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I don't really see any insights here. This entire thing is just saying "our brains make us believe fiction". We already know that. The mysteries, which are the

I don't really see any insights here. This entire thing is just saying "our brains make us believe fiction". We already know that. The mysteries, which are the parts that are actually interesting, surround the underlying nature and character of emotions. So fiction tricks our brain like an illusion. Of course it does, but so what? That doesn't explain why we are so obsessed with it. The Shepherd Tone is an auditory illusion, but we don't sit and listen to albums of Shepherd Tones for hours on end. What compells us about fiction? It is the emotions themselves that are mysterious and interesting, not the fact that fiction elicits them.

mistermann 7y ago
> This entire thing is just saying "our brains make us believe fiction". We already know that. I'm not so sure about that. Go into any political thread here on HN and observe the amount of on polar opposites of an issue, while most everyone sincerely believes that they are arguing on "the facts". Just one example: U.S. to leave global postal union next month barring last-minute action https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20965145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20965145 And this is conversations among smarter than average people, it's no wonder discourse is breaking down in the political realm resulting in massive polarization in the public. I think there's something about the massive increase in information people are consuming due to 24 hour cable news and the internet that's at the root of the problem, is it perhaps overwhelming people's ability to think straight? Maybe we never even evolved to handle this much complexity. I think it's something like.....the world is infinitely complex (infinite dimensions), so the mind must compress and simplify it to make sense of it. In doing so, it compresses it into a smaller set of dimensions, but with the increase in independent thinking due to members of societies having less in common (we don't go to the same church, we don't even watch the same TV shows, we don't watch the same evening news, etc), people are compressing things into different dimensions - two people consuming the same information will view it, store it, recall it, and discuss it completely differently from each other, while at the same time be under a completely transparent illusion that they each see "the truth". This has always been the case of course, but 30 years ago life was much simpler - lots of people barely followed the news back then, you had to make a serious effort, but nowadays it takes effort just to avoid it.
- deleted 7y ago
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- SomeOldThrow 7y ago
  Oh wow, I was skeptical people would frame politics around debates of fact, but that word is really thrown around in that discussion.
karmakaze 7y ago
I only wish I could believe more fiction. As I've grown older I have so much less patience for pointless fiction. I want there to be a cohesive story and compelling idea or unexpected consequence rather than random events happening to random subjects. Netflix is the worst, there's no internal consistency or adherence to genre and the story goes out the window about a quarter way through. Dream logic is ok, no logic is not.

mistermann 7y ago

> This entire thing is just saying "our brains make us believe fiction". We already know that. I'm not so sure about that. Go into any political thread here on HN and observe the amount of on polar opposites of an issue, while most everyone sincerely believes that they are arguing on "the facts". Just one example: U.S. to leave global postal union next month barring last-minute action https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20965145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20965145 And this is conversations among smarter than average people, it's no wonder discourse is breaking down in the political realm resulting in massive polarization in the public. I think there's something about the massive increase in information people are consuming due to 24 hour cable news and the internet that's at the root of the problem, is it perhaps overwhelming people's ability to think straight? Maybe we never even evolved to handle this much complexity. I think it's something like.....the world is infinitely complex (infinite dimensions), so the mind must compress and simplify it to make sense of it. In doing so, it compresses it into a smaller set of dimensions, but with the increase in independent thinking due to members of societies having less in common (we don't go to the same church, we don't even watch the same TV shows, we don't watch the same evening news, etc), people are compressing things into different dimensions - two people consuming the same information will view it, store it, recall it, and discuss it completely differently from each other, while at the same time be under a completely transparent illusion that they each see "the truth". This has always been the case of course, but 30 years ago life was much simpler - lots of people barely followed the news back then, you had to make a serious effort, but nowadays it takes effort just to avoid it.

deleted 7y ago
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SomeOldThrow 7y ago
Oh wow, I was skeptical people would frame politics around debates of fact, but that word is really thrown around in that discussion.

karmakaze 7y ago

I only wish I could believe more fiction. As I've grown older I have so much less patience for pointless fiction. I want there to be a cohesive story and compelling idea or unexpected consequence rather than random events happening to random subjects. Netflix is the worst, there's no internal consistency or adherence to genre and the story goes out the window about a quarter way through. Dream logic is ok, no logic is not.