{"id":7313,"date":"2021-04-08T15:32:29","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T13:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/?p=7313"},"modified":"2021-05-05T12:50:35","modified_gmt":"2021-05-05T10:50:35","slug":"lems-prophezeiungen-die-sich-bewahrheitet-haben","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/2021\/04\/08\/lems-prophezeiungen-die-sich-bewahrheitet-haben\/","title":{"rendered":"Lems Prophezeiungen, die sich bewahrheitet haben"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

2021 ist das Jahr von Stanis\u0142aw Lem – einem der bedeutendsten polnischen Schriftsteller des Science-Fiction-Genres, der vor 100 Jahren geboren wurde.<\/span><\/p>\n

Im Jahr 1976 wurde Lem als der meistgelesene Science-Fiction-Autor der Welt bezeichnet. Seine B\u00fccher wurden in 41 Sprachen \u00fcbersetzt. Doch nicht jeder wei\u00df, dass Lem auch Philosoph war und…. Futurologe, der unsere Zukunft vorausgesehen hat! Heute pr\u00e4sentieren wir Ihnen einen Artikel \u00fcber seine Prophezeiungen. In englischer Sprache.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

E-books and tablets, smartphones, Google and even \u2018The Matrix\u2019 were all conceived in the mid-20th century by the author of \u2018Solaris\u2019. Here\u2019s how Stanis\u0142aw Lem predicted the future we live in.<\/span><\/p>\n

Optons, lectons, trions<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0phantomatons…<\/i>\u00a0You might not know these words, but you use most of these things in your everyday life. The classic Polish sci-fi author\u00a0Stanis\u0142aw Lem<\/span><\/a>\u00a0conceived of many of them long before they became part of our everyday lives.\u00a0He was even the inspiration behind a cult cartoon series and one of the world\u2019s most popular video games.<\/span><\/p>\n

E-books and tablets<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Stanis\u0142aw Lem was probably the first sci-fi writer to accurately predict the end of paper books and the arrival of electronic formats and e-book readers. He did so in his 1961 novel\u00a0A Return from the Stars<\/b>, some 40 years ahead of any first attempts with e-paper. Lem imagined e-books as little memory crystals which could be loaded onto a device, eerily reminiscent of contemporary tablets. He called it an \u2018opton\u2019, but most of us today call it a Kindle.<\/span><\/p>\n

„I spent the afternoon in a bookstore. There were no books in it. None had been printed for nearly half a century. And how I have looked forward to them, after the micro films that made up the library of the Prometheus! No such luck. No longer was it possible to browse among shelves, to weigh volumes in hand, to feel their heft, the promise of ponderous reading. The bookstore resembled, instead, an electronic laboratory. The books were crystals with recorded contents. They could be read with the aid of an opton, which was similar to a book but had only one page between the covers. At a touch, successive pages of the text appeared on it”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Audiobooks<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the same book, Lem also predicted the popularity of audiobooks, which he had called \u2018lectons\u2019:<\/span><\/p>\n

„But optons were little used, the sales-robot told me. The public preferred lectons \u2013 like lectons read out loud, they could be set to any voice, tempo and modulation”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trans. MG<\/span><\/p>\n

The sale-robots are still ahead of our time, but we\u2019re getting there\u00a0\u2013<\/i>\u00a0you can already adjust the tempo of audiobooks and podcasts.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Internet<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the early 1950s, Lem was already reflecting on the possibility of connecting powerful computers in order to enhance their computing capacity. In his\u00a0Dialogues<\/b>\u00a0from 1957, he considered it a realistic direction of development that the gradual accumulation of \u2018informatic machines\u2019 and \u2018banks of memories\u2019 would lead to establishing \u2018state, continental and, later, planetary computer nets\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lem, who died in 2006, lived to see many of his predictions come true, including the Internet. And it surprised him. His famous, though apocryphal reaction to his first encounter with the new medium was said to be:<\/span><\/p>\n

„Until I used the Internet, I didn\u2019t know there were so many idiots in the world”.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trans. MG<\/span><\/p>\n

Google<\/b><\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

At around the same time, Lem envisaged a future where people have an instant and universal access to a giant virtual database, which he called a \u2018Trion Library\u2019. Trions themselves were tiny crystals of quartz, \u2018whose particle structure can be permanently changed\u2019. Trions operate like modern pen-drives, but connected by radio waves, forming a giant library of knowledge. This is how he described it in his\u00a0The Magellanic Cloud<\/b>\u00a0from 1955:<\/span><\/p>\n

„Trion can store not only luminescent images, reduced to a change in their crystal structure, that is images of book pages, but all kinds of photographs, maps, images, graphs and tables \u2013 in other words, anything that can be observed by sight. Just as easily, Trion can store sounds, the human voice as well as music, there is also a way to record scents”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trans. MG<\/span><\/p>\n

Lem\u2019s description is quite accurate, only that what he describes, we call the Internet or simply Google today. We\u2019re still patiently waiting for the possibility of storing smells, though!<\/span><\/p>\n

Smartphones<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In that same book, Lem describes what looks like an early version of a smartphone\u00a0\u2013<\/i>\u00a0little portable TV sets which give instant access to the data from the Trion Library. Once again, this excerpt from\u00a0The Magellanic Cloud<\/b>\u00a0sounds like a report from our times:<\/span><\/p>\n

„We use it today without even thinking about the efficiency and might of this great, invisible net which enlaces the globe. Whether it be in one\u2019s Australian studio, or in a lunar observatory, or on board an airplane \u2013 how many times has every one of us reached for our pocket receiver and called upon Trion Library central, naming the desired work which, within a second, appeared in front of us on the television screen?”<\/span><\/p>\n

Trans. MG<\/span><\/p>\n

The description seems shockingly accurate of our lives now\u00a0\u2013<\/i>\u00a0it even hints at how many airlines now offer in-flight Wi-Fi. It seems important to remember that Lem conceived of these ideas at a time when the average computer was still the size of a giant room. The World Wide Web itself would only start to be thinkable in the late 1960s, materialising only in the 1980s.<\/span><\/p>\n

3D printing<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Magellanic Cloud<\/b>\u00a0also came with an interesting vision of the future of goods production, one that brings to mind 3D printing. Interestingly, Lem presents a logic behind the process which hasn\u2019t aged either.<\/span><\/p>\n

