The dangerous idea that life is a story(aeon.co)
aeon.co
The dangerous idea that life is a story
http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/the-dangerous-idea-that-life-is-a-story/
63 comments
Young children don't need 'meaning' to enough life, which IMO is a philosophy as valid as any other.
I used to have quite a bit of existential angst and personally I found the most useful thing to do was finding something interesting and do/learn it. It's easy to get into a rut where month after month you follow the same patterns. Especially when living in doors most of the time removes most seasonal variations.
I used to have quite a bit of existential angst and personally I found the most useful thing to do was finding something interesting and do/learn it. It's easy to get into a rut where month after month you follow the same patterns. Especially when living in doors most of the time removes most seasonal variations.
Children live a life of pure fiction. My two year old in the last day has believed himself to be a Jaguar hunting our chihuahua, a pirate sailing our living room couch, a bear eating ravioli, and countless other tiny dreams.
All of them are fundamentally narratives about power. Children incessantly dream of having more strength than they currently do. Why that is the case should be profoundly obvious.
It may not seem like meaning to us because of its naive purview, but to children their own narratives about their power are all-encompassing epics detailing a hoped-for relation to the world.
And why should the season matter? Outside of its aesthetic attributes, attributes we project upon it, it is merely a small change in temperature as the angle of the sun's rays move in relation to the crust of the Earth, followed by some shifts in the flora and fauna populations -- beings which are themselves merely carbon-based machines arising from the repetition of simple chemical processes over very large time scales.
Those things that we find interesting are so because of what we project upon them, not as a result of what they fundamentally, physically, objectively are. The very idea that something should be "interesting" implies a subjective witness to project their own feelings onto the meaningless physical trivia of the universe.
If your goal is to live a life without lies, you'll be living a life without meaning. There is no meaning outside of the beautiful, nay, holy fictions we tell ourselves.
The beauty in childhood isn't that it's all truth, it's that its all lies. They don't yet have a concept of truth and lies, and so are free to live entirely within their dreams. We, on the other hand, are in some ways shackled to reality by our experiences of materiality.
All of them are fundamentally narratives about power. Children incessantly dream of having more strength than they currently do. Why that is the case should be profoundly obvious.
It may not seem like meaning to us because of its naive purview, but to children their own narratives about their power are all-encompassing epics detailing a hoped-for relation to the world.
And why should the season matter? Outside of its aesthetic attributes, attributes we project upon it, it is merely a small change in temperature as the angle of the sun's rays move in relation to the crust of the Earth, followed by some shifts in the flora and fauna populations -- beings which are themselves merely carbon-based machines arising from the repetition of simple chemical processes over very large time scales.
Those things that we find interesting are so because of what we project upon them, not as a result of what they fundamentally, physically, objectively are. The very idea that something should be "interesting" implies a subjective witness to project their own feelings onto the meaningless physical trivia of the universe.
If your goal is to live a life without lies, you'll be living a life without meaning. There is no meaning outside of the beautiful, nay, holy fictions we tell ourselves.
The beauty in childhood isn't that it's all truth, it's that its all lies. They don't yet have a concept of truth and lies, and so are free to live entirely within their dreams. We, on the other hand, are in some ways shackled to reality by our experiences of materiality.
There is a multi-billion dollar industry selling people all kinds of fashionable, pharmaceutical and surgical means of "preserving their youth". If only people realised that what they are trying to relive is the state of not knowing or caring about that crap, and that "Living the dream" is not about acquiring material accessories, but preserving a sense of wonder, excitement and imagination. Whenever an old person is described as "youthful", its not because they've had plastic surgery, it's because they haven't grown out of dreaming.
This is probably the best part about having kids: seeing things through their eyes.
I'm hoping if I spend enough time with them some of it will rub off (or back onto) me.
It's the adults who are mad!
I'm hoping if I spend enough time with them some of it will rub off (or back onto) me.
It's the adults who are mad!
Extremely well said!
"They don't yet have a concept of truth and lies, and so are free to live entirely within their dreams."
The best description of working in Silicon Valley that I've ever heard!
The best description of working in Silicon Valley that I've ever heard!
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And why should the season matter?
