Shahan Ali Memon

samemon@andrew.cmu.edu
Course : 79-393
Term Paper
Concept of God in the context of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Solaris"

CONCEPT OF GOD IN THE CONTEXT OF "2001: A SPACE

ODYSSEY"AND "SOLARIS"
The debate about the "concept of God" is as old as the inception and the
creation of the universe. Our universe is around 14 billion years old, but
ironically the debate about the God has yet not been settled. Previously, God
was discussed just on the basis of religion. Now however, it is also discussed
symbolically in sci-fi movies and novels. One of such novels is Stanislaw Lem's
"Solaris" which is based on the fictitious story of psychologist Dr. Chris Kelvin's
space journey to the planet Solaris. On the other hand, we have Arthur Clark's
movie-based novel "2001: A space Odyssey" based on the evolution of men
and beyond. The "concept of God" is the heart of both of the texts. However,
despite of being written in around the same period, both the authors share a
very different perspective about God. Both of the authors portray God
symbolically and implicitly; in Solaris it's the ocean, and in 2001, the concept of
God is represented in the form of HAL and the Monolith. Where on one hand,
Lem defines God as unintelligent, but independent of human traits, on the
other hand, Clark defines the God as a beyond-intelligent entity with a possibly
human-like nature. Interestingly, both the authors agree on the fact that God is
incomprehensible and hence unknowable.
Lem in his text describes Solaris as a sentient liquid oceanic planet. He
repeatedly calls it by the name of an "alive ocean". After reading the text, one
would realise that the planet Solaris is a metaphoric representation of God
which is capable of displaying patterns and creating energies and protrusions

Shahan Ali Memon

samemon@andrew.cmu.edu
Course : 79-393
Term Paper
Concept of God in the context of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Solaris"
like symmetriads, assymetriads and mimoids. Not only that, but it is capable of
reaching into the minds of humans creating replicas of their imaginations. On
the other hand, in 2001, God is represented in the form of the monolith and the
human-like robot, HAL.
In his text, Lem describes the God i.e ocean as someone independent of
human traits. At the very beginning of the text, when he describes the orbit of
the planet, he states that the planet maintains its own orbit and does not
revolve around the sun like other planets. This implies that the ocean is
something independent of others and is thus a self-dependent identity. Not only
does the author calls the God ocean as self-dependent, but he also describes it
as somebody that cannot be described by the human-like traits. At one point he
says, "I'm not thinking of a god whose imperfection arises out of the candor of
his human creators, but one whose imperfection represents his essential
characteristic[..]" (p. 197). Now here the author is not necessarily calling the
God as imperfect, though at other places he contradicts himself, but here he is
implying that God cannot be defined as perfect or imperfect as humans are
described and hence He is independent of such judgements.
Where on one hand, Lem describes God as unhuman and alien creature,
on the other, Clark describes God as human-like. Stanley Kubrick who was the
director of the movie on which the novel 2001 is based said, "I will say God
concept is the heart of 2001, but not any traditional, anthropomorphic image of
God. I don't believe in any of Earth's monothestic religions, but I do believe that
one can construct an intriguing scientific definition of God." (wikipedia). In

Shahan Ali Memon

samemon@andrew.cmu.edu
Course : 79-393
Term Paper
Concept of God in the context of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Solaris"
other words, Kubrick meant that humans can create Gods. Thus, as a
consequence of his beliefs he created the character of "HAL" who is essentially
a way modern technological creation of human. The author builds on the
concept of HAL by first introducing the readers with the monolith. Throughout
the four parts of the book, the monolith serves as a Godly creature helping and
pushing the human civilization to evolve. This is very evident from the
beginning of the text. This monolith is described as a God to humans since it's
technolocially advanced than humans. Similarly he describes humans who are
more advanced, as gods to the less-advanced civilizations. This is the same
idea that an ant would perceive human as a God type creature. Thus
throughout his text, the author maintains this optimism of humans to evolve as
Gods and he presents this symbolically in the form of HAL. HAL, at the
beginning of the journey to Jupiter is infallible. In the entire context of the ship,
he is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and also proud of himself which are
all commonly known as Godly traits. Moreover, when HAL malfunctions, Frank
is not able to catch his mistake which shows that Frank is disadvantaged in
comparison to HAL which makes HAL superior. Slowly HAL starts showing selflearnt emotions which present him as human-like, and hence author's stance
on the concept of God.
The Monolith and the HAL are just symbolic representations of human-like
God. But if zoom out, the whole story of 2001 is based on the evolution of men
from apes to Gods. In the very beginning the author describes how apes learn
to use bones as weapons. As we read further, humans get civilized. First they

Shahan Ali Memon

samemon@andrew.cmu.edu
Course : 79-393
Term Paper
Concept of God in the context of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Solaris"
travel to the moon and then they travel to the Jupiter. In the end, when
Bowman encounters the final monolith, he becomes a "star child" which is
actually a term for God. When Bowman becomes a star-child, author writes "He
put forth his will, and the circling megatons flowered in a silent detonation that
brought a brief, false dawn to half the sleeping globe. Then he waited,
marshaling his thoughts and brooding over his still untested powers."(p.221).
The novel ends with the words, "For though he was master of the world, he was
not quite sure what to do next." (p. 221). This describes author's stance that
humans can become Gods and they can create Gods. This is totally opposite to
how God ocean is represented in Solaris.
In Solaris,though the author calls human-like judgements as
inappropriate for Gods, the author gives us alot of hints about the unintelligent
behaviour of the ocean. One of the primary instances is when the God ocean
creates the replica of "Rheya" based on Kelvin's imagination. At one point,
author describes the imperfection in Rheya's dress as it does not have a zipper.
This implicitly describes God as someone who is imperfect and thus
unintelligent, and whose creations are merely imperfect clones. Further, in one
of the conversations with Kelvin, Snow explains him "Listen Kelvin, perhaps it
[ocean] wishes well... perhaps it wants to please us but does not quite know
how to set about the job. It spies out desires in our brains, and only two percent
of mental processes are conscious." (p. 183). Though Snow describes how kind
and powerful the ocean is to initiate communication with humans by reading
their minds, the implication of "it does not quite know" describes a defect in

Shahan Ali Memon

samemon@andrew.cmu.edu
Course : 79-393
Term Paper
Concept of God in the context of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Solaris"
the ocean and thus the authors portrays God as unintelligent and not perfect.
Clark, however portrays God as an intelligent and sophisticated being.
Monolith, for example, is a representation of an intelligent creature which at
every step helps humans learn new skills. In the chapter "Dawn of Man",
hominids contact monolith and descover weapons and tools. The second
monolith which was found by Floyd on the moon emitted a powerful radio
signal directed at the Jupiter. The third monolith transported Bowman to the
final destination of Star Gate making him a star-child. Thus Monolith in the form
of God was a very intelligent being. HAL on the other hand was a product of
Artifical Intelligence and was able to think better than Frank and Bowman. Thus
2001 portrayed God as an intelligent being.
Despite of the differences, both the authors depicted God as someone
incomprehensible and thus unknowable. Throughout the story of Solaris, ocean
remains a mystery. The novel shows the incapability of humans to contact God
i.e ocean and understand him. This is primarily because of the humans'
incapability to think outside of themselves as snow says "We need mirrors. [..]
We are searching for an ideal image of our own world." (p. 72). From this,
author means to say that even if humans search for the God, they would use
humanly skills and behaviours to do that which are simply not sufficient. Author
says that it is not within our powers to destroy our thoughts and hence when
we think of God, we relate it to our own representation of God. This is the
reason Kelvin says to Snow that " [An imperfect God] is the only god I could
imagine believing in.[..]"(p. 199). Kelvin depicts here the behaviour of a

Shahan Ali Memon

samemon@andrew.cmu.edu
Course : 79-393
Term Paper
Concept of God in the context of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Solaris"
common man who believes in imperfect god. This, according to author's
perception, is because a human has no choice since he cannot contact the
actual God. This is depicted in Solaris where Kelvin tries his best to make
contact to the ocean, but it's just complicated. When the ocean tries to make
contact to humans via Visitors, humans find that more of a torture. This shows
how complicated it is for humans to comprehend God. Not only God, but his
creation is also difficult for humans to comprehend. Hence when ocean creates
symmetriad, Kelvin says "The symmetriad [..] is incomprehensible." Moreover,
Kelvin does not even understand Rheya who is the creation of the ocean.
Throughout the story, there is a strange tension between their relationship.
This altogether depicts authors' perceptive about the incomprehensibility of
God.
Like Lem, Clark also describes God as incomprehensible. This is very clear
when the humans encounter the monolith. Whenever humans saw the
monolith, they became curious about it and suddenly the monolith started
making noises which were unknown to the humans. This showed the
communcation gap between the God and the inferior creature. On the other
hand, Frank and Bowman got puzzled at the ambiguous behaviour of HAL who
was a robot and yet depicted emotions. Moreover, he caused a crew member
to die and thus Frank thought of him as a murderer. Throughout the journey to
Jupiter, it was difficult for Frank to understand HAL's behaviour. This was yet
another depiction. The final depiction was shown in the end when Bowman
became a star child. When the final monolith transported him to the star gate,

Shahan Ali Memon

samemon@andrew.cmu.edu
Course : 79-393
Term Paper
Concept of God in the context of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Solaris"
he achieveed so much intelligence which nobody in the universe had ever
achieved and thus he became incapable of living on the Earth and became a
star. This is yet another way of showing how it is impossible for humans to
comprehend God and thus my point.
Both Lem and Clark describe the concept of God in their texts. But more
than the concept of God, it mirrors authors' own perception about the concept
of God. Nevertheless both authors agree to the fact that the God is
incomprehensible which is certainly true since humans are bound to their
subjectivity and thus are independent of the pure objectivism. And so God
remains a strange being for them. And so Sir Arthur Eddington said, "The
universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we 'can'
imagine" (wikipedia).

Shahan Ali Memon

samemon@andrew.cmu.edu
Course : 79-393
Term Paper
Concept of God in the context of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Solaris"
References :
Lem S. 1961. Solaris.
Clarke A. 1972. 2001: A space Odyssey.
Interpretations of 2001 : A Space Odyssey. Retrieved on [1st May 2014] from
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/interpretations_of_2001:_A_Space_Odyssey