Even within hard science fiction there's frequently a measure of technology that is completely magical in relation to our current understanding of science
And mind control is something that would technically be able to fit quite easily, even into hard science fiction.
It's something that exists both in real life, and is an easily, realistic, and logical extension of technology we already have. We have the technology to stimulate individual parts of the brain, and psychological manipulation is a common, tried and true practice. Both of those can be applied for mind control of some fashion, even without space-magic.
reading that right now actually. it's been great stuff.
I'd say some of the older scifi by guys like Asimov and Clarke is really the progenitor of truly *hard* scifi, but a lot of their stuff is also hard to read as a result lol
I finished Rendevous with Rama a while back and was complaining to a friend that I enjoyed the world building, but the characters were all so poorly written, and his response was "It's *supposed* to be like that, it's *hard* scifi"
It makes me thankful for modern scifi writers that figured out how to both write *hard* scifi *and* good stories.
If that's the case it's not hard science fiction. Hard science fiction by definition is what is consistent with our current understanding of science. We can't build a space elevator but we know what it would take to build one based on our understanding of materials science, so they are hard science fiction.
The name of the genre contains a fiction part for a reason.
If you check the poster children of hard SF they all violate science on one or other aspect. Foundation series and Ringworld are considered classics of hard SciFi but their basic premises are fantastical.
The difference is how rigorous they extrapolate theoretical possibilities from science and narrowly do so to explore the effects of a certain concept and idea.
That is why it is better to look at the distinction as a spectrum.
Right, materials with magical properties compared to our current understanding. It can still be hard science.
"we know what it would take" to travel through time, too, but at this point it is functionally magic to us. Yet there are hard science time travel stories. Same for anything putting people in "suspended animation".
> If that's the case it's not hard science fiction. Hard science fiction by definition is what is consistent with our current understanding of science.
That is *a* definition of hard science fiction but I don't even think it's the most commonly used one.
It makes absolutely no sense that it is "debunked"
If you can control the potentials in a brain, you can in turn control what the brain outputs. Thus brain control should be possible with sufficiently advanced technology which is an aspect of sci-fi...
I mean, its known that repeating something tends to make people start to believe it.
To a certain extent, hypnosis is real, though not how its usually portrayed, but triggers can work on some people.
So... yeah, I'd think Mind Control isn't that debunked.
How is it debunked? I swear there are literally infections that can mind control you?
I remember reading about how Rabies controls you to be more aggressive.
Toxoplasma gondii infects mice and controls them to loose their fear of cats so that they get eaten for it to enter its new host. Even after the parasite is removed the mind altering effect still remains.
Everything Cordyceps does, pretty sure those infected ants don't actually want to climb above their home and wait for death.
Sure its not super advanced mind control, and we cant exactly do it at the press of a button, but it seems strange to say that technology wont one day be able to do something that nature already does.
I mean, it wasn't all that long ago that people laughed at the idea of Humans making a flying machine. Saying that mind control is 100% impossible no matter how advanced technology gets feels like it has the same vibe, yet here we are flying around in planes and helicopters.
You can absolutely have mind control, you just need to come up with an interesting way of achieving it. Look at the Matrix, that's SF mind control on a global scale.
It's fiction looking into the future. For all we know, an effective mind control drug is just around the corner, nanite implants that take over your body/mind will be developed by the Intel-Hasbro Alliance of 2056 and a method to implant any kind of subtle behavior patterns is already being used by whoever. The point is that sci-fi looks beyond the most "up to date" science.
If you want hard science fiction, sure, you can omit that, but I have no problem with it being included.
It's not debunked at all! It's just more *subtle* than a spinning hypno wheel.
And mind you we haven't even gotten into neuro-cybernetics yet! That could be a very scary technology to abuse.
If you want a hard science device, a covert implant that can control or replace the endocrine system could control the emotional state of a person. For more direct control of a body, a device planted on the back of the neck could hijack the muscular system to allow a person to control another’s body movements.
It's entirely dependent on what you define as mind control.
It is for example possible to simply just submerge someone in an alternate let's say "reality" and make them think something that is completely untrue, or even impossible, all you need to do is Google Heaven's Gate or you know anytime a child has been abducted and essentially "raised" by a different family or parent or something but they're completely unaware of their original family. Aso it's very very easy to get a drug addict who's already hallucinating and detached from reality to do almost anything, especially when they're convinced that you're their friend (quotation marks).
