Stanisław Lem’s Solaris stands as a paradigmatic work embodying the profound interplay between science fiction literature and cybernetic thought. By constructing the grand literary thought experiment of the planet Solaris, the novel rigorously demonstrates classical cybernetic models. It also profoundly exposes the limitation of these models – positioning the observer outside the system – through its paradoxes in communication and teleology. Lem’s literary imagination exhibits remarkable foresight. On the one hand, the issue of “observer intervention” directly foreshadows the theoretical revolution from first order to second-order cybernetics. On the other hand, the extreme complexity of the planet itself resonates deeply with later new paradigms in systems science, including autopoietic theory and dissipative structure theory. Ultimately, the core value of the novel lies in its transcendent ethical contemplation. When attempts at “control” prove utterly futile, the narrative shifts to the fundamental question of how to coexist with an absolute “Other”. By returning to the dynamic adaptive wisdom inherent in the original metaphor of cybernetics, the “helmsman”, Lem’s work criticizes the technical rationality that reduces cybernetics to a mere tool of domination. In doing so, it elevates and transcends cybernetic thought from a scientific model to a philosophical and ethical discourse.
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Share and Cite
Zhang, R. (2025) The Cybernetic Revolution in Science Fiction: Theoretical Prefiguration and Ethical Transcendence in the Planetary Imagination of Solaris. Journal of Social Development and History, 1(2), 54-60.