„Trion can include a record of \u2018a production prescription\u2019. Connected to it by radio waves, the automaton produces the object needed. Thus, even the most sophisticated whims of fancy can be satisfied: like those of daydreamers wishing they had ancient furniture or the most extraordinary clothing. After all, it is difficult to send to every part of the world the unimaginable diversity of goods which are only longed for occasionally”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trans. MG<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, 3D printers are today available in some shops, but \u2018the production prescription\u2019 is called an AMF (Additive Manufacturing File).<\/span><\/p>\n

The Sims<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

How about Lem as a game inventor? Will Wright, creator of one of the most successful games of all time,\u00a0The Sims<\/b>, has repeatedly named Lem as the major inspiration behind his game. The book that inspired Wright was Lem\u2019s\u00a0The Cyberiad<\/b>, a collection of adventures about two robot inventors called Trurl and Clapaucius.<\/span><\/p>\n

In one of these stories,\u00a0Trurl\u00a0finds an exiled dictator on an asteroid, and, as a gift, designs him a glass box with a whole living universe inside it, a simulated civilisation to rule over. This kingdom in a box is what reportedly inspired Wright to create a game where every player can create a world of their own.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, Lem wouldn\u2019t be himself if he didn\u2019t delve into the\u00a0the ethical dilemmas of ruling over, or playing with, the lives of little people:<\/span><\/p>\n

„Prove to me here and now, once and for all, that they do not feel, that they do not think, that they do not in any way exist as being conscious of their enclosure between the two abysses of oblivion \u2013 the abyss before birth and the abyss that follows death \u2013 prove this to me, Trurl, and I’ll leave you be! Prove that you only imitated suffering, and did not create it!”<\/span><\/p>\n

Trans. Michael Kandel<\/span><\/p>\n

Futurama<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Lem certainly didn\u2019t predict\u00a0Futurama<\/b>, but he was a key inspiration behind it \u2013 one of the greatest TV cartoon series of the early 21st century (which actually takes place in the 31st century). As David X. Cohen, the show\u2019s creator, explains:<\/span><\/p>\n

„My mom was a voracious science fiction reader, so actually that\u2019s where I got my love of science fiction, and some of the books I found lying around when I was a kid were the Stanislaw Lem books like \u2018The Star Diaries\u2019, \u2018The Tales of Pirx the Pilot\u2019. These are these really strange, surreal, and funny sci-fi short stories that I think did have a big influence on me, especially as far as the idea that robots could be characters. So Bender being kind of the most human character on \u2018Futurama\u2019 I think does owe a little bit to Stanislaw Lem”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Cohen<\/a><\/span>, one story in particular impacted\u00a0Futurama<\/b>:<\/span><\/p>\n

„I particularly remember this one story that had a huge influence on me \u2026 about a planet that was inhabited entirely by robots, and these humans crash-land on it, and the murderous robots are out to kill the humans, and the humans have to pretend to be robots to survive, and of course it turns out ultimately\u2014spoiler alert here\u2014it turns out that everybody on the planet are humans who crash-landed and are disguising themselves as robots, and are hiding out in desperation from each other. So that directly influenced \u2018Futurama\u2019”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Lem’s story Cohen is referring to is almost certainly \u2018The Eleventh Voyage\u2019 from\u00a0Star Diaries<\/b>, and the relevant\u00a0Futurama<\/b>\u00a0episode is \u2018The Fear of a Bot Planet\u2019(episode 5, season 1).<\/span><\/p>\n

Electronic dust…<\/span>\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The Cyberiad<\/b>\u00a0also offers other innovative, if sometimes awkward, ideas. \u2018Smart dust\u2019 is a case in point\u00a0\u2013\u00a0a swarm of tiny drone computers\u00a0no larger than grains of sand, which operate as a massive parallel-processing computer system. The idea of smart dust seems to be quite in sync with the latest achievements of nanotechnology.<\/span><\/p>\n

…and an electronic bard<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Another daring and hilarious idea from Lem\u2019s\u00a0The Cyberiad<\/b>\u00a0is the \u2018electronic bard\u2019\u00a0\u2013\u00a0a computer device capable of writing poetry. It seems like this great invention of Trurl\u2019s has somehow materialised in the experimental poetry-writing algorithms which can be found online. For the real-life electronic bard inspired by Lem, make sure you visit Warsaw\u2019s Copernicus Science Centre, where you can also watch robots do highly entertaining dramatic performances based on Lem and other literary authors.<\/span><\/p>\n

And in case you wanted to try building a robot-poet on your own, we\u2019ve put together Lem\u2019s secret recipe: make sure you \u2018bypass half the logic circuits and make the emotive more electromotive\u2019, and remember to \u2018intensify the semantic fields and attach a strength of character component.\u2019 \u2018Install a philosophical throttle,\u2019 \u2018jack the semanticity up all the way, plug in an alternating rhyme generator,\u2019 toss out all the logic circuits, and replace them with \u2018self-regulating egocentripital narcissistors.\u2019 Simple, really!<\/span><\/p>\n

Virtual reality<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

With virtual reality technologies and devices lurking in every corner and every commercial, VR may seem like the next hot thing. But Stanis\u0142aw Lem wrote convincingly about VR (his own term was \u2018phantomatics\u2019) back in 1964, long before many Western futurists associated with the term conceived of the idea.\u00a0In his\u00a0Summa Technologiae<\/b>, Lem describes a machine which he calls a \u2018phantomaton\u2019, capable of creating alternative realities which would be indistinguishable from the \u2018original\u2019 reality.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, Lem saw this technology as working on multiple layers, meaning that a person leaving one virtual reality wouldn\u2019t necessarily return to the \u2018real\u2019 one. Rather, one could switch between different alternative simulations, without ever being sure if this is the \u2018original\u2019 reality, or the real world. This obviously would lead to the blurring of the the line between truth and fiction, and Lem obviously saw this as a potential threat:<\/span><\/p>\n

„An accretion of illusory realities like this can lead to a situation where real life can also be treated as a manufactured illusion”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trans. MG<\/span><\/p>\n

The Matrix, or the great simulation<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In his analysis of \u2018phantomatics\u2019, Lem is eerily close to the concept of the perfect simulation, as we know it from movies like\u00a0The Matrix<\/b>, or more recently\u00a0Westworld<\/b>. (Curiously, one of the examples he gives is about a virtual trip into the Rocky Mountains which goes wrong and ends in an earthquake like the tumbling of houses\u00a0\u2013\u00a0the result of the user taking off the electrodes.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Lem\u2019s own dystopian vision of a great simulation appeared in his 1971 novel\u00a0The Futurological Congress<\/b>. It\u2019s connected with his concept of \u2018cerebromatics\u2019, namely influencing the brain directly through chemical substances. In 2013, the novel was adapted for film by Ari Folman.<\/span><\/p>\n