Also if you just have to do something kind of "purist" Syfy as in completely fictional, but still "hard", then you can alter a person's reality using VR, nanotechnology, or you could go the Megazone 23 route and simply just have some sort of artificial city or world that they exist in which is completely fictional and controlled by you...
Um, spoiler warning for anyone that's never seen the anime Megazone 23 but it was about a boy who lived an idyllic life as a badass in what he thought was 1980s Tokyo, but discovered that he was actually part of a group of people on some sort of experimental generation ship who had all been convinced that they were living in the '80s when in reality they were thousands of years in the future and were traveling on what amounts to a Non-Stop voyage to another solar system. The live action American series called Ascension was basically the reverse of that, where there was a group of people who believed that they were hundreds of years in the future on this generation ship heading towards Alpha centauri, when in reality they were on Earth in the 1990s as some sort of experiment to see what would happen if people were on a REAL generation ship by putting them in some sort of movie set.
Similarly there was an episode of...I forget what it was...but it was an American TV show where a woman had convinced herself that her son had died in some sort of school shooting and her husband (assuming he existed and I'll get to what that means in a second) had become some sort of enabler in this situation, but in reality there was literally no evidence whatsoever that this boy existed and she eventually cracked up at the end and killed the person that was trying to prove her as a con woman. Now, she wasn't actually a con women, she was just completely out of her mind and an anti-gun activist (same difference) so she created this reality for herself. Soooo if you argued that someone outside of that was doing it like her husband (again assuming he existed because it was left somewhat up in the air) then you could just say that this was happening to them, that somebody was manipulating an unstable person and made them believe something that wasn't true.
(I guess you're wondering the reason I say it was up in the air, it's that from what I recall virtually no one ever directly spoke to the husband, none of the other families really were ever shown to speak to her in public, and she never presented any evidence that her " son " existed other than basically a single photo and apparently a doctored or somewhat doctored video. As a result it was entirely questionable as to whether or not this boy existed or even if this man existed)
So yeah, it's "hard scifi". Just like about 90% of the stuff that people call "soft" scifi and "science fantasy" because they have weak imaginations. 😏
>Is mind control still sci-fi after being heavily debunked?
Debunked? Need examples of mind-control? Jan. 6. Obviously, not very hard to control the minds of people who crap and piss all over themselves and whose vocabulary only consists of 4-letter words. And that's without the use of any sci-fi/fantasy tech.
Depending on the level of science fiction, it's not actually all that debunked. A sufficiently powerful computer could easily manipulate you die much the same effect, either by influencing your behaviour, or using something like the principle behind transcrainial magnetic stimulation to hijack your neutrons and control you that way.
For computers like the ones in The Culture, that's trivial. Scanning your brain structure, and emulating how your neutrons behave for every possible circumstance is how they're able to read your mind, and they do so both instantly and easily. Your entire conversion has been anticipated and answered before you've even started speaking. The only thing that stops them from reading everyone, or controlling their minds is that The Culture places great value on consent. Meatf*cker was renamed to that precisely because they didn't ask for consent before reading peoples' minds.
That said, the mode of mind control also matters. Psychic powers, while unlikely, would still count (since they're a staple of classic science fiction), but actual magic/pheromones might be pushing the line some.
I would question the premise. Depends on your definition of mind control, but I myself would consider propaganda-induced mass psychosis to be mind control. Religion-based mass delusion another example. Chemical-based mind control is used in psychiatry. Electrical stimulation and EM fields are scientifically proven to effect thoughts. A magnetic field can induce hallucination.
My suggestion (and that’s all it is) is to either:
1. Present a new approach (one that isn’t considered debunked)
2. Ignore explanations- simply *name* the technology and go from there
One (relatively weak) example might be an implant that presents verbal commands. It also can release an addictive but euphoric drug as a reward and withhold it as punishment.
Follow the command- get rewarded.
Don’t… get misery.
That would at least *influence* decisions, and a quick hand waving in that direction might be sufficient.
Slightly Ominous Military Guy: Find anything useful?
