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" Once we no longer have the intellectual upper hand, then we quite literally, by definition, cannot outwit our successors. So unless we are absolutely sure that the machines we are building right now are not going to eventually become our new robot overlords, prudence is called for. "

Robert J. Sawyer

Building

Intellectual

New

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" The great thing about science fiction is that it transcends national boundaries. "

" Psychopathy might lurk behind the mask of sanity. "

" The standard model of particle physics says that the universe consists of a very small number of particles, 12, and a very small number of forces, four. If we're correct about those 12 particles and those four forces and understand how they interact, properly, we have the recipe for baking up a universe. "

" I'm a fiction writer, and fiction is telling the lives of unreal people. But the only way you can learn to do that well is by really understanding the lives of real people. "

" I think there's always been, to some degree, a misunderstanding about what science fiction is all about, in that it has been judged by the general public as being literature of prediction, and it isn't. "

" I'm a rationalist. And I can see no evidence for a benevolent and interventionist creator. "

" I'm a very skeptical guy: my willing suspension of disbelief doesn't go very far when I'm reading other people's SF, and it goes even less far when I'm writing my own. "

" Science fiction's power, if it has any, is that it gives us reasonable extrapolations, not wild and woolly stuff. "

Robert J. Sawyer

Wild

Power

" Hard science fiction, which is what I write, often is rightly criticized for having either negligible or unbelievable characterization, but the science I've actually studied most post-secondarily is psychology, and characterization is the art of dramatizing psychological principles. "

" You fall into a black hole, and you are irretrievably gone from the universe. That finality has made it irresistible to writers. "

" The heart and soul of good writing is research; you should write not what you know but what you can find out about. "

" Science fiction is about extrapolation, looking back through history, spotting a trend, and predicting where it will go. "

" When I first started, my novels were set in the far future. "

" Our job is not to predict the future. Rather, it's to suggest all the possible futures - so that society can make informed decisions about where we want to go. "

" An agnostic is someone who believes the nature of the Divine is unknowable... and in that sense, I'm willing to subscribe to being an agnostic. "

" Science fiction has always used metaphors and disguises, talking about alien civilizations or the future. "

" The fact we exist merely means we exist. That's all it means. "

" In addition to psychopaths, 'Quantum Night' is also a novel about literally thoughtless people, without inner voices, thoughts in their heads. "

" The general public still thinks that science fiction has nothing to do with their day-to-day lives. "

" George Orwell's science-fiction classic 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' wasn't a failure because the future it predicted failed to come to pass. Rather, it was a resounding success because it helped us prevent that future. "

Robert J. Sawyer

Success

Classic

" I've had many of my books optioned. "

" You have to have confidence in where you're going. Don't live and die by the fans' tweets. "

" The only shows that Americans watch in big numbers are shows about lawyers, doctors, or cops... People don't tune in to watch scientists unless they are forensic scientists. "

" Whether it's created in a lab, written by a programmer, or lands on the White House lawn as a visitor from the stars, if it acts like a human being, it is a human being. "

" Science fiction should not be dismissed as escapism. It is a profound vehicle for talking about social and political issues. "

" One gets a bit picky after having the success of something like 'FlashForward!' "

Robert J. Sawyer

Something

Success

" I think most people are indifferent in their evaluation of what is good or bad. "

" All the things that made us basically nasty, rapacious, competitive as a species are not necessarily hard-coded into whatever passes for the DNA of artificial intelligence. "

Robert J. Sawyer

Artificial Intelligence

Intelligence

" Everything that I can do to ground the story in reality helps make it harder for people to be dismissive of it. "

" When you're changing centuries, people get curious about the future. "