Post-truth<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Lem\u2019s interest in the philosophical aspect of the rapid development of technology led him to interesting insights into the nature of the contemporary circulation of information. From today\u2019s point of view, some of it may seem to have anticipated many contemporary media phenomena associated with the concept of post-truth or post-factual politics. In his 1968 novel\u00a0His Master\u2019s Voice<\/b>, Lem wrote:<\/span><\/p>\n

„Freedom of expression sometimes presents a greater threat to an idea because forbidden thoughts may circulate in secret, but what can be done when an important fact is lost in a flood of impostors\u2026?”<\/span><\/p>\n

Trans. MG<\/span><\/p>\n

As Ezra Glinter from the\u00a0LA Review of Books<\/span><\/a>\u00a0comments:<\/span><\/p>\n

„Facebook and the deluge of fake news sites didn\u2019t exist when Lem wrote this, but their creation wouldn\u2019t have surprised him”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Transhumanism…<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If Lem could have predicted a post-truth world, then how about transhumanism? Obviously, Lem didn\u2019t use this word, but he was close to the idea in his 1955 short story\u00a0\u2018Do You Exist, Mr Jones?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

In the story, which was adapted into a radio show and later a film by\u00a0Andrzej Wajda<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(entitled\u00a0Przek\u0142adaniec<\/b>, which was translated into English as\u00a0Roly-Poly<\/b>\u00a0or\u00a0Layer Cake<\/b>), Lem reflected on the then purely hypothetical problem of the legal status of a man who, following a series of operations which implanted computer parts into his body, has almost all the original parts of his body supplanted by artificial technology (brain included). The man is then sued by the company that financed the operations, which believes he is their property.<\/span><\/p>\n

The story addressed issues which only now are becoming pertinent in regard to human beings, robots, etc., and it was a pioneering exploration of problems in the fields of science which have only recently gained names, like transhumanism or…<\/span><\/p>\n

…biotechnology<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Lem was always aware of the dark and potentially threatening sides of technology. As early as the 1960s, Lem believed it was only a matter of time before technology invaded the human body.<\/span><\/p>\n

In \u2018The Twenty-First Voyage\u2019 from\u00a0The Star Diaries<\/b>, Lem\u2019s protagonist Ijon Tichy lands on a planet called Dichotica, whose inhabitants are so advanced that they can make and remake their bodies however they like. As\u00a0Ezra Glinter<\/span><\/a>\u00a0explains:<\/span><\/p>\n

„At first such technology is used for predictable ends \u2013 \u2018ideals in health, congruity, spiritual and physical beauty\u2019 \u2013 but is soon turned to things like \u2018epidermal jewelry\u2019 for women, \u2018side and back beards, cockscomb crests, jaws with double bites, etc.\u2019 for men. After a while the Dichoticans abandon humanoid form entirely, leading to attempts at reform and standardisation, followed by repression, rebellion, and social breakdown. Unlimited choice, the story argues, can become the greatest burden”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some time later, at the end of the 20th century, commenting on the possibilities and threats of cloning human organisms (which he saw as the beginning of the new era of slavery), Lem reminisced on his stories:<\/span><\/p>\n