It's not that they provide meaning, however if you spend a lot of time out doors in most areas there are dramatic changes. There is something visceral about the feeling that you need to smell the wildflowers right now as they will soon be gone.
It's not that they provide meaning, however if you spend a lot of time out doors in most areas there are dramatic changes. There is something visceral about the feeling that you need to smell the wildflowers right now as they will soon be gone.
> There is no meaning outside of the beautiful, nay, holy fictions we tell ourselves.
The presumption-to-word ratio of that sentence is pretty off the charts.
The presumption-to-word ratio of that sentence is pretty off the charts.
I see meaning (and really consciousness itself) existing in a similar way that software exists in relationship to hardware. There is little meaning in the physical hardware itself, none really that we can experience directly as humans. Nevertheless, the running software contains a lot of meaning, even if it's fleeting and that information is stored in different places by different physical parts. I think this is akin to the miracle of the emergence of meaning you describe. In that way, I think meaning is about as much fiction as software, which is to say it's both real and imagined (or abstracted if you will).
That's a very interesting analogy. Thanks
The Taoist position is more nuanced than to have "a lack of attachment". The lack of attachment is so you wouldn't feel compelled to force the existence of mental constructs like family, culture, love, hate, beauty, honor, good, evil, progress. Imagine if the law prescribed the words you can say to your parents/brothers/sisters/friends/shopkeepers. You may be saying "Thank you so much" to the shopkeeper, but by being forced to do it, the meaning behind "Thank you so much" is completely lost.
The Taoist position is not to have no narrative. It is to apply relentless non-interference to things, people, and ideas that are in our lives. It is only by standing back, feeling unattached, doing nothing coercive, that family, culture, love, hate, beauty, honor, good, evil, and progress arise naturally, so you can experience life to the fullest.
e.g. By trying to force a relationship/family/reunion/ideas into happening, it breaks it, and what was going to be, no longer will be.
The Taoist position is not to have no narrative. It is to apply relentless non-interference to things, people, and ideas that are in our lives. It is only by standing back, feeling unattached, doing nothing coercive, that family, culture, love, hate, beauty, honor, good, evil, and progress arise naturally, so you can experience life to the fullest.
e.g. By trying to force a relationship/family/reunion/ideas into happening, it breaks it, and what was going to be, no longer will be.
You're confusing the Dao of heaven with the Dao of sages, to borrow from Dao Chapter 81. That is to say, you're confusing Daoism as a practicable and political philosophy (à la Chapter 19, Chapter 80) with Daoism as a metaphysical position (à la Chapter 1).
Their actionable practice is to teach the common man and governors some amount of detachment.
Their metaphysical position, the one the Dao mentions less, is one of a foundational non-being --
"The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth",
"What does 'the greatest misfortune is the self' mean? The reason I have great misfortune is that I have the self. If I have no self, what misfortune do I have?",
and particularly nihilist: "Heaven and Earth are impartial, they regard myriad things as straw dogs. The sages are impartial, they regard people as straw dogs." (Straw dogs meaning straw effigies of dogs burnt during holidays.)
I'm arguing that their metaphysical position (not their actionable practice) if followed to the end, with the addition of a modern knowledge of physics and biology and so on, ultimately leads one to a metaphysical nihilism.
Their actionable practice is to teach the common man and governors some amount of detachment.
Their metaphysical position, the one the Dao mentions less, is one of a foundational non-being --
"The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth",
"What does 'the greatest misfortune is the self' mean? The reason I have great misfortune is that I have the self. If I have no self, what misfortune do I have?",
and particularly nihilist: "Heaven and Earth are impartial, they regard myriad things as straw dogs. The sages are impartial, they regard people as straw dogs." (Straw dogs meaning straw effigies of dogs burnt during holidays.)
I'm arguing that their metaphysical position (not their actionable practice) if followed to the end, with the addition of a modern knowledge of physics and biology and so on, ultimately leads one to a metaphysical nihilism.
