3 ms·

It's unlike it because it's far easier to establish emotional connections and paint a rich world full of counter factuals. Fiction can easily establish itself a

It's unlike it because it's far easier to establish emotional connections and paint a rich world full of counter factuals. Fiction can easily establish itself as a reference point for future ideas, such as on AI. This is only worth mentioning because it points out that there are potential downsides. It makes the real bottom line of the article more acceptable. That is, we don't need to encourage art creation, that the public isn't gaining much by having strict copyright for art.

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
If you learn to write fiction you'll understand that almost all human thinking runs on 'narrative logic.' Human brains are basically story machines. There are (IMO) good evolutionary reasons for this. Even science at its best is just an occasionally successful attempt to stop using narrative logic to reason and to use other cognitive modes instead. Politics, economics, and law are almost entirely fuelled by narrative logic and rhetorical persuasion, which is its close cousin. >That is, we don't need to encourage art creation An exercise I often suggest is to imagine a world with no aesthetics at all. Everything is rendered in standard fonts, designed strictly for intelligibility. Colour isn't used at all. There's no personal adornment, no make-up, no jewellery. Photography and painting have never been invented. Nor has music. Nor have story-telling and metaphor - all communication is strictly factual and literal. Graphic design doesn't exist. Nor does product styling. Buildings, cars, clothes, everything is 100% functional with no decoration of any kind. Do you want to live in this world? Point is aesthetic expression is everywhere. It's not until you try to imagine a world without it that it becomes obvious how much of an obsession it is for humans.
eli_gottlieb 12y ago
So which propaganda are you specifically trying to ban? >It's unlike it because it's far easier to establish emotional connections and paint a rich world full of counter factuals. Fiction can easily establish itself as a reference point for future ideas, such as on AI. The thing about rich worlds full of counterfactual events is that, being completely unrealistic, they have no influence on real life. There's a reason the people who accomplish big things in real life usually spent a lot more of their time reading textbooks than novels. If you want to raise artificial intelligence as an example, the very ridiculousness of the body of fictional evidence from which to generalize has probably set back the field by decades, because people keep running around chasing nonsense ideas out of the sorry imaginations of philosophers of mind and science-fiction writers rather than following the obvious research leads that stare into the face of anyone who bothers to actually look with a clear head. But I'm sure that anyone complaining about how speculative fiction is dangerous would probably say the opposite: that giving people bad models to work from somehow makes them more likely to discover real, working science. Anyway, point being, the thing about having movies where pandimensional posthumans open wormholes to save mankind from omnivirulent crop blight is that they don't make space exploration dangerous.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  The article mentions how fiction has convinced people that cars explode, leading bystanders to drag people out of car accidents, injuring them. Another example could be crime or terrorism shows that make people think LE should have extraordinary powers. Fiction, even unrealistic, certainly effects people. As the article mentions, brains believe everything they hear, at first. The understanding that something is a lie comes after. Additionally, we cache thoughts, for efficiency and do not always reevaluate thoughts for truthiness. So being bombarded by many counterfactuals can certainly change our minds in the "real world". This is only mentioned because it points out that reading fiction can be actively harmful, so we can't just sum it up as just potentially positive.

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago

If you learn to write fiction you'll understand that almost all human thinking runs on 'narrative logic.' Human brains are basically story machines. There are (IMO) good evolutionary reasons for this. Even science at its best is just an occasionally successful attempt to stop using narrative logic to reason and to use other cognitive modes instead. Politics, economics, and law are almost entirely fuelled by narrative logic and rhetorical persuasion, which is its close cousin. >That is, we don't need to encourage art creation An exercise I often suggest is to imagine a world with no aesthetics at all. Everything is rendered in standard fonts, designed strictly for intelligibility. Colour isn't used at all. There's no personal adornment, no make-up, no jewellery. Photography and painting have never been invented. Nor has music. Nor have story-telling and metaphor - all communication is strictly factual and literal. Graphic design doesn't exist. Nor does product styling. Buildings, cars, clothes, everything is 100% functional with no decoration of any kind. Do you want to live in this world? Point is aesthetic expression is everywhere. It's not until you try to imagine a world without it that it becomes obvious how much of an obsession it is for humans.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

So which propaganda are you specifically trying to ban? >It's unlike it because it's far easier to establish emotional connections and paint a rich world full of counter factuals. Fiction can easily establish itself as a reference point for future ideas, such as on AI. The thing about rich worlds full of counterfactual events is that, being completely unrealistic, they have no influence on real life. There's a reason the people who accomplish big things in real life usually spent a lot more of their time reading textbooks than novels. If you want to raise artificial intelligence as an example, the very ridiculousness of the body of fictional evidence from which to generalize has probably set back the field by decades, because people keep running around chasing nonsense ideas out of the sorry imaginations of philosophers of mind and science-fiction writers rather than following the obvious research leads that stare into the face of anyone who bothers to actually look with a clear head. But I'm sure that anyone complaining about how speculative fiction is dangerous would probably say the opposite: that giving people bad models to work from somehow makes them more likely to discover real, working science. Anyway, point being, the thing about having movies where pandimensional posthumans open wormholes to save mankind from omnivirulent crop blight is that they don't make space exploration dangerous.

MichaelGG 12y ago
The article mentions how fiction has convinced people that cars explode, leading bystanders to drag people out of car accidents, injuring them. Another example could be crime or terrorism shows that make people think LE should have extraordinary powers. Fiction, even unrealistic, certainly effects people. As the article mentions, brains believe everything they hear, at first. The understanding that something is a lie comes after. Additionally, we cache thoughts, for efficiency and do not always reevaluate thoughts for truthiness. So being bombarded by many counterfactuals can certainly change our minds in the "real world". This is only mentioned because it points out that reading fiction can be actively harmful, so we can't just sum it up as just potentially positive.