1924

the left end of the banner

 Origin of a Tradition. In 2015, I was still struggling to deal with the death of Jack Vance. In a January 2015 blog post called "1915 - 2015", I took note of the fact that Jack Vance had been conceived in 1915. Then in January 2016,  I had a post called "adVance to 2016" and I set myself the goal of devising a new banner for this blog that included an image of Jack Vance (see the image to the right).

 Birthday 100. I've been using that banner since August 2016.  Arthur C. Clarke was born in 1917, so I had a blog post about Clarke in January 2017. Theodore Sturgeon was born in 1918, so in 2018 I commented on some of his science fiction stories. My first blog post of 2019 was about science fiction story teller Boyd Bradfield Upchurch (1919-2013).

Figure 1. Artificial Intelligence

Both Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert were born in 1920. At the start of 2021, I blogged about James Blish. In 2022, my first blog post of the year was about Hal Clement (born in 1922). And in 2023, my first blog post was about the writing of James E. Gunn (1923-2020).

For 2024, I wanted to blog about a famous science fiction story teller who was born in 1924, so I asked ChatGPT to name a science fiction writer who was born 1924. That did not go well (see this chat session). When I asked Bard (see this chat session) the same question, he mentioned Kōbō Abe who I have only mentioned once previously in this blog. An English language translation of Abe's novel Inter Ice Age 4 is available (link) at the Internet Archive and it includes several illustrations that were drawn by Abe's wife (see Figures 1-3).

Figure 2. The aquans.

In Inter Ice Age 4, computer scientists are able to scan human brains (Figure 3) and make copies of human minds that exist as artificial intelligence programs residing within computer hardware. Another technology in Inter Ice Age 4 is artificial intelligence that predicts the future. It is learned that in the near future, Earth's sea level will rise several thousand feet. ☔ No, don't grab an umbrella...

 Not Global Warming. This change in sea level is due to some sort of catastrophic geological even that involves the Pacific Ring of Fire. However, some commentators seem to want to view Inter Ice Age 4 as being relevant to human-induced climate change (example).

Another major Sci Fi plot element in Inter Ice Age 4 is the creation of a human variant that can live in sea water, called the aquans.

Figure 3. Mind Transfer.

 Did Abe try to write a science fiction story? It is not clear exactly when Abe wrote Inter Ice Age 4. Apparently, the story was first published in 1958-1959 in a political magazine. The plot arc of the aquans replacing land-dwelling humans seems very similar to Karel Čapek's story R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots, 1920), which also depicted humans being replaced by a man-made artificial life-form (see Figure 12 in this other blog post). According to Wikipedia, Abe was apparently aware of Čapek's science fiction when he wrote Inter Ice Age 4.

 Seeing the Future. The idea of predicting the future was a prominent part of Isaac Asimov's Foundation Saga (from the 1940s) and his novel The End of Eternity (1955). Asimov imagined a science of Psychohistory that used advanced mathematics to predict future events. Others have compared Inter Ice Age 4 to stories like "Paycheck" by Philip Dick.

Cover blurb for Inter Ice Age 4.

 Not Genetic Engineering. I don't know when aquatic humans first appeared in science fiction. Japan being on the Ring of Fire and frequently subjected to tidal waves made it likely that Abe would include a big flood in the plot and an aquatic human variant being featured in the story. Abe's aquans were crafted in a laboratory from regular human fetuses. The word "genetics" appears only once in the story.

 Hormones. Artificially-produced aquatic mammals (mice, cows, pigs and humans) in Inter Ice Age 4 are made by "metamorphosis": fetuses are taken out of their mothers, linked to an artificial placenta, and over the course of a few weeks exposed to various hormones, transforming them into aquatic creatures with gills. 

Computers 101 by Kōbō Abe.

 Mathematics. As described by Abe, the process for using hormones to transform a terrestrial mammal into an aquatic mammal with gills can be expressed in a "secretional equation".  This use of fictional mathematics conveniently saves Abe from having to explain any actual biology. See the discussion of the magical powers of computers and equations in science fiction here and here.

Figure 4. The world of the brain.

 Reasonable. I'm always intrigued by science fiction story plots that involve mind transfer (for example, see this old blog post and this even older one). Exactly how did Abe depict the creation of a "copy" of a human being's mind as being put into a computer system? 

