Abstract
This chapter briefly covers the issue of Liu’s understanding of modern literature and his criticism of its being too anthropocentric and therefore not able to capture grand ethical questions at the scale of the human species. In classifying Liu’s worldview as one that conforms with scientism, a persistent ideological current in modern Chinese intellectual history, we begin an exegesis of scenes from the first volume of the trilogy, The Three-Body Problem, in which the discovery of Trisolaris is gradually elaborated. I discuss how Liu’s systematic approach to construing moral propositions from foundational physical schematics is displayed throughout the development of the narrative, particularly in the virtual reality scenes of San Ti, which ends with the proposal of a predictive theory of interstellar society.
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- 1.
Kun Kun, “But Some of Us Are Looking at the Stars: Profiles of Chinese Science Fiction Writers by Kun Kun.” ChinaFile. 4 June 2012. http://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/culture/some-us-are-looking-stars. Accessed March 2016.
- 2.
Ibid.
- 3.
Immanuel Kant, Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason and other works on the Theory of Ethics, translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1889), 260.
- 4.
Liu Wenke, “Liu Cixin de xingkong yu dadi” (Liu Cixin’s Heaven and Earth). China Digital Times. 23 May 2011. https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/2011/05/%E5%88%98%E6%85%88%E6%AC%A3%E7%9A%84%E6%98%9F%E7%A9%BA%E4%B8%8E%E5%A4%A7%E5%9C%B0/. Accessed August 2018.
- 5.
敬畏头顶的星空, 但对心中的道德不以为然 (jingwei touding de xingkong, dan dui xinzhong de daode buyiweiran)
- 6.
Liu Cixin, Liu Cixin tan kehuan (Liu Cixin on Science Fiction) (Wuhan: Hubei Science & Technology Press, 2013), 42.
- 7.
Liu, “Beyond Narcissism,” 27.
- 8.
Hua Shiping, Scientism and humanism: two cultures in post-Mao China, (1978–1989) (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 15.
- 9.
Thomas Nagel, The view from nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 9–10.
- 10.
C.P. Snow, The Two Cultures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 4.
- 11.
Erwin Schrödinger, What is life? The physical aspect of the living cell & mind and matter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 128.
- 12.
Raymond Tallis, Aping Mankind (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), 15.
- 13.
Friedrich A. von. Hayek, The counter-revolution of science: studies on the abuse of reason (Glencoe: Free Press, 1952), 43.
- 14.
Ibid., 15.
- 15.
Ibid., 16.
- 16.
D. W. Y. Kwok, Scientism in Chinese thought, 1900-1950 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), 184.
- 17.
Ibid., 191.
- 18.
Ibid.
- 19.
Ibid., 200.
- 20.
Hua Shiping, Scientism and humanism, 155.
- 21.
Ibid., 145.
- 22.
Ibid., 148.
- 23.
Ibid., 143.
- 24.
Wang Hui, “On Scientism and Social Theory in Modern Chinese Thought” in Voicing Concerns: Contemporary Chinese Critical Inquiry (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001), 148.
- 25.
Liu, Liu Cixin tan kehuan, 34–42.
- 26.
Steven Pinker, “Science Is Not Your Enemy,” The New Republic. 7 August 2013. https://newrepublic.com/article/114127/science-not-enemy-humanities. Accessed July 2016.
- 27.
Liu, “Beyond Narcissism,” 30.
- 28.
Liu, Liu Cixin tan kehuan, 38.
- 29.
Ibid., 41.
- 30.
Ibid., 42.
- 31.
One might make an exception, of course, for Cheng Xin, who was criticized by Chinese readers for her actions as Swordholder in the third volume. See Song Mingwei, “After 1989: The New Wave of Chinese Science Fiction,” China Perspectives, No. 1 (2015): 11.
- 32.
Liu Cixin, The Three-Body Problem, translated by Ken Liu, (London: Head of Zeus, 2016), 74.
- 33.
Ibid., 76.
- 34.
Ibid., 246.
- 35.
Liu, “Beyond Narcissism,” 28.
- 36.
Mozi (c.470–c. 391 BC) lived during the Spring and Autumn period (771–476 BC). The school of thought which extended from his teachings, Mohism 墨家, represents the earliest attempt in China to develop a philosophy based on logic and reason. While “the earliest Mohists were interested in ethics, social life and religion…the later Mohists dealt rather with scientific logic, science and military technology.” See Joseph Needham, “The Mo Chia (Mohists) and the Mind Chia (Logicians),” in Science and Civilisation in China, Vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), 166.
- 37.
Liu, The Three-Body Problem, 151.
- 38.
Ibid., 151–153.
- 39.
Ibid., 194–195.
- 40.
Ibid.
- 41.
Ibid., 141–142.
- 42.
Ibid., 55.
- 43.
Ibid., 76.
- 44.
Ibid., 77.
- 45.
Ibid., 9.
- 46.
Ibid., 13.
- 47.
Liu, Liu Cixin tan kehuan, 42.
- 48.
Ibid., 24.
- 49.
Liu Cixin, The Dark Forest, translated by Joel Martinsen (London: Head of Zeus, 2016), 4–6.
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Peyton, W. (2021). Conspiracy Theories in the Scientistic Scheme. In: Chinese and Western Literary Influence in Liu Cixin’s Three Body Trilogy. Studies in Global Science Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79315-9_2
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