The Forever War: understanding, science fiction, and thought experiments

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show that scientific thought experiments and works of science fiction are highly suitable tools for facilitating and increasing understanding of science. After comparing one of Einstein's most famous thought experiments with the science fiction novel "The Forever War", I shall argue that both proceed similarly in making some of the more outlandish consequences of special relativity theory intelligible. However, as I will also point out, understanding in thought experiments and understanding in science fiction differ in one important respect: While the former aim at what I shall call "physical understanding", science fiction novels typically have "existential understanding" as their target.

Telling Stories in Science: Feyerabend and Thought Experiments

“…But knowledge isn't the only epistemic desiderata that stories can producethere is also understanding, which is the more natural product of narrative explanations (Morgan and Wise 2017). How would an epistemology of TEs that focused on understanding rather than knowledge (e.g., Elgin 2014;Stuart 2016Wiltsche forthcoming) cohere with Feyerabend's epistemology?…”

Philosophically Specified Types of Methods Important for Theoretical Natural Science<sup>*</sup>

“…A.C. Clark) or deep knowledge about scientific or technical progress (e.g. J. Verne; in agreement with Wiltsche, 2019). Except for some illustrative TE or TE with freely eligible typical objects (see below), recent TE and sophisticated experimental designs (SED) terminally diverged.…”

La ficción del pasado como recurso para comprender la condición humana

“…Así, la ciencia ficción "no es un género de entretenimiento estético únicamente, sino una vacilación compleja sobre la relación entre las concepciones imaginarias y la realidad histórica que se despliega en el futuro" (Csicsery-Ronay, 2008, p. 4). En un sentido más amplio, la literatura de ciencia ficción permite comprender algo de lo real, a pesar de que apela a la ficción para construir un mundo irreal (Wiltsche, 2021). La ficción hace posible proponer hipótesis que, en el caso de la historiografía, intentan ser reales y plausibles.…”