Most Prophetic Sci-Fi Work, Which have come true?

There are people who call themselves Futurists, and are employed by governments and businesses to predict the future. Not in a fortunetelling sort of way, but much the way that science fiction writers have. Looking at the world around them, noting trends of society and technology and extrapolating it into the future.

In a way, it's a circular thing; the writers and visionaries create ideas and inspire engineers, doctors, politicians and people of all professions. They go out and create things and these things in turn inspire the SF writers.

I'd love to have a job as a futurist. I'm not sure I'm a real visionist however. But I did predict back in the mid 1990s that one day your telephone, the internet and your TV would all be the same thing. We're not there yet, but I see it coming.

I fear George Orwell will be the only name in mind, in 10 years time, such is the way things seem to be heading. Id give the edge to Wells at the moment though, perhaps even Huxley, given the biological and eugenics based work that is progressing at the moment.

I wonder if Philip K. Dick ever predicted there would one day be a PKD Android

I think my vote goes to Isaac. I will add that I think that the isolation of the spacers will, or is, easier to see daily. At home on earth instead of out in the stars but still....

Can you name your neighbor? how about 2 houses down? how many (especially me) screen their calls, or peak out the window before answering the door?

Another thought is the community meals. Fewer people eat at home more and more, and even those dinning at home are eating take out. Setting at a restaurant eating with a 100 people I don't know, have never seen, and never will again ... images of Isaac's detective books come to mind.

Originally posted by cavrac
I wonder if Philip K. Dick ever predicted there would one day be a PKD Android

Ah but does he Dream of Electric Sheep?

when they can match a

computer

Human looks and expression

Asimos walking ability

Then we will be able to say that Philip K Dick was prophetic

Originally posted by GRANDWORLDDRAMA

even occult as in "METROPOLIS" notice the Pentagram in the Life giving electrification scene...oh the hidden meanings!

You know I've seen that a million times and it never dawned on me.
Yeah that is odd, Good eye.

As one of the leading experts on science fiction I can answer this question with some authority: Ralph 124C41+ by Hugo Gernsback. This book predicted more inventions that are now common place than any other book ever written.

Originally posted by Jadette
I'm not sure I'm a real visionist however. But I did predict back in the mid 1990s that one day your telephone, the internet and your TV would all be the same thing. We're not there yet, but I see it coming.

I have that ability in my own home right now I have my 42 Samsung hung on the wall and have my newly built pc hooked up with my pc webcam hooked up but...

Outside of gamers who I play with online nobody really wanted a video phone when they were commercialy available a few years back something along the lines of I dont want people to see me if I run from the shower in a towel to answer the phone!

Originally posted by mrmanuva
I fear George Orwell will be the only name in mind, in 10 years time, such is the way things seem to be heading. Id give the edge to Wells at the moment though, perhaps even Huxley, given the biological and eugenics based work that is progressing at the moment.

What about Bionics? Here is another prophetic example of fact following fiction

FICTION

Followed by fact

It works opposite - they place ideas in your mind, so wen it comes you are not disturbed - it it called predictive programming.

Speaking as someone who's attended science fiction conventions regularly ever since 1980, and who has met Asimov and many of the others on your list, you've got it backwards. I've heard (quite literally) hundreds of authors talk about the writing process and how they do the technology.

There's nothing visionary about it. They decide what needs to be done, and then they invent words or devices to do it (they're making the "deux ex machina" as a real but limited device.)

NOW... scientists and engineers are also part of the fan base. We also get robotics folks there (many fans as well as writers are engineers, scientists, and robot makers and sometimes one person is all four things.) Science programming is common, and topics like "great technology from movies" are panel topics.

Sometimes they talk about what would be needed to make these things possible.

So the tech ideas flow from writers (who are simply trying to come up with gadgets to solve a plot device or answer things like "what kind of gun or weapon would you have in the future? What kind of knife?" so that they can write an interesting story.

But nobody has ever said they get this in dreams or by visions or any method other than inserting a placeholder ("He picked up his (device) and pointed it at the grakthank" which later turns into "He picked up the vibrolase and pointed it at the grakthank".)

reply to post by Byrd


I can vouch for that, having written a lot of (non-published) sci-fi.

I think once we actually get into space, a lot of Heinlein's works are going to take on a new prophetic meaning.

reply to post by Byrd


I agree with some of what you have stated.
I have stated something similar to that in the original post
Necessity is the mother of invention
Some of Thomas Edison’s quotes

“The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary.”

“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

What do you think he meant by “ Mental energies”,” Good Imagination”, “ Inspiration’ ?

But the question remains are some of them channeling and don’t realize that they are?

Is it possible that some are channeling what they saw in their
“imagination" then put pen to paper so to speak.

First stage of the genre after such proto-science fiction can be called "the mode of literary prophecy" (Parrinder 24). Poe influenced Verne and Wells, but now we have futuristic settings (e.g., Stardate 2378).

The result is prophetic science fiction, not in the sense of an accurate forecast, but of the story's power to convince us of aspects of the future beyond or behind the ostensible fictional vehicle: it is, in effect, a kind of oracle. (Parrinder 25)

Interesting page on the subject
Dr. Michael Delahoyde
Washington State University

LINKY HERE


[edit on 5-12-2008 by SLAYER69]

Starred & Flagged

I agree with a couple other posters regarding George Orwell. Some of the details in George Orwell's book 1984 have a spooky correlation with what is going on today.