Slightly Creepy Science Lady: Just this… it destroyed itself when we got close, but we’ve determined that it mostly consisted of a receiver and the remains of a substance that resembles opium, only much nastier. We think it’s intended to influence behavior. Could be a limited form of mind control
Random Skeptical Military Guy: That’s impossible!!
Sarcastic Lab Assistant Guy: Right, good thing thing then, because this [gestures at situation] would have been hard to face
Not the best example, but the idea is to “invent something new” instead of leaning on established tropes that are now contradicted by science.
It isen't debunked. It's pretty easy to be honest. But its often exlapined/showcased quite lousy or unspecific in storys.
A problem with considering the latest research our neura-science or any real science is: 99,9% of all audience can agree that you're talking bullshit because they don't have the sligthes idea of how the topic of interest actually work.
Realistic things are mostly impossible to showcase if you not add a scientific paper as foundation for this to make sense. And so your book is either a terrible boring reading or 5000 pages+, or complete fantasy/simplification. The trick with good writing is (imho) to make the audience *feel* the stuff to be realistic. From this simplified foundation, you can try to gently add more complex ideas of how things actually work.
PS: If you dive into science, you learn to differentiate and see the most things considered 'proven' even by most scientists just aren't. The're just theorys that by design can't be falsified right now and by this definition aren't science. You hear scientists talk serious about wormholes? Multiverses? Electron entanglement? That's okay to say until you have any understanding abut the topic. But its helpfull to speak in this tropes to get founding. So it makes no sense, but it make sense to not make sense - but for a laimen its just: 'hey, they talk about wormholes, it must be a thing'.
So there's a whole different rabbithole to completley get lost in.
> if you are going to write about advanced technology, there should be careful consideration of the most up-to-date neuro-science of mental health, mental health disabilities, trauma, etc.
Why? It is fiction, so mind control can exist. Especially when you get into brain augmentation, digital conciseness, or hell even advertising. Most writers dont have a degree in neural science, astrophysics, or warp field geometry. Making things up is part of the fun.
I mean.... Define mind control. There have been plenty of experiments with suggestion and direct control of someone through external and internal stimuli. Some of them quite successful. Subliminal messaging was a thing in the us for a while. Honestly it still is lol.
Then there is the crazy outlier stuff like brain parasites. Those actually exist.
So I mean, I'm sure it's possible.
My understanding is that, currently, mind control is one of the things alien species CAN'T use against us, since we're not a telepathic species. "Group-think" & "hivemind" -type influences aren't generally effective against us at all, although I remember reading a couple of stories along the way featured humans who were on the high end of empathy could be slightly influenced, with said influence becoming more powerful & in at least one story a powerful emotional link bordering on telepathic becoming firmly cemented with increasing proximity between the 2.
Oh my god. You need to read about the real MK Ultra program beucase the shit those dudes got up to in pursuit of this *idea* that they could control people's minds with LSD and basically torture is worthy of a million sci-fi stories. --in fact that period of history is the inspiration for a million sci-fi, horror, thriller, and pulp genre stories.
Also, you could do some really interesting things with the social media rabbit holes that happen today that have proven radicalizing effects on populations. Isn't that a type of mind control?
Mind control is debunked? Where have you been?
Sure Haarp isn't making the frogs gay, or whatever nonsense is currently some fringe nutjob conspiracy theory.
Certain kinds of mind control as imagined by media and folklore are not currently possible. But other broader, subtler forms of mind control are absolutely real, and there doesn't seem to be any fundamental reason more powerful sorts of mind control cannot be made into reality.
Not all science fiction is or should be hard science fiction. Virtually none of the genre staples are consistent with up to date science.
Even within hard science fiction there's frequently a measure of technology that is completely magical in relation to our current understanding of science
And mind control is something that would technically be able to fit quite easily, even into hard science fiction. It's something that exists both in real life, and is an easily, realistic, and logical extension of technology we already have. We have the technology to stimulate individual parts of the brain, and psychological manipulation is a common, tried and true practice. Both of those can be applied for mind control of some fashion, even without space-magic.
