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The Three-Body Problem (2008) by Liu Cixin on Wikipedia
I finished watching the Netflix adaptation of the novel "The Three-Body Problem" a few weeks ago and found it underwhelming. In retrospect,the most entertaining part of the adaptation was the depiction of the virtual reality game but everything else felt poorly executed. I was talking to a friend about this and he suggested that I should skip the bullshit and read the original source, the novels by Liu Cixin.
It's been a few years since I read a novel. I don't know why I stopped reading novels, honestly. The last novel I finished reading was probably Fahrenheit 451 and it was nice. At the time, I was really interested in the social science fiction genre and I read other books such as Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) by George Orwell and Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley.
Fahrenheit 451 (1952) by Ray Bradbury on Wikipedia
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) by George Orwell
Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley on Wikipedia
The decision to read "The Three-Body Problem" was the right call. It made me appreciate the fact that human beings are blessed with the ability to imagine, extrapolate, and create a personal film in our brains, something which can be significantly more vivid and impactful than an impersonal adaptation for the masses.
One of the highlights of this novel for me was the character of Ye Wenjie, an astrophysicist from Tsinghua University. The novel makes a strong impact right at the start by portraying the chaos and madness of the Cultural Revolution in China. Ye Wenjie loses her father in front of her own eyes to an angry mob. We see Ye Wenjie reserving her speech lest it be considered "reactionary", which was somewhat uncomfortable for me to read.
While she is being made to chop down trees that are hundreds of years old, she suffers for exercising empathy for an individual from whom she receives the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.
Silent Spring (1962) by Rachel Carson
This book helps Ye Wenjie form a core belief:
It was impossible to expect a moral awakening from humankind itself, just like it was impossible to expect humans to lift off the earth by pulling up on their own hair. To achieve moral awakening required a force outside the human race.
After being almost tortured to death, Ye Wenjie receives an opportunity to work at Red Coast Base. However, her achievements are overshadowed by her superiors and when she does try to conduct an experiment to try and amplify radio waves by directing them towards the Sun, she is chided because of petty political issues by her superior, Commissar Lei:
"I know that it's technically and operationally feasible. But you … eh, Chief Yang, you just lack the sensitivity for this kind of thing. You want to aim a superpowerful radio beam at the red sun. Have you thought about the political symbolism of such an experiment?"
The symbolism alluded here is directing radio waves at Chairman Mao Zedong, a symbol for the sun itself. One might consider elevating a human being to be the symbol of a primordial G-type main-sequence star that has existed for 4.6 billion years to be extremely arrogant. Even more ridiculous is the how petty politics can interfere with fundamental scientific endeavors that are, and should be, mutually exclusive with politics.
Yang and Ye were both utterly stunned, but they did not think Lei’s objection ridiculous. Just the opposite: They were horrified that they themselves had not thought of it.
Although Ye Wenjie does manage to find peace at Red Coast Base, she wasn't able to let go of her wounds, which I find to be personally interesting.
After all, during the Cultural Revolution, many people suffered fates similar to hers, and compared to many of them, Ye was relatively fortunate. But Ye had the mental habits of a scientist, and she refused to forget.
I'm not sure if anyone is reading this but what would you do if you had the chance to banish the human race to extinction? Ye Wenjie receives such a chance and
Without hesitation, Ye pressed the button.
which sends the following message to an extra-terrestrial civilization
Come here! I will help you conquer this world. Our civilization is no longer capable of solving its own problems. We need your force to intervene.
The universe is incomprehensibly vast. The sheer magnitude of the distance that four light years is hard to swallow. The message is sent but it'll take four years to reach the destination and another four years for any kind of response. For human beings, eight years is a significant amount of time.
For the first time while reading this novel, my throat felt a bit heavy as I read how Ye Wenjie receives affection and respect from villagers near the Red Coast Base because she is an astrophysicist and because she teaches physics to the kids of the village, something which doesn't turn out to be a unidirectional act of kindness. However,
In Ye’s memory, these months seemed to belong to someone else, like a segment of another life that had drifted into hers like a feather.
She is not able to accept moments of belonging and happiness. Perhaps she is too numb to accept it?
Eventually, Ye Wenjie is able to return to Tsinghua University, her alma mater, to teach and she began to develop some hope that maybe, just maybe, things have improved? She is told by her mother to detach herself from her past, something which we know is not possible for Ye to do. Ye Wenjie also manages to track down three of the four girls that killed her father, only to find them wounded by life as well. She expected remorse but instead,
The small sliver of hope for society that had emerged in her soul had evaporated like a drop of dew in the sun. Her tiny sense of doubt about her supreme act of betrayal had also disappeared without a trace.
I won't go into details in this post about my experiences but I've always felt that it is moments like these are responsible for constructing, reinforcing, and ensuring the survival of deep and unrelenting neural pathways and imprints in the human brain. The moments of happiness that we do experience seem to be limited to specific sections in the fourth dimension of time. However, trauma is something never truly leaves us. It occupies the entire fourth dimension of our lives. This was my informal thought process before I encountered the book "Better To Never Have Been" by David Benatar and was able to express it formally. David argues for the asymmetry of pain and pleasure in his book.
Better To Never Have Been (2006) by David Benatar
Antinatalism - Asymmetry Between Good and Bad Things
Can we really blame people like Ye Wenjie for being misanthropic?
I wasn't aware about the three-body problem in physics and how no general solution exists for it, although restricted solutions do exist. It was really surprising and awe inspiring how three bodies in space are chaotic and we can't predict their movements without restricting ourselves to a specific set of circumstances (equal mass and zero angular momentum) and scenarios.