Hi At last some negative emotions free topic
Well being compatriot of Stanislaw Lem I fell obliged to add something ):-)
First of all why is he so low on Your list?! Do You know enough of his books?!
Lem inwented -"Fantomatyka"-now its called Virtual Reality...from logic point of view Fantomatics sounds much much better.And he inwented it long decades before there was any supercomputers... And what about author of "Robot" word-C Czapek?!
Peace and Love
Stanley Kovalsky

reply to post by SLAYER69


No, the writers were not psychic, and I will tell you why.

And I am glad this came up because I was waiting for the right time to share this.

I don't speak with my brother-in-law much because they live in another state. Then last year he was quite excited to see me and to tell you the truth, I couldn't shut him up. He works for a very large engineering type of company that covers many manufacturing project aspects that I am not real sure about, and my brother-in-law is one of their top enviromental site management employees. Usually he talks about disposing of chemicals and how he shows other companies how to neutralize certain chemical agents when mixed with other chemicals.

But this time he had some real news for me, knowing I am into some conspiracy theories and such. They just received a huge defense contract from whom else - Lockheed Martin

So he starts telling me about a top secret aircraft and seemed surprised when I mentioned Aurora. That really got him talking. He was telling me about a camera that his company helped develop that can see through cloud cover and pin point a target from extremely high altitudes. He then went on to tell me that a friend of his who worked on the project for Skunk Works told him about a video that was shown to him. It was live aerial footage and showed to unknown suspects wearing traditional Arab garb standing next to each other with a German Sheppard about 10 to 15 feet away.

He said that is when the video got weird, he said the dog reacted to something and moved farther away from the two men but the men didn't react so only the dog could hear it or sense it. Then a bright round circle of light enveloped the two men, like a bright circular flash and then when the light dimmed out the two men were gone, but the dog was still there and unharmed. The strange thing was that on the ground where the men were, the ground was still glowing in a perfect circular shape.

The next thing he told me sort of shocked me but not a lot as I had already suspected as much. He told me that everything we see in Sci-Fi has already been achieved to some extent, some more than others. He said that if you read or see something technological and then it becomes a reality ten or twenty years later, that writer had direct knowledge of its existence somehow.

He went on to say that most of what we get on the market has been around for years, it is just that they want to use these items for their defense/military properties before we ever get or see them. Then what we get is a toned down, frequency secure, tracked device that is only capable of simple tasks for the public. It is also a marketing campaign. Right now they could give you a device that does everything they keep coming out with, but it is better to give the public a little bit at a time so they will keep coming back for the new advances and technology.

So, just from what I have been told, Arthur C Clark, George Orwell, Gene Roddenberry and others had specific knowledge on technology the DoD was working on. That is why they are so spot on when it comes to these things.

My 2 cents



[edit on 5-12-2008 by arizonascott]

Originally posted by Jadette

I'd love to have a job as a futurist. I'm not sure I'm a real visionist however. But I did predict back in the mid 1990s that one day your telephone, the internet and your TV would all be the same thing. We're not there yet, but I see it coming.

Smart phones fit that bill nicely.

As far as prophetic sci-fi goes, Larry Niven's early Known Space stuff with the debtors prisons is starting to look very possible. Next step would be the death penalty for too many parking tickets so they can harvest your organs

Back to Star Trek: I used to work for a cable company and we used a device called a Tricorder by Trilithic. It slung over the shoulder, the display, knob and buttons were on the top of the unit. Not sure how they got away with naming it that. I've also heard that a supermarket owner, watching Star Trek, decided he wanted doors that opened by themselves. He contacted the studio and they told him they were operated by ropes, so he invented the first automatic doors based on the Enterprise doors. Not sure if thats just urban legend, but I had always heard that was how they came about.

Are you really that stupid, that uneducated?

I would suggest that you read the complete works of Robert Anson Heinlein.

He explains that the best science fiction builds upon EXISTING SCIENCE, and bases concepts on where that writer believes science may go to. ALL of the good sci-fi writers had a good base in SCIENCE.

But, as Mr. Heinlein also pointed out, they had to be good writers, so that their work would sell.

No, they were not having visions. They could see where science had been, and they figured out (sometimes very wrongly), where science would go.

Please, get real or get back on your medications.

Ok well i S+F this )

This is my kinda topic i guess for me to spell bad and use close to no grammer like many of my posts lol... neways


I dont read books per say but i will look at some of the names you listed as i like sc fi ect..

On the subject of if such great minds including my own can think of something its possible.. why? i hear you gasp

The universe is so vast that our thoughts are a result of being here i think.. i mean you can only think of things that relate to "you" ??

so everything is posssible BUT!! and here is the crazy side "will it" ?

its like flipping a 50pence peace and it lands on its side, not heads nore tails... why or how that would happen is beyond me but my enviroment made me think of it so there for it can happen!!

since the dawn of man he has tried to create every thing a minde can think about "vampires aint real" but there real in our minds so that means there real "subject to mind ofc" but everything is real in some way even if its a thought..

I did go on abit but i love this kinda subject coz its forward thinking and kudos to the brains in the books we read who have the english skills "unlike me" to put it down in a book to inspire someone to make there idea work.


like my sig 1+1 = 3 "you need to think of the sum first " +1 call it chaos