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Owning the Unknown: A Science Fiction Writer Explores Atheism, Agnosticism, and the Idea of God
Although humankind today can peer far deeper into the universe than ever before, we still find ourselves surrounded by the unknown and perhaps the unknowable. All great science fiction has used the human imagination to explore that realm beyond the known, just as theistic religions have done since long before the genre existed. As Hugo Award-winning author Robert Charles Wilson argues in Owning the Unknown , the genre’s freewheeling speculation and systematic world-building make it it a unique lens for understanding, examining, and assessing the truth claims of religions in general and Christianity in particular. Drawing on his personal experience, his work as a science fiction writer, and his deep knowledge of the classics of the genre, he makes the case for what he calls intuitive atheism—an atheism drawn from everyday personal knowledge that doesn’t depend on familiarity with the scholarly debate about theology and metaphysics, any more than a robust personal Christianity does. And as he reminds us, the secrets that remain hidden beyond the borders of the known universe—should we ever discover them—will probably not resemble anything currently found in our most prized philosophies, our most sacred texts, or our most imaginative science fiction.
- GenresNonfiction
216 pages, Paperback
Published September 26, 2023
9 people are currently reading
65 people want to read
About the author
Robert Charles Wilson
96 books1,672 followersI've been writing science fiction professionally since my first novel A Hidden Place was published in 1986. My books include Darwinia, Blind Lake, and the Hugo Award-winning Spin. My newest novel is The Affinities (April 2015).
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 14, 2023
This is his first non-fiction book, and even though it's a very interesting and challenging one, I have to say that I prefer his fiction ones.
Even so, I liked the topics, the reasoning behind it, the flow of ideas, it's like the process of trying to solve an equation with many unknowns. The one thing that put me a bit off is that he's trying to hard not to annoy/offend anybody, even though these are his beliefs, he's not imposing anything to anybody.
Anyway, for anybody interested in agnosticism, theism and the like, I think it will be a very good reading.
Bonus: two short SF stories at the end, both great. "The Observer" (one of the best short SF ever) I have already read in his collection The Perseids and Other Stories, the second, "In the Body of the Sky" was another amazing one.
Bottom line, a great book for both fiction and non-fiction lovers.
Even so, I liked the topics, the reasoning behind it, the flow of ideas, it's like the process of trying to solve an equation with many unknowns. The one thing that put me a bit off is that he's trying to hard not to annoy/offend anybody, even though these are his beliefs, he's not imposing anything to anybody.
Anyway, for anybody interested in agnosticism, theism and the like, I think it will be a very good reading.
Bonus: two short SF stories at the end, both great. "The Observer" (one of the best short SF ever) I have already read in his collection The Perseids and Other Stories, the second, "In the Body of the Sky" was another amazing one.
Bottom line, a great book for both fiction and non-fiction lovers.
December 9, 2023
The terminology in here (I just love it, ok?)
-non sequitur - Q: The subtitle of this book—A Science Fiction Writer Explores Atheism, Agnosticism, and the Idea of God—might seem at first sight like a colossal non sequitur, on the order of “a plumber’s guide to Broadway choreography” or “brain surgery for real estate agents.” (c)
- Fiat Lux: - Q: Moreover, extrapolating backward in time to the Big Bang doesn’t bring us to a distinct act of creation—a Fiat Lux—so much as to a mire of confusion. (c)
- ergodic - The concept of a possibility space is useful here. A possibility space is defined as some bounded condition in which various possible states can exist. The possibility space of a bottle filled with gaseous hydrogen, for instance, would be the sum of all the possible positions the molecules inside it could occupy. That’s a long list, but it’s a finite one. In his book A World Beyond Physics, Stuart A. Kaufman calls such lists “ergodic,” meaning that “the system visits all its possible states” over some period of time: “The gas particles darting about in the bottle assume nearly every possible configuration before settling down into the stablest possible state.” A “non-ergodic” possibility space, by contrast, is one in which there are too many possible states for the system to visit in a given time. Kaufman’s example is the set of possible proteins of the length of two hundred amino acids:
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Q: The most obvious is that human history is littered with the debris of discarded gods, a truth more than one atheist has used to belabor an opponent. (c)
Q: Al-Ghazali produced, among other works, a book with the appealing title The Incoherence of the Philosophers (to which the Muslim scholar Ibn Rushid, known as Averroes, wrote a rebuttal called The Incoherence of the Incoherence … and so it goes). (c)
Q:
Logically valid syllogisms can be constructed from unsound premises:
1.All cats are made of marzipan.
