Fact is fiction and fiction is fiction.* It is all about
pragmatism and degrees of fiction and where the truths within
the fictions are. - Kenneth Udut 11/18/2015 [need a new title]
Fiction. We understand the stories told. How do we understand
them if they did not happen? Our understanding of things is
ultimately fictional. This does not mean lies. This does not
mean untrue. But it means that facts and objective truths are
"working descriptions" of reality that only correspond to
reality as much as as we humans NEED or want it to, and no more.
We have tolerances. Allowances. "Fudge factors". All a regular
and necessary part of every science, every court system, every
evidentiary system. The best we can hope for is accuracy and
precision together, as neither alone is enough. But accuracy and
precision of what? Our goals and targets, whatever they may be.
Yet for as accurate and precise as we get, there is always a
level further in or a level further out, or a different
perspective we have yet to consider. We don't have the whole
picture of anything. But what we *do have* is a working
description of things. It's pragmatic. It gets things done. It's
correct _enough for our purposes_. We consider this "correct
enough for our purposes" = hard fact. Hard evidence. Such is the
nature of fact. It's "true enough for our needs". But, it's
ultimately still a fiction, just a very true fiction. It would
be ridiculous to call it fiction normally, because we have some
things that are FAR MORE fictional than facts and that is the
arena we call fiction. Now, in things like thought experiments
based upon movies or parables, you are utilizing a fictional
Universe as an overlay to our Universe. Yet, are there really
two Universe? One fictional? One fact? There's not. There's just
this Universe. Our describatory powers must ultimately be
fictional in nature. No two apples even exist if one wants to
get tenacious about it. There's "two apples" for our convenience
based upon the limitations of our cognition. We're unable to see
thing in their uniqueness, and we're generally trapped at our
"zoom level" of reality. So we categorize. We utilize the
cognitive systems we have which have a built-in tendency to
discover "patterns" - similarities, and pull them together "as
if one" - allowing us to have such things as "two" of "this" or
that. Our brains can't possibly contain all the uniqueness of
the Universe. We must use patterns - we have no choice. Or we
build thought systems that use patterns. Or we build devices
which use patterns, which we base upon our own patterns in some
fashion. Now, going to the "fictional Universe", how is it that
we understand it at all? Our brains interpret the fictional
stories as truth while we are viewing them. We place ourselves
in those situations. They are real to us. So is this Universe
that we are in. The difference is the degrees of fiction. We
comprehend stories using different names, different dates,
different "markers" than we would use in a history book or a
science text very easily because these stories they tell are no
different than the stories we hear about reality. This concept
of "continuum of fiction" might sound off the wall - it's just
something I've been thinking about for a long time but i do so
carefully because there *is* a real Universe that we can
objectively apprehend. We can do so only to the best of our
abilities, either natural or artificially -but the artificial is
still due to the machines that are also created by these same
limited cognitive faculties. Does that mean we cannot truly
"know the Universe"? Well, no, I believe we *can* fully know the
Universe _to the best of our abilities_. There is no beyond-that
us. If we cannot put it into a metaphor or an analogy to some
pre-existing 'something' we already comprehend, it's just not
there. In short, the map is the territory and the territory is
the map - they co-evolve. We utilize multiple mappings
simultaneously to create our knowledge of the territories thanks
to our mental compressions and connections... and some maps are
better suited than others for different situations in assisting
us navigate the territories we're in. The cinematic Universe
helps us navigate relationship territories; how we relate to the
non-movie-screen reality we're also in. It functions as a
marvelous map-of-understanding our territories. That's why they
work so well in thought experiments. You can tell me that is a
bunch of babble and ridiculous and I'm ok with that. I've been
running it through it for a long time and hardly sit down and
write it out. Definitely needs refinement and criticism.
