stories because they don't have enough specialized information. Some subject was too hard, or they weren't able to go far enough in school. I greatly sympathize with that.

I'm not trying to play it down or anything of the sort. It's very much of a regret to me that I'm not at least twins and preferably triplets, so that I could have time to study the various things that I'm interested in. And I know that a lot of you have felt the same way-that life is just too-not too short, but too narrow-we don't have room enough, time enough, to get around and learn all the things that we want to, and it is almost impossible for us to get a full picture of the world.

Surprising, that the data actually is available. G.o.d knows that no one can even hope to cover even a small corner of the scientific world these days. I think there's a way out of the dilemma, however, a fair one for us, and a better one for our children. It's the creation of a new technique to cover just that purpose. Men who might be considered encyclopedists, or interpreter-synthesists, I like to call them, men who make it their business to find out what it is the specialists have learned, and then apply it to the rest of us in consolidated form so that we can have, if not the details of the picture, at least the broad I outlines of the enormous, incredibly enormous, ma.s.s of data that the human race has gathered. The facts behind us, the things that have happened before this moment, so that we can be better able to predict for ourselves, plan our lives after this moment.

There's only one synthesist who has really made such an attempt up to the present time, and I'm very pleased that it happens to be possibly the greatest of the science fiction writers: H. G. Wells. Wells perhaps didn't do a good job of it-good Lord! he didn't have a chance to; he had n.o.body before him, he did the pioneer work. He started it. But H. G. Wells, in his trilogy, The Outline of History, The Science of Life and The Work, Wealth, and Happiness of Mankind, is, so far as I know, the only writer who has ever lived who has tried to draw for the rest of us a full picture of the whole world, past and future, everything about us, so we can stand off and get a look at ourselves.

It will be better in the future. Nevertheless, it was great work, the fact that he did it, that he tried at all. A wonderful work. Because he had done that kind of work, that he tried to do that kind of work for the rest of us, is the reason, to my mind why his scientific fantasies are more nearly accurate in their predictions than those of, oh, myself, and various other commercial writers in the field. I don't know as much as H. G. Wells: I probably never will know as much as H. U. Wells-my predictions can't be as accurate.

But, after considering H. G. Wells' trilogy, it occurred to me that it would be amusing, to me at least, and I hope to you, for me to mention some books by a.s.sorted writers that, to a certain extent, help to fill in the gaps in the picture. And-to a certain extent, help to make up the lack of a broad comprehensive scientific education, which no one, not even Sc.D.s and Ph.D.s, can really have.

For example, in mathematics, is there one book which will help the non-mathematician, the person who hasn't specialized in it and made it his life work, to appreciate what mathematics is for? I've run across such a book; it's called Mathematics and the Imagination by Kasner and Newman. You don't have to have any mathematical education to read it. To my mind, it's a very stimulating book, a very interesting book, and when you've finished reading it, you at least know what the mathematicians are doing and why.

Among other things, you will discover-and this runs entirely contrary to our orthodox credos-that mathematics is not a science. Mathematics is not a science at all-it's an aspect of symbology, along with the alphabet. That there is no such thing as discovering mathematics, for example. Mathematics is invented; it's an invented art, and has nothing directly to do with science at all, except as a tool. And yet you will hear the ordinary layman speaking time and again of mathematics as a science. It just plain is not because it has no data in it; purely inventions, every bit of it, even the multiplication tables. Yes, 2 x 2 is 4 is an invention in mathematics, not a fact.

There are other such books. In physics, there is Eddington's Nature of the Physical World, I think one of the most charming books ever written, one of the most lucidly and brilliantly written books. It gives a beautiful background to modern physics. It's approximately fifteen years old, so in order to cover a lot of the things that are currently being used for fiction in the science fiction field, you would need to supplement that. The book I got for my own purpose to supplement it-because, you see, I'm not a professional physicist, I'm an engineer-to help to bring it up to date, is White's Cla.s.sical and Modern Physics, published in 1940. It is about the latest book-bound thing on modern physics that I know of.

There are later things in such publications as Physical Review and Nature, but this goes up to and including the fission of uranium. It includes nuclear physics, and it delighted me to find the thought that, very likely when we got around to it, we'd find life on other planets. A very stimulating thing to get from a professional scientist, particularly in the field of physical sciences. I picked that book because White is an a.s.sociate of Lawrence in the nuclear laboratory at Berkeley. In other words, he is in on the ground floor, he knows what he's talking about. It's modern physics, 1940, the best up to that time.

So far as astronomy is concerned, I've never seen anything that surpa.s.sed, for a popular notion of the broad outlines of the kind of physical world we live in, than John Campbell's series that appeared in Astounding. They started in 1936, and ran on for fifteen or sixteen issues, his articles on the solar system. I've always been sorry that Campbell did not go on from there and cover stellar astronomy, galactic astronomy, and some of the other side fields. But, even at that, anybody who has read through that series by Campbell on the solar system will never again have a flat-world att.i.tude, which most people do have. Not in the science fiction field, of course-I mean not among fans of science fiction.

(I speak many times as if the human race were divided into two parts, as it may be; people who love science fiction, and people who don't. I think you will be able to keep sorted out which ones I'm talking about. I hope so.)

In the field of economics, an incomplete science, but nevertheless one that you can't possibly ignore, I think the most illuminating book I've ever, read is one by Maurice Colburn, called Economic Nationalism. The t.i.tle won't give any suggestion of what the contents are, but that is simply the tag by which it is known.

Jim Fancy's Behind the Ballots is probably as nice a job of recording actual data in politics as I've ever seen; however, politics-I'd never recommend that people read books in the political field.

Go out and take a look yourself Everything else you hear is guff.

I saved for the last on that list of the books that have greatly affected me, that to my mind are key books, of the stuff I've plowed through, a book which should head the list on the must list. I wish that everyone could read the book. There aren't many copies of it, and everyone can't, nor could everyone read this particular book. All of you could-you've got the imagination for it. It's Science and Sanity by Count Alfred Korzybski, one of the greatest Polish mathematicians when he went into the subject of symbology and started finding out what made us tick, and then worked up in strictly experimental and observational form from the preliminary work of E. T. Bell.

A rigor of epistemology based on E. T. Bell [break in transcript here-some words lost]. . . symbology of epistemology. The book refers to the subject of semantics. I know from conversation with a lot of you that the words epistemology and semantics are not unfamiliar to you. But because they may be unfamiliar to some, I'm going to stop and give definitions of those words.

Semantics is simply a study of the symbols we use to communicate. General Semantics is an extension of that study to investigate how we evaluate the use of those symbols. Epistemology is the study of how we know what we know. Maybe that doesn't sound exciting. It is exciting, it's very exciting. To be able to delve back into your own mind and investigate what it is you know, what it is you can know, and what it is that you cannot possibly know, is, from a standpoint of intellectual adventure, I think, possibly- the greatest adventure that a person can indulge in. Beats s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps.

Incidentally, any of you who are going to be in Denver in the next five or six weeks will have an opportunity, one of the last opportunities, to hear Alfred Korzybski speak in person. He will be here at a meeting (similar to this) of semanticians from all over the world; McLean from Los Angeles, and Johnson from Iowa, and Reisser from Mills College and Kendig and probably Hayakawa from up in Canada-the leading semanticians of the world-to hear Korzybski speak.