Imagination, Fictionality, Reality: On the Experimental Nature of Science Fiction

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He Min
Zhang Die

Abstract

Science fiction is a narrative that combines science and technology with fantasy, and imagination endows science fiction with the experimental nature. It is capable of strikingly predicting the development of technology, examining the local consequences of technological development or social trends, and reflecting the comprehensive impacts of technological changes on the operation mode, behavioral trajectory, social networks, and psychological functioning of human society. With multiple and composite narrative structures, science fiction attempts to use logic and reasoning to make reasonable assumptions from a fictional perspective. On the conceptual level, it reflects the future form of certain ideas; and on the social and cultural level, it seeks and displays the possible course of history aided by specific imagination and deformation of time and space. Science fiction is a kind of literary thought experiment, which fuses scientific imagination with literary fictionality to reveal the reality of a particular period and prompt people to think about different ways to the future.

Published: Nov 14, 2022

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Section
Mutual Learning among Civilizations through Comparative Literature