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Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

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Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#81

Post by cantor_S_drug »

stared wrote: post #57

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.

I think free will should be understood as a game of repeated prisoner's dilemma game. Where we have to tweak our choices of whether to choose vanilla or chocolate based on our past experiences. Free will emerges in this repeated version but then determinism can creep in there too.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#82

Post by nyeah »

adaml_623 wrote: post #38

I feel the author of the article shows extraordinary hubris in writing, "his lack of output being tragic for a generational talent".

I could interpret that sentiment as "it's a terrible shame we don't have more Chiang to read". In that interpretation I don't see article-author-hubris.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#83

Post by kraussvonespy »

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.

Oof. Things got awfully dusty in here thinking about The Great Silence. It's a very short piece with huge emotional impact.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#85

Post by jebarker »

root_axis wrote: post #14

Interesting observation. Spoilers -> He does the same thing in Tower of Babel, where the topology of the universe is structured in such a manner that the tower can physically reach "heaven", which ends up being a surprise to the reader and the characters at the same time. Masterful stuff. I want to nitpick two things. On compatibalism, the first definition presented is the correct one, the framing that "you have to m…

Something that helped me grok Compatibilism (I think…) is that there’s actually two layered ideas. The first layer is practical: there is a sense of freedom that is based on your actions and apparent choices being determined by your internal state and not just the state of the outside world. Similarly, that allows for a practical definition of responsibility. The second layer is metaphysical: because of the first layer these choices/actions have “meaning” and justify moral praise and blame. I agree with the first layer and not the second.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#86

Post by skipants »

lll-o-lll wrote: post #60

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.

Doesn't feel like AI to me but maybe it's harder to spot. This paragraph reads like a human to me as I've never seen AI write something like it:

> Science fiction writers used to like technology. For some reason, this has become increasingly uncommon, even passé. Doubly so for Western writers, and quadruply so for Western, literary, “humanist” writers.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#88

Post by nyeah »

Comparing to old sci fi. (For anyone who still cares!) Chiang can be pitched as today's Stanislaw Lem. (And maybe a modern PK Dick but with much less insanity.) I'm thinking especially of His Master's Voice, which is my favorite Lem story and maybe his most Chiangian.

Very cerebral and great storytelling. The Chiang story where the mathematician discovers the horrible truth that 1+1=3 while her husband discovers he doesn't love her is ... I think Lem (or Dick) would be proud to have pulled that off.

Note: someone else commented that Chiang often seems dryer than PK Dick, which can make C feel like more work to read. Maybe that might be true sometimes :). But maybe it's only on the surface. If that makes sense. Chiang is condensed. Dick is ... not condensed.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#89

Post by [deleted] »

nelox wrote: post #76
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…

I think you are spot on. What makes Chiang remarkable is that he never just builds a clever world and then leaves it at that. The counterfactuals are always put under pressure until their human consequences show through. That is why the religious stories work so well. He does not mock belief from the outside, he imagines a world where belief is literally true and then forces us to face the consequences. The horror co…

[deleted]

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#90

Post by Espressosaurus »

ayaros wrote: post #36
LinchZhang wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OMG I'm so glad this review might have an impact! Please do check out Story of Your Life and then read the other stories! Without giving too many spoilers away, the short story's plot is simultaneously extremely similar to and extremely different from the movie. YMMV on which one you prefer, fans are divided. In my experience people who read the short story first prefer the story, and people who watch the movie first…

I mean, I'm a bit biased towards Denis Villeneuve. The man is literally the modern embodiment of Stanley Kubrick and everything he stood for. His films contain everything that's lacking in modern cinema - decent plots, good writing, slower pacing, artful framing and composition of shots, a dedication to hard sci-fi, respect for source material, very careful attention to lighting and sound design, miniatures so though…

Yeah, they are both beautiful works in their own right, and as such “which is better” comes down to such minor differences of opinion I think it’s silly to try to rank them against each other. They are both devastatingly effective works of art in their respective mediums, and both Chiang and Villeneuve are geniuses.

Chiang’s exploration of ideas epitomizes the ideal to which I hold science fiction (as opposed to science fantasy, which I also enjoy as a guilty pleasure).

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