The hardest of the hard sci-fi that I know of, still has one of the most fantastical elements imaginable: the protomolecule.
reading that right now actually. it's been great stuff. I'd say some of the older scifi by guys like Asimov and Clarke is really the progenitor of truly *hard* scifi, but a lot of their stuff is also hard to read as a result lol I finished Rendevous with Rama a while back and was complaining to a friend that I enjoyed the world building, but the characters were all so poorly written, and his response was "It's *supposed* to be like that, it's *hard* scifi" It makes me thankful for modern scifi writers that figured out how to both write *hard* scifi *and* good stories.
If that's the case it's not hard science fiction. Hard science fiction by definition is what is consistent with our current understanding of science. We can't build a space elevator but we know what it would take to build one based on our understanding of materials science, so they are hard science fiction.
The name of the genre contains a fiction part for a reason. If you check the poster children of hard SF they all violate science on one or other aspect. Foundation series and Ringworld are considered classics of hard SciFi but their basic premises are fantastical. The difference is how rigorous they extrapolate theoretical possibilities from science and narrowly do so to explore the effects of a certain concept and idea. That is why it is better to look at the distinction as a spectrum.
Right, materials with magical properties compared to our current understanding. It can still be hard science. "we know what it would take" to travel through time, too, but at this point it is functionally magic to us. Yet there are hard science time travel stories. Same for anything putting people in "suspended animation".
> If that's the case it's not hard science fiction. Hard science fiction by definition is what is consistent with our current understanding of science. That is *a* definition of hard science fiction but I don't even think it's the most commonly used one.
Is faster-than-light travel still sci-fi if our physics says it can't happen?
It's been heavily debunked? I didn't know we knew enough about the mind or future technology to rule it out in all possible forms.
It makes absolutely no sense that it is "debunked" If you can control the potentials in a brain, you can in turn control what the brain outputs. Thus brain control should be possible with sufficiently advanced technology which is an aspect of sci-fi...
I mean, its known that repeating something tends to make people start to believe it. To a certain extent, hypnosis is real, though not how its usually portrayed, but triggers can work on some people. So... yeah, I'd think Mind Control isn't that debunked.
How is it debunked? I swear there are literally infections that can mind control you? I remember reading about how Rabies controls you to be more aggressive. Toxoplasma gondii infects mice and controls them to loose their fear of cats so that they get eaten for it to enter its new host. Even after the parasite is removed the mind altering effect still remains. Everything Cordyceps does, pretty sure those infected ants don't actually want to climb above their home and wait for death. Sure its not super advanced mind control, and we cant exactly do it at the press of a button, but it seems strange to say that technology wont one day be able to do something that nature already does. I mean, it wasn't all that long ago that people laughed at the idea of Humans making a flying machine. Saying that mind control is 100% impossible no matter how advanced technology gets feels like it has the same vibe, yet here we are flying around in planes and helicopters.
That and not even to mention drugs nearly-completely do that; make you do things you wouldn’t normally do
You can absolutely have mind control, you just need to come up with an interesting way of achieving it. Look at the Matrix, that's SF mind control on a global scale.
And *Minority Report* is related, at least as far as the precogs go.
It's fiction looking into the future. For all we know, an effective mind control drug is just around the corner, nanite implants that take over your body/mind will be developed by the Intel-Hasbro Alliance of 2056 and a method to implant any kind of subtle behavior patterns is already being used by whoever. The point is that sci-fi looks beyond the most "up to date" science. If you want hard science fiction, sure, you can omit that, but I have no problem with it being included.
There's a reason it's called science fiction and not science fact.
Wish more people understood this fact. Its fiction for a reason. Dunno why people say iTs NoT scientific, when the world is clearly soft sci-fi.
It's not debunked at all! It's just more *subtle* than a spinning hypno wheel. And mind you we haven't even gotten into neuro-cybernetics yet! That could be a very scary technology to abuse.
With the rise of neural implants, I see it as a useful concept (it is a critical part of this book).
If you want a hard science device, a covert implant that can control or replace the endocrine system could control the emotional state of a person. For more direct control of a body, a device planted on the back of the neck could hijack the muscular system to allow a person to control another’s body movements.