Although I knew about the existence of Alpha Centauri A, Alpha Centauri B, Proxima Centauri, and an exoplanet orbiting Proxima Centauri in its habitable zone, I didn't realize that Alpha Centauri AB and Proxima Centauri are considered a three star system. However, it seems that AB work like a binary star system and Proxima Centauri revolves around this system?
The depiction of the Chaotic Eras on the planet Trisolaris (inspired by the exoplanet Proxima Centauri b) is extremely interesting. The lack of presence of any of the three suns in the sky can result in bone chilling winters and a tri-solar day can burn every living creature.
Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf and from what I've read about red dwarfs, even if they do have a planet in their habitable zone, that planet is likely to be tidally locked to the red dwarf, which means that one side of the planet will always be illuminated and the other side will always be dark. I've also come across texts that doubt the ability of red dwarfs to be able to host habitable planets at all, because of the less than ideal distance between the red dwarf and its planet which is in its habitable zone. Indeed, the following lines are mentioned in the Wikipedia page for Proxima Centauri b concerning its potential for habitability:
Strong irradiation by UV radiation and X-rays from Proxima Centauri constitutes a challenge to habitability
Stellar winds and coronal mass ejections are an even bigger threat to an atmosphere.
Habitability of Red Dwarf Systems
It would, however, be interesting to read a science fiction novel that depicts the atmosphere and conditions on a planet like Proxima Centauri b, especially the conditions around the terminator or the twilight zone of such a planet.
If you're asked to imagine a war between two civilizations from different planets, what is the first thing that comes into your mind? Unfortunately, flashy movies like War of the Worlds and Independence Day depict destruction and mayhem as either the first or the last response and while that very well might be the case, it would be strange if that's how one form of intelligent life approached another form of intelligent life right at the beginning. This is why I really liked the movie Arrival (2016).
I feel that Liu Cixin recognizes that the only absolute truth in the universe is the language of mathematics and science. In the hands of intelligent life, mathematics and science can be a constructive tool or a destructive weapon. However, if you really want to break the progress or human instinct to leap forward, break our science. The beings of Trisolaris do it using Sophons. We do it ourselves with petty politics, myopic vision toward issues that affects everyone on the planet, and religious fundamentalism, among other things. Ding Yi and Da Shi explain how one can "break" science and halt progress.
Imagine an ancient kingdom, if you will. Their technology is advancing. They can invent better swords, knives, spears, et cetera. Maybe they can even invent auto-repeating crossbows that can shoot many arrows like a machine gun. But if they don’t know that matter is made from molecules and atoms, they will never create missiles and satellites. They’re limited by their level of science.
To be a scientist is to be naive. We are so focused on our search for truth, we fail to consider how few actually want us to find it. But it is always there, whether we see it or not, whether we choose to or not. The truth doesn't care about our needs or wants. It doesn't care about our governments, our ideologies, our religions. It will lie in wait for all time. - Valery Legasov (Chernobyl TV 2019)
Chernobyl (2019) on Letterboxd
However, unlike Carl Sagan, Liu Cixin doesn't seem to hold a positive view of contact with an extra terrestrial intelligence. In the somewhat conservative exposure that Liu has given to beings on Trisolaris, they are depicted as similar to human beings on Earth. Considering that human beings haven't found any publicly known extra-terrestrial intelligence at the time this article was written, I don't think we know how such an intelligence might respond. What if we find creatures similar to Dolphins or Orcas on Proxima Centauri b? Would they really be a threat to us? However, I think we can anticipate human behavior and reaction to some extent even in such a case.
The chapters 32 and 33 are quite interesting. In immature stories and several shounen manga and anime, there are clear lines between good and evil. One would think that the beings from Trisolaris who will invade Earth are the aggressors and the "bad" guys. It's easy and sometimes tempting to paint broad strokes with a single brush and create stereotypes. However, the being inside Listening Post 1379 almost cost the beings on Trisolaris their chance to find another home by sending this reply to the transmission that was sent by Ye Wenjie:
Do not answer! Do not answer!! Do not answer!!!
This world has received your message. I am a pacifist in this world. It is the luck of your civilization that I am the first to receive your message. I am warning you: Do not answer! Do not answer!! Do not answer!!! There are tens of millions of stars in your direction. As long as you do not answer, this world will not be able to ascertain the source of your transmission. But if you do answer, the source will be located right away. Your planet will be invaded. Your world will be conquered! Do not answer! Do not answer!! Do not answer!!!
Listening Post 1379 does not like the civilization on Trisolaris that has become optimised for the sole purpose of survival. 1379 wants to make a difference and he admires the planet Earth and doesn't want to see a "paradise" destroyed. The leader of Trisolaris knows that there are other beings on Trisolaris like 1379 who are leaning towards pacifism.
It reminds me of the conversation between Eren Yeager and Reiner Braun in the anime Attack on Titan. Eren explains that he did indeed saw everyone outside the walls of Paradis as his enemy but he realized that we're all the same after being among the people in Marley, eating with them, sleeping with them.
The conversations among the beings of Trisolaris, the pacifist act of 1379 at the cost of their well-being, and the brief exposure to the general outlook of beings on Trisolaris gives us a window into their reasons for doing what they are doing.
I really enjoyed reading The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. It presents an entertaining blend of science, science-fiction, and the strengths and pitfalls of the human race.
I'll start reading The Dark Forest soon.
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Updated: 2024-04-09
Created: 2024-04-06