Epistemological sci-fi.

I've noticed a trend of science fiction stories exploring themes like knowledge and belief, or having twists with phenomena or objects that affect the human capacity to know things. This is something I really enjoy, and so should anyone else who likes epistemology. I thought I'd make a thread dedicated solely to these stories (for purposes of discussion, but also to find and share as many of them as possible, since they are very, very rare).

My absolute favorite are the Egan stories: Axiomatic, which is disturbing, and Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies; a really deep allegory for how we believe things in the real world. There's also some excellent entries (guaranteed to cause san checking) in the SCP universe, found here under Antimemetics. Finally, there's Suspension (by Civfanatics' very own Plotinus) about a virus which changes the way people form beliefs. That's all I know of right now.

Please post other stories that you like. Or just your thoughts. These usually have a significant horror factor to them (I suppose due to the nature of the subgenre itself) but they all pretty clearly are sci-fi.

Am I the only one who appreciates this sort of thing?

I´'m just finishing a book by China Mievil, Embassytown, that is about this race of aliens that humanity has encountered that are unable to lie because of how their language is wired to the way they think and vice versa. And how they find the ability to lie that humans have to be intoxicating. I dont know if that's what your looking for.

It isn't, really. Lying is just an action. It would be "epistemological" if the aliens didn't even understand the concept of a falsehood, but it's hard to reconcile that with sapience (how did they evolve without making mistakes?).

Mouthwash said:

It isn't, really. Lying is just an action. It would be "epistemological" if the aliens didn't even understand the concept of a falsehood, but it's hard to reconcile that with sapience (how did they evolve without making mistakes?).

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If they literally cannot do it they would certainly have a hard time grasping the concept. Consider the Ricky Gervase movie The Invention of Lying, where as the only person who can lie he is in the position where no matter what absurdity he spews out it is immediately accepted as true. It is tough to imagine how the unavoidable falseness of error wouldn't ever be parleyed into a willful creation of false narrative though, no doubt.

You might have targeted too narrow a field here. Having never read any of the examples I'm not sure that I know what you mean.

Timsup2nothin said:

If they literally cannot do it they would certainly have a hard time grasping the concept. Consider the Ricky Gervase movie The Invention of Lying, where as the only person who can lie he is in the position where no matter what absurdity he spews out it is immediately accepted as true. It is tough to imagine how the unavoidable falseness of error wouldn't ever be parleyed into a willful creation of false narrative though, no doubt.

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It still kind of misses the point (unless it was written from the alien's point of view). Epistemological fiction is supposed to make you think about epistemology.

You might have targeted too narrow a field here. Having never read any of the examples I'm not sure that I know what you mean.

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I gave links. Axiomatic is probably the purest example, though: it involves implants which can cause you to believe or feel anything ("orgasm of the left knee" is directly stated as an example).

How about Blood Music by Greg Bear?

Greg Bear leans towards the "reality is a function of the observer" idea so rather than changing belief it's more a changing perspective, but might be close...and it's great sci-fi.

Blood Music is a good book.

And yes the aliens in Embassytown do not understand the concept of lying, its an interesting concept that is rather well executed, but it is not "hard" sci-fi. The writer Mieville has interesting ideas in general, especially in his book "the City and the City" which is a murder thriller set in a two separate city states built in two locations on the same geographical spot, sort of in two different dimensions. I found it very worth my time, even though I do not like murder mysteries and thrillers.

You might be interested in some of Stanislaw Lem's works, a lot of his stuff deals with philosophy and epistemology in particular, as far as I know anyway.

I haven't read it yet, but His Master's Voice is one of his better known works and it seems to touch on the subject.

Throughout the book Hogarth—or rather, Lem himself—exposes the reader to many debates merging cosmology and philosophy: from discussions of epistemology, systems theory, information theory and probability, through the idea of evolutionary biology and the possible form and motives of extraterrestrial intelligence, with digressions about ethics in military-sponsored research, to the limitations of human science constrained by the human nature subconsciously projecting itself into the analysis of any unknown subject.

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Not sure exactly how you're defining 'belief', but Arthur C. Clarke's short story The Star might be of interest
despite the complete lack of a horror element.

warpus said:

You might be interested in some of Stanislaw Lem's works, a lot of his stuff deals with philosophy and epistemology in particular, as far as I know anyway.

I haven't read it yet, but His Master's Voice is one of his better known works and it seems to touch on the subject.

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Sorry for the late reply.

The Cyberiad - Fables for the Cybernetic Age is a favourite of mine (I have a consultancy named "Cyberiad")
and many physicists and philosophers. e.g. Daniel Dennett, Douglas Hofstader, and others.

Three of the stories are contained in:
"The Mind's I: Fantasies and reflections on self and soul" by Hofstader and Dennett.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind's_I

Another essay in the collection is:
"An Epistemological Nightmare" - Raymond Smullyan.