Transparent Minds in Science Fiction: An Introduction to Accounts of Alien, AI and Post-Human Consciousness

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Paul Matthews’ Transparent Minds in Science Fiction, as its title aptly suggests,delves into nonhuman consciousness representation in science fiction (sf), addressing its potential to explore what cognitive science shows us about consciousness through models of cognition particular to subjectivities which vastly differ from that of humans.

In a clear nod to Dorrit Cohn’s narratological work on fictional consciousness representation, Transparent Minds (1978), Matthews cleverly engages with previous literature pertaining to the area of research known as cognitive literary studies. While there are discrepancies regarding the official name for the field, as there is no unification among scholars, cognitive literary studies seems to be the broadest term which encompasses the research done by Matthews and the authors he mentions, i.e., that of the integration of cognitive science with literary disciplines, Matthews also engages other fields of expertise such as neuroscience and cognitive science,. to illustrate a fully-fledged and interdisciplinary image of what constitutes a consciousness, both in our empirical reality and in its fictional counterpart. In doing so, this monograph attempts to fill a research gap in a field which has predominantly limited itself to analysing non-speculative literature of the Anglocentric and Eurocentric canon. Thus, Matthews takes on the task of compiling examples of depictions of nonhuman consciousness spanning more than a hundred years of sf literary production. From foundational texts by Shelley, Lem, and McCaffrey to the more recent and likewise acclaimed additions of Jemisin, Ishiguro, and Leckie, to name but a few, Matthews thoroughly illustrates how extremely unfamiliar modes of perceiving and experiencing the world have been conceptualised.

From the beginning, Matthews endeavours to defend the potential of literature as a whole, and sf in particular, as a tool to engage in a rich imaginative exercise: firstly, as a means through which to conceive scientifically accurate and innovative cognitive models which subvert preestablished anthropocentric sf tropes regarding the nonhuman; and, secondly, through the formation and interpretation of metaphorical networks and systems of meaning brought about by our own cognitive system when interacting with fiction. As a result, Matthews emphasises the collaborative nature of meaning-creation, claiming that it consists of “author intention, reader understanding and mediation through the norms of the genre” (105). Hence, while stressing the role of authorial intent, this monograph deeply resonates with Reception Theory principles, as stated by Iser’s phenomenological account, whereby a literary work is created through the reader’s participation of filling in “gaps” or “blanks” in the text (6).

Chapter 2 is devoted to authors’ motivations for choosing nonhuman characters as the focus of their fiction, as well as the specific symbology and narrative techniques used to guarantee an adequate text-reader interaction, i.e., to avoid alienating the reader, such as merging alienness with animal iconography. Here, Matthews seems to greatly value authors’ scientific knowledge in fields such as neuroscience and biology, as he deems the plausibility of the nonhuman to be vital to merge the familiar and unfamiliar, particularly in the cases of potential future sentience, such as human-made A.I. and extended or enhanced consciousness.

In chapter 3, Matthews thoroughly explains the process of consciousness emergence, that is, the starting point of sentience, as posited by several neuroscientific, biological, philosophical, and psychological approaches. In perhaps the most theoretical chapter of the monograph, Matthews conscientiously takes the reader through an exhaustive yet accessible explanation of the different hypotheses delineating the so-called ‘awakening’ of sentience, from the development of senses and perception of oneself as different from the rest, to the identification of a goal and, with it, the motivation to accomplish it and obtain agency.

He then moves on to provide literary examples of non-human sentience which depict (parts of) these processes, dividing the next three chapters according to specific consciousness features: the individual mind, including terrestrial and alien non-human sentience, human-made A.I. and the extended human; the collective hive and distributed minds; and, lastly, the posthuman. In these chapters, Matthews presents a wide array of case studies to illustrate how the umwelt of a consciousness is shaped by sensory, cognitive, and emotional-motivational aspects of the self’s embodiment, and how there is an interplay of familiar and unfamiliar narrative elements to balance the psychological distance between reader and character. Matthews also pays close attention to the power dynamics involved in self-definition when the consciousness is collective, seen mostly as unequal manipulation or, sometimes, as an egalitarian gestalt relationship.

In his explanation of posthuman consciousness, however, one finds a slight inconsistency, as the definition of extended humans and the enhanced posthumans, in chapters 4 and 6 respectively, seem to overlap, making their classification as separate contradictory. One of the greatest achievements of the text is arguably the non-anthropocentric undertone of the research which aligns itself with posthumanist sensibilities. This can be seen in Matthews’ understanding of both experience and the act of reading as embodied and embedded, his conception of the possible and valid nonhuman umwelt(s), and the absence of anthropocentric and imperialist interpretations of nonhumans mainly found before ‘new wave’ sf, in favour of what he, perhaps rather vaguely, names “fine examples” of other-than-human consciousness representation (11). Therefore, the definition of enhanced posthumans only as transcended consciousness seems at odds with Matthews’ knowledge of posthumanism, as it indicates an inclination towards the ‘posthuman’ definition endorsed by transhumanists, that of a further step in humanity’s evolutionary history. This is even implied by the title of chapter 6, “Supercedure,”—the act of replacing the old and inferior with the new and superior, in other words, embracing transcendence, whereas critical posthumanism holds that posthuman consciousness can exist without transcendence.

Although the monograph does, in earnest, accomplish its goal, providing an extensive account of non-human consciousness representation in sf, certain in-depth linguistic and literary analyses seem to be lacking, which would have added to its mostly descriptive and expository nature. Additionally, the phenomenological approaches mentioned before could have benefitted from Caracciolo’s concept of “consciousness-enactment,” which shares Matthews’ reader-response tenets but to a different, non-materialist degree, understanding fictional consciousness not as an object to be represented, but rather experienced and enacted by the reader when engaging with literature (43).

Transparent Minds in Science Fiction delivers a highly accessible introduction to non-human sentience in the genre, with particular interest for literary scholars willing to embark on an interdisciplinary study of fictional consciousness and seeking a succinct overview of empirical studies on human and animal consciousness. Similarly, the opposite is likewise valid, as scholars in cognitive science may find the exposition of nonhuman characters here useful for a literary application of their research. All in all, I’d conclude that its case study of the unfamiliar nonhuman provides valuable insight into how our cognitive system works, particularly when engaging in acts of imagination.

WORKS CITED

Caracciolo, Marco. “Fictional Consciousnesses: A Reader’s Manual.” Style, vol. 46, no. 1, 2012, pp. 42-65. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/style.46.1.42.

Ane B. Ruiz-Lejarcegui is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature and Literary Studies from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain, and a member of the research group REWEST: Research in Western American Literature and Culture. In 2022, she was awarded a competitive grant by the Basque Government to carry out her thesis on hybrid identity-construction and power asymmetries in contemporary American space opera. Her research interests also include critical posthumanism, cognitive narratology, critical discourse analysis and, as the focus of her previous research, H.G. Wells and Victorian science fiction.