Tech Level Question

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by newton

I would disagree, what it would require is humans being built differently rather than reality having entirely different physical laws.

I think this might be splitting hairs a little. I think it's fair to reserve the superscience label for anything based on counterfactual principles, whether they're the laws of physics or of anatomy. If the setting sees it as a science, then it's a science for the sake of that setting, even if something similar like Esoteric Medicine would be considered supernatural.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

There's a lot of reasons phrenology doesn't work, and I didn't say it does.

You pointed us to a list of pseudosciences, from which I chose phrenology as an easily recognised example, and you said that "if they had worked, they would be supersciences."

But, that sentence doesn't parse. If they had worked, then they worked, and they would have been real, not superscience.

For that setting that would be true but the prospective of superscience in GURPS is based on how we currently think the universe works.

Take FTL for example. There are ways to make it work under our physics but they require exotic substances that only mathematically exist. Hence it is superscience.

In a reality where Newtonian physics is the order of the day then FTL is much easier to achieve though at 1 G it would take just over 353 days to go pass the speed of light.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by newton

I would disagree, what it would require is humans being built differently rather than reality having entirely different physical laws.

If humans were built that differently they wouldn't be humans.

[Anthony]

The superscience label is there so that you know that it doesn't fit in a 'hard science' setting, not that it doesn't get treated as scientific within that setting. It's applied to things that are as far as we know impossible (we could be wrong).

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The superscience label is there so that you know that it doesn't fit in a 'hard science' setting, not that it doesn't get treated as scientific within that setting. It's applied to things that are as far as we know impossible (we could be wrong).

As I pointed out before FTL is not "impossible" (per Alcubierre Warp Drives) it just involves a lot of exotic things that the physics we have says could exist - but there is nothing so far to show they do exist.

There is surprisingly very little "true" hard science fiction out there (not counting stuff in the solar system like Transhuman Space) - there is always a trip into fantasy land even if it is just the done to death and will never freaking die 'aliens that look like funny humans' trope.

This is due to practical story reasons - hard science interstellar travel is from a story stand point is boring unless there is some kind of personal drama going on with the crew.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by maximara

As I pointed out before FTL is not "impossible"

"Possible with a sufficient quantity of unobtanium which we have no evidence actually exists" isn't really possible (the alcubierre metric actually has quite a few problems beyond the unobtanium requirement, but things like stable transversible wormholes are less problematic, we just have no reason to think the requirements actually exist).

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Anthony

"Possible with a sufficient quantity of unobtanium which we have no evidence actually exists" isn't really possible (the alcubierre metric actually has quite a few problems beyond the unobtanium requirement, but things like stable transversible wormholes are less problematic, we just have no reason to think the requirements actually exist).

Likewise, just as the math works as long as you're willing to accept the idea of negative mass, FTL mathematically reconciles just fine with special relativity as long as you are willing to accept that causality is fundamentally meaningless.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Likewise, just as the math works as long as you're willing to accept the idea of negative mass, FTL mathematically reconciles just fine with special relativity as long as you are willing to accept that causality is fundamentally meaningless.

In fact they are equivalent statements - "a kind of negative mass exists that will allow FTL" is the same statement as "effects can happen even if their causes never do". Something that often gets lost in FTL discussions is that the speed of light isn't actually about *light*. Light happens to go that fast *because* it's the fastest possible speed in the universe.

If faster speeds were possible, light would travel at them. As should anything else massless in the absence of some other sort of resistance to motion - which is also what connects FTL to "negative mass", and the reason why stable wormholes aren't as problematic - as long as they don't form faster than light, they aren't actually FTL, because once you open them light can travel through them too.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by maximara

There is surprisingly very little "true" hard science fiction out there (not counting stuff in the solar system like Transhuman Space) - there is always a trip into fantasy land even if it is just the done to death and will never freaking die 'aliens that look like funny humans' trope.

The classic definition of "hard science fiction" seems to be SF that follows the Wellsian method: Make one assumption that is contrary to known fact and then work out the consequences logically in a way consistent with the rest of known fact. (Not that Wells always followed that rule; I've read a ltter of his where he called out the Invisible Man's ability to see as something he had handwaved for the sake of the story.) You do get that one assumption, though. Science fiction is more like mathematics than physics.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by maximara

As I pointed out before FTL is not "impossible" (per Alcubierre Warp Drives) it just involves a lot of exotic things that the physics we have says could exist -

That's a more positive statement than the reality, which is that they are things that physics can't definitively rule out but we have no reason to think actually exist.