Philosophical interestingness ranking of sci-fi universes (in terms of meaningfulness, complexity, intelligibility...):
12. Star Wars
11. MCU
10. Doctor Who
9. Dune
8. Star Trek
7. Foundation
6. Deepness in the Sky
5. Hainish
4. Schismatrix
3. Rick & Morty
2. HHG
1. Culture
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Replying to
I’ve only read 1 culture novel but it’s obviously the most philosophically interesting by a mile
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Pity so many famous writers didn’t bother to build proper universes. As in literally spanning space. PKD, Heinlein etc are a bunch of killer apps with no platform underneath. Le Guin squeaks through with a vagueworld universe.
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Read the first volume. Didn’t strike me as philosophically interesting outside of a couple of points (dark forest theory, psychology of an unstable world) though the story is very imaginative.
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Replying to @vgr
Have you read Three Body Problem?
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Futurama is a lot of fun but even I’ll admit it’s not philosophically interesting. It’s just fun.
My list is correct and profound. If you disagree you are wrong and should feel bad.
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No accident that the top 3 have a strong element of humor and absurdity. Most universes do poorly on the philosophical interestingness test by not taking that element seriously enough.
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Some start out interesting but then go meh. Firefly universe was interesting until I saw the confederacy-apologia angle and couldn’t unsee it. Still interesting as a story but dull as philosophy.
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Hyperion was very interesting but in a very narrow way around the Shrike as a philosophical Rorschach test. I read only one volume. Wasn’t inspired to read the rest when the first one totally punted on actually resolving the Shrike plot 🤬
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People hating on R&M bring so high, I get it. To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty.
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Unpopular opinion but Dune is below Star Trek because it is pseudo-deep and too impressed with itself. Premium mediocre intellectualism.
Star Trek is middlebrow and knows it. Self awareness gains big points on my scale.
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Replying to @vgr
Man Star Wars don't deserve a spot.
Dune lesser than Star Trek?
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I think I like 2nd order worlds that subvert first-order ones. Like Dune is too primal-archetypal to be interesting. But the interesting ones need them to have something to subvert. Dune parody references are more interesting than Dune itself.
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