Robert J. Sawyer explores the mind, body and cryogenics in sci-fi thriller The Downloaded
CBC Radio | Posted: May 10, 2024 8:12 PM | Last Updated: May 10
What would it look like if Waterloo, Ont., became the epicentre of virtual technology? This is the world science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer builds in his 25th novel set in the not-so distant future.
The Downloaded follows two vastly different groups of people in the year 2059: a group of astronauts planning to embark on an "interstellar voyage" and a group of convicts stuck in a virtual reality prison. Suddenly, both virtual realities converge as space adventurers and criminals alike must return to the real world and save the planet from annihilation.
Sawyer is a Canadian American writer of science fiction. He is the recipient of the Nebula Award in 1995 and the Hugo Award in 2003. He has written 25 books including Quantum Night, The Oppenheimer Alternative and Flashforward.
Sawyer spoke to The Next Chapter's Ali Hassan.
Through the initial segments of this book, we learn about cryogenics… I was interested to learn that freezing the body and saving the brain are two different things. Tell us about that.
Well, this is my postulate that they're two different things. There has been a business for decades now, for over 40 years, freezing human remains cryogenically, that means at extremely cold temperatures, in the hope that at some point down the road there's going to be a cure for whatever killed you, whether it's cancer or heart attack — whatever.
The assumption has been that if they can cure whatever is wrong with the body and somehow reanimate the body, that the brain will reanimate too. Your consciousness and, maybe if you're religiously inclined, your soul, will reinhabit this thawed out form.
The assumption has been that if they can cure whatever is wrong with the body and somehow reanimate the body, that the brain will reanimate too. - Robert J. Sawyer
I'm not at all sure that that is true. I think you know there's a big debate in philosophy, they call it dualism, whether or not the mind and the body are separate things. For many years the notion that they were separate things was poo-pooed by neuroscientists and philosophers.
But we're actually finding more and more evidence that consciousness is something separate from physicality.
So that other group of frozen people are murderers who are serving their time in a sped up reality with the promise that when they get out their minds will have done the time, but their bodies haven't aged. How did that idea come to you?
Years ago, I went to a writers festival in Whitehorse. They said, "We have authors go to visit prisoners in the jail — would you like to do that for a day?"
What a fascinating experience. Everybody there has a story to tell, but what was apparent to me is how devastating it was, not necessarily being in jail, although that's an awful thing, but knowing that your children are growing up, knowing that your spouse is getting older — and when you come out, knowing that whatever job you were trained for, your skill set is going to be hopelessly obsolete.
Imagine the jobs of 20 years ago, there was no such thing as social media manager, there's no such thing as so many of the jobs we do today. So if you could get in and do your time but get out without the time passing in the real world, it would be I think a good thing for the prisoner and a good thing for society. I thought that was an interesting prospect to play with.
The prisoners experience this kind of hell but the astronauts who think they're on the way to a distant star, create their own virtual heaven during their upload to pass the time. Why ever leave that for the hard cold reality?
This is a question I think that we're all kind of facing. This novel is very much my COVID-19 novel, I wrote it during COVID, but also when we started COVID we metaphorically all uploaded: we stopped going into the office, we telecommuted, we stopped seeing our friends, we saw them on Zoom. We stopped interacting physically.
I kind of enjoyed not having to do all those social obligations that I felt I had to do during COVID. I wanted to play with that notion of, as science fiction always does, something that's real. The real thing is we're all downloading back into reality now that the COVID-19 crisis is finally, by and large, behind us.
I kind of enjoyed not having to do all those social obligations that I felt I had to do during COVID. - Robert J. Sawyer
My astronauts are faced with that question. I kind of like this life where I didn't have to go to the office, where I could do whatever I want, where nobody knew that I was working with no pants on at home, right? I really think for many of us that transition has been very difficult going back to the real world — and it also is for some of my astronauts.
This idea of virtual reality today and what's being developed and how lifelike and real it will become — do you think a similar thing will happen where people don't want to leave virtual reality for reality?
I think it's absolutely true. I look at lots of people today who are out at fascinating places, whether it's just a restaurant with a good dinner companion or beautiful places in nature and they're glued to their phones. They, in essence, have already chosen the online life versus the offline life.
All of the physicality, all of the sensory experiences all around them and yet they want to be glued to that tiny little piece of gorilla glass in their hand.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.