David Brin: EXISTENCE, an excerpt

David Brin
Existence
SF novel, 553 pages

I'm in the midst of reading a remarkable SF novel by David Brin.  I've always enjoyed his previous works, but this one is something special.  I never thought he would be able to match his earlier ground-breaking novel, Earth, but he has not only matched it, but I think he has gone a step or two  beyond with Existence.  I haven't finished it yet, so I won't comment any more, but I do want to provide this brief excerpt from the novel.

Hamish, a writer and one of many characters,  is reminiscing:


"50
DIVINATION    

The art that I practice is the only true form of magic.
     It had taken Hamish years to realize this consciously, though he must have suspected it as a child, while devouring fantasy novels and playing whatever interactive game had the best narrative storyline.  Later, at university and grad school, even while diligently studying the ornate laws and incantations of science, something had always struck  him as wrong about the whole endeavor.
     No, wrong wasn't the word.  Sterile. Or dry, or pallid .  .  . that is, compared to worlds of fiction and belief.
     Then, while playing hooky one day from biomedical research, escaping into the vast realm of a little novel, he found a clue to his dilemma, in a passage written by the author, Tom Robbins.

Science gives man what he needs.
But magic gives him what he wants.

     A gross oversimplification?  Sure, Yet, Hamish instantly recognized the important distinction he'd been floundering toward.
      For all its beauty, honesty, and effectiveness at improving the human condition, science demands a terrible price--that we accept what experiments tell us about the universe, whether we like it or not.  It's about consensus and teamwork and respectful critical argument, working with, and through, natural law.  It requires that we utter, frequently, those hateful words--'I might be wrong.'
     On the other hand, magic is what happens when we convince ourselves something is, even when it isn't.  Subjective Truth, winning over mere objective fact.  The Will, triumphing over all else.  No wonder,  even after the cornucopia of wealth and knowledge engendered by science, magic remains more popular, more embedded in the human heart.
     Whether you labeled it faith, or self-delusion, or fantasy, or outright lying--Hamish recognized the species' greatest talent, a calling that spanned all cultures and times, appearing far more often, in far more tribes, than dispassionate reason!  Combine it with enough ardent wanting, and the brew might succor you through the harshest times, even periods of utter despair.
     That was what Hamish got from the best yarns, spun by master storytellers.  A temporary, willing belief that he could inhabit another world, bound by different rules.  Better rules than the dry clockwork rhythms of this one." 





Whether this represents Brin's own thinking or is simply part of the creative process of constructing a character is up for you to decide, if you choose to read the novel.  


I think, though, that there are hints or clues here to the present time, with all the conflict and partisan fighting going on all over the world, and right here at home.  Those who fear and hate the inexorable changes that seem to overwhelm all are in a state of denial.  Magic gives them what they want.    


If there is anything that characterizes science for me, it is the following, idealized though it may be:

For all its beauty, honesty, and effectiveness at improving the human condition, science demands a terrible price--that we accept what experiments tell us about the universe, whether we like it or not.  It's about consensus and teamwork and respectful critical argument, working with, and through, natural law.  It requires that we utter, frequently, those hateful words--'I might be wrong.'

Other ways of thinking --magic-- do not face that ultimate challenge for if something is not to one's liking, one simply ignores it or mentally rewrites it.  It may be more emotionally satisfying, but that really doesn't solve real world problems such as environmental pollution of water and air or global warming or disputes among belief systems.  We must learn to face problems and do something about them or go the way of the dinosaur.