Contents[]
The book is divided in 8 chapters, each dealing with far-fetched implications of a certain concept:
- 1. Dilemmas
- Lem starts by presenting his views on future prognostication and motivations in writing the book.
- 2. Two Evolutions
- This chapter deals with a similarities between several evolutions: biological, technological and social ones.
- 3. Space Civilizations
- An overview of contemporary (to the book) SETI efforts and theories are given, along with a solid portion of their criticism.
- 4. Intellectronics
- A word coined by Lem to speculate on the field that is known today as artificial intelligence: The day will come when machine intelligence will rival or surpass the human one. Moreover, problems facing humankind may surpass the intellectual abilities of flesh and blood researchers. What shall we expect (or fear) in this conception of the future?
- 5. Prolegomena to Omnipotence
- Technological evolution gives us more and more abilities—in fact, sometime in the future we should be able to do everything at all! Or maybe not?
- 6. Phantomology
- Another term invented by Lem. Human perception is limited by biology—so maybe we can bypass the real omnipotence in favor of an imitated one? Even in this case, Lem finds many surprising problems. Note that what Lem called 'phantomology' today is better known as virtual reality.
- 7. Creation of the Worlds
- May it be that instead of painstaking research we can "grow" new information from available information in an automatic way? Starting with this question Lem evolves the concept to the creation of the whole new Universes, including (as a special treat) the construction of heaven/hell/afterlife enabled one.
- 8. Pasquinade on Evolution
- Biological evolution did a rather lousy job designing humans and other animals. Can engineers do better