„My playful stories written 40 years [that is 60 years ago now] about the cerebral cortex being used as wallpaper decor, are only beginning to take on the shape of a horrifying reality”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trans. MG<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether horrifying or not, our future is certainly leaving us in awe\u00a0\u2013\u00a0in particular of the genius of Stanis\u0142aw Lem’s predictive abilities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source: Culture.pl <\/i>https:\/\/culture.pl\/en\/article\/13-things-lem-predicted-about-the-future-we-live-in<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2021 ist das Jahr von Stanis\u0142aw Lem – einem der bedeutendsten polnischen Schriftsteller des Science-Fiction-Genres, der vor 100 Jahren geboren wurde. Im Jahr 1976 wurde Lem als der meistgelesene Science-Fiction-Autor der Welt bezeichnet. Seine B\u00fccher wurden in 41 Sprachen \u00fcbersetzt. Doch nicht jeder wei\u00df, dass Lem auch Philosoph war und…. Futurologe, der unsere Zukunft vorausgesehen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":7300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aktuelles","category-andere"],"yoast_head":"\nLems Prophezeiungen, die sich bewahrheitet haben - Instytut Polski w Wiedniu<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/2021\/04\/08\/lems-prophezeiungen-die-sich-bewahrheitet-haben\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"pl_PL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lems Prophezeiungen, die sich bewahrheitet haben - Instytut Polski w Wiedniu\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"2021 ist das Jahr von Stanis\u0142aw Lem – einem der bedeutendsten polnischen Schriftsteller des Science-Fiction-Genres, der vor 100 Jahren geboren wurde. Im Jahr 1976 wurde Lem als der meistgelesene Science-Fiction-Autor der Welt bezeichnet. Seine B\u00fccher wurden in 41 Sprachen \u00fcbersetzt. Doch nicht jeder wei\u00df, dass Lem auch Philosoph war und…. 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Seine B\u00fccher wurden in 41 Sprachen \u00fcbersetzt. Doch nicht jeder wei\u00df, dass Lem auch Philosoph war und.... Futurologe, der unsere Zukunft vorausgesehen hat! Heute pr\u00e4sentieren wir Ihnen einen Artikel \u00fcber seine Prophezeiungen. In englischer Sprache.\u00a0\\nE-books and tablets, smartphones, Google and even \u2018The Matrix\u2019 were all conceived in the mid-20th century by the author of \u2018Solaris\u2019. Here\u2019s how Stanis\u0142aw Lem predicted the future we live in.\\nOptons, lectons, trions\u00a0and\u00a0phantomatons...\u00a0You might not know these words, but you use most of these things in your everyday life. The classic Polish sci-fi author\u00a0Stanis\u0142aw Lem\u00a0conceived of many of them long before they became part of our everyday lives.\u00a0He was even the inspiration behind a cult cartoon series and one of the world\u2019s most popular video games.\\nE-books and tablets\\nStanis\u0142aw Lem was probably the first sci-fi writer to accurately predict the end of paper books and the arrival of electronic formats and e-book readers. He did so in his 1961 novel\u00a0A Return from the Stars, some 40 years ahead of any first attempts with e-paper. Lem imagined e-books as little memory crystals which could be loaded onto a device, eerily reminiscent of contemporary tablets. He called it an \u2018opton\u2019, but most of us today call it a Kindle.\\n\\\"I spent the afternoon in a bookstore. There were no books in it. None had been printed for nearly half a century. And how I have looked forward to them, after the micro films that made up the library of the Prometheus! No such luck. No longer was it possible to browse among shelves, to weigh volumes in hand, to feel their heft, the promise of ponderous reading. The bookstore resembled, instead, an electronic laboratory. The books were crystals with recorded contents. They could be read with the aid of an opton, which was similar to a book but had only one page between the covers. At a touch, successive pages of the text appeared on it\\\".\u00a0\\nAudiobooks\\nIn the same book, Lem also predicted the popularity of audiobooks, which he had called \u2018lectons\u2019:\\n\\\"But optons were little used, the sales-robot told me. The public preferred lectons \u2013 like lectons read out loud, they could be set to any voice, tempo and modulation\\\".\u00a0\\nTrans. MG\\nThe sale-robots are still ahead of our time, but we\u2019re getting there\u00a0\u2013\u00a0you can already adjust the tempo of audiobooks and podcasts.\\nThe Internet\\nIn the early 1950s, Lem was already reflecting on the possibility of connecting powerful computers in order to enhance their computing capacity. In his\u00a0Dialogues\u00a0from 1957, he considered it a realistic direction of development that the gradual accumulation of \u2018informatic machines\u2019 and \u2018banks of memories\u2019 would lead to establishing \u2018state, continental and, later, planetary computer nets\u2019.\\nLem, who died in 2006, lived to see many of his predictions come true, including the Internet. And it surprised him. His famous, though apocryphal reaction to his first encounter with the new medium was said to be:\\n\\\"Until I used the Internet, I didn\u2019t know there were so many idiots in the world\\\".\\nTrans. MG\\nGoogle\u00a0\\nAt around the same time, Lem envisaged a future where people have an instant and universal access to a giant virtual database, which he called a \u2018Trion Library\u2019. Trions themselves were tiny crystals of quartz, \u2018whose particle structure can be permanently changed\u2019. Trions operate like modern pen-drives, but connected by radio waves, forming a giant library of knowledge. This is how he described it in his\u00a0The Magellanic Cloud\u00a0from 1955:\\n\\\"Trion can store not only luminescent images, reduced to a change in their crystal structure, that is images of book pages, but all kinds of photographs, maps, images, graphs and tables \u2013 in other words, anything that can be observed by sight. Just as easily, Trion can store sounds, the human voice as well as music, there is also a way to record scents\\\".\u00a0\\nTrans. MG\\nLem\u2019s description is quite accurate, only that what he describes, we call the Internet or simply Google today. We\u2019re still patiently waiting for the possibility of storing smells, though!\\nSmartphones\\nIn that same book, Lem describes what looks like an early version of a smartphone\u00a0\u2013\u00a0little portable TV sets which give instant access to the data from the Trion Library. Once again, this excerpt from\u00a0The Magellanic Cloud\u00a0sounds like a report from our times:\\n\\\"We use it today without even thinking about the efficiency and might of this great, invisible net which enlaces the globe. Whether it be in one\u2019s Australian studio, or in a lunar observatory, or on board an airplane \u2013 how many times has every one of us reached for our pocket receiver and called upon Trion Library central, naming the desired work which, within a second, appeared in front of us on the television screen?\\\"\\nTrans. MG\\nThe description seems shockingly accurate of our lives now\u00a0\u2013\u00a0it even hints at how many airlines now offer in-flight Wi-Fi. It seems important to remember that Lem conceived of these ideas at a time when the average computer was still the size of a giant room. The World Wide Web itself would only start to be thinkable in the late 1960s, materialising only in the 1980s.\\n3D printing\\nThe Magellanic Cloud\u00a0also came with an interesting vision of the future of goods production, one that brings to mind 3D printing. Interestingly, Lem presents a logic behind the process which hasn\u2019t aged either.