Alex Gong: "Everything (A Response to Chuck Wendig)"

Everything (A Response to Chuck Wendig)

By Alex Gong

Solipsism is the theory that oneself is all that can be known to exist.

Just like how the humans realized their “revived” loved ones were merely Martian pretenders in “The Third Expedition” of The Martian Chronicles, I cannot know if I am the only intelligent life and everyone else is merely highly advanced robots.

It is easy to subscribe to this theory when looking at the world full of atrocities such as murder, rape, and war. I can merely disconnect myself from their wrongdoings by saying that they’re not human and that I would not ever do something like that. Alternatively, I can subscribe to this theory and feel a lot better about myself when I look at the Ivy League students and Olympic medalists; I can say “nope” they’re just robots.

Even though there are benefits to believing in solipsism, most of us would not subscribe to the theory based on the connections we have made with other humans. Though we may scoff at solipsism, a little part of us is afraid that it might be true- that the only people we are only like is ourselves and that we are truly and utterly alone.

However, fiction, as a whole, creates a strong argument against this theory. How can robots have the same fears and interests as me? How can they create a piece of work that speaks to me so well? Maybe the robots are just that advanced.

Solipsism is an interesting yet scary theory for we have no idea if it’s fact for fiction. What it can tell us is that what scares and intrigues people at the same time is the unknowable. Nothing we know is truly certain. Thus, everything is scary yet intriguing. The wide range of what is available to us in fiction from broken families  to coming of age love stories to alien intelligence stories to magical monkey stories confirms that as humans, we’re pretty much simultaneously intrigued and terrified by everything. As a human being, I can confirm this. I’m scared of things like the future and new people but at the same time I’m intrigued by them.

 

As a result, writers write fiction and readers read fiction. Writers write fiction in the hopes that someone out there can relate and feel the same way about life as they do. Writers write fiction to introduce and expand upon new realities. They write their fiction to relate to others on an emotional level. Fiction is not only a form of entertainment; it’s also a connection.

According to Philip Martin in “Fantasy and Belief” in the genre of fantasy, we explore these fears and interests through imaginative worlds, “wand-waving magicians, talking animals and other odd creatures never seen before”. We create worlds of science fictions through “some extrapolated aspect of actual laws of the universe we live in” such as “spaces stations, Mars exploration, supercomputers, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, robotics.” It speaks great volumes to the creativity and great knowledge of humans that things which “were vaguely plausible, if far-fetched at the time…[have] come true”. Even though fantasy and science fiction have their differences, for science fiction is much more rational than fantasy, they both explore the dreams, beliefs and values of humans. Through our fears, feelings, and interests, we are able to relate to other human beings.

I believe what makes fiction and art as a whole so amazing is that even though we all have different tastes and prefer different styles, there is always going to be something out there that speaks to our soul. And that’s pretty mind blowing.