In my mind, at least, there is a fairly large distinction between fact-oriented imagination and fictive imagination. In fact-oriented imagination, I’m imagining things that could be true in the real world (including future/past, alien planets, etc). In fictive imagination, deviations are allowed.
Am I willing to argue against non-fact-oriented imagination? Probably not, but let’s consider it. What would it look like if rationalists/rationalism steered toward a future society in which fictive discourse was in a similar category to lying?
I’m imagining that the society would still have something like entertainment. This may not be the case, of course, since a society very much in the future is rather difficult to imagine. The entertainment would be more fact-based, like sports, biographies and documentaries. Speculative (imaginative) conversations between friends are fact-oriented; people prefer to talk about hard-science-fiction style speculation rather than soft, and dislike fantastical ideas which are not trying to be plausible.
Is something essential missing?
My feeling is that fiction provides some kind of release that fact does not—it feels more restful to me. I’m suspicious of this feeling, because I don’t think I’m actually more rested after reading fiction, but it’s hard to say. Highly fact-oriented discussions can be a lot of fun (especially in situations where discussion is typically not fact-oriented), but it feels “heavy”; there’s this big web of constraints to deal with.
In fact-oriented imagination, I’m imagining things that could be true in the real world
“Could be true in the real world”—given how you mention alien planets—is a very low bar. Tolkien could be true on some alien planet (especially if you’re a fan of MWI). And don’t forget Clarke’s Third Law.
and dislike fantastical ideas which are not trying to be plausible
Ah, here is an interesting word: “plausible”. Notice how it’s not a limit of what could actually be—it’s a limit on what a person can imagine :-/
I would guess that if imagining is frowned upon, the boundaries of “plausible” will contract.
What would it look like if rationalists/rationalism steered toward a future society in which fictive discourse was in a similar category to lying?
the distinction does not seem so clear in your mental processes
Well, in certain ways it exists. If I’m trying to figure out how to fix a broken thingy, my imagination tends to stick within the realm of the plausible. But in other ways, not necessarily—for example, I don’t see much, if any, difference between imagining a deer standing in the middle of a forest meadow and imagining a unicorn in the same place.
I guess you can even conceptualize progress as movement of “things” from the realm of the fantastical into the realm of the plausible.
For me, there is a big difference. It’s something like a mode of thinking—“is it plausible? could it happen? push toward the real” vs “is it interesting? is it exciting? freely explore the space”. The first mode of thinking sees the unicorn and starts thinking: This does not seem very plausible as a genetic modification. Is the horn grafted on, perhaps? Does that work with the skull structure of a horse, or is there not enough foundation to stick it to? What about the skin healing, next to the horn? How does that work? Would it heal over properly, or remain like an open wound?
The second mode says—just how magical is this unicorn? There are a lot of levels to this. It could be anything from a horse with a horn to a godlike thing which can zap stuff in and out of existence. If it’s the godlike thing, it probably isn’t very smart or goal-driven; otherwise it would reshape everything to its whim. Maybe it only uses the powers in defense, and occasionally on a whim.
I think it’s implausible with current or near-future genetic engineering. I am far from an expert on this, but I believe we can transfer chemical/metabolic capabilities between organisms, and I believe we can transfer many trats haphazardly, but to put a horn in a specific place and leave everything else untouched? This would involve designing a whole new growth point (“growth point” may not be quite the right concept). You’d have genes that activate only when on the forehead, in a very specific pattern which does not presently exist. Sure, if we could manipulate genes like code we could take the code for this from another animal—all the activation patterns needed to grow a horn. But then we’d need to find a way to turn them on only at the specific point desired.
The easiest way might be to try and cross in rhino genes. This could produce a hybrid animal with some horse features and some rhino features. It would have many aspects of the rhino shape all throughout the body, and eliminating these without reducing the horn would be difficult. And a rhino horn isn’t really like a unicorn horn.
Perhaps narwal genes, but that sounds even more haphazard.