\\n\\\"Trion can include a record of \u2018a production prescription\u2019. Connected to it by radio waves, the automaton produces the object needed. Thus, even the most sophisticated whims of fancy can be satisfied: like those of daydreamers wishing they had ancient furniture or the most extraordinary clothing. After all, it is difficult to send to every part of the world the unimaginable diversity of goods which are only longed for occasionally\\\".\u00a0\\nTrans. MG\\nWell, 3D printers are today available in some shops, but \u2018the production prescription\u2019 is called an AMF (Additive Manufacturing File).\\nThe Sims\\nHow about Lem as a game inventor? Will Wright, creator of one of the most successful games of all time,\u00a0The Sims, has repeatedly named Lem as the major inspiration behind his game. The book that inspired Wright was Lem\u2019s\u00a0The Cyberiad, a collection of adventures about two robot inventors called Trurl and Clapaucius.\\nIn one of these stories,\u00a0Trurl\u00a0finds an exiled dictator on an asteroid, and, as a gift, designs him a glass box with a whole living universe inside it, a simulated civilisation to rule over. This kingdom in a box is what reportedly inspired Wright to create a game where every player can create a world of their own.\\nOf course, Lem wouldn\u2019t be himself if he didn\u2019t delve into the\u00a0the ethical dilemmas of ruling over, or playing with, the lives of little people:\\n\\\"Prove to me here and now, once and for all, that they do not feel, that they do not think, that they do not in any way exist as being conscious of their enclosure between the two abysses of oblivion \u2013 the abyss before birth and the abyss that follows death \u2013 prove this to me, Trurl, and I'll leave you be! Prove that you only imitated suffering, and did not create it!\\\"\\nTrans. Michael Kandel\\nFuturama\\nLem certainly didn\u2019t predict\u00a0Futurama, but he was a key inspiration behind it \u2013 one of the greatest TV cartoon series of the early 21st century (which actually takes place in the 31st century). As David X. Cohen, the show\u2019s creator, explains:\\n\\\"My mom was a voracious science fiction reader, so actually that\u2019s where I got my love of science fiction, and some of the books I found lying around when I was a kid were the Stanislaw Lem books like \u2018The Star Diaries\u2019, \u2018The Tales of Pirx the Pilot\u2019. These are these really strange, surreal, and funny sci-fi short stories that I think did have a big influence on me, especially as far as the idea that robots could be characters. So Bender being kind of the most human character on \u2018Futurama\u2019 I think does owe a little bit to Stanislaw Lem\\\".\u00a0\\nAccording to Cohen, one story in particular impacted\u00a0Futurama:\\n\\\"I particularly remember this one story that had a huge influence on me \u2026 about a planet that was inhabited entirely by robots, and these humans crash-land on it, and the murderous robots are out to kill the humans, and the humans have to pretend to be robots to survive, and of course it turns out ultimately\u2014spoiler alert here\u2014it turns out that everybody on the planet are humans who crash-landed and are disguising themselves as robots, and are hiding out in desperation from each other. So that directly influenced \u2018Futurama\u2019\\\".\u00a0\\nThe Lem's story Cohen is referring to is almost certainly \u2018The Eleventh Voyage\u2019 from\u00a0Star Diaries, and the relevant\u00a0Futurama\u00a0episode is \u2018The Fear of a Bot Planet\u2019(episode 5, season 1).\\nElectronic dust...\u00a0\\nThe Cyberiad\u00a0also offers other innovative, if sometimes awkward, ideas. \u2018Smart dust\u2019 is a case in point\u00a0\u2013\u00a0a swarm of tiny drone computers\u00a0no larger than grains of sand, which operate as a massive parallel-processing computer system. The idea of smart dust seems to be quite in sync with the latest achievements of nanotechnology.\\n...and an electronic bard\\nAnother daring and hilarious idea from Lem\u2019s\u00a0The Cyberiad\u00a0is the \u2018electronic bard\u2019\u00a0\u2013\u00a0a computer device capable of writing poetry. It seems like this great invention of Trurl\u2019s has somehow materialised in the experimental poetry-writing algorithms which can be found online. For the real-life electronic bard inspired by Lem, make sure you visit Warsaw\u2019s Copernicus Science Centre, where you can also watch robots do highly entertaining dramatic performances based on Lem and other literary authors.\\nAnd in case you wanted to try building a robot-poet on your own, we\u2019ve put together Lem\u2019s secret recipe: make sure you \u2018bypass half the logic circuits and make the emotive more electromotive\u2019, and remember to \u2018intensify the semantic fields and attach a strength of character component.\u2019 \u2018Install a philosophical throttle,\u2019 \u2018jack the semanticity up all the way, plug in an alternating rhyme generator,\u2019 toss out all the logic circuits, and replace them with \u2018self-regulating egocentripital narcissistors.\u2019 Simple, really!\\nVirtual reality\\nWith virtual reality technologies and devices lurking in every corner and every commercial, VR may seem like the next hot thing. But Stanis\u0142aw Lem wrote convincingly about VR (his own term was \u2018phantomatics\u2019) back in 1964, long before many Western futurists associated with the term conceived of the idea.\u00a0In his\u00a0Summa Technologiae, Lem describes a machine which he calls a \u2018phantomaton\u2019, capable of creating alternative realities which would be indistinguishable from the \u2018original\u2019 reality.\\nMoreover, Lem saw this technology as working on multiple layers, meaning that a person leaving one virtual reality wouldn\u2019t necessarily return to the \u2018real\u2019 one. Rather, one could switch between different alternative simulations, without ever being sure if this is the \u2018original\u2019 reality, or the real world. This obviously would lead to the blurring of the the line between truth and fiction, and Lem obviously saw this as a potential threat:\\n\\\"An accretion of illusory realities like this can lead to a situation where real life can also be treated as a manufactured illusion\\\".\u00a0\\nTrans. MG\\nThe Matrix, or the great simulation\\nIn his analysis of \u2018phantomatics\u2019, Lem is eerily close to the concept of the perfect simulation, as we know it from movies like\u00a0The Matrix, or more recently\u00a0Westworld. (Curiously, one of the examples he gives is about a virtual trip into the Rocky Mountains which goes wrong and ends in an earthquake like the tumbling of houses\u00a0\u2013\u00a0the result of the user taking off the electrodes.)\\nLem\u2019s own dystopian vision of a great simulation appeared in his 1971 novel\u00a0The Futurological Congress. It\u2019s connected with his concept of \u2018cerebromatics\u2019, namely influencing the brain directly through chemical substances. In 2013, the novel was adapted for film by Ari Folman.\\nPost-truth\\nLem\u2019s interest in the philosophical aspect of the rapid development of technology led him to interesting insights into the nature of the contemporary circulation of information. From today\u2019s point of view, some of it may seem to have anticipated many contemporary media phenomena associated with the concept of post-truth or post-factual politics. In his 1968 novel\u00a0His Master\u2019s Voice, Lem wrote:\\n\\\"Freedom of expression sometimes presents a greater threat to an idea because forbidden thoughts may circulate in secret, but what can be done when an important fact is lost in a flood of impostors\u2026?