Book Edited by Susan Schneider.
Published by Wiley-Blackwell.
432 pages.
Featuring numerous updates and enhancements, Science Fiction and Philosophy, 2nd Edition, presents a collection of readings that utilize concepts developed from science fiction to explore a variety of classic and contemporary philosophical issues.
- Uses science fiction to address a series of classic and contemporary philosophical issues, including many raised by recent scientific developments
- Explores questions relating to transhumanism, brain enhancement, time travel, the nature of the self, and the ethics of artificial intelligence
- Features numerous updates to the popular and highly acclaimed first edition, including new chapters addressing the cutting-edge topic of the technological singularity
- Draws on a broad range of science fiction’s more familiar novels, films, and TV series, including I, Robot, The Hunger Games, The Matrix, Star Trek, Blade Runner, and Brave New World
- Provides a gateway into classic philosophical puzzles and topics informed by the latest technology
Table of Contents
Introduction
- Thought Experiments: Science Fiction as a Window into Philosophical Puzzles — Susan Schneider
Part I Could I Be in a “Matrix” or Computer Simulation?
- Related Works:The Matrix; Avatar; Ender’s Game; The Hunger Games; Simulacron‐3; Ubik; Tron; Permutation City; Vanilla Sky; Total Recall
- Reinstalling Eden: Happiness on a Hard Drive — Eric Schwitzgebel and R. Scott Bakker
- Are You in a Computer Simulation? — Nick Bostrom
- Plato’s Cave. Excerpt from The Republic — Plato
- Some Cartesian thought Experiments. Excerpt from The Meditations on First Philosophy — René Descartes
- The Matrix as Metaphysics — David J. Chalmers
Part II What Am I? Free Will and the Nature of Persons
- Related Works:Moon; Software; Star Trek, The Next Generation: Second Chances; Mindscan; The Matrix; Diaspora; Blindsight; Permutation City; Kiln People; The Gods Themselves; Jerry Was a Man; Nine Lives; Minority Report
- Where Am I? — Daniel C. Dennett
- Personal Identity — Eric Olson
- Divided Minds and the Nature of Persons — Derek Parfit
- Who Am I? What Am I? — Ray Kurzweil
- Free Will and Determinism in the World of Minority Report — Michael Huemer
- Excerpt from “The Book of Life: A Thought Experiment” — Alvin I. Goldman
Part III Mind: Natural, Artificial, Hybrid, and Superintelligent
- Related Works:Transcendence; 2001: A Space Odyssey; Humans; Blade Runner; AI; Frankenstein; Accelerando; Terminator; I, Robot; Neuromancer; Last and First Men; His Master’s Voice; The Fire Upon the Deep; Solaris; Stories of your Life
- Robot Dreams — Isaac Asimov
- A Brain Speaks — Andy Clark
- Cyborgs Unplugged — Andy Clark
- Superintelligence and Singularity — Ray Kurzweil
- The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis — David J. Chalmers
- Alien Minds — Susan Schneider
Part IV Ethical and Political Issues
- Related Works:Brave New World; Ender’s Game; Johnny Mnemonic; Gattaca; I, Robot; Terminator; 2001: A Space Odyssey; Mindscan; Autofac; Neuromancer; Planet of the Apes; Children of Men; Nineteen Eighty‐Four; Player Piano; For a Breath I Tarry; Diamond Age
- The Man on the Moon — George J. Annas
- Mindscan: Transcending and Enhancing the Human Brain — Susan Schneider
- The Doomsday Argument — John Leslie
- The Last Question — Isaac Asimov
- Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics” and Machine Metaethics — Susan Leigh Anderson
- The Control Problem. Excerpts from Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies — Nick Bostrom
Part V Space and Time
- Related Works:Interstellar; Twelve Monkeys; Slaughterhouse‐Five; All You Zombies; The Time Machine; Back to the Future; Flatland: A Romance in Many Dimensions; Anathem
- A Sound of Thunder — Ray Bradbury
- Time — Theodore Sider
- The Paradoxes of Time Travel — David Lewis
- The Quantum Physics of Time Travel — David Deutsch and Michael Lockwood
- Miracles and Wonders: Science Fiction as Epistemology — Richard Hanley
- Appendix: Philosophers Recommend Science Fiction — Eric Schwitzgebel
About the Author
Susan Schneider is a Philosophy Professor at the University of Connecticut and a Fellow with the American Council of Learned Societies. She is the author of The Language of Thought: a New Philosophical Direction (2011) and the co-author, with Max Velmans, of The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness (2006).