Mindsteps
F.R.R. Mallory
March 9, 2007

"There is more to life than simply increasing its speed."
Mahatma Gandhi

Raymond Kurzweil's 2001 essay, The Law of Accelerating Returns, states, "Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to the Singularity-technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history." The field of future science predicts that in the next 100 years human beings will experience growth as if those hundred years are 20,000 years. Henry James's 1884 essay, The Art of Fiction, tells us, "Catching the very note and trick, the strange irregular rhythm of life, that is the attempt whose strenuous forces keeps Fiction upon her feet." (James 564). When James' "irregular rhythm" becomes Kurzweil's exponential growth the fabric of fiction strains and ruptures under the force.

James responds to the pace of his era through his fiction by using vocabulary and sentence structure both abundant and dense. These choices can be considered to be a reflection of that historical pace, which, when compared to modern work may reveal the degree to which Kurzweil's theory has informed modern choices. When we look at a James' passage such as,

Not to have followed my perverse young course - and almost in the teeth of my father's curse, as I may say; not to have kept it up, so, 'over there,' from that day to this, without a doubt or a pang; not, above all, to have liked it, to have loved it, so much, loved it, no doubt, with such an abysmal conceit of my own preference: some variation from that I say, must have produced some different effect for my life and for my 'form.' I should have stuck here - if it had been possible; and I was too young, at twenty-three, to judge, pour deux sous, whether it were possible. (James 574).

we are presented with the kind of sentence that demands, in my opinion, a slow and thoughtful read. It might even require a re-read to savor its full meaning. Such a style of writing is much like a banquet or lengthy elaborate meal that, to be enjoyed, must be given the time for both enjoyment and digestion.

Modern writing, if considered to be pressurized by an accelerated life pace and diminished discretionary time availability, reflects its contemporary pace through how it manipulates its content, fragmentizing and reducing sentences into fast food bites in the mobile dining experience. In my short story Valley of the Soul, I try to illustrate this contemporary structure and style with a passage such as,

The waves crashed, thump, thump and the paper spun round and round and she tried not to accidentally touch the woman in front or behind her because there were tender rules here, too easily broken. And more people filed silently into the lines until Margaret wanted to scream at the door just to relieve the pressure of every single person watching it intently, and her flowers, weeds and worn fences - fell.

This short story is informed by the concepts of realism that developed and were made popular by American writers of the 1830s and beyond in that it attempts to "record life as it was lived rather than life as it ought to be lived or had been lived in times past." And is "nothing less than the truthful treatment of material." (7). The story departs from "the preoccupation with physical surfaces" (7). and favors a more Whartonian style by displaying "more interest in the psychological and moral reality of the drama of human consciousness than she is in the scenery that furnishes the stage on which the drama is enacted." (8). With a stronger psychological and interior focus the story is further contemporized by utilizing existential, humanistic and modern abstract techniques such as through the marriage of linear plot with metaphoric material, "She pushed open the door and swung her legs out over the edge of the seat, once again dangling above reality...collecting all the valley's bits of beauty into her worn spiritual bowl. It was just a single step down, she told herself. Another petal fell." (Romesburg 3). This type of marriage can also be viewed as a miniature rupture to the traditional physical structure of fiction writing when I penetrate the linear plot. This type of fragmentary approach may represent a future echo of works beyond the next literary threshold whose shape and form we have yet to witness.

Since humans respond to and are part of Vernon Vinge's Singularity Effect it becomes difficult, if not impossible for contemporary writers' work not to be influenced and transformed by the rapid changes which are manifesting in all aspects of human life. As Gerald Hawkins notes in his book Mindsteps to the Cosmos, each of these 'mindstep' leaps "takes the collective mind closer to reality, one stage further along in its understanding of the relation of humans to the cosmos." Hawkins' empirical 'mindstep equation' gives the date of the next event at 2021, which, when speculatively applied to literature and fiction suggests the possibility of the next great literary leap may occur within the next decade. I suspect that means we are all fast paddling out there getting ready to catch the wave.

Work Cited

Baym, Nina. Gen. Ed. "Forms Of Realism." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 6th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 1979.

Hawkins, Gerald. Mindsteps Of The Cosmos. New York: Harpercollins, Inc. 1983.

James, Henry and Nina Baym, Gen. Ed. "The Art Of Fiction." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 6th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 1979.

Kurzweil, Raymond. "Law of Accelerating Returns." KurzweilAI.net. 2001.
     <http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1>.

Vinge, Vernon. "What is The Singularity". Whole Earth Review. 1993.
     <http://mindstalk.net/vinge/vinge-sing.html>.

Henry James
1843-1916

I enjoyed writing this essay and I attribute this to the quality of the material I had to work with. It is my feeling that the richer the work, the greater the opportunity to explore and discover on the part of the reader. Henry James is rich, even if his prose style puts off so many as ponderous or heavy, it encourages thought. I think this is one of the things I find attractive in works.

I like the idea of the fractal wherein no matter where upon the fractal you place your awareness, the whole of everything or the entire fractal is there with you. It is rather a bit like the center of the universe is everywhere and you cannot lose it or be lost to it.

This is a fractal (image is linked)

Earth System Science Education defines fractals this way: A self-similar structure whose geometrical and topographical features are recapitulated in miniature on finer and finer scales.

And here is a photo of Ray Kurzweil's book:

The effort is worth it.

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