 Forecasting. The story starts with Professor Katsumi at the Institute for Computer Technique and vague mention of a "memory machine" that he is building. Readers are told that we are now at a point in time three years after the completion of work on the "Moscow I", a "forecasting machine", that predicts the future. 

Figure 5. Robotic implantation of electrodes.

 Catching up. Abe quickly informs his readers that the "Moscow I" computer can "self-program" and does not have to be told what to do by humans. In his mind, Katsumi reviews the past three years of growing successes for the Moscow I forecasting machine, starting with its ability to predict the weather and the course of the economy including stock market prices, months in the future. Since Katsumi was the only computer programmer in Japan, the Japanese government assigned him the task of making a prediction machine like the Moscow I. 

Figure 6. Analysis of a dead brain's reactions.

 Instant AI. Since Professor Katsumi has an assistant, (Tanomogi) we readers should not be surprised that within about a year they are able to build their own prediction machine. Then, there is a slight pause during which data about the world must be fed into the machine, but soon enough Katsumi's machine is also predicting the future. In all fairness, Abe does imply that during this time, with government funding, some additional staff are brought into the project.

Figure 7. Streaming in 2024.

 The Year 2050. About this time, the super-advanced Moscow II forecasting machine predicts that by the year 2050, capitalism will be gone and communism will be triumphant. Here, Abe's interest in communism becomes clear when he jokingly mentions Kosygin. But it is really no joking matter and soon, Professor Katsumi's computer project is under tight government control; the political implications of predicting the future have hit home. The Japanese politicians are apparently particularly horrified by the idea that the forecasting machine might predict who wins the next round of elections.

 Jumping the Shark (see Figure 7). In an attempt to avoid having his own prediction machine get involved in anything political, Professor Katsumi decides to test if the machine can predict the future actions of a single human being. Here, the story becomes even more of a fantasy story than a science fiction novel.

Figure 8. AI-generated video.

Katsumi and Tanomogi go out on the street and randomly select a man (an accountant named Susumu) to be a test subject. Katsumi and Tanomogi follow Susumu around town for a while. However, Mr. Susumu is soon murdered. Fearing that they might be charged with murdering Susumu, the two intrepid computer programmers, Katsumi and Tanomogi, decide that they must solve the mystery of Susumu's death. For Figure 7, I had DALL-E generate an image for this text prompt: "A high resolution science fiction movie still for the film 'Jumping the Shark' which shows aquatic humanoid alien visitors to Earth jumping over sharks in the Pacific Ocean near Tokyo".

Katsumi and Tanomogi continue feeding all available information about the dead man into the forecasting machine. At a hospital, Susumu's dead body is subjected to extensive study using computerized diagnosis equipment (see Figures 4-6 and 9). 

Figure 9. Robotic electrode placement.

Abe assured readers that there is a three day period after death during which the cells in a dead body continue to live. Sadly, I think most people realize that brain cells rapidly die when not supplied with oxygen, but on with the story... The man in charge of examining Susumu's corpse at the hospital is Dr. Yamamoto. Katsumi communicates with Yamamoto by "television" (see Figure 4 and Figure 8).

 Precision robot-assisted surgery. Abe imagined a type of Hi Tek™ medical imaging that could make possible a careful analysis of the electrical signals in Susumu's dead body by means of precisely positioned recording electrodes (see Figure 5). Abe included the idea that a system of robotic "hands" that could implant fine recording electrodes into individual neurons of the brain of the murder victim, Mr. Susumu. 

Brain analysis.

Also, Dr. Yamamoto is kind enough to provide a brain electrical activity pattern data set of a living human being as a reference for comparison to the results obtained from Susumu's dead body. For Figure 9, I had DALL-E generate an image for this text prompt: "high resolution science fiction movie still showing a futuristic robotic surgeon operating on a woman and placing electrodes into her brain".

In Inter Ice Age 4, we are told that since the brain and sensory organs of Susumu's dead body are still functioning, Dr. Yamamoto can record electrical signals from Susumu's nervous system while key words and phrases are presented to Susumu's dead body (Figure 6). Back in 2017 I gave a SIHA award for the film The Discovery. The Hi Tek™ analysis of Susumu's dead brain in Inter Ice Age 4 reminds me of the technique used in The Discovery for hooking a dead person's brain up to a device and "reading out" the dead person's memories.