\\\"\\nTrans. MG\\nAs Ezra Glinter from the\u00a0LA Review of Books\u00a0comments:\\n\\\"Facebook and the deluge of fake news sites didn\u2019t exist when Lem wrote this, but their creation wouldn\u2019t have surprised him\\\".\u00a0\\nTranshumanism...\\nIf Lem could have predicted a post-truth world, then how about transhumanism? Obviously, Lem didn\u2019t use this word, but he was close to the idea in his 1955 short story\u00a0\u2018Do You Exist, Mr Jones?\u2019\\nIn the story, which was adapted into a radio show and later a film by\u00a0Andrzej Wajda\u00a0(entitled\u00a0Przek\u0142adaniec, which was translated into English as\u00a0Roly-Poly\u00a0or\u00a0Layer Cake), Lem reflected on the then purely hypothetical problem of the legal status of a man who, following a series of operations which implanted computer parts into his body, has almost all the original parts of his body supplanted by artificial technology (brain included). The man is then sued by the company that financed the operations, which believes he is their property.\\nThe story addressed issues which only now are becoming pertinent in regard to human beings, robots, etc., and it was a pioneering exploration of problems in the fields of science which have only recently gained names, like transhumanism or...\\n...biotechnology\\nLem was always aware of the dark and potentially threatening sides of technology. As early as the 1960s, Lem believed it was only a matter of time before technology invaded the human body.\\nIn \u2018The Twenty-First Voyage\u2019 from\u00a0The Star Diaries, Lem\u2019s protagonist Ijon Tichy lands on a planet called Dichotica, whose inhabitants are so advanced that they can make and remake their bodies however they like. As\u00a0Ezra Glinter\u00a0explains:\\n\\\"At first such technology is used for predictable ends \u2013 \u2018ideals in health, congruity, spiritual and physical beauty\u2019 \u2013 but is soon turned to things like \u2018epidermal jewelry\u2019 for women, \u2018side and back beards, cockscomb crests, jaws with double bites, etc.\u2019 for men. After a while the Dichoticans abandon humanoid form entirely, leading to attempts at reform and standardisation, followed by repression, rebellion, and social breakdown. Unlimited choice, the story argues, can become the greatest burden\\\".\u00a0\\nSome time later, at the end of the 20th century, commenting on the possibilities and threats of cloning human organisms (which he saw as the beginning of the new era of slavery), Lem reminisced on his stories:\\n\\\"My playful stories written 40 years [that is 60 years ago now] about the cerebral cortex being used as wallpaper decor, are only beginning to take on the shape of a horrifying reality\\\".\u00a0\\nTrans. MG\\nWhether horrifying or not, our future is certainly leaving us in awe\u00a0\u2013\u00a0in particular of the genius of Stanis\u0142aw Lem's predictive abilities.\\nSource: Culture.pl https:\/\/culture.pl\/en\/article\/13-things-lem-predicted-about-the-future-we-live-in\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/2021\/04\/08\/lems-prophezeiungen-die-sich-bewahrheitet-haben\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/IMG-2581.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/IMG-2581.jpg\",\"width\":1000,\"height\":711,\"caption\":\"Stanis\u0142aw Lem w domu w Krakowie, 1975, fot. 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Im Jahr 1976 wurde Lem als der meistgelesene Science-Fiction-Autor der Welt bezeichnet. Seine B\u00fccher wurden in 41 Sprachen \u00fcbersetzt. Doch nicht jeder wei\u00df, dass Lem auch Philosoph war und…. Futurologe, der unsere Zukunft vorausgesehen […]","og_url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/2021\/04\/08\/lems-prophezeiungen-die-sich-bewahrheitet-haben\/","og_site_name":"Instytut Polski w Wiedniu","article_published_time":"2021-04-08T13:32:29+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-05-05T10:50:35+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1000,"height":711,"url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/IMG-2581.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"sienkiewiczj","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Napisane przez":"sienkiewiczj","Szacowany czas czytania":"13 minut"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"event","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/2021\/04\/08\/lems-prophezeiungen-die-sich-bewahrheitet-haben\/","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/2021\/04\/08\/lems-prophezeiungen-die-sich-bewahrheitet-haben\/","name":"Lems Prophezeiungen, die sich bewahrheitet haben","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/2021\/04\/08\/lems-prophezeiungen-die-sich-bewahrheitet-haben\/#primaryimage"},"image":["https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/IMG-2581.jpg","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/IMG-2581-300x213.jpg","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/IMG-2581.jpg","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/IMG-2581.jpg"],"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/IMG-2581.jpg","datePublished":"2021-04-08T13:32:29+02:00","dateModified":"2021-05-05T10:50:35+02:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/#\/schema\/person\/c467341e03d74ebd7e73a7f5b6f0f563"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/2021\/04\/08\/lems-prophezeiungen-die-sich-bewahrheitet-haben\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"pl-PL","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/2021\/04\/08\/lems-prophezeiungen-die-sich-bewahrheitet-haben\/"]}],"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","startDate":"2021-04-08","endDate":"2021-04-08","eventStatus":"EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"OfflineEventAttendanceMode","location":{"@type":"place","name":"","address":"","geo":{"@type":"GeoCoordinates","latitude":"","longitude":""}},"description":"2021 ist das Jahr von Stanis\u0142aw Lem - einem der bedeutendsten polnischen Schriftsteller des Science-Fiction-Genres, der vor 100 Jahren geboren wurde.\nIm Jahr 1976 wurde Lem als der meistgelesene Science-Fiction-Autor der Welt bezeichnet. Seine B\u00fccher wurden in 41 Sprachen \u00fcbersetzt. Doch nicht jeder wei\u00df, dass Lem auch Philosoph war und.... Futurologe, der unsere Zukunft vorausgesehen hat! Heute pr\u00e4sentieren wir Ihnen einen Artikel \u00fcber seine Prophezeiungen. In englischer Sprache.\u00a0\nE-books and tablets, smartphones, Google and even \u2018The Matrix\u2019 were all conceived in the mid-20th century by the author of \u2018Solaris\u2019. Here\u2019s how Stanis\u0142aw Lem predicted the future we live in.\nOptons, lectons, trions\u00a0and\u00a0phantomatons...\u00a0You might not know these words, but you use most of these things in your everyday life. The classic Polish sci-fi author\u00a0Stanis\u0142aw Lem\u00a0conceived of many of them long before they became part of our everyday lives.\u00a0He was even the inspiration behind a cult cartoon series and one of the world\u2019s most popular video games.\nE-books and tablets\nStanis\u0142aw Lem was probably the first sci-fi writer to accurately predict the end of paper books and the arrival of electronic formats and e-book readers. He did so in his 1961 novel\u00a0A Return from the Stars, some 40 years ahead of any first attempts with e-paper. Lem imagined e-books as little memory crystals which could be loaded onto a device, eerily reminiscent of contemporary tablets. He called it an \u2018opton\u2019, but most of us today call it a Kindle.