Current genetic engineering, yes, but 50 or 100 years from now? Remember, we’re talking not about what’s viable now, but rather what’s plausible and a unicorn is very plausible biologically—it’s merely technical difficulties which prevent us from creating one.
A hundred years ago a future of people watching porn on the internet wasn’t plausible for most people.
Good stories simplify concepts. The future in 2100 will differ in many aspects from today’s world.
It’s quite reasonable that a sci-fi author focuses on one aspect to explore while at the same time leaving the world in other aspects without the change that’s likely going to happen in the timeframe.
I disagree with this, though it could merely be semantics. Imagination is content-neutral. abramdemski is arguing that we should bias our time towards things more useful than fiction, if I understand him correctly.
we should bias our time towards things more useful than fiction
“Useful” is very fuzzy word. If you treat it as e.g. “something that advanced me towards my goals”, I don’t see why fiction can’t do that—depending on the goals, of course.
By “imagination is content-neutral”, I mean that you can imagine both fictional and non-fictional things. An inventor might imagine a new technology just like a writer could imagine a story.
I’ll also agree that “useful” is a fuzzy word. More precisely, it’s much easier to make something which advances many more goals (not necessarily just your own) by not reading fiction. Reading fiction generally would only serve to make yourself transiently happy, and maybe indirectly could make the writer happy (by paying them, or letting them know that you enjoyed the story).
By “imagination is content-neutral”, I mean that you can imagine both fictional and non-fictional things.
Oh, I see. To clarify, by “imagination” I mean not just all kinds of mental imagery, but imagining things with an implication that these things are not real.
it’s much easier to make something which advances many more goals (not necessarily just your own) by not reading fiction.
Are you making a general argument against any kind of leisure, then?
Are you making a general argument against any kind of leisure, then?
In a strict sense, no. But I absolutely do believe that many people spend their time poorly, by having way too much “leisure”, and by choosing inefficient leisure activities.
I tend to agree with abramdemski that switching contexts often is the barrier to productivity, not necessarily doing “leisure” activities. If you enjoy your work then there is no substantial difference between leisure and non-leisure. This is of little help to people with boring work, but you can usually change your job.
And not all leisure activities are equal. When I visit my parents, I’m amazed by how much TV and movies they watch. I don’t think they are worse than average in this regard, in fact, they probably watch less than your average American. Strangely, they seem annoyed when I don’t want to watch movies with them. I was told to “take a break”. It’s not that I chose against leisure, as many times I was doing something I consider leisure. Rather, there are many activities which completely dominate watching movies or TV to me, and I chose one of those instead. I’d say reading fiction is not much better than watching TV.
Do you think it’s just your personal opinion or something more than that?
In other words, people have preferences (e.g. white wine vs red wine) with which you could disagree, but about which you can’t say that they are “right” or “wrong”. All you can say is that your preferences are similar or different.
Some people, of course, add “and those with preferences unlike mine are moral degenerates who will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes”, but those tend to be not very reasonable people.
So, do you think the attiudes to leisure and how to spend it are mere preferences which can be tut-tutted but tolerated—or are they a blight upon humanity which needs to be fixed?
Nowhere did I say that people who use their time inefficiently are a blight. I’d really only call people who are actively being harmful a blight.
I recommend that people evaluate whether reading fiction, watching TV, or whatnot, is the best use of their time. If they think these activities are acceptable, I see no reason to argue further with them. I might believe they are mistaken, which I think is perfectly reasonable.
The former. Whenever someone complains to me that they don’t have time to do something they (claim to) enjoy greatly (let’s call it activity X), but I know that they spend a lot of time watching TV, reading books, etc., and I’m confident that they enjoy TV, etc. less than activity X, it’s pretty easy to conclude they use their time poorly. And I don’t think I’m unjustified in that belief.
Fiction is just imagination set to words.
Are you willing to argue against imagination?
