Here we can discuss The Last Question by Isaac Asimov.
Talk about whatever thoughts or reactions you have to the piece.
If you're drawing a blank, comment on the following prompt:
What do you make of religious symbolism or mythos in science fiction? How does it interplay thematically with the genre as a whole, or in this piece? It's certainly come up in sci-fi many times, and in previous material we've covered.
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Dyson has other things on his mind.According to his autobiography In Memory Yet Green, Asimov coined the name in imitation of UNIVAC, an early mainframe computer. Asimov had assumed the name "Univac" denoted a computer with a single vacuum tube (it actually is an acronym for "Universal Automatic Computer"), and on the basis that a computer with many such tubes would be more powerful, called his fictional computer "Multivac". His later short story "The Last Question", however, expands the AC suffix to be "analog computer".
One of my favorite parts about this story is how each section in time is defined by Man's curiosity. In the beginning, constructing a massive, super-impressive machine in order to ask it questions and work on things we can't. Continuing to make the machine better and better so we can ask harder and harder questions and do ever increasingly complicated tasks. All so that we can satisfy our irreparable desire to know what is unknowable. I think this trait of humanity is what keeps science fiction in our hearts generation after generation. The fact that even though a portrayal of the future from something created over fifty years ago looks so different from a portrayal of the future created in the present time; it retains this same sense of curiosity about what is to come, what kind of tasks will need to be accomplished. One could probably argue that for a lot of stories/genres, I suppose. To me though, the curiosity of science fiction will always be my favorite aspect of it.
I get it mixed up with Sturgeon's "The Nail and the Oracle." I dunno. Clarke told this story as "any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic." It gets bonus points for being the first real singularity tale but it's always struck me as painfully unimaginative. Fun fact, though: if you ask Siri "Is Entropy Reversible" this is the answer you get.
I thought it was a lazy ending to a rather interesting piece. It reads like a fairy tale. Also, I pictured the computer as a jellyfish-like AI. AC could also stand for Alternating Current. I do give Asimov credit for making sci-fi more accessible with the type of timeless fiction he utilizes. He lets the words breathe in between each sentence.