THE SENTINEL

THE SENTINEL

"The Sentinel" is a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, famous for being expanded (and extensively modified) into the novel and movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Clarke actually expressed impatience with the common description of it as "the story on which 2001 is based."

BACKGROUND

The story deals with the discovery of an artifact on Earth's Moon left behind eons ago by ancient aliens. The object is made of a polished mineral and tetrahedral in shape, and is surrounded by a spherical forcefield. The first-person narrator speculates at one point that the mysterious aliens who left this structure on the Moon may have used mechanisms belonging "to a technology that lies beyond our horizons, perhaps to the technology of para-physical forces."

For millennia (evidenced by dust buildup around its forcefield) the artifact has transmitted signals into deep space, but it ceases to transmit when the astronauts who discover it breach the forcefield. The narrator hypothesises that this "sentinel" was left on the moon as a "warning beacon" for the possible intelligent and spacefaring life that might develop on Earth.

This quotation illustrates the idea, and its ramifications:
"It was only a matter of time before we found the pyramid and forced it open. Now its signals have ceased, and those whose duty it is will be turning their minds upon Earth. Perhaps they wish to help our infant civilization. But they must be very, very old, and the old are often insanely jealous of the young."
In the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, the operation of the sentinel is reversed. It is the energy of the sun, falling for the first time on the uncovered artifact, that triggers the signal that creatures from the Earth had taken the first step into space.

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is a landmark, science fiction classic - and probably the best science-fiction film of all time about exploration of the unknown. It was released, coincidentally, at the height of the space race between the USSR and the US. It appeared at the same time as NASA's exploratory Apollo Project with manned Earth orbiting missions - a prelude to orbiting and landing on the Moon with Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969. And it prophetically showed the enduring influence that computers would have in our daily lives.

Director Stanley Kubrick's work is a profound, visionary and astounding film (a mysterious Rorschach film-blot) and a tremendous visual experience. This epic film contained more spectacular imagery (about what space looked like) and special effects than verbal dialogue. Viewers are left to experience the non-verbal, mystical vastness of the film, and to subjectively reach into their own subconscious and into the film's pure imagery to speculate about its meaning. Many consider the masterpiece bewildering, boring, slow-moving or annoying, but are still inspired by its story of how man is dwarfed by technology and space.

The film is composed of four episodes. Three of the major sections are subtitled:

The Dawn of Man A primeval ape man makes a breakthrough - becoming endowed with intelligence after experiencing a mysterious black monolith.

(The Lunar Journey in the Year 2000) - untitledEons later, a similar monolith is discovered on the lunar surface in the 21st century, sending its signals to Jupiter.

Jupiter Mission, 18 Months Later [(in 2001 or 2002)] A futuristic, 18-month journey to Jupiter.

Jupiter and Beyond the InfiniteA mystical experience in another time and dimension.

BEINGS OF INTELLIGENCE


There are two elements of non-human intelligence form as the central focus of masterpiece. First, the intelligent beings who trained the man apes and left behind the big black slab on the moon capture the imagination of the humans who discover TMA-1 and, ultimately, develop a space project aimed at further exploring them. Second, Hal is an intelligent being created by Man. Not only can he can essentially control a space shuttle flight, but also he can converse with a human, almost as if he were one himself.

Both of these elements force humans to put their own intelligence into perspective. On the one hand, they are not uniquely intelligent, as they can no longer conceive of themselves as supremely special. Secondly, Hal shows the limitations and potential harms of intelligence. If Hal been a little less intelligent, he would have never rebelled and the death that resulted from his rebellion would not have occurred.

Further, both of these types of intelligence demonstrate the limitations of human knowledge about intelligence. First, those who left the black slab behind are far more advanced than humans could imagine. They display a different and more advanced intelligence than we can fathom. Second, Hal's malfunctioning represents a limitation on the understanding of those who created him. They did not realize that the intelligent machine they were creating might eventually become self-conscious. The destruction that follows because of this could have been averted if Hal's developers had a greater understanding of artificial intelligence and they had been able to create a machine that could perform all of Hal's functions without becoming self-aware and developing "free will."