小说与文学2010blog.williamgibsonbooks.com编辑精选
威廉·吉布森谈写作、科幻与未来
William Gibson on writing, science fiction and the Future
导读
这是 William Gibson 在 Book Expo 的演讲，讨论他为什么对「大写 F 的未来」感到厌倦，以及他所说的「无尽的数字当下」。Hacker News 的评论围绕几个问题展开：科幻是否还应继续推想未来；技术被社会消化之后，想象空间去了哪里。对写作者来说，这篇讨论触及一个核心方法问题：怎样从「现在」出发去写未来，而不是把未来当作谈论当下的道具。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把当下当作发射台：从任何一个具体的「现在」推演出它可能通向的几种未来，而不是把未来当成评论现实的幌子。
- 02
留意那些还没有被日常生活消化的新技术；它们留下的认知空白，正是虚构可以进入的空间。
- 03
动笔前先真正看清此刻：没有对当下的清醒观察，就没有可供推演未来的跳板。
- 04
让读者同时感到恐惧与壮丽，比单纯描绘美好或黑暗更容易在一代人心里留下痕迹。
HN 评论精选
科幻的想象力来自技术尚未被社会消化时留下的缝隙；技术一旦日常化，那个可供逃逸的未知就消失了。
听起来像后现代主义。我同意「未来不再是过去那个未来」。原因在于技术从根本上改变了社会结构：在消化技术的过程中，它制造出一道缝隙、一片未知，我们可以逃进去，那里或许能回答关于「做人」的永恒问题，无论好坏。但现在我们已经消化了它，缝隙就不存在了。也许当下一次出现从根本上改变社会结构的技术时，科幻会回来；不断改进的通讯不算，那是我们已经消化掉的东西之一。寻找它的一个办法是审视我们的社会结构，问它能从容应对哪些变化、又应付不了哪些，也就是「hack society」。
10ren查看英文原文
Sounds like post-modernism, or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man I agree the future isn't what it used to be. I think it's that technology fundamentally changed our social structure, and while it was assimilating the technology, it created a gap, an unknown, that we could escape to, and which might answer perennial questions about being a human, for better or worse. But now we've assimilated it, so that gap is no more. Perhaps we'll get science fiction again, when next we develop a technology that fundamentally changes the structure of society. Continuously improving communication wouldn't do it; that's one of the things we've assimilated. Don't know what it would be, but perhaps a way of looking for it would be to examine our social structures, and ask what changes it copes well with, and what it wouldn't. ie. hack society.
科幻应以当下为发射台去推演可能的未来，而不是把未来当成谈论当下的幌子。
我当时很爱 Gibson，但他似乎没有未来学家那种热情。我一直认为，只把科幻当作谈论当下的修辞工具的作家，错过了重点。是的，当下是发射台；但有趣的是去推想任何一个「现在」所隐含的种种可能未来。我相信 PKD 若活到今天，也总能找到东西可写。
danbmil99查看英文原文
I loved Gibson at the time, but it seems he doesn't really have the passion of a futurist, like my personal fave Greg Egan. I've always thought that writers who use SF merely as a trope to talk about the present sort of miss the whole point. Yes, the present is the launchpad; but what is interesting is to speculate about the possible futures any particular now might imply. I have to assume PKD would find something to write about, were he alive today.
没有对当下的清醒感知就没有未来可言；写作的前提是先真正看见此刻。
我喜欢他关于「大写 F 的未来只存在于某个年龄、某种文化背景的人心中」的想法，以及替代品是一种无尽的数字当下；但我不完全买账。「数字当下」作为一种状态，似乎需要某种思考性的理解，一种内在的承认：如他所说，「未来永远是别人的过去」。可我环顾四周时看不到这些。我看到的社会里，人们大多在梦游，突破性的技术奇迹不被当作「大写 N 的现在」的一部分，而是被忽略，或从未被领会。我担心「未来主义者的终结」更多是「当下主义者的终结」：没有当下作跳板就无法思考未来，而当下文化似乎麻木到让多数人既无意愿也无必要去想。
kolektiv查看英文原文
I like his thought about the capital-F future only really being present in the minds of people of a certain age/cultural background, and the alternative being a kind of endless digital Now, but I don't know that I completely buy it. The digital Now, as a concept seems as if it needs some kind of thinking comprehension as a state. An inward recognition that as he puts it "the future is always someone else's past". But I don't see that when I look around me. I don't see a society filled with people conscious of what's around them, I see one filled largely with sleepwalkers. Where ground-breaking technological marvels are not accepted as part of a capital-N Now, but simply ignored, or never apprehended. I don't know, but I fear that the end of the Futurist is more to do with the end of the Presentist - you can't consider the future without the springboard of the present, and current culture seems to be too numbing for most people to have the will, or need, to do so. Well, that came out much more grumpy than I'd thought.
让读者同时感到「可怕」与「壮丽」，作品才能真正留在一代人的记忆里。
我是读着《神经漫游者》和 Sprawl 三部曲长大的，可以说它很大程度上把我推向了现在的职业（程序员）。我真希望 Gibson 没有对大写的未来那么厌倦。他写的一切似乎同时既可怕又壮丽，我坚信它塑造了一代人的技术前进方向。你不可能俘获整整一代极客少年的心与头脑而不留下痕迹。
Simucal查看英文原文
I grew up reading Neuromancer and the Sprawl trilogy. I can honestly say that it largely influenced me into my current career (programmer). I really wish that Gibson wasn't so bored with capital F Future. I would love to see what kind of hard-scifi novel he could produce today. Everything he wrote seemed so terrible and magnificent at the same time and I strongly believed that it helped shape the direction of technological progress for a generation. You can't capture the hearts and minds of an entire generation of teen geeks and it not leave its mark.
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