Dr. Donald Turner
Donald Turner, associate professor of philosophy, has been enthralled with the science fiction and fantasy genre since he was little and continues to savor and enjoy fine specimens such as Star Trek, Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series and many others. And yes, he does consider himself both a geek and a nerd – but “not a stereotypical geek or nerd or philosopher” for that matter.
Morgan Schneider: What brought you into the Sci-Fi/ Fantasy world?
Donald Turner: Before I could even read, I would check out books on stars and the like from my elementary school library and have my parents read them to me. I was always fascinated by things beyond our mundane world. Then elementary school teachers would read our class books such as A Wrinkle in Time. Once I could read myself, I began with easy children’s science fiction such as The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree. I then “graduated” to books such as The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet. One day, I was looking for something to read at the library, and I saw C. S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew, and I thought, “That looks interesting,” not even realizing at that point that it was part of a series. By the time that I was in the fourth grade, I was reading adult science fiction such as Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy.
MS: Do you consider yourself an undercover “geek” or a “nerd”?
DT: A geek and a nerd, yes, though I am a Myers-Briggs INFP, whereas the stereotypical geek or nerd (as well as the stereotypical philosopher) is an INTP. Undercover, probably not so much, as people who have taken my classes can tell you. I will sometimes draw examples from science fiction stories because science fiction provides very good illustrations for many philosophical issues, and does so in a way that many people find less dry than certain philosophical essays. (Some philosophers such as Plato and Descartes are good writers, but there are philosophers who are not!) For example, Star Trek’s transporter raises in an interesting way the issue of personal identity: what is it that makes a person at a later time the same person as at an earlier time? Is the person who appears on the planet below the same person who “beamed” down from the ship moments earlier if his body is now composed of completely different particles?MS: Star Wars or Star Trek?
DT: Star Trek. I like Star Wars as well, but Star Trek raises a richer set of philosophical issues.
MS: If you could pick any planet or timeframe to live in, what would it be?
DT: I don’t know about to live in, but to visit, I would simply go as far into the future as the time machine could take me. I want to know how history turns out, to get, as Paul Harvey would put it, “the rest of the story.”
MS: Do you have a favorite quote or saying that you could apply to yourself or to Hillsdale students?
DT: How about one of Jack Handy’s Deep Thoughts: “I think that in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself. Now clearly it’s composed of two separate words, `mank’ and `ind,’ but both of these are complete mysteries, and thus so is mankind.”
MS: Let’s play a little word association… ring?
DT: Tolkien’s One Ring, like the Ring of Gyges that Glaucon discusses in Plato’s Republic, raises the interesting issue of what would you do with power, both the power of invisibility and power more generally.
MS: Clone?
DT: A delayed identical twin.
MS: Future?
DT: I want to experience it!
MS: Do you prefer “old school” Sci-Fi (HG Wells, Isaac Asimov) or “new school” Sci-Fi (Crichton, X-files)?
DT: I like both, so long as it’s good.
MS: If you could rewrite the ending to the story of your choice, what ending would you change and how would you do it?
DT: After the ending of C. S. Lewis’ The Last Battle, I would have myself come across the train wreck and discover in it the rings from The Magician’s Nephew, which I would then use to go to the Wood Between the Worlds. Narnia’s pool would be dried up at that point, but there would be lots of other interesting pools waiting for me to explore them.