\n\"I spent the afternoon in a bookstore. There were no books in it. None had been printed for nearly half a century. And how I have looked forward to them, after the micro films that made up the library of the Prometheus! No such luck. No longer was it possible to browse among shelves, to weigh volumes in hand, to feel their heft, the promise of ponderous reading. The bookstore resembled, instead, an electronic laboratory. The books were crystals with recorded contents. They could be read with the aid of an opton, which was similar to a book but had only one page between the covers. At a touch, successive pages of the text appeared on it\".\u00a0\nAudiobooks\nIn the same book, Lem also predicted the popularity of audiobooks, which he had called \u2018lectons\u2019:\n\"But optons were little used, the sales-robot told me. The public preferred lectons \u2013 like lectons read out loud, they could be set to any voice, tempo and modulation\".\u00a0\nTrans. MG\nThe sale-robots are still ahead of our time, but we\u2019re getting there\u00a0\u2013\u00a0you can already adjust the tempo of audiobooks and podcasts.\nThe Internet\nIn the early 1950s, Lem was already reflecting on the possibility of connecting powerful computers in order to enhance their computing capacity. In his\u00a0Dialogues\u00a0from 1957, he considered it a realistic direction of development that the gradual accumulation of \u2018informatic machines\u2019 and \u2018banks of memories\u2019 would lead to establishing \u2018state, continental and, later, planetary computer nets\u2019.\nLem, who died in 2006, lived to see many of his predictions come true, including the Internet. And it surprised him. His famous, though apocryphal reaction to his first encounter with the new medium was said to be:\n\"Until I used the Internet, I didn\u2019t know there were so many idiots in the world\".\nTrans. MG\nGoogle\u00a0\nAt around the same time, Lem envisaged a future where people have an instant and universal access to a giant virtual database, which he called a \u2018Trion Library\u2019. Trions themselves were tiny crystals of quartz, \u2018whose particle structure can be permanently changed\u2019. Trions operate like modern pen-drives, but connected by radio waves, forming a giant library of knowledge. This is how he described it in his\u00a0The Magellanic Cloud\u00a0from 1955:\n\"Trion can store not only luminescent images, reduced to a change in their crystal structure, that is images of book pages, but all kinds of photographs, maps, images, graphs and tables \u2013 in other words, anything that can be observed by sight. Just as easily, Trion can store sounds, the human voice as well as music, there is also a way to record scents\".\u00a0\nTrans. MG\nLem\u2019s description is quite accurate, only that what he describes, we call the Internet or simply Google today. We\u2019re still patiently waiting for the possibility of storing smells, though!\nSmartphones\nIn that same book, Lem describes what looks like an early version of a smartphone\u00a0\u2013\u00a0little portable TV sets which give instant access to the data from the Trion Library. Once again, this excerpt from\u00a0The Magellanic Cloud\u00a0sounds like a report from our times:\n\"We use it today without even thinking about the efficiency and might of this great, invisible net which enlaces the globe. Whether it be in one\u2019s Australian studio, or in a lunar observatory, or on board an airplane \u2013 how many times has every one of us reached for our pocket receiver and called upon Trion Library central, naming the desired work which, within a second, appeared in front of us on the television screen?\"\nTrans. MG\nThe description seems shockingly accurate of our lives now\u00a0\u2013\u00a0it even hints at how many airlines now offer in-flight Wi-Fi. It seems important to remember that Lem conceived of these ideas at a time when the average computer was still the size of a giant room. The World Wide Web itself would only start to be thinkable in the late 1960s, materialising only in the 1980s.\n3D printing\nThe Magellanic Cloud\u00a0also came with an interesting vision of the future of goods production, one that brings to mind 3D printing. Interestingly, Lem presents a logic behind the process which hasn\u2019t aged either.\n\"Trion can include a record of \u2018a production prescription\u2019. Connected to it by radio waves, the automaton produces the object needed. Thus, even the most sophisticated whims of fancy can be satisfied: like those of daydreamers wishing they had ancient furniture or the most extraordinary clothing. After all, it is difficult to send to every part of the world the unimaginable diversity of goods which are only longed for occasionally\".\u00a0\nTrans. MG\nWell, 3D printers are today available in some shops, but \u2018the production prescription\u2019 is called an AMF (Additive Manufacturing File).\nThe Sims\nHow about Lem as a game inventor? Will Wright, creator of one of the most successful games of all time,\u00a0The Sims, has repeatedly named Lem as the major inspiration behind his game. The book that inspired Wright was Lem\u2019s\u00a0The Cyberiad, a collection of adventures about two robot inventors called Trurl and Clapaucius.\nIn one of these stories,\u00a0Trurl\u00a0finds an exiled dictator on an asteroid, and, as a gift, designs him a glass box with a whole living universe inside it, a simulated civilisation to rule over. This kingdom in a box is what reportedly inspired Wright to create a game where every player can create a world of their own.\nOf course, Lem wouldn\u2019t be himself if he didn\u2019t delve into the\u00a0the ethical dilemmas of ruling over, or playing with, the lives of little people:\n\"Prove to me here and now, once and for all, that they do not feel, that they do not think, that they do not in any way exist as being conscious of their enclosure between the two abysses of oblivion \u2013 the abyss before birth and the abyss that follows death \u2013 prove this to me, Trurl, and I'll leave you be! Prove that you only imitated suffering, and did not create it!\"\nTrans. Michael Kandel\nFuturama\nLem certainly didn\u2019t predict\u00a0Futurama, but he was a key inspiration behind it \u2013 one of the greatest TV cartoon series of the early 21st century (which actually takes place in the 31st century). As David X. Cohen, the show\u2019s creator, explains:\n\"My mom was a voracious science fiction reader, so actually that\u2019s where I got my love of science fiction, and some of the books I found lying around when I was a kid were the Stanislaw Lem books like \u2018The Star Diaries\u2019, \u2018The Tales of Pirx the Pilot\u2019. These are these really strange, surreal, and funny sci-fi short stories that I think did have a big influence on me, especially as far as the idea that robots could be characters. So Bender being kind of the most human character on \u2018Futurama\u2019 I think does owe a little bit to Stanislaw Lem\".\u00a0\nAccording to Cohen, one story in particular impacted\u00a0Futurama:\n\"I particularly remember this one story that had a huge influence on me \u2026 about a planet that was inhabited entirely by robots, and these humans crash-land on it, and the murderous robots are out to kill the humans, and the humans have to pretend to be robots to survive, and of course it turns out ultimately\u2014spoiler alert here\u2014it turns out that everybody on the planet are humans who crash-landed and are disguising themselves as robots, and are hiding out in desperation from each other. So that directly influenced \u2018Futurama\u2019\".\u00a0\nThe Lem's story Cohen is referring to is almost certainly \u2018The Eleventh Voyage\u2019 from\u00a0Star Diaries, and the relevant\u00a0Futurama\u00a0episode is \u2018The Fear of a Bot Planet\u2019(episode 5, season 1).