The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate
If you encountered the Alchemist’s Gate, would you go forward or back in time, and why?
The main takeaway of the story comes in one of its final sentences: “nothing erases the past” (36). How does this compare to other time traveling stories you’ve watched or read? What does this say about Chiang’s belief in fate?
How do the characters alter history without altering its inevitable outcomes?
Exhalation
In the titular story, the protagonist performs surgery on himself, suggesting that “it is the promise of finding the answers within our own brains that makes the inscription hypothesis so seductive” (41). The quote recalls Plato’s arguments about the nature of knowledge. Plato theorized people are born with all the knowledge we will have in our lifetime, and that we access those bits of knowledge through an educational process. Thinking of this theory and the rest of the short story, how do you think Chiang would describe the value of self-knowledge?
The protagonist asks a rhetorical question: “will it be preferable to remain mute to prolong our ability to think, or to talk until the very end?” (55). Which would you prefer to do, and why?
What’s Expected of Us
With the rising prominence of personalized algorithms comes a curiosity around their ability to predict and modify human behavior. Likewise, the Predictor device illustrates the determinability of one’s behavior. Compare and contrast the Predictors to personalized predictive algorithms. How does each limit, or enhance, our ability to think and act freely?
Chiang writes this story as a “a physical demonstration” of a convincing argument for the pointlessness of life (341). In your opinion, does it work? Does the Predictor make the argument for the pointlessness of life more convincing?
The Lifecycle of Software Objects
Are the digients in the story “real” living things as you define it? Why or why not?
How do you relate to the digients? Are they interesting, cute, fascinating, alarming, funny? Would you purchase one?
Derek and Ana’s perspectives diverge at the end of the story. Do you agree with Derek or Ana? Are digients responsible for their own choices after a certain age, as Derek believes, or do people have a responsibility to steward digients indefinitely, as Ana believes? For another perspective, consider the ways by which Voyl legally becomes a person (119).
Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny
Both “The Lifecycle of Software Objects” and “Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny” imagine a world in which one part of the parent-child relationship is automated by technology. In one, Chiang imagines an artificially-intelligent child, and in the other, he imagines an artificially-intelligent parent. Using evidence from one or both of these stories, how do you think Chiang views the responsibility of parenthood?
Chiang writes, “what Edmund needed was not more contact with a person, but more contact with a machine” (181). Consider how you use technology to interact with others. How do those interactions affect daily face-to-face interactions? Do you relate to Edmund’s need to interact with machines?
The Truth of Fact the Truth of Feeling
Jijingi explains to Moseby the difference between two kinds of truth: “what’s right, mimi, and what’s precise, vough” (212). The two mark the difference between belief and fact. While both types of truth are useful to acknowledge, when should we favor precision when making decisions, and when should we focus on respecting the earnest perspectives of multiple parties?
How would you react if, tomorrow, a major tech corporation announced a technology like Remem? The protagonist concludes the story by noting the value of a digital memory as a means to reckon with one’s personal past. Do you share his enthusiasm? If not, what pitfalls of the technology does Chiang neglect to anticipate?
The Great Silence
The fable juxtaposes humanity’s never-ending search for extraterrestrial life with our relatively meager understanding of our fellow earthlings. What sorts of animals seem so unfamiliar that they may as well be extraterrestrials?
In terms of human interactions, what sorts of ideas, opinions, and worldviews have you encountered that feel uncommunicable, or otherwise otherworldly?
Can we still call this fable a sci-fi story? Why or why not?
Omphalos
For the protagonist of the story, “science is the true modern cathedral, an edifice of knowledge every bit as majestic as anything made of stone” (251). What problems does the marriage of creationism and the scientific method address? What new challenges arise when science appears to verify religious faith?
The story concludes with the protagonist’s thoughts on the way science is uniquely situated to motivate humans to become better versions of themselves. Do you agree with the protagonist? By contrast, how does science limit the protagonist’s ability to live a meaningful life?
Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom
The story’s title is a quote attributed to Danish thinker, Søren Kirkegaard, often cited as the father of existentialist philosophy. How do the characters overcome this symptom of “dizziness,” as it were, attributed to freedom?
If you had access to a prism, what would you use it for? What sorts of questions would you ask another version of yourself?
The Oklahoma Center for the Humanities is pleased to announce Exhalation by Ted Chiang as the common read selection for the 2024-25 academic year.
Every year, TU’s Oklahoma Center for the Humanities selects a common read that aligns with its programming theme. Throughout the 2024-25 academic year, we will explore the theme of space by looking to the past, crossing cultural boundaries, and working across disciplines to reveal unexpected insights. This theme will also look to the way humans have sought to organize space on this planet, from the design of homes and cities to the drawing of maps and the fashioning of virtual environments.