An aquan by Mr. Wombo. (DALL-E)

 Mind Uploaded. Professor Katsumi questions the "copy" of Susumu's mind that now resides inside a computer, but Susumu does not know who murdered him. Apparently all of Susumu's memories have been magically transferred into the computer. Katsumi can turn a control dial to specify a time in the past and the computer will provide a video showing what Susumu was seeing at that time.

The "uploaded" mind of Susumu explains that there is a secret organization paying women for their embryos. Susumu's girl friend is a recruiter who can apparently earn a commission for each woman she finds who will sell her unborn child.

It's a small world. Almost immediately after Susumu's revelation about the collection of aborted embryos, Katsumi's wife reports that she has sold her own embryo. 

Also see the DALL-E version.

 Information Dumping. Tanomogi tells Katsumi that the brother of Dr. Yamamoto runs a secret research facility where animals like dogs and cows are turned into water-breathing creatures with gills. During the time when these revelations are occurring, Katsumi gets several threatening phone calls from someone speaking in his own voice. Readers are told that the Japanese forecasting computer was designed to speak by using Katsumi's voice as the training template. 

Katsumi is now concerned that his child will be transformed into an aquan. Then the news is that the Moscow II future-predicting computer has predicted that there will be an unusual increase in volcanic activity in the Pacific ocean. 

At this point in the story, Abe casually informs his readers that the temperatures in Japan have been steadily rising along with the sea level.

Volcanic catastrophe by Mr. Wombo.

 Under the Sea. Finally, it is revealed to Katsumi that his assistants, including Tanomogi, are members of a secret group the includes the Yamamoto who runs the secret research facility where animals like dogs are turned into water-breathing creatures with gills. Katsumi was considered to be a dull and unimaginative technician, so he was not included in the secret group. Tanomogi began secretly using the forecasting computer without Katsumi ever being aware of what was going on. The "official" public line of the government was that serious use of the forecasting computer was being delayed due to the politically sensitive nature of forecasting the future. 

See the DALL-E version.

For the past year, Katsumi has been frustrated by a government committee that refuses to give permission for Katsumi to use his forecasting computer to make predictions about the future. But all the while, secret use of the forecasting computer continued without the director of the project (Katsumi) ever noticing.

Inter Ice Age 4 reads like a contorted murder mystery where everyone gathers around at the end to hear the genius detective reveal the solution to the case, but then nothing that the detective says matches up to the preceding pages of the story. As written, the story makes very little sense, and it could only make sense if we were told that Katsumi carefully trained the forecasting computer with a complete "recording" of his own mind pattern. Instead, we are told casually that the computer was equipped with just a recording of his voice. 

image generated by DALL-E

 Switcho-chango. In the story that Abe tells, Inter Ice Age 4 is about how an accountant named Mr. Susumu becomes the first person to have their mind put into the computer, under emergency conditions after Susumu is murdered. Some how, seemingly by divine intervention, the forecasting computer has been turned into a devious copy of Katsumi who, along with Tanomogi, spends a year deceiving Katsumi. Only after Katsumi is tricked into uploading Susumu's mind pattern into the forecasting computer (by Tanomogi) is the computer shown as having the magical ability to anticipate every thought that Katsumi has.

Figure 10. World-wide conspiracy.

Readers are also asked to believe that hundreds of thousands of human embryos are being secretly bought each year from women and turned into aquans. Susumu was going to reveal this secret, so Tanomogi murdered him. Abe explicitly asks readers to believe that all of the potential leaks are all monitored just as carefully.

See the DALL-E version.

And if that grand secret conspiracy is not enough, Abe explains the secret origins of the aquan project. Readers are told that long ago (ten years?) geologists realized that volcanic activity was increasing. Soon, all the volcanic activity would cause the sea level to rise 3,000 feet. Thus, human civilization had to be shifted to the sea and to the aquans. However, that pending geological catastrophe was magically kept secret, not only in Japan but by every government around the world (Figure 10).

 Signifying Nothing. I'm tempted to simply lump Abe into the same category of Sci Fi writers along with Michael Crighton and Stanislaw Lem, people who learned just enough about medicine to be able to create silly science fiction stories featuring fantasy biology.

Next: Part 3 of Time Portal.

Aquan variants by Wombo Dream. Visit the Gallery of Movies, Book and Magazine Covers