R. James Doyle (aka Richard J. Doyle) held technical and managerial roles at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) over a career arc spanning forty years. He worked at the exciting interface of space exploration andcomputer science, with a focus on autonomous space systems.
He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science specializing in Artificial Intelligence from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
He was a member of
a JPL team that consulted on the Babylon 5 sci-fi TV Series in the 1990s.If you were transported into one of your books as a character, what kind of character would you be and what kind of adventures would you have?
Octopuses are fascinating creatures, and scientific arguments exist for appreciating them (and cephalopods, more generally) as representing a separate rise of intelligence on our planet.
Invertebrates … Mollusks … Octopuses
Vertebrates … Mammals … Humans
What truly distinguishes cephalopods is the lack of a skeleton, even an exoskeleton. How does this shape their perceptions, and their life experiences? They are truly the aliens on our own planet!
For these reasons, I would wish to inhabit the body of my octopus character Sephia (Seffie) in Raising the Roof… and to perceive the ocean world with a radically different complement of perceptual equipment – and a brain architecture which may endow individual tentacles with separate volition.
To say nothing of their amazing problem-solving abilities.
What would that be like?
How would we silly humans appear to them, blundering about in our SCUBA gear? There are accounts of divers being under the regard of an octopus, and feeling a connection…
I would love to know.
If you could swap lives with any character from one of your books for a day, who would it be and what would you do?
I have a novel in development, The Fifth Wall, which features a brilliant physics professor, Prof. Bastian Broch. This professor undergoes a belief-system crisis when confronted with inexplicable phenomena in a magic act. I would love to be Broch for a day, to experience what it would be like to actually understand quantum physics. Perhaps I would be disappointed – in that nobody understands quantum mechanics – according to no less an authority than Richard Feynman.
One day would be sufficient, though. I wouldn’t wish to take on Broch’s life crisis. But you’ll have to read the book…
If you could travel to any alternate universe where a different version of yourself exists, what do you think your other self would be like?
Well, I choose to turn this question on its head. I don’t subscribe to alternate universes (or many-worlds). I’ve spent a fair amount of time (!) formulating a model of time travel, and I much favor Block Time (eternity already exists, and looping on one’s own world-line can disclose new information but not alter known events) over Many Worlds (when a logical contradiction arises, the universe “splits” to accommodate the different outcomes).
So, if you were to ask: If you could time travel and encounter yourself, what would that be like? – I would seek to learn something new, but I would not expect to change anything I already knew. And honestly, there’s a certain queasiness about the idea of encountering oneself – a feeling of nakedness.
If you had to choose between having the ability to speak with animals or plants, which would you choose and why?
Plants. We humans have a strong conceit about how we examine and relate to rest of the biosphere, the ecosystem. We see and interpret through our own lens. We’re starting to gain insight on how plants perceive, interact with, and communicate with their environment – but at a much slower pace. And also how they participate in a vast kind of connectedness through the soil.
Again, aliens on our own planet. I would love to understand more – which would surely lead to new understanding of and appreciation for plants. And perhaps new wisdom about life – if we are open to it.
What’s the silliest misconception you’ve had about something scientific, what was it and how did you learn you had misapprehended?
This is less about a misconception and more about how one sees the world differently when a child…
My first science passion was for dinosaurs – paleontology. Astronomy, space exploration was a close second.
I recall distinctly, with the assurance that a child has for landing on simple truths, noting that T. rex feet – monster scale, magnificent claws and all – looked just like chicken feet. At the time, I never articulated this observation into questions about taxonomy, evolution… birds-are-dinosaurs.
But when the hypothesis gained support later, I equally remember thinking (as an unadulterated reaction), “Well duh!”
The direct apprehension of a child.
If I may continue with an anecdote…
When I completed my Ph.D., I wanted to reward myself with something special, and I was able to arrange to join a dinosaur dig as a volunteer – in Switzerland. The site was a quarry (put under scientific quarantine) in the Jura mountains – the etymological root of Jurassic.
Our team had a splendid time working to find and prepare Plateosaurus fossil specimens. I remember a jawbone with teeth still intact!
Later, maybe 15 years or so, with my family, we stumbled on an exhibit at the Natural History Museum in Basel – with findings from our very expedition! What a thrill. Thanks to Prof. Martin Sander – at the time with the University of Zürich.
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What Else?
At Glasgow WorldCon (August 2024), with collaborator Rogelio Fojo, a Cover Reveal ceremony announced One Million Times, our upcoming anthology of time travel stories. The targeted release date is April 7, 2025. (Elsewhen Press)
Desperate to escape their present circumstances, seven outcasts hunt down alleged visitors from the future.
You can learn more about R. James Doyle and his works on his website.
