''Dialogs on the Atomic Resurrection, the Impossibility Theory, Philosophical Benefits of Cannibalism, Sadness in a Test Tube, Cybernetic Psychoanalysis, Electrical Metempsychosis, Evolutionary Feedbacks, Cybernetic Eschatology, Personalities of Electrical Networks, Perversity of Electrobrains, Eternal Life in a Box, Construction of Geniuses, Epilepsy of Capitalism, Governance Machines, Design of Social Systems'' — is a collection of philosophical essays by Stanisław Lem. The first edition was printed in 1957 (Kraków,

Wydawnictwo Literackie Wydawnictwo Literackie (abbreviated WL, lit. "Literary Press") is a Kraków-based Polish publishing house, which has been referred to as one of Poland's "most respected". Company history Since its foundation in 1953, Wydawnictwo Literackie has b ...

, 323 pages), the second, significantly expanded edition appeared in 1972 (Kraków, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 424 pages). The first dialog, about the "atomic

resurrection Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. In a number of religions, a dying-and-rising god is a deity which dies and is resurrected. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions, which ...

" machine, was translated into English (from German) by Frank Prengel."A LOOK INSIDE DIALOGS"
Text of "Dialog I" translated by Frank Prengel The style and the form of the book was borrowed from '' Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous'' by

George Berkeley George Berkeley (; 12 March 168514 January 1753) – known as Bishop Berkeley (Bishop of Cloyne of the Anglican Church of Ireland) – was an Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immate ...

, including the names and the characters of the two disputants: Hylas and Philonous. Paweł Majewski, ''Między zwierzęciem a maszyną. Utopia technologiczna Stanisława Lema'', Wrocław,

Wrocław University Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, ro ...

Press (Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego), , 2007, pp. 45-76. The essays were written in the most optimistic days of

cybernetics Cybernetics is a wide-ranging field concerned with circular causality, such as feedback, in regulatory and purposive systems. Cybernetics is named after an example of circular causal feedback, that of steering a ship, where the helmsperson m ...

, when infinite possibilities were expected from it. "Dialogs"
a remark at the official Stanisław Lem's website At the same time, it was only a year after cybernetics stopped being described as "

bourgeois pseudoscience Bourgeois pseudoscience (russian: Буржуазная лженаука) was a term of condemnation in the Soviet Union for certain scientific disciplines that were deemed unacceptable from an ideological point of view due to their incompatibility ...

" in the

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...

. The first edition contained eight dialogs. Later critics interpreted the length and convoluteness of the first six dialogs as a counter-censorship " smoke screen" for the main item: dialog VII, which in effect criticized the

planned economy A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, part ...

of the Eastern Bloc

socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...

. The 1972 edition contained two annexes with two dialogs each. Dialog I is about logical, ethical and philosophical problems related to the possibility of recreating a person as a perfect atom-wise copy. The dialog concludes that

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...

is not reducible to the mere physical composition and structure of a person, but at the same time this does not disprove the material nature of consciousness, pending the future progress of science.

References

{{Stanisław Lem 1957 non-fiction books 1972 non-fiction books Essay collections Cybernetics Works by Stanisław Lem Polish non-fiction books