2.Anything made of marzipan comes from Mars.
3.All cats are from Mars.
In which case the conclusion, while it follows logically from the premises—and while it may have a certain intuitive appeal for cat owners—is also probably unsound. (c)
Q:
The appearance of the first self-reproducing molecules on Earth began a causal chain that eventually produced penguins, pangolins, and piano players; but no extraterrestrial biologist, examining that first fleck of primordial life, could have predicted penguins, or pangolins, or piano players. (c)
Q:
And since “extraordinarily likely” or “extraordinarily unlikely” is as close as we mortals can get to certainty, that conclusion is, in the end, indistinguishable from atheism. (c)
Q:
How many potential descriptions of ultimate reality might exist within those limits? They would have to include:
•All theistic descriptions, past and present;
•Any conceivable theistic description not yet proposed;
•All non-theistic descriptions, past and present;
•Any conceivable non-theistic description not yet proposed;
•All potential descriptions of metaphysical reality that are knowable in principle;
•All potential descriptions of metaphysical reality that are unknowable in principle, and so on.
Some descriptions of metaphysical reality may entail an unknown number of spatial dimensions, or an unknown number of temporal dimensions, or an unknown number of dimensions that are neither temporal nor spatial, whatever that might mean. Some may describe metaphysical realities that are finite or unbounded in any or all of these dimensions. A true description of metaphysical reality might defy our ability to understand it—the number of potentially true descriptions of metaphysical reality might be larger than the subset of descriptions that can be comprehended by a finite human mind. (c)
-non sequitur - Q: The subtitle of this book—A Science Fiction Writer Explores Atheism, Agnosticism, and the Idea of God—might seem at first sight like a colossal non sequitur, on the order of “a plumber’s guide to Broadway choreography” or “brain surgery for real estate agents.” (c)
- Fiat Lux: - Q: Moreover, extrapolating backward in time to the Big Bang doesn’t bring us to a distinct act of creation—a Fiat Lux—so much as to a mire of confusion. (c)
- ergodic - The concept of a possibility space is useful here. A possibility space is defined as some bounded condition in which various possible states can exist. The possibility space of a bottle filled with gaseous hydrogen, for instance, would be the sum of all the possible positions the molecules inside it could occupy. That’s a long list, but it’s a finite one. In his book A World Beyond Physics, Stuart A. Kaufman calls such lists “ergodic,” meaning that “the system visits all its possible states” over some period of time: “The gas particles darting about in the bottle assume nearly every possible configuration before settling down into the stablest possible state.” A “non-ergodic” possibility space, by contrast, is one in which there are too many possible states for the system to visit in a given time. Kaufman’s example is the set of possible proteins of the length of two hundred amino acids:
-
Q: The most obvious is that human history is littered with the debris of discarded gods, a truth more than one atheist has used to belabor an opponent. (c)
Q: Al-Ghazali produced, among other works, a book with the appealing title The Incoherence of the Philosophers (to which the Muslim scholar Ibn Rushid, known as Averroes, wrote a rebuttal called The Incoherence of the Incoherence … and so it goes). (c)
Q:
Logically valid syllogisms can be constructed from unsound premises:
1.All cats are made of marzipan.
2.Anything made of marzipan comes from Mars.
3.All cats are from Mars.
In which case the conclusion, while it follows logically from the premises—and while it may have a certain intuitive appeal for cat owners—is also probably unsound. (c)
Q:
The appearance of the first self-reproducing molecules on Earth began a causal chain that eventually produced penguins, pangolins, and piano players; but no extraterrestrial biologist, examining that first fleck of primordial life, could have predicted penguins, or pangolins, or piano players. (c)
Q:
And since “extraordinarily likely” or “extraordinarily unlikely” is as close as we mortals can get to certainty, that conclusion is, in the end, indistinguishable from atheism. (c)
Q:
How many potential descriptions of ultimate reality might exist within those limits? They would have to include:
•All theistic descriptions, past and present;
•Any conceivable theistic description not yet proposed;
•All non-theistic descriptions, past and present;
•Any conceivable non-theistic description not yet proposed;
•All potential descriptions of metaphysical reality that are knowable in principle;
•All potential descriptions of metaphysical reality that are unknowable in principle, and so on.
