Psychoanalysis & Science Fiction - The 3 Space Problem

Cixin Liu’s science fiction trilogy “The Three-Body Problem” has become an international bestseller from which a successful Netflix series arose. In this video I explore how the trilogy’s exploration of outer space can also be used as a useful metaphor with which to examine the inner, psychological space that are the focus of psychoanalysis and literature. Much attention and energy has been spent on explaining and testing the trilogy’s scientific, astro-physics, themes but I argue that an under-appreciated element of the books is their spirited defence of the importance of humankind’s collective unconscious - the speculative ideas contained within literature and psychoanalysis. Donald Winnicott’s work “Playing and Reality” and his notion of “potential space” is combined with excerpts from the science fiction author, Ursula Le Guin, who applies Carl Jung’s ideas in her novels. I argue that Cixin Liu provides us with a paradoxical key to understanding the trilogy - some things are not meant to be fully understood and that is what sets human beings apart from other creatures. #psychoanalysis #sciencefiction #threebodyproblem #winnicott #literaryanalysis #liucixin #books