\nElectronic dust...\u00a0\nThe Cyberiad\u00a0also offers other innovative, if sometimes awkward, ideas. \u2018Smart dust\u2019 is a case in point\u00a0\u2013\u00a0a swarm of tiny drone computers\u00a0no larger than grains of sand, which operate as a massive parallel-processing computer system. The idea of smart dust seems to be quite in sync with the latest achievements of nanotechnology.\n...and an electronic bard\nAnother daring and hilarious idea from Lem\u2019s\u00a0The Cyberiad\u00a0is the \u2018electronic bard\u2019\u00a0\u2013\u00a0a computer device capable of writing poetry. It seems like this great invention of Trurl\u2019s has somehow materialised in the experimental poetry-writing algorithms which can be found online. For the real-life electronic bard inspired by Lem, make sure you visit Warsaw\u2019s Copernicus Science Centre, where you can also watch robots do highly entertaining dramatic performances based on Lem and other literary authors.\nAnd in case you wanted to try building a robot-poet on your own, we\u2019ve put together Lem\u2019s secret recipe: make sure you \u2018bypass half the logic circuits and make the emotive more electromotive\u2019, and remember to \u2018intensify the semantic fields and attach a strength of character component.\u2019 \u2018Install a philosophical throttle,\u2019 \u2018jack the semanticity up all the way, plug in an alternating rhyme generator,\u2019 toss out all the logic circuits, and replace them with \u2018self-regulating egocentripital narcissistors.\u2019 Simple, really!\nVirtual reality\nWith virtual reality technologies and devices lurking in every corner and every commercial, VR may seem like the next hot thing. But Stanis\u0142aw Lem wrote convincingly about VR (his own term was \u2018phantomatics\u2019) back in 1964, long before many Western futurists associated with the term conceived of the idea.\u00a0In his\u00a0Summa Technologiae, Lem describes a machine which he calls a \u2018phantomaton\u2019, capable of creating alternative realities which would be indistinguishable from the \u2018original\u2019 reality.\nMoreover, Lem saw this technology as working on multiple layers, meaning that a person leaving one virtual reality wouldn\u2019t necessarily return to the \u2018real\u2019 one. Rather, one could switch between different alternative simulations, without ever being sure if this is the \u2018original\u2019 reality, or the real world. This obviously would lead to the blurring of the the line between truth and fiction, and Lem obviously saw this as a potential threat:\n\"An accretion of illusory realities like this can lead to a situation where real life can also be treated as a manufactured illusion\".\u00a0\nTrans. MG\nThe Matrix, or the great simulation\nIn his analysis of \u2018phantomatics\u2019, Lem is eerily close to the concept of the perfect simulation, as we know it from movies like\u00a0The Matrix, or more recently\u00a0Westworld. (Curiously, one of the examples he gives is about a virtual trip into the Rocky Mountains which goes wrong and ends in an earthquake like the tumbling of houses\u00a0\u2013\u00a0the result of the user taking off the electrodes.)\nLem\u2019s own dystopian vision of a great simulation appeared in his 1971 novel\u00a0The Futurological Congress. It\u2019s connected with his concept of \u2018cerebromatics\u2019, namely influencing the brain directly through chemical substances. In 2013, the novel was adapted for film by Ari Folman.\nPost-truth\nLem\u2019s interest in the philosophical aspect of the rapid development of technology led him to interesting insights into the nature of the contemporary circulation of information. From today\u2019s point of view, some of it may seem to have anticipated many contemporary media phenomena associated with the concept of post-truth or post-factual politics. In his 1968 novel\u00a0His Master\u2019s Voice, Lem wrote:\n\"Freedom of expression sometimes presents a greater threat to an idea because forbidden thoughts may circulate in secret, but what can be done when an important fact is lost in a flood of impostors\u2026?\"\nTrans. MG\nAs Ezra Glinter from the\u00a0LA Review of Books\u00a0comments:\n\"Facebook and the deluge of fake news sites didn\u2019t exist when Lem wrote this, but their creation wouldn\u2019t have surprised him\".\u00a0\nTranshumanism...\nIf Lem could have predicted a post-truth world, then how about transhumanism? Obviously, Lem didn\u2019t use this word, but he was close to the idea in his 1955 short story\u00a0\u2018Do You Exist, Mr Jones?\u2019\nIn the story, which was adapted into a radio show and later a film by\u00a0Andrzej Wajda\u00a0(entitled\u00a0Przek\u0142adaniec, which was translated into English as\u00a0Roly-Poly\u00a0or\u00a0Layer Cake), Lem reflected on the then purely hypothetical problem of the legal status of a man who, following a series of operations which implanted computer parts into his body, has almost all the original parts of his body supplanted by artificial technology (brain included). The man is then sued by the company that financed the operations, which believes he is their property.\nThe story addressed issues which only now are becoming pertinent in regard to human beings, robots, etc., and it was a pioneering exploration of problems in the fields of science which have only recently gained names, like transhumanism or...\n...biotechnology\nLem was always aware of the dark and potentially threatening sides of technology. As early as the 1960s, Lem believed it was only a matter of time before technology invaded the human body.\nIn \u2018The Twenty-First Voyage\u2019 from\u00a0The Star Diaries, Lem\u2019s protagonist Ijon Tichy lands on a planet called Dichotica, whose inhabitants are so advanced that they can make and remake their bodies however they like. As\u00a0Ezra Glinter\u00a0explains:\n\"At first such technology is used for predictable ends \u2013 \u2018ideals in health, congruity, spiritual and physical beauty\u2019 \u2013 but is soon turned to things like \u2018epidermal jewelry\u2019 for women, \u2018side and back beards, cockscomb crests, jaws with double bites, etc.\u2019 for men. After a while the Dichoticans abandon humanoid form entirely, leading to attempts at reform and standardisation, followed by repression, rebellion, and social breakdown. Unlimited choice, the story argues, can become the greatest burden\".\u00a0\nSome time later, at the end of the 20th century, commenting on the possibilities and threats of cloning human organisms (which he saw as the beginning of the new era of slavery), Lem reminisced on his stories:\n\"My playful stories written 40 years [that is 60 years ago now] about the cerebral cortex being used as wallpaper decor, are only beginning to take on the shape of a horrifying reality\".\u00a0\nTrans. MG\nWhether horrifying or not, our future is certainly leaving us in awe\u00a0\u2013\u00a0in particular of the genius of Stanis\u0142aw Lem's predictive abilities.\nSource: Culture.pl https:\/\/culture.pl\/en\/article\/13-things-lem-predicted-about-the-future-we-live-in"},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"pl-PL","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/2021\/04\/08\/lems-prophezeiungen-die-sich-bewahrheitet-haben\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/IMG-2581.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/wien\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/04\/IMG-2581.jpg","width":1000,"height":711,"caption":"Stanis\u0142aw Lem w domu w Krakowie, 1975, fot. 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