La lección de Asimov: extrañamiento y neuroestética en la ciencia ficción

Abstract

This article argues that science fiction can be understood as an indexical cultural artifact capable of anticipating, understan ding, and problematizing contemporary relationships between technology, language, the brain, and society. It revisits Suvian’s definition of novum and cognitive estrangement to show how this genre articulates plausible hypotheses that, by decente ring the given, enable a critical reading of techno-scientific historicity. On a semiotic (Ch. S. Peirce) and historiographical (Ginzburg) basis, it proposes understanding the novum as an index of the socio-historical future, insofar as estrangement functions as an aesthetic-cognitive mechanism that turns the work into an indication for apprehending real trends. The text assumes the fundamental distinction between science fiction, myth, and fantasy, but also nuances it by recognizing border line genres, while emphasizing that science fiction bases its critical power on cognitive plausibility. Finally, neuroaesthetics is linked to literary and techno-scientific cases to argue that science fiction not only imagines possible futures but also cha llenges the politics of the brain and body in the current phase of modernity. Against the transhumanist fantasy that aspires to absolute transparency and the transcendence of the body, it is argued that science fiction can contribute to raising awareness of limits, contingencies, and ethical and political responsibility