Going into this, I should say that I’m pretty biased toward
science fiction having a set definition. Many of the definitions shown say ‘Science
Fiction is whatever we call Science Fiction’. I can see where this idea is
coming from, but if we can’t define something as specific as science fiction,
what can we define? I understand how it’s hard to define something as broad as art,
but science fiction?
Everything has to be made up of something else. One person on
the website said that science fiction is the combination of many sub-genres, so
it can’t be defined. If that is true, don’t those sub-genres need definitions?
Something, at some level down needs a definition. Otherwise what’s the point in
categorizing anything? Anyway, what I’m saying is that science fiction’s definition
would then be a combination of the definitions of various sub-genres. It would
have a definition in that case.
So, since I believe there should be a definition, the one I
tend to agree with most is Kingsley Amis’ definition that science fiction deals
with a situation “hypothesized on the basis of some innovation in science or
technology, or pseudo-science or pseudo-technology”. I can’t really verify this
definition, but when I think of a science fiction film it always seems to fall
under this definition. Science fiction seems, to me, to be a sub-genre of
fantasy, which itself is a sub-genre of fiction. It deals with things that
haven’t happened (fiction) and couldn’t realistically happen right now or have
happened in the past (fantasy). However, I tend to think of science fiction as
something that could at least theoretically happen. It either has some sort of basis in science or at least makes the viewer believe
it does.
The need for definition and categorization seems to be a human instinct, and no more than that.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, we go around saying things like "black people" and "white people", when in reality it is not that simple http://www.rosalindofarden.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/400px-Felix_von_Luschan_Skin_Color_chart.svg_.png
And there are of course exceptions to the whole system of categorization:
http://i.imgur.com/0uyOA.jpg
http://www.rvcaproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/tan.jpg
So why do with categorize? You ask "what’s the point in categorizing anything?" I believe it is to make things easier, and to save time. It's instinctive. http://media.avclub.com/assets/images/products/productgroup/36/M-Stereotypes_400x400_2_jpg_400x400_upscale_q85.jpg
CAN sci-fi be defined? Sure. On a personal level, by you or me respectively, to make our lives easier and to make the universe livable. But not really on an objective level.
As we break things down (sci-fi into sub-genres, objects into atoms) our personal definitions all get closer and closer to something that we feel is objective, but can that definition be achieved? And if so, is it even practical?
The sub-genres of sci-fi cannot be combined into an idea of sci-fi as a whole because the possibilities of sub-genre are infinite, as is the whole.
Okay, so I'm responding to both of you here. I'm not sure "personal level" definitions are the best we can do, at least not in a society that depends on communication between people to function...that's the idea behind "No man is an island." We have special padded rooms for people who communicate with definitions that only work at a personal level.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it would be better not to look at Sci Fi as a category but rather a concept. Right? It doesn't exist in a physical sense. To quite my good friend Ms. Rand, "a concept is a mental integration of two or more units which are isolated by a process of abstraction and united by a specific definition. By organizing his perceptual material into concepts, man is able to grasp and retain, to identify and integrate an unlimited amount of knowledge, a knowledge extending beyond the immediate concretes of any given, immediate moment."
Man retains his concepts by means of language. The very word Sci Fi encapsulates a massive amount of specificaly defined units in just two tiny words. Those words help take our abstractioin from particular film units and convert them into something manageable, rememberable.
So, "long story short," concepts do indeed make things easier, but not in the sense that they're an oversimplified view of things. They make things easier because they help us acquire and maintain our knowledge of reality and the universe. Sci fi is made up of qualities "abstracted" from specific films (units); those qualities go on to form the definition of the concept. The definition in turn goes on inform our what we abstract from other film units and round and round it goes. Sci fi has been around for a while, so to fully understand it as a concept, we've got to spend some quality time with it. Which is what we're doing right now. How cool is that?