[FlyMoreRockets]

> I just finished reading Solaris for the first time, and it was mind-changing.

I have heard Solaris refered to as being mind-changing before. What was it about Solaris that impacted you so much?

After first hearing about Solaris decades ago, I finally got around to reading it upon learning of his passing. I must have missed something because it didn't strike me as living up to its reputation.

[SarikayaKomzin]

I thought it was a truly novel speculation on encountering nonhuman intelligence in the cosmos that challenges our most common fantasies about space exploration. I know I’m guilty of anthropomorphizing intelligence because that’s a lot easier than considering that it may come to us in incomprehensible forms, so I was generally impressed how well he was able to portray that— devising the actions of a nonhuman intelligence is almost a paradox.

I can see how the dry digressions (which I personally enjoyed) and lack of resolution could rub some readers the wrong way, but I found the philosophical questions it raised valuable, not to mention the mystery and human interest woven between it all. There are of course other works with this kind of thought experiment (like the movie Arrival and the short story it’s based on), but I find Lem’s pessimism refreshing.

[goatlover]

Solaris is different from most scifi in which aliens are presented in largely anthropomorphic terms. They're either humanoids, monsters from our nightmares, or they take on the form of humans or human communication. What they lack is the quality of being truly alien.

The Solaris ocean is utterly alien to the point that the humans are unable to understand and communicate with it, despite it clearly possessing some form of intelligence. The alien isn't a mirror for the human reader. It also presents issues for science, since Solaris can't be understood, implying that science is limited by our being human. And that kind of mind-blowing.

[Udik]

> The Solaris ocean is utterly alien to the point that the humans are unable to understand and communicate with it

This is the theme of all Lem's novels involving aliens: Planet Eden, Fiasco, Solaris, The Invincible and His Master's Voice. It's the opposite of our Western optimistic idea that we can face any challenge and solve any riddle, either thanks to a universality of scientific reasoning (such as in Greg Egan's novels) or because the aliens are nothing other than Americans or Nazis in rubber costumes (as in most SF blockbusters).

[goatlover]

There are even people who think we can solve the "problem" of entropy and find a way to keep civilization going beyond the heat death of the universe, and this is a challenge we should start working on. It sounds absurdly optimistic.

Then again, I have no idea what life might do trillions of years in the future, if there is any life around then. But if there is, I highly doubt it will be remotely human, so what difference would it make to us now?

[dmitriid]

Lem posited a question: what if we encounter an intelligence that is so non-human as to be unknowable?

He explores this in "Eden", "Solaris" and "Invincible". All three are highly recommended.