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Why Fiction Beats Truth

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#81

Post by dalbasal »

j7ake wrote: post #78
dalbasal wrote: post #62

I'm a big fan of Harari's Sapiens, like a lot of people. But... I think the.. narrative gets into inevitably sticky territory. It is, after all, a narrative explaining the role of narratives... Pure truths and falsehoods are generally small. e=mc^2 or F=ma. Cesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC. Facts, baiscally. Einstein heralded the atomic age, when man began to master matter & energy. Newton's mechanics became both a…

It's funny you mention E=mc^2 and F=ma in the same sentence as pure truths, because the former suggests the latter is only an approximation. The consequence of special relativity is that F=ma is not a pure truth, it's an approximation of the world. A useful one at that.

True. I didn't even think of that.

..Difference between purity and precision, I suppose.

Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#82

Post by MaxBarraclough »

vharuck wrote: post #43
avip wrote: post #9

2 must have Churchill quotes: Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on (unsourced, but why not attribute it to Churchill anyhow? he deserves it)

A little "factoid" I like is that Aristotle believed men had more teeth than women, and even gave a reasoned argument for why. But he never felt the need to count teeth, because his reasoning was just so good. Did Aristotle really do this? I've never looked it up, but it does match his reliance on reasoned arguments to arrive at objective truths. :-P

Wikipedia tells me it's true, and beyond that, was one his less wacky ideas on women. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle%27s_views_on_women#D...

Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#83

Post by dmontero »

Our mind likes plausible stories. It helps to make sense of the past and to have the -incorrect- perception that one can predict the future.

That's why fictions are so powerful. We easily get caught by them.

If people beliefs were purely rational, they would be able to weight the facts against the fictions. However, our subjective confidence in a story (fact or fiction) depends on many factors: - We tend to believe stories that appear to be based on cause-effect and that express continuity. - We tend to believe in things that people that we trust and love believe in.

Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#84

Post by mistermann »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #54
mistermann wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> political stances are projections of high-dimensional conceptual structures to lower-dimensional space Did you come up with this way of looking at it, or is this from some sort of a dedicated "field of study"? This seems to me an extremely good description of what's going on in society lately, from fake news to disagreement on a wide variety of issues, and perfectly explains why opposing sides both think they are r…

I think the field is called "epistemology", but I only know of the name; I didn't study it formally. I came up with this projection example myself, while looking for something more vivid than "focusing on different aspects", and this kind of clicked almost perfectly. In retrospect, it's not really original - I recall seeing suggestions like this in few places, notably the cover of the "Gödel, Escher, Bach" , and some…

> ...this kind of clicked almost perfectly

I have the very same feeling, this concept seems near perfectly correct, which is why I'm trying to find some formal discussion of it, something with more meat on the bone.

Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#85

Post by inflatableDodo »

honzzz wrote: post #61
inflatableDodo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Imagine a person meeting friends in a bar, or at a dinner party. They're likely to exchange stories they read about in the news. "So this politician said $outrageous-thing!" (taken outside of context, but who cares), says the person. "Oh yeah, all X are bad, have you heard of $event-that-never-actually-happened?", replies the person B. The conversation goes on. Ultimately, little to no truth was exchanged, but peopl…

Interesting - I've heard this, but always as a joke. It never occurred to me that anyone could actually believe it. I am not saying that you did that but I can imagine how someone explaining to the laughing audience that this event did not really happen would be kind of anti-social.

>'It never occurred to me that anyone could actually believe it.'

Am from the UK and I have heard that story for years from a variety of people who do seem to completely believe it, as it is usually brought up to give an example that shows Americans being stupid, and the motive of 'aren't we better' would not be there if they thought that the story was false. I didn't know the truth of it but thought it was a funny story, so had gone to look it up a while back.

Is also usually brought up by the same people who will crow about Americans not understanding the concept of irony or sarcarsm, again to demonstrate the supposed superiority of UK culture. I have taken to pointing out that saying that tells me nothing about Americans, but does demonstrate that the person I am talking to presumably never reads any books.

Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#86

Post by inflatableDodo »

emmelaich wrote: post #60
inflatableDodo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>To more mathematically minded people I'd explain it like this: two political stances can be correct at the same time, because political stances are projections of high-dimensional conceptual structures to lower-dimensional space. Both a circle and a rectangle are correct 2D projections of a 3D cylinder. But if your 2D projection of a cylinder looks like a hexagon, you're wrong. This is brilliant. I tend to fall back…

Not to pick on you; I like this comment. But it's about the most HN comment I've ever read! Beautiful.

Thanks and don't worry, it usually takes me a while to even notice when people are picking on me, am notoriously bad at detecting that kind of thing. Obliviousness to social cues does come with some perks.

Out of interest, I'd like it if you could explain why you think it is the most HN comment you've ever read. I have some idea, but am not entirely sure.

Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#87

Post by inflatableDodo »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #70
honzzz wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting - I've heard this, but always as a joke. It never occurred to me that anyone could actually believe it. I am not saying that you did that but I can imagine how someone explaining to the laughing audience that this event did not really happen would be kind of anti-social.

There is no good way to explain it to them. You do it at the moment the story is told, you're seen as a killjoy and a smartass. You wait until after the meeting to correct the person who told it, and (unless you're really good friends with them) you'll likely offend them ("why would you correct me on something so trivial?!"). You could try and wait a couple of days, and then stage a sudden discovery ("oh, I'll be dam…

>You do it at the moment the story is told, you're seen as a killjoy and a smartass.

I have long found the fact that 'trying to be smart' is an insult in our society, to be a source of both bewilderment and depression. I remember being utterly confused when even the teachers would use it at school. I'd ask them why we were at school, if we were not trying to be smart? Which would then get me into trouble, presumably for trying to be smart.

After a while I got bitter about this and my response turned into; 'Yes I am. Tell me, how is trying to be thick working out for you?', which still got me into trouble, but with more entertaining results.

Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#88

Post by TeMPOraL »

inflatableDodo wrote: post #87
TeMPOraL wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no good way to explain it to them. You do it at the moment the story is told, you're seen as a killjoy and a smartass. You wait until after the meeting to correct the person who told it, and (unless you're really good friends with them) you'll likely offend them ("why would you correct me on something so trivial?!"). You could try and wait a couple of days, and then stage a sudden discovery ("oh, I'll be dam…

>You do it at the moment the story is told, you're seen as a killjoy and a smartass. I have long found the fact that 'trying to be smart' is an insult in our society, to be a source of both bewilderment and depression. I remember being utterly confused when even the teachers would use it at school. I'd ask them why we were at school, if we were not trying to be smart? Which would then get me into trouble, presumably…

Yeah, it is. Which circles back to my original comment - regular people don't care about being right except in things directly and immediately impacting their lives.

Note however that in both cases they (and generally all humans, to some extent) care about their relative status; in most circumstances (especially when in a group), correcting someone will be seen as an attempt to diminish their social status.

It's unfortunate that this is the case, and a lot of people who honestly value being correct have to struggle with getting the handle on this whole status mechanism. I'm not even blaming most people that much here; I do my best to always accept corrections well, and I still at times feel bad or get angry when someone points out that I'm talking nonsense.

Re: Why Fiction Beats Truth

#89

Post by inflatableDodo »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #88
inflatableDodo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You do it at the moment the story is told, you're seen as a killjoy and a smartass. I have long found the fact that 'trying to be smart' is an insult in our society, to be a source of both bewilderment and depression. I remember being utterly confused when even the teachers would use it at school. I'd ask them why we were at school, if we were not trying to be smart? Which would then get me into trouble, presumably…

Yeah, it is. Which circles back to my original comment - regular people don't care about being right except in things directly and immediately impacting their lives. Note however that in both cases they (and generally all humans, to some extent) care about their relative status; in most circumstances (especially when in a group), correcting someone will be seen as an attempt to diminish their social status. It's unfo…

Some things are both harsh and good, and disillusionment is one of them.

In the moment, I can be very combatative and do not tend to fold easy, but if someone demonstrates to me conclusively that I am talking utter bollocks, I appreciate that I have learned something and I try to remember to thank them.

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