Primary school, drawing class. Our teacher gave us an assignment that fascinated me even then:
"What do you think will be invented in the future? What do you want to invent?"
At that time, the most advanced mobile phones were the ones that had just come out of radio. I don't even remember if there were video cameras. If there were, I didn't know about them because we didn't have them. That was the first thing that came to mind when my dad and I put our heads together and thought about it: Camera phones. Of course, what we had in mind was more physical and juxtaposed. We didn't have enough engineering knowledge to imagine how one could be integrated into the other. In those days, anything new seemed impossible and surprising.
One of the other inventions I drew in my sketchbook was shoes that could be shortened and lengthened, with built-in heaters and coolers. I still think that sounds cool. But even self-lacing shoes didn't come into fashion.
My last idea was one that still holds true. So much so, in fact, that I designed it for a similar assignment in secondary school, and recently, before going to bed, I thought about it again in its current form. Now I expect it to be more automated, a robot that can recycle. I designed it to take what was thrown in the rubbish, sort it and store it in different layers of its body. That way you could keep track of what you ate and drank, calculate your expenses and so on. I don't think I'm asking for too much. In 10-20 years, more advanced robots will be on the shelves anyway.
“What I drew as a child actually looked like this” Photo by Rock'n Roll Monkey on Unsplash
When I was thinking about what to write about today, I realised that the common denominator of my options was the science fiction genre and the future. So that's how I decided to start.
When I was young, I used to sit down and write and draw such thoughts just for fun. This task was really a good support for the dreamer in me. I think it is an ideal subject for children to spend time on.
I think that's why science fiction is my favourite genre. Because I wonder what other people are thinking and how they can put it into a story. I think humans do great things in that respect. If we use our power for social development, we can do wonders.
It is difficult to ask this of everyone, but writers are the right people to start with. They may not be inventors, but every project begins with an idea. A writer, especially one who has studied the subject at length, will directly or indirectly offer ideas to someone with that ability. Inspiration is a wonderful thing.
If we read the writers of the past, we have the most obvious examples of how these kinds of thoughts have jumped to a new dimension. It is a marvellous thing that the main ideas of many of the inventions that we use today, that are perhaps our everyday parts, were created in science fiction works.
Artificial intelligence, which we all use today in one way or another, websites where we find and share information, the Internet, which allows us to interact digitally, computers and tablets that mediate all this, holographic images, laser technology, robots, complex medical devices...
There are so many examples that the list is endless. Yes, these inventions may not be directly based on the stories in the books. But even decades before they actually existed, they were formed in someone's mind and shared with mankind.
When talking about this, it is necessary to mention how incomprehensible the exponential development of technology is. As we all know, but do not realise, the creation of inventions, or roughly speaking, the development of technology, does not stop. In fact, the developments of the last 20-30 years are quite advanced compared to the last 100 years.
Writers are the main reason for this. They have kept our imaginations alive and carried their ideas into the future. They may not have been written with the thought that 'one day someone might give life to what we are talking about', but it is obvious that they have paved the way in some way. Inventors are those who think about things and do not let their imaginations be silenced.
As you know, technology is advancing at an unprecedented rate. Strangely enough, when we look back at the past, we even forget what developments took place when. Because we feel as if they have always existed in our lives and we take them as normal or we are surprised that they did not exist in the past and we think that they did. Our perception of time becomes blurred, just like the speed of development of technology. It is like our illusions about the past.
I think one of the biggest triggers for this, as I mentioned in my example at the beginning of the article, is whether the invention in question was in our lives at the time. In other words, depending on our experience (or lack of it), we cannot make a correlation about time. For example, I don't remember exactly when mobile phones with cameras came out, but I will never forget when there were mobile phones without cameras, with monochrome screens.
The other might be on a society/country basis. Factors such as whether such an invention was fashionable at the time, whether it was not imported, whether it was not widely used, or whether it was not in every home can be counted.
Now let's move from the individual to the social dimension. See how things get complicated. We've been talking about the inventions of the modern age, let's take the example from there. This way it will be of a kind that we will be inclined to remember. Let's talk about technological irony.
In what year did the astronauts land on the moon? The answer is 1969. It is undoubtedly one of the turning points in world history. It was literally the biggest step in terms of being a different kind of civilisation, and we have come a long way with it. I don't know how much money was spent on it, or what technology was used, but I suspect (based on the experience of previous attempts) that it must have involved the best tools and equipment of the time.
In the old days there were huge arcade machines in the arcade saloons. They were coin-operated. The first game designed to be played on one of these machines was called "Pong". I am sure everyone has played it, or at least knows it. You know, the game where you hit a ball that goes up and down both sides of the screen with a stick that can only go up and down. It's like tennis, but probably in its most primitive form. So what year do you think it was made? The answer is 1972, three years after the moon landing.
If I asked you independently of this article, would you think of similar years? Needless to say, Pong looked simple and low-tech, especially compared to today. On the other hand, we had a space shuttle, with its unimaginable complexity, travelling to the unreachable and carrying people.
The human mind has difficulty in making sense of things outside the everyday structure. Not being able to understand very large numbers, considering very small creatures as insignificant, not being able to perceive the quantity of objects in the universe, not being able to share the remoteness of the past and the future or, on the contrary, being deceived by the timelessness of technological development...
Science fiction is the only genre that can cover every corner of life, that invites you to write about subjects that have not yet been addressed, that does not allow you to be laughed at or disbelieved for the extremity of your imagination, and that allows you to be right one day.
Newton said, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”. He said this about those who have contributed to science in the past. I feel the same way. It is science fiction writers who give life to many of the structures (technological or otherwise) that dominate today. We live in the world they have created, named and set the rules for.
I wish you fearless imagination in your fiction, and a good read.
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