In my mind, at least, there is a fairly large distinction between fact-oriented imagination and fictive imagination. In fact-oriented imagination, I’m imagining things that could be true in the real world (including future/past, alien planets, etc). In fictive imagination, deviations are allowed.
Am I willing to argue against non-fact-oriented imagination? Probably not, but let’s consider it. What would it look like if rationalists/rationalism steered toward a future society in which fictive discourse was in a similar category to lying?
I’m imagining that the society would still have something like entertainment. This may not be the case, of course, since a society very much in the future is rather difficult to imagine. The entertainment would be more fact-based, like sports, biographies and documentaries. Speculative (imaginative) conversations between friends are fact-oriented; people prefer to talk about hard-science-fiction style speculation rather than soft, and dislike fantastical ideas which are not trying to be plausible.
Is something essential missing?
My feeling is that fiction provides some kind of release that fact does not—it feels more restful to me. I’m suspicious of this feeling, because I don’t think I’m actually more rested after reading fiction, but it’s hard to say. Highly fact-oriented discussions can be a lot of fun (especially in situations where discussion is typically not fact-oriented), but it feels “heavy”; there’s this big web of constraints to deal with.
“Could be true in the real world”—given how you mention alien planets—is a very low bar. Tolkien could be true on some alien planet (especially if you’re a fan of MWI). And don’t forget Clarke’s Third Law.
Ah, here is an interesting word: “plausible”. Notice how it’s not a limit of what could actually be—it’s a limit on what a person can imagine :-/
I would guess that if imagining is frowned upon, the boundaries of “plausible” will contract.
I think it would look like stagnation.
I take this as a statement that the distinction does not seem so clear in your mental processes.
Which is interesting.
Yeah… I am now of this position as well.
Well, in certain ways it exists. If I’m trying to figure out how to fix a broken thingy, my imagination tends to stick within the realm of the plausible. But in other ways, not necessarily—for example, I don’t see much, if any, difference between imagining a deer standing in the middle of a forest meadow and imagining a unicorn in the same place.
I guess you can even conceptualize progress as movement of “things” from the realm of the fantastical into the realm of the plausible.
For me, there is a big difference. It’s something like a mode of thinking—“is it plausible? could it happen? push toward the real” vs “is it interesting? is it exciting? freely explore the space”. The first mode of thinking sees the unicorn and starts thinking: This does not seem very plausible as a genetic modification. Is the horn grafted on, perhaps? Does that work with the skull structure of a horse, or is there not enough foundation to stick it to? What about the skin healing, next to the horn? How does that work? Would it heal over properly, or remain like an open wound?
The second mode says—just how magical is this unicorn? There are a lot of levels to this. It could be anything from a horse with a horn to a godlike thing which can zap stuff in and out of existence. If it’s the godlike thing, it probably isn’t very smart or goal-driven; otherwise it would reshape everything to its whim. Maybe it only uses the powers in defense, and occasionally on a whim.
Given narwhals, I don’t see much in the way of biological problems with unicorns.
I think it’s implausible with current or near-future genetic engineering. I am far from an expert on this, but I believe we can transfer chemical/metabolic capabilities between organisms, and I believe we can transfer many trats haphazardly, but to put a horn in a specific place and leave everything else untouched? This would involve designing a whole new growth point (“growth point” may not be quite the right concept). You’d have genes that activate only when on the forehead, in a very specific pattern which does not presently exist. Sure, if we could manipulate genes like code we could take the code for this from another animal—all the activation patterns needed to grow a horn. But then we’d need to find a way to turn them on only at the specific point desired.
The easiest way might be to try and cross in rhino genes. This could produce a hybrid animal with some horse features and some rhino features. It would have many aspects of the rhino shape all throughout the body, and eliminating these without reducing the horn would be difficult. And a rhino horn isn’t really like a unicorn horn.
Perhaps narwal genes, but that sounds even more haphazard.
