Authors: David Brin
Existence (107 page)
It all sounds rather grandiose and tiring. But yes. I recall now. Memories are coming back. One thread tugs painfully.
“I … had a purpose.”
She nods. Partly in sympathy. But I know that there is more.
“Yes. And you still have it. Only, it’s become larger, yes?”
“Larger … yes.”
And I mourn. Lost simplicity. Lost purity.
“It has changed?”
Tor smiles at me, taking my hand, leading me toward a rainbow of impossible brightness.
“Silly,” she chides. “Don’t you know by now?
“Everything changes.”
THE END …
… of
Existence
…
The question that will decide our destiny is not whether we shall expand into space. It is: shall we be one species or a million? A million species will not exhaust the ecological niches that are awaiting the arrival of intelligence.
—Freeman Dyson
AFTERWORD
I get questions from all directions. For example: “What relevance does the literature called science fiction offer—what light can it shine—on ‘eternal human verities’ or the core mysteries that vex all generations?”
A quite different query comes from fans of the hardcore stuff—bold, idea-drenched sci-fi: “Why are most serious authors no longer writing deep space adventures, using warp drive to explore on a galactic scale? Have you all just given up and surrendered to Einstein?”
Two seemingly opposite perspectives, from a very broad reader base! Yet, I found both concerns converging during the long, arduous process of writing
Existence
. Let me answer the second one first.
No, I haven’t lost any love for grand, cosmic vistas, or contact with strange minds, or even great cruisers roaming the interstellar expanse. I’ll return to the Uplift Universe soon, where vivid heroes and villains don’t have just
one
way to cheat relativity, but twenty! I promise gigatons of sense-o-wonder.
Still, “warp drive” is kind of like playing tennis with the net lowered. Way fun, but more and more, authors like Bear, Robinson, Banks, Asaro, Sawyer, Kress, Vinge, Benford, Baxter, and others want to see what they can do with the hand nature dealt us. And if that means dancing with Einstein? Well, so be it.
Existence
is about the cosmos that we see. Stark, immense beyond immensity, and unwelcoming to moist mayflies like us. Strangely—dauntingly—quiet. And perched in this vast emptiness is the oasis speck of Earth. More fragile than we imagined.
Yet, despite all that, might there be ways to persevere? To endure? Perhaps even to matter?
Which brings us back to question number one. Like most (usually) serious SF authors, I’m appalled by the notion of
eternal human verities.
A loathsome concept, foisted by brooding, husk-like academics, proclaiming that people will forever be the same, repeating every Proustian obsession, every
omphaloskeptic
navel-contemplation, and every dopey mistake of our parents, all the way until time’s end. A horrible concept that is—fortunately—disproved by history and science and every generation of bright kids who strive to climb a little higher than their ignorant ancestors. And to raise kids of their own who will be better still. The greatest story. The greatest
possible
story.
Yes, great works of the past are enduring as art. The poignancy of Aeschylus and Shakespeare will remain timelessly moving and valuable. We’ll never lose fascination for and empathy with the struggles of earlier generations. Still, what intrigues me, far more than “eternal” static things, is
how people grow.
(And let’s define “people” in a way that’s broad, that’s challenging!)
How children sometimes learn from the mistakes of other generations … or else deliberately refuse to. How, on occasion, they actually improve themselves, their town, nation, even species … and go on to commit fresh mistakes of their own invention! Using the art of
gedankenexperiment
to explore those potential improvements—and errors—is interesting! A compelling chance to peer ahead, or to the side. That—rather than mere starships or light-saber nonsense—is what our genre offers and none other.
We live in a strange time, when our newfound taste for diversity is growing into fascination with the strange, even alien. When we’re on the verge of picking up every tool that God is said to have used and boldly applying them in our own turn at co-creation, for well or ill. Whether by plan or happenstance, we apprentices are building that tower again. And, possibly, we’re about to build new companions, too. New friends. Again, for well or ill.
Admit it. Scary or not, that’s fascinating.
* * *
Now the challenge. Never before have human beings so benefited from membership in a sagacious, scientific, and increasingly virtuous civilization. Wisdom flowers and spreads … even as does silliness. Like the absurd assertion (repeated
ad nauseam
by left and right) that wisdom
hasn’t
grown! A damnable outright lie.
This is a bona fide renaissance, threatening to make everything better, in all ways. A renaissance that must find every potentially lethal error and hence, ironically, benefits from endless criticism. Helpful, vigorous criticism—but not chic-cynical despair.
* * *
What of the question implicit in the title,
Existence
?
The alternative to continuity is The End of the World as We Know It … or TEOTWAWKI. Well, you got a survey of possible dooms in this book! It sure is a minefield out there. But poking at the ground in front of us—finding the quicksand and land mines and snake pits—is exactly how
worry
can gradually transform into
hope
. Finding a path across the next century is our task, and millions take it seriously.
Along the way, we need to keep reminding ourselves, this awkward phase of early adolescence will pass, if now and then we also lift our heads. Looking ahead.
We aren’t a curse upon the world. We are her new eyes. Her brain, testes, ovaries … her ambition and her heart. Her voice. So sing.
FOLLOW-UP RESOURCES
There will be ongoing discussion, starting at the Tor Books site, but also at
www.davidbrin.com/existence.html
and on my blog:
Contrary Brin
.
Regarding the inescapable fact that inter-human violence has plummeted since 1945, see Steven Pinker’s book
The Better Angels of Our Nature.
Or watch his presentations online.
The crucial concept of
positive sum games—
the entire basis of our ongoing Enlightenment Experiment—can be explored in one of the most important books of our time,
Nonzero,
by Robert Wright. My own nonfiction book
The Transparent Society
delves deeply into questions of secrecy, privacy, and freedom.
Then, once you are girded with good news, explore the darker side! Dive into Jared Diamond’s book
Collapse. Our Final Century
by Martin Rees and
Global Catastrophic Risks
by Nick Bostrom and Milan
Ć
irkovi
ć
will take you on a lovely guided tour of how stacked the odds appear to be against us. A painfully attractive voyage through daunting perils that culminated in my own contributions to the popular show
Life After People.
Finally, if you feel a wakened need to help tip the balance, have a look at suggestions for how even busy, average citizens can make a difference, via proxy power:
www.davidbrin.com/proxyactivism.htm
. It happens to be easy. So no excuses.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe a lot to my coterie of sagacious and unabashed pre-readers, who find innumerable inconsistencies and infelicities, fearlessly telling me wherever the pace—or my storytelling craft—seems to lag. Also, some of them contributed a passel of really cool ideas! I want to thank Sheldon Brown, Vernor Vinge, John Mauldin, Joe Miller, Ellie Miller, Stephen Baxter, Ralph Vicinanza, Erik Flint, Claudio Maccone, Doug McElwain, Stefan Jones, Ernest Lilley, Michelle Nicolosi, Tom Larson, David Moles, Nicholas MacDonald, David Ivory, Tihamer T. Toth-Fejel, Philippe Van Nedervelde, Joy Crisp, David Crisp, Steve Jackson, Mary Amanda Clark, Robert Qualkinbush, Robin Hanson, John Smart, John Powers, William Taylor, Stephen Potts, Beverly Price, Professor Bing Chen, Dan I. Radakovich, Patrick Heffernan, Gray Tan, and Joe Carroll.
To Beth Meacham and Tom Doherty and their comrades at Tor Books, many blessings for your patience. And above all, my love and gratitudinousness to Cheryl and the far-better-than-me kids, who co-endured this long, long haul and helped me past many quagmires of despond.
I promise to write quicker, less exhausting books.
* * *
Some of the Hacker scenes were first published as “Life in the Extreme” in
Popular Science,
special edition, in August 1998. “The Smartest Mob” first appeared in
All Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories
(2004) and in
Jim Baen’s Universe
(online). Some of the scenes featuring Peng Xiang Bin appeared in
Jim Baen’s Universe
in 2009, via the novella “Shoresteading.” A very early version of Tor’s discovery adventure in the asteroid belt appeared as “Lungfish” in
Asimov’s Science Fiction
in the 1980s and was heavily revised for a 2012 Festschrift volume in honor of Poul Anderson.
TOR BOOKS BY DAVID BRIN
Kiln People
Existence
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
EXISTENCE
Copyright © 2012 by David Brin
All rights reserved.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
Tor
®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN 978-0-7653-0361-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 9781429946964 (e-book)
First Edition: June 2012
*
Millions of votes for this question appear to have been generated
not
by human participants but by a new version of the voxpopuli worm. Yet, our ai arbiter, Deep Purple, insists that we rank it up here, for some unknown reason of its own.