Some descriptions of metaphysical reality may entail an unknown number of spatial dimensions, or an unknown number of temporal dimensions, or an unknown number of dimensions that are neither temporal nor spatial, whatever that might mean. Some may describe metaphysical realities that are finite or unbounded in any or all of these dimensions. A true description of metaphysical reality might defy our ability to understand it—the number of potentially true descriptions of metaphysical reality might be larger than the subset of descriptions that can be comprehended by a finite human mind. (c)
June 18, 2025
This is one atheist's take on religion. It's not a bad take. It's well written in the sense the words on the page are clear, sound nice, and feel good to read.
But neither is it very well-informed. The thing is, you don't need to be all that well informed to have a robustly defensible atheism. If anything, learning more theology makes it more difficult to cut to the chase. That said, the author makes a weak case because he does lack the formal training in the language and concepts.
But neither is it very well-informed. The thing is, you don't need to be all that well informed to have a robustly defensible atheism. If anything, learning more theology makes it more difficult to cut to the chase. That said, the author makes a weak case because he does lack the formal training in the language and concepts.
January 14, 2024
A Science Fiction Writer Explores Atheism, Agnosticism and the Idea of God
Owning The Unknown does pretty much exactly what the tagline suggests. Some very logical and carefully constructed thoughts on the notions of religion, faith, God and the metaphysical realm. Some of the ideas presented are very exacting in their level of depth and complexity. While Robert Charles Wilson is very openly not religious, he very delicately conveys his thoughts; I don't believe any religious people will be offended by the content of this book.
There are some interstitial passages within which are almost autobiographical in nature. Wilson shares some details of his upbringing and career which helped shape his view on the subject in question. Then perhaps my favourite aspect of the book is how Wilson was able to refer to pertinent ideas on this theme from throughout the history of science fiction, from H.G. Wells to the present day. He is a scholar and ultimately, a fan of the genre, and it was wonderful to see some of these ideas framed in this context.
My only gripe: the main body of this book was finished at around 140 pages in. The remainder was made up of two (very good) short stories from Wilson's back catalogue. I would have really liked to hear just a little more of Wilson's early life, career and his journey as a fan of science fiction.
Owning The Unknown does pretty much exactly what the tagline suggests. Some very logical and carefully constructed thoughts on the notions of religion, faith, God and the metaphysical realm. Some of the ideas presented are very exacting in their level of depth and complexity. While Robert Charles Wilson is very openly not religious, he very delicately conveys his thoughts; I don't believe any religious people will be offended by the content of this book.
There are some interstitial passages within which are almost autobiographical in nature. Wilson shares some details of his upbringing and career which helped shape his view on the subject in question. Then perhaps my favourite aspect of the book is how Wilson was able to refer to pertinent ideas on this theme from throughout the history of science fiction, from H.G. Wells to the present day. He is a scholar and ultimately, a fan of the genre, and it was wonderful to see some of these ideas framed in this context.
My only gripe: the main body of this book was finished at around 140 pages in. The remainder was made up of two (very good) short stories from Wilson's back catalogue. I would have really liked to hear just a little more of Wilson's early life, career and his journey as a fan of science fiction.
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December 5, 2023The short stories are pretty neat.
September 19, 2023
I liked this book. It was interesting to have a science fiction writer’s very personal take on God in a nonfiction setting. Overall, it was a fun read but I did find the writing style somewhat less than conversational. Two short stories written by Wilson are included in the book that illustrate some of the concepts Wilson discussed. Both short stories are very good. Thank you to Edelweiss and Pitchstone Publishing for the digital review copy.
October 20, 2023
Thoughtful and lovely essay on well, life, the universe, and everything- but mostly on religion. And there are two new short stories as a bonus! Wilson is one of my favorite Sci Fi writers. He also seems to be a really good human, and a heck of a nice guy. If you haven't read Spin, you should.
April 19, 2024
A thoughtful and always interesting non-fiction work by one of my favourite science fiction writers. Very eloquently written and carefully considered, and his thoughts and feelings on the subject 100% resonate with me.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews