“I always say that 'science fiction' is an unsuitable name for this field. It is rather the philosophical fiction: or Phi-Phi, not Sci-Phi! This is what this book proves with its comprehensive analysis and treatment of this type of book for deep questions about reality, personality, and morals.
Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award winner and author of Hominids
"It is simply the best and most recent book of its kind."
Barry Denton, University of Liverpool
Science fiction and philosophy
Science fiction is more than just entertainment. The historian H. Bruce Franklin as "literature that grows with science and technology, values them, and connects them meaningfully with the rest of human existence." Science fiction is actually increasingly converging with scientific fact. From the nature of the mind to the ethics of artificial intelligence and neural reinforcement, science fiction thought experiments spark philosophical imagination, encouraging us to think outside the box about classic philosophical problems and even conceive of new ones. Because in some cases, the technologies of the future invite their own distinct philosophical puzzles.
Science fiction and philosophy writers explore the philosophical issues of their time; Such as the nature of people and their minds, mysteries about virtual reality, transhumanism, whether time travel is possible, the nature of artificial intelligence, and topics in neuroethics. This thought-provoking volume is suitable for students and readers in general while simultaneously examining new and more advanced topics of interest to veteran philosophers and scientists.
Susan Schneider is an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and a faculty member in the Neuroethics Program at Penn, its Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, and its Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. She is also a Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. She is the author of numerous articles on philosophy of mind, neuroethics, and metaphysics, and co-editor of The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007) with Max Willmans.