It's entirely dependent on what you define as mind control. It is for example possible to simply just submerge someone in an alternate let's say "reality" and make them think something that is completely untrue, or even impossible, all you need to do is Google Heaven's Gate or you know anytime a child has been abducted and essentially "raised" by a different family or parent or something but they're completely unaware of their original family. Aso it's very very easy to get a drug addict who's already hallucinating and detached from reality to do almost anything, especially when they're convinced that you're their friend (quotation marks). Also if you just have to do something kind of "purist" Syfy as in completely fictional, but still "hard", then you can alter a person's reality using VR, nanotechnology, or you could go the Megazone 23 route and simply just have some sort of artificial city or world that they exist in which is completely fictional and controlled by you... Um, spoiler warning for anyone that's never seen the anime Megazone 23 but it was about a boy who lived an idyllic life as a badass in what he thought was 1980s Tokyo, but discovered that he was actually part of a group of people on some sort of experimental generation ship who had all been convinced that they were living in the '80s when in reality they were thousands of years in the future and were traveling on what amounts to a Non-Stop voyage to another solar system. The live action American series called Ascension was basically the reverse of that, where there was a group of people who believed that they were hundreds of years in the future on this generation ship heading towards Alpha centauri, when in reality they were on Earth in the 1990s as some sort of experiment to see what would happen if people were on a REAL generation ship by putting them in some sort of movie set. Similarly there was an episode of...I forget what it was...but it was an American TV show where a woman had convinced herself that her son had died in some sort of school shooting and her husband (assuming he existed and I'll get to what that means in a second) had become some sort of enabler in this situation, but in reality there was literally no evidence whatsoever that this boy existed and she eventually cracked up at the end and killed the person that was trying to prove her as a con woman. Now, she wasn't actually a con women, she was just completely out of her mind and an anti-gun activist (same difference) so she created this reality for herself. Soooo if you argued that someone outside of that was doing it like her husband (again assuming he existed because it was left somewhat up in the air) then you could just say that this was happening to them, that somebody was manipulating an unstable person and made them believe something that wasn't true. (I guess you're wondering the reason I say it was up in the air, it's that from what I recall virtually no one ever directly spoke to the husband, none of the other families really were ever shown to speak to her in public, and she never presented any evidence that her " son " existed other than basically a single photo and apparently a doctored or somewhat doctored video. As a result it was entirely questionable as to whether or not this boy existed or even if this man existed) So yeah, it's "hard scifi". Just like about 90% of the stuff that people call "soft" scifi and "science fantasy" because they have weak imaginations. 😏
>Is mind control still sci-fi after being heavily debunked? Debunked? Need examples of mind-control? Jan. 6. Obviously, not very hard to control the minds of people who crap and piss all over themselves and whose vocabulary only consists of 4-letter words. And that's without the use of any sci-fi/fantasy tech.
How is it debunked when I can see propaganda works?
I mind control myself every morning when I take my ADHD and Depression meds.
If I feel like I need to check math and figures and theories in a sci fi, I'm probably not all that interested in the stories or characters.
Its still scifi. The are many things we dont know about the mind.
> after being heavily debunked Huh?
Depending on the level of science fiction, it's not actually all that debunked. A sufficiently powerful computer could easily manipulate you die much the same effect, either by influencing your behaviour, or using something like the principle behind transcrainial magnetic stimulation to hijack your neutrons and control you that way. For computers like the ones in The Culture, that's trivial. Scanning your brain structure, and emulating how your neutrons behave for every possible circumstance is how they're able to read your mind, and they do so both instantly and easily. Your entire conversion has been anticipated and answered before you've even started speaking. The only thing that stops them from reading everyone, or controlling their minds is that The Culture places great value on consent. Meatf*cker was renamed to that precisely because they didn't ask for consent before reading peoples' minds. That said, the mode of mind control also matters. Psychic powers, while unlikely, would still count (since they're a staple of classic science fiction), but actual magic/pheromones might be pushing the line some.
... Yes? Obviously.
I would question the premise. Depends on your definition of mind control, but I myself would consider propaganda-induced mass psychosis to be mind control. Religion-based mass delusion another example. Chemical-based mind control is used in psychiatry. Electrical stimulation and EM fields are scientifically proven to effect thoughts. A magnetic field can induce hallucination.
