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The "its just scifi" arguments

From Aware Theory

"Scifi" is a truncated name for science fiction stories based around possible scientific ideas. Talking about possible scientific experimentation and the consequential knowledge is not the same as a story about specific events with specific people doing specific things. "Jurassic Park" is a science fiction story. Talking about specific DNA molecules producing specific life forms is a scientific discussion that can lead to many interesting and useful scientific experiments. It is not logically impossible for a DNA molecule to be created that will produce a specific type of dinosaur. Writing a story about going to Mars is science fiction. It is not science fiction to plan to go to Mars. Nor is it science fiction to discus the scientific and technological aspects of going to Mars. Just because something has not been accomplished yet does not mean discussions about the topic relegates it to a science fiction status.

When superimmortality discusses making duplicates of people this is not science fiction. If a story is written where specific people are duplicated with specific event and interrelation occurring this is a science fiction story. If a story is based on some thing that are scientifically impossible it then become a fantasy story. If however people discuss making an experience machine where any experience can be created, like where magic is real to the consciousness produced within the experience machine, this is not science fiction or fantasy stories but a discussion of what is actually possible for people to experience and the structures and functioning of matter that can produces these conscious experiences.

The experiments that superimmortality are proposing are not just science fiction but they are an effort to understand how conscious and the "self" are produced. What if statements are the basis for experimentation. When ideas can be shown to be interesting, potentially important, useful, and scientifically possible, they should not be stifled with the "its just science fiction argument" because there are few, if any good, other arguments against them.



See also:

Evidence for superimmortality

Evidence against the claim that death is the permanent end of a consciousness