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"...a few centuries of coherent humanist thought, set against a million odd years of evolved killer ape tendency. No-one's going to give you very good odds on humanism, are they?"
- Richard Morgan
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| Psychophone | ||
| A device that allows the user to tune their mind to a future reality - a time-traveling device. |
In the story, the author argues that while the body is stuck in the present, the mind is able to move more freely. But you need a very specific gadget to do it.
| It looked just like one of those old-fashioned crystal sets, except that the crystal was very big, very shiny and was set in a horizontal vacuum tube. There was the same single dial, the same cat's whisker. Attached to the lot by a length of flex was what might have been a pair of headphones, except in place of the phones were a pair of polished, smoothly rounded copper circles shaped to fit outside the ears and close against the skull. |
| Technovelgy from The Mechanical Mice,
by Maurice G. Hugi. Published by Astounding Stories in 1941 Additional resources -
|
Here's how it works:
This is a very early use of the "alternative futures" idea in science fiction.
When you imagine what the future will be like, you make a characteristic choice of all the logical possibilities, you pick your favorite from a multitude of likely futures. The psychophone somehow tunes you into a future reality. It makes you depict within your mind the future as it will be shaped in actuality, eliminating all of the alternatives that will not occur.
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'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'I ... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching for a habitable planet.'
'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
'... oblongs were all over the floor and surfaces.'
