Post History

I think the common idea between sci-spec and worldbuilding is taking an idea about how things might be, and exploring it. The former is more about considering whether things actually are that way; the latter, more about figuring out the implications if they were (and it can involve explicitly denying such reality).

So I generally support the idea. I'm not sold on this category split, though. If two "main" categories are needed, I'd think that it's the "rigourous science" that should be split out, while informal speculative musing (other sci-spec) shares space with pure imagination (worldbuilding), differentiated by tags.

But actually I'm not sold that world-building entails throwing rigour away. Someone might want to know what happens in the real-world in a particular situation, specifically with an eye towards writing about it in a fictional context. And strict logical reasoning can be applied to counterfactual premises ("what if XYZ fundamental constant were different?"), although there may be limits to how far that can be taken. I'd propose starting with a General category and seeing whether tags are sufficient, first.

At any rate, my name proposal: "Hypotheses".