📓On Literature: On Projections (From Fiction to Science-Fiction)

"Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment - that which they cannot anticipate." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", 5th century BC)

"The person one loves never really exists, but is a projection focused through the lens of the mind onto whatever screen it fits with least distortion." (Arthur C Clarke, "The Road to the Sea", 1961)

"Much of what you see in perceiving me - 'He pointed to himself for emphasis.' - is a projection from your own mind. To another percept-system I would appear quite different. To the police, for instance. There’re as many worldviews as there are sentient creatures." (Philip K Dick, "Galactic Pot-Healer", 1969)

"To be a god can ultimately become boring and degrading. There'd be reason enough for the invention of free will! A god might wish to escape into sleep and be alive only in the unconscious projections of his dream-creatures." (Frank Herbert,"Children of Dune", 1976)

"Science fiction is the branch of literature that deals with the effects of change on people in the real world as it can be projected into the past, the future, or to distant places. It often concerns itself with scientific or technological change, and it usually involves matters whose importance is greater than the individual or the community; often civilization or the race itself is in danger." (James Gunn, "Road to Science Fiction" Vol. 2, 1979)

"This is the awe-inspiring universe of magic: There are no atoms, only waves and motions all around. Here, you discard all belief in barriers to understanding. You put aside understanding itself. This universe cannot be seen, cannot be heard, cannot be detected in any way by fixed perceptions. It is the ultimate void where no preordained screens occur upon which forms may be projected. You have only one awareness here - the screen of the magi: Imagination! Here, you learn what it is to be human. You are a creator of order, of beautiful shapes and systems, an organizer of chaos." (Frank Herbert, “Heretics of Dune”, 1984)

"We know so little about each other. We lie mostly submerged, like ice floes, with our visible social selves projecting only cool and white." (Ian McEwan, "Amsterdam", 1998)

"Things outside you are projections of what's inside you, and what's inside you is a projection of what's outside. So when you step into the labyrinth outside you, at the same time you're stepping into the labyrinth inside." (Haruki Murakami, "Kafka on the Shore", 2002)