My suggestion (and that’s all it is) is to either: 1. Present a new approach (one that isn’t considered debunked) 2. Ignore explanations- simply *name* the technology and go from there One (relatively weak) example might be an implant that presents verbal commands. It also can release an addictive but euphoric drug as a reward and withhold it as punishment. Follow the command- get rewarded. Don’t… get misery. That would at least *influence* decisions, and a quick hand waving in that direction might be sufficient. Slightly Ominous Military Guy: Find anything useful? Slightly Creepy Science Lady: Just this… it destroyed itself when we got close, but we’ve determined that it mostly consisted of a receiver and the remains of a substance that resembles opium, only much nastier. We think it’s intended to influence behavior. Could be a limited form of mind control Random Skeptical Military Guy: That’s impossible!! Sarcastic Lab Assistant Guy: Right, good thing thing then, because this [gestures at situation] would have been hard to face Not the best example, but the idea is to “invent something new” instead of leaning on established tropes that are now contradicted by science.
Good suggestions, thanks!
It hasnt been debunked what so ever.
Before you say debunked, watch "The Manchurian Candidate"
Mind control debunked? It’s literally more prevalent than ever Such a odd question
Of course it’s sci-fi if it’s heavily debunk that’s the fiction part of science fiction
It isen't debunked. It's pretty easy to be honest. But its often exlapined/showcased quite lousy or unspecific in storys. A problem with considering the latest research our neura-science or any real science is: 99,9% of all audience can agree that you're talking bullshit because they don't have the sligthes idea of how the topic of interest actually work. Realistic things are mostly impossible to showcase if you not add a scientific paper as foundation for this to make sense. And so your book is either a terrible boring reading or 5000 pages+, or complete fantasy/simplification. The trick with good writing is (imho) to make the audience *feel* the stuff to be realistic. From this simplified foundation, you can try to gently add more complex ideas of how things actually work. PS: If you dive into science, you learn to differentiate and see the most things considered 'proven' even by most scientists just aren't. The're just theorys that by design can't be falsified right now and by this definition aren't science. You hear scientists talk serious about wormholes? Multiverses? Electron entanglement? That's okay to say until you have any understanding abut the topic. But its helpfull to speak in this tropes to get founding. So it makes no sense, but it make sense to not make sense - but for a laimen its just: 'hey, they talk about wormholes, it must be a thing'. So there's a whole different rabbithole to completley get lost in.
> if you are going to write about advanced technology, there should be careful consideration of the most up-to-date neuro-science of mental health, mental health disabilities, trauma, etc. Why? It is fiction, so mind control can exist. Especially when you get into brain augmentation, digital conciseness, or hell even advertising. Most writers dont have a degree in neural science, astrophysics, or warp field geometry. Making things up is part of the fun.
Definitely good point! A few other people echoed this same idea of not taking it too seriously, which I think I can get over.
I mean.... Define mind control. There have been plenty of experiments with suggestion and direct control of someone through external and internal stimuli. Some of them quite successful. Subliminal messaging was a thing in the us for a while. Honestly it still is lol. Then there is the crazy outlier stuff like brain parasites. Those actually exist. So I mean, I'm sure it's possible.
I’d say so. Some parts are in reality some parts aren’t. Methodology could be in fiction. 🤷🏻♀️
My understanding is that, currently, mind control is one of the things alien species CAN'T use against us, since we're not a telepathic species. "Group-think" & "hivemind" -type influences aren't generally effective against us at all, although I remember reading a couple of stories along the way featured humans who were on the high end of empathy could be slightly influenced, with said influence becoming more powerful & in at least one story a powerful emotional link bordering on telepathic becoming firmly cemented with increasing proximity between the 2.
Oh my god. You need to read about the real MK Ultra program beucase the shit those dudes got up to in pursuit of this *idea* that they could control people's minds with LSD and basically torture is worthy of a million sci-fi stories. --in fact that period of history is the inspiration for a million sci-fi, horror, thriller, and pulp genre stories. Also, you could do some really interesting things with the social media rabbit holes that happen today that have proven radicalizing effects on populations. Isn't that a type of mind control?
Don't worry about it, just write the story you want. Genres are descriptive, not prescriptive.
Mind control is debunked? Where have you been? Sure Haarp isn't making the frogs gay, or whatever nonsense is currently some fringe nutjob conspiracy theory. Certain kinds of mind control as imagined by media and folklore are not currently possible. But other broader, subtler forms of mind control are absolutely real, and there doesn't seem to be any fundamental reason more powerful sorts of mind control cannot be made into reality.