Failure of the Imagination
The story is a thematic rhapsody on the failure of the human imagination. The titular Rama begins life in the story as an asteroid. At least, that is what astronomers have determined it to be despite the fact that is not really behaving in a particularly typical fashion for an asteroid. For one thing, its path is not elliptically moving repetitiously along a precise and easily calculated route eternally. For another thing, fails to exhibit the light curve which is almost universally common to all asteroids. And then there it is enormous size. Everything about Rama points to the fact that it probably is something other than an asteroid, but despite all the clues, the astronomers remain committed to fitting the facts to the expectations.
Will We Recognize Alien Life?
Having already predetermined that Rama is an asteroid, the consensus is determined to understand the object moving toward earth as organic in nature. It is not just a failure of the imagination to think that rather than an organic object, it is one that was constructed; it is a willingness to embrace the hubris than when alien life finally makes contact with us it will take a form that is at least something like us. In reality, it may actually be a case that we won’t recognize alien life when we finally see it but that rather we do not now recognize alien life when we see it. The thematic exploration of inability to comprehend the mysteries of Rama is one of the most important facing humankind. One day, if the species lives long enough, we will either be visited by alien life forms or we will learn that alien life forms have been living among unknown to us. If we are only prepared to recognize that life when it fits into our own self-concept of beings look like, this scenario is almost certain to be played out as the latter rather than the former. Maybe that cold spot you half-jokingly call a ghost is actually a being from another planet.
Technology Will Destroy Personality
Arthur C. Clarke is the author of this novel. He is also the co-writer of 2001: A Space Odyssey. That 1968 science fiction epic is widely regarded as an extraordinary filmgoing experience; a one-of-a-kind masterpiece unlike anything that came before and nothing that has been made sense. At the same, however, it is also universally regarded as featuring one of the least interesting cast of characters—with the very notable exception of a computer—to ever populate a commercially successful, award-winning A-list film. The same criticism can be leveled against this novel. Admittedly, it is not intended as a character-driven story, but rather a novel of ideas. Situated within the context of Clarke’s overall body of work, however, it is another addition to what appears to be an ongoing theme he purposely explores: the greater the level that humans come to depend upon technology in their everyday lives, the less interesting they become, as if technology has also served to suck their very personality right out of them. One single day devoted to nothing but looking through social media postings if enough to confirm he may be onto something.
