Meillassoux: Science Fiction and Extro-Science Fiction

Science Fiction and Extro-Science Fiction

Now, what do we mean by "fiction of worlds outside-science," namely extra-science fiction or"XSF?" By the term"extra-science world," we are not referring to worlds that are simply devoid of science, i.e., worlds in which experimental sciences do not in fact exist.For example: worlds in which human beings have not,or have not yet, developed a scien­tific relation to the real.

By extra-science worlds we mean worlds where, in principle, experimental science is impossible and not unknown in fact.

Some additional commentary here in this blog post ->

However, it is that comment that suggests a weakness in the Kantian solution: there is nothing that actually prevents us from imagining extro-science worlds that are more stable than those described by Kant.  These would be worlds not subject to necessary laws, but still stable on the whole.  Or in other words, “Why should a lawless world be, without fail, frenetically inconstant?” To this, Meillassoux replies that a world obeying no law would have no more reason to be chaotic than it would to be ordered.  Nothing could prevent the composition of a global order containing small details that could “run out of control.”  In other words, the deficiency of the transcendental deduction is that it does not push hard enough on its XSF imaginary.

Further, Kant’s claim that science and consciousness have the same conditions of possibility—the necessity of laws—is itself faulty, because we can fiction worlds that contradict it.