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A comment on The Future According to Stanisław Lem. Parent comment

Re:The Future According to Stanisław Lem by stared on Saturday September 13, 2014 @06:54PM (#8313908)
IMHO it is the best book by Lem (but not the most typical one).

In any case, for me it was more cognitive/philosophical: about trying to reach/understand the reality, after passing (yet another) layer of illusion.

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Re:The Future According to Stanisław Lem by tjradcliffe on Saturday September 13, 2014 @09:28PM (#8314246)
It's hard to pin down a "typical" book of Lem's, but there are certain themes he returned to time and again.

1) The role of probability in life: "Chain of Chance" and "The Investigation" (the former is much the better book)

2) The role of scale in our understanding of the universe: "His Master's Voice", "Fiasco" and "Solaris" all touch on this, and are all excellent (I have a special fondness for HMV as a book that describes how scientists actually think and work in a way that nothing else I've encountered does)

3) The role of systems of control in the future of humanity: "Memoirs..." and most of the Ijon Tichy stories fall into this category, and are in my view his weakest work, although "Return from the Stars" is a brilliant book on this theme.

4) The role of cybernetics in the future of evolution: "The Cyberiad" etc.

The problem of the "silent universe" (explored mostly deeply in "Fiasco") is also one that comes up repeatedly, including a long and interesting essay in "Imaginary Magnitude".

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