Current genetic engineering, yes, but 50 or 100 years from now? Remember, we’re talking not about what’s viable now, but rather what’s plausible and a unicorn is very plausible biologically—it’s merely technical difficulties which prevent us from creating one.
Touché!
It seems worth considering that I might benefit from specifically practicing being imaginative, or otherwise modifying my “two modes” thought pattern.
A hundred years ago a future of people watching porn on the internet wasn’t plausible for most people.
Good stories simplify concepts. The future in 2100 will differ in many aspects from today’s world. It’s quite reasonable that a sci-fi author focuses on one aspect to explore while at the same time leaving the world in other aspects without the change that’s likely going to happen in the timeframe.
Well, it was actually rather recently that this distinction was developed.
I disagree with this, though it could merely be semantics. Imagination is content-neutral. abramdemski is arguing that we should bias our time towards things more useful than fiction, if I understand him correctly.
What does that mean?
“Useful” is very fuzzy word. If you treat it as e.g. “something that advanced me towards my goals”, I don’t see why fiction can’t do that—depending on the goals, of course.
By “imagination is content-neutral”, I mean that you can imagine both fictional and non-fictional things. An inventor might imagine a new technology just like a writer could imagine a story.
I’ll also agree that “useful” is a fuzzy word. More precisely, it’s much easier to make something which advances many more goals (not necessarily just your own) by not reading fiction. Reading fiction generally would only serve to make yourself transiently happy, and maybe indirectly could make the writer happy (by paying them, or letting them know that you enjoyed the story).
Oh, I see. To clarify, by “imagination” I mean not just all kinds of mental imagery, but imagining things with an implication that these things are not real.
Are you making a general argument against any kind of leisure, then?
In a strict sense, no. But I absolutely do believe that many people spend their time poorly, by having way too much “leisure”, and by choosing inefficient leisure activities.
I tend to agree with abramdemski that switching contexts often is the barrier to productivity, not necessarily doing “leisure” activities. If you enjoy your work then there is no substantial difference between leisure and non-leisure. This is of little help to people with boring work, but you can usually change your job.
And not all leisure activities are equal. When I visit my parents, I’m amazed by how much TV and movies they watch. I don’t think they are worse than average in this regard, in fact, they probably watch less than your average American. Strangely, they seem annoyed when I don’t want to watch movies with them. I was told to “take a break”. It’s not that I chose against leisure, as many times I was doing something I consider leisure. Rather, there are many activities which completely dominate watching movies or TV to me, and I chose one of those instead. I’d say reading fiction is not much better than watching TV.
Do you think it’s just your personal opinion or something more than that?
In other words, people have preferences (e.g. white wine vs red wine) with which you could disagree, but about which you can’t say that they are “right” or “wrong”. All you can say is that your preferences are similar or different.
Some people, of course, add “and those with preferences unlike mine are moral degenerates who will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes”, but those tend to be not very reasonable people.
So, do you think the attiudes to leisure and how to spend it are mere preferences which can be tut-tutted but tolerated—or are they a blight upon humanity which needs to be fixed?
Nowhere did I say that people who use their time inefficiently are a blight. I’d really only call people who are actively being harmful a blight.
I recommend that people evaluate whether reading fiction, watching TV, or whatnot, is the best use of their time. If they think these activities are acceptable, I see no reason to argue further with them. I might believe they are mistaken, which I think is perfectly reasonable.
Do you believe they are mistaken instrumentally (it’s not a good use of their time for their goals) or they are mistaken about what goals to pursue?
The former. Whenever someone complains to me that they don’t have time to do something they (claim to) enjoy greatly (let’s call it activity X), but I know that they spend a lot of time watching TV, reading books, etc., and I’m confident that they enjoy TV, etc. less than activity X, it’s pretty easy to conclude they use their time poorly. And I don’t think I’m unjustified in that belief.
Well, there is the issue of revealed preferences...
It’s certainly possible that they don’t actually prefer what they claim to. I don’t see any reason to argue with people about that.