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Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

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Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#51

Post by poszlem »

simpaticoder wrote: post #2

Ted Chiang does love to explore the counter-factual with empathy and openness where he somehow manages to take himself out of the story in the admirable Virginia Wolfe sense. The OP misses the biting critique hidden in these tales. For example Omphalos, Hell Is the Absence of God, and Tower of Babylon, can all be read as a devastating critique of religion. They all clearly articulate what the world would be like if c…

Calling Hell is the Absence of God a critique of religion misses the point. Chiang isn’t saying “religion is false.” He imagines a world where God’s existence and Heaven and Hell are undeniable, and shows that even certainty doesn’t solve the problem of suffering or the struggle for meaning. The story critiques the idea that proof would make faith easier, not religion itself.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#53

Post by alkyon »

The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate is by far my favourite of all Chiang's stories. It is always great intellectual pleasure to read them, however sometimes I find his writing style a bit dry and I don't get so involved emotionally as with Philip K. Dick's stories for instance.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#54

Post by windward »

lmm wrote: post #50
tgv wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a case of trees and forest. Scifi doesn't require "a universe with internally self-consistent scientific laws." Or, if you want to hold on to that interpretation, there is no scifi. Not even the ones that uphold our current knowledge of physics, since that is known to be incomplete. Scifi --to me, but to many others as well-- is a thought experiment in prose. Like any work of fiction, it needs to have…

> Scifi --to me, but to many others as well-- is a thought experiment in prose. Like any work of fiction, it needs to have some consistency, but certainly not total. We can "suspend our disbelief." Then what, for you, is the distinction between Sci-fi and Fantasy? I think if you draw that line where most people draw it and think through what Chiang is actually doing, he's on the other side of it.

Whatever definition you settle on, it would be more sensible if it didn't disqualify the works that immediately come to mind when we say 'sci-fi' despite them usually exhibiting bad relativity and thermodynamics.

I don't think the distinction is meaningful. The lack of a line is why we ended up with the term speculative fiction.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#55

Post by LinchZhang »

renewiltord wrote: post #19

Hell is the Absence of God is one of my favourite stories of all time. Ted Chiang is truly incredible. The short story anthologies are unbelievable. Every one a banger.

It's really cool that you ask 10 people their favorite chiang story, and chances are, you'd get 11 answers. And he didn't even write that many more than 10 stories!

Really tells you both how talented he is, and how different stories just speak to different people.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#56

Post by stared »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #47

For anyone that wants a quick taste of Ted's writing, I heartily recommend having a read of The Great Silence as it's available here: https://electricliterature.com/the-great-silence-by-ted-chia... The last line always gets me.

I it the same story as I keep sending as a taster for Ted Chiang.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#57

Post by stared »

I have a slightly different reading on Ted Chiang's approach to free will.

As I see it, free will is a perspective - not something true or false, just looking at things from a certain angle. Knowledge of future is another one - and it is incompatible with free will. You can choose, you can know the future, but not both.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#59

Post by [deleted] »

simpaticoder wrote: post #39
LinchZhang wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the valuable and constructive comment! I just didn't feel like discussing the satire angle was very interesting! In the article: > In Omphalos, Young Earth Creationism is empirically true2. Astronomers can only see light from stars 6,000 light-years away. Fossilized trees have centers with no rings. The first God-created humans lack belly buttons. The scientists in that story keep discovering multiple i…

TBH I'm glad you left it out! It's an uncomfortable aspect to his stories. His narration hovers above the action with such perfect grace... The satirical element, or its implication, somehow mars that perfection. It is probably better left unsaid by critics and admirers, and left to the individual reader. In truth I shouldn't have mentioned it.

[deleted]

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#60

Post by lll-o-lll »

Is this an ai written article?

> In Exhalation, thermodynamics appear to work differently

The whole point of this story is to explain thermodynamics (or entropy). He wrote a little note! I can’t begin to believe this was written by a human who’s really read Chiang.

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