I don’t have the philosophical sophistication to explain this as clearly as I would like, but I think fiction is valuable to the extent that it can be “more true” than a literal history.
Of course, fiction is obviously false at the most basic level, since the precise events it records never actually happened. But it can be effective at introducing abstract concepts. And except for trivia competitions, the abstract patterns are usually what’s most useful anyway.
The best analogy I can think of is lifting weights. Fiction is an artificial gym that trains our minds to recognize specific patterns, much as weight lifting uses artificial movements that target specific muscle groups.
Fiction works by association, which as you suggest is how our minds tend to operate by default already. So at a minimum, wrapping ideas in a fictional story can make them more memorable. For example, people who memorize decks of cards tend to use “memory palace” techniques that associate the cards with vivid events.
The knowledge we gain from reading fiction is largely subconscious, but for me the most important part is the ability to understand how people who are different from me will think or act. This can also inspire me to think and act more like the role models I’ve observed.
There are other purposes in reading fiction—some fiction is meant mainly for entertainment. But I think most of what people would consider classics aim to teach something deeper. Perhaps what you experience as meaningful in reading Lord of the Rings is related to this?
Of course, there is the danger that reading bad fiction will make you less informed than you would have been otherwise. And the fact that learning occurs mostly subconsciously exacerbates this problem, since it can be difficult to counter a faulty narrative once you’ve read it.
But fiction seems no more dangerous to me than any other method of getting information from other people. Even sticking strictly to facts can be misleading if the facts are selectively reported (as occurs frequently in politics).
I do need to think some more about your point about how exactly to distinguish what part of a story is fictional and what can be treated as true. I don’t have a clear framework for that yet, though in practice it rarely seems to be an issue. Do you have an example of a time you felt misled by a fictional story?
Overall, I think my understanding of the world, and especially of people, would be greatly impoverished without fiction.
I don’t have the philosophical sophistication to explain this as clearly as I would like, but I think fiction is valuable to the extent that it can be “more true” than a literal history.
Of course, fiction is obviously false at the most basic level, since the precise events it records never actually happened. But it can be effective at introducing abstract concepts. And except for trivia competitions, the abstract patterns are usually what’s most useful anyway.
The best analogy I can think of is lifting weights. Fiction is an artificial gym that trains our minds to recognize specific patterns, much as weight lifting uses artificial movements that target specific muscle groups.
Fiction works by association, which as you suggest is how our minds tend to operate by default already. So at a minimum, wrapping ideas in a fictional story can make them more memorable. For example, people who memorize decks of cards tend to use “memory palace” techniques that associate the cards with vivid events.
The knowledge we gain from reading fiction is largely subconscious, but for me the most important part is the ability to understand how people who are different from me will think or act. This can also inspire me to think and act more like the role models I’ve observed.
There are other purposes in reading fiction—some fiction is meant mainly for entertainment. But I think most of what people would consider classics aim to teach something deeper. Perhaps what you experience as meaningful in reading Lord of the Rings is related to this?
Of course, there is the danger that reading bad fiction will make you less informed than you would have been otherwise. And the fact that learning occurs mostly subconsciously exacerbates this problem, since it can be difficult to counter a faulty narrative once you’ve read it.
But fiction seems no more dangerous to me than any other method of getting information from other people. Even sticking strictly to facts can be misleading if the facts are selectively reported (as occurs frequently in politics).
I do need to think some more about your point about how exactly to distinguish what part of a story is fictional and what can be treated as true. I don’t have a clear framework for that yet, though in practice it rarely seems to be an issue. Do you have an example of a time you felt misled by a fictional story?
Overall, I think my understanding of the world, and especially of people, would be greatly impoverished without fiction.