Science Fiction and Philosophy

I love reading science fiction and fantasy and have been doing so since I learned to read. I realized recently the effect these kinds of stories have on the way I look at philosophic questions, and so I was surprised that we actually talked about a scifi story in class today.

The genre, otherwise known as speculative fiction, is based entirely on the question "what if?". By always asking this question, I can theoretically look at every possibility in every situation I come across. I don't feel any particular need to settle on one possibility as The Truth, but instead, am interested in these different perspectives in themselves as ways to define reality. When asked the question what is more certain, that you exist or that the sun will rise tomorrow, I think of the different ways that either of these things may not be certain: that I may be a programed artificial intelligence in some giant virtual world, that there may be a malfunction in this virtual world and the sun will not rise, that my mind and my thoughts are all illusions created by something much greater than me, and that I as an individual entity do not exist, that an asteroid will hit the earth, knocking it out of orbit, therefore it will not be rotating to create the illusion of the sun rising, etc. After imagining all those possibilities, (which essentially is what Decartes did, so I don't understand why he goes back and says that imagining things is a bad method from which to reason out knowledge), I decide that whether I exist or not objectively, I exist subjectively to myself, and that is good enough for me. Also, not being sure the sun will rise tomorrow is probably a bad excuse for not doing my philosophy homework so I will continue to operate as if it will.

Decartes uses a similar method for studying the question of reality and what we can know about it, by doubting everything, but his and my opinions differ because he assumes he is thinking and that there is nothing that can construct these thoughts but himself. He also assumes there must be perfection, one form of truth in any situation, and that deception is a form of imperfection. I assume no such things, and thus can be certain of nothing. I guess that allies me with Shakespeare, Montaigne, and the skeptics. Well, Shakespeare did write fantasy.