Brain Imaging and the Epistemology of Vision: Daniel Suarez’s Daemon and Freedom

Abstract

Daniel Suarez’s two novels Daemon and Freedom show how fictions simplify and distort neuroscientific results. But these same texts also demonstrate that neuroscientific research can be recontextualized to create a contemporary fable chilling in its implications. This essay explores the transformations brain imaging undergoes as it moves from scientific journals to popular science books to pulp fiction. The fictions create metaphoric frameworks that interrogate the larger implications of having human brains imaged as if they were transparent while the software creating the scans remains opaque. The result is a vivid demonstration of fiction’s power to change the terms in which we see the world.

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