Translated material
Unpublished Lem
March 27 marks the year since the death of the great Polish writer Stanislav Lem. The New Times publishes the full text of his exclusive unpublished interview, one of the last. It was given in Russian, and we tried to preserve the style of speech of Stanislav Lem.
The material is provided by the Culture TV channel
About religion and life
- After death -
Religion is just the hope that something will happen to us after death. I personally adhere to the same worldview that I had in the sixteenth year of my life. It has not changed due to social changes. I have been dying several times. I was almost dead to the cardiological clinic, pulled out of this state, and I returned to consciousness. And then I realized that I was nowhere for three hours. Nowhere! And it was very pleasant for me that I was not. I know for sure: after death, there is nothing with a person. He begins as a small child, then becomes an adult, ages, dies and simply ceases to exist. This is very nice, in my opinion. I do not understand why you have to be afraid of death. A person thinks that he will die and see his dead relatives somewhere in the sky. How does he recognize them? They have no faces, nor the body, no eye, no ears, nor bones - nothing. Only the soul. How can you find out the soul? I don't understand.
There is mathematics, physics, geology, and there are many religions. Buddhism, Islam, I am not even able to calculate all Christian religions ... And everyone says: "God is with me."
About literature,
- Science and brain leak -
Young people come to me or send me their poems. But I always say: "Do not write, but scared from literature!" Because, engaged in literature, and especially poetry, it is impossible to live. There is no profit. I don’t know if there is a poet in Russia who can live financially from what he will print?
Science fiction is still conditional literature. They say that literature is a beautiful lie. For example, I really love poetry. But when I read “I love a thunderstorm in early May,” I don’t think Tyutchev thought so. This is lyrics, poetry. Also, science fiction exists in order to somehow influence human consciousness, so that it is pleasant. For example, it is not always nice to read Dostoevsky, but very interesting. 99% of science fiction is a story about what was not and never will be. These are fairy tales. Therefore, in Soviet times, there was a large order for science fiction.
Tales to write and read very interesting, but to worry everything that was once fabulous is no longer so interesting. Because it became reality, and reality is always not as interesting as a fairy tale.
It’s very unpleasant for me to say this, but now I don’t read anything, there are no interesting books. I receive from Moscow private “New World”, “Banner”, “Nature”. “Nature” in Soviet times had 80 thousand circulation, and now I am afraid that there is not even 10 thousand. But at the same time, the quality of Russian science remains at the same level. My son ten years ago graduated from Princeton University in the USA and tells me: there are more and more Russian speech. Because the best scientific forces move to the West. This is not good. Our Poland is even worse. Aquamarily who can. Russia lost a huge amount after the revolution. Yes, and Comrade Stalin, a great specialist in linguistics, also did what he could. It’s good that we are all mortal. If some were immortal, our world would have looked completely different. Very bad, I would say.
About new technologies,
- artificial intelligence -
And the origin of the world
In the field of new technologies - a huge development. Every year is a new refrigerator, new cars, new, new Ce. But people remain the same as they were 100 thousand years ago, 150 thousand years ago.
The most interesting thing is going on in cosmology now, because no one knows what happened at the beginning of the universe. Or there was nothing? Hawking 1 thinks that there was no, Penrose 2 thinks what happened. This can be compared with science fiction, because no one knows how it was really. It is very pleasant to read about it. But this, of course, has nothing to do with the truth.
They ask me: do you believe in an artificial mind? I say: even suspenders can be called intellectual, because they can be adapted to the body. Well, then, the susceptive suspenders? I don't think. I do not believe that there will be a program for computers that can make them reasonable. But this does not mean that this will never happen. There will probably be, but not in 10-15 years, but after 100 years. And what will happen in 100 years, no one knows. It can be said exactly what will happen in 2.5 billion years: the sun will swell, become a red giant, all the oceans of the earth will evaporate, and a small coal will remain from the earth. And humanity will no longer be. This was foreseen by physicists, astrophysicists, cosmologists. But what will happen in a year, in two, no one knows. The peculiarity of our existence is that we do not understand the future.
About politics, demography
- And space tourism -
The world is very unstable now, and there is no balance. North Korea, China ... I'm afraid of Islam, I'm afraid. They somehow suddenly woke up, after this attack on the United States. Osama bin Laden is unknown whether he lives or not. Even if he is dead, nothing will change. This has its own driving force. There is nothing to be done, but I'm afraid.
If I did not have a son, granddaughter, it would be somehow easier for me to leave this world. And so I'm just afraid for the whole world that some unexpected will come not like the earth, but political shaking. I read that we are demographically weakened. Scientists write that there will never be an opportunity for 40 million people in Poland. Once in the Soviet Union there were 288 million people, and now half. Demographic forecasts are very bad.
They say that soon we will all fly into space. One millionth dollars - and you are already in the cosmic expanse! Sorry, but I don’t need any space. On Mars there are water and bacteria - well, good. But I don’t really have to be there on Mars. Emptiness, no air. Unpleasant. It would be better for us if we lived on earth peacefully, but I do not know how to do it. It is not interesting on Mars, it is unpleasant on the moon, it is very cold at the North Pole, it is very hot in the sugar. It’s enough for me that I am sitting here and will sit a little more, and then I will disappear.
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1, 2 Stephen William Hawking, an English theoretical physicist, was elected a member of the London Royal Society in 1974. In 1988, he received the Wolf Foundation Award for the research of black holes (together with Roger Penrose). Roger Penrose is an outstanding scientist of modernity, actively working in various areas of mathematics, the general theory of relativity and quantum theory. Hawking and Penrose wrote a book in the form of a discussion that has passed between them on some of the most fundamental issues related to the nature of the Universe.