That quote with the straw dogs is particularly relevant. Straw dogs are important during the festival. Hours and days are spent procuring and preparing them. - while you have family, your family is important. The straw dogs are then burnt and forgotten. When your family goes don't be attached to force it to stay. Everything is like clothes. While you're wearing them they will keep you warm, and you treat them with some respect. When the clothes are worn out, you throw them away and find new clothes. Are your clothes part of your self even as they keep you warm? Just because you have family does not mean you have to make them your identity, you can still tell a narrative about them, just as there is a narrative with the straw dogs on the day of the festival. If they wanted to use a metaphor to represent something completely unimportant I don't think they'd choose straw dogs. Maybe leaves on the ground or ashes after cooking dinner. Straw dogs are important for a short period of time, like everything.
>>I prefer the ancient Hindu philosophical counterpart.
Actually there is no one counterpart, It is a spectrum. At one end we have the likes of Advait folks who reduce everything to an Absolute devoid of any quality, while at the other end we have the Bhakti folks who are happy chanting praises at the feet of their beloved Supreme with all qualities.
Actually there is no one counterpart, It is a spectrum. At one end we have the likes of Advait folks who reduce everything to an Absolute devoid of any quality, while at the other end we have the Bhakti folks who are happy chanting praises at the feet of their beloved Supreme with all qualities.
You have no clue about Advaita or Bhakti.
Advaita is translated as nondual, ie. not-two, that is, the manifested is not separate from that which is the cause of the manifested (ie. that which gives rise to all is all, and everything is a modification of it).
Bhakti is a method towards the experiential realization of what I just stated, one wherein the subject-object (which in your case is the 'Bhakti folks' and their 'beloved Supreme') dichotomy collapses (or to put it in Buddhist terms, extinguishes, which is the proper translation of nirvana/nibbana) from the intensification (one can even say exaltation) of the human yearning for union.
Advaita is translated as nondual, ie. not-two, that is, the manifested is not separate from that which is the cause of the manifested (ie. that which gives rise to all is all, and everything is a modification of it).
Bhakti is a method towards the experiential realization of what I just stated, one wherein the subject-object (which in your case is the 'Bhakti folks' and their 'beloved Supreme') dichotomy collapses (or to put it in Buddhist terms, extinguishes, which is the proper translation of nirvana/nibbana) from the intensification (one can even say exaltation) of the human yearning for union.
So, let's say it is an interactive story.
The dangerous thing about thinking of life as a story is starting to apply story tropes to it. Life doesn't inherently have happy endings, fairness, justice, heroes, villains, turnabouts, karma, or any other tropes. You can try to make your corner of it better, and in some cases you can make quite a lot of it better, but life doesn't obey narrative causality.
There was an interesting book called Life, the Movie written back in the late '90s that argued people were even then already so steeped in entertainment media that they had internalized the mechanics of story and viewed their own lives through them: http://www.amazon.com/Life-Movie-Entertainment-Conquered-Rea...
I was reminded of the book and its argument the other day while watching David Simon's HBO miniseries Show Me a Hero, so I wrote a blog post about the connection: http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2015/08/show-me-a-hero-and-the-lim...
I was reminded of the book and its argument the other day while watching David Simon's HBO miniseries Show Me a Hero, so I wrote a blog post about the connection: http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2015/08/show-me-a-hero-and-the-lim...
I'd guess that, at least in some times and places, a religious narrative of life and the forces in it filled that role to some degree.
I don't think it's a coincidence, for instance, that Paradise Lost reads so cinematically.
Maybe modern mass entertainment does have a larger effect, but I wouldn't take it as necessarily true. A little set design and presentation wizardry and a willing audience can fire the imagination in major ways. See: otherwise seemingly sane people joining ISIS to fulfill their role in a religious narrative. Usually if someone credits mass entertainment media for their violent acts, they were unbalanced loonies to begin with.
I don't think it's a coincidence, for instance, that Paradise Lost reads so cinematically.
Maybe modern mass entertainment does have a larger effect, but I wouldn't take it as necessarily true. A little set design and presentation wizardry and a willing audience can fire the imagination in major ways. See: otherwise seemingly sane people joining ISIS to fulfill their role in a religious narrative. Usually if someone credits mass entertainment media for their violent acts, they were unbalanced loonies to begin with.
Not religion, ideology: secular humanism too seems to operate on a narrative that technological and cultural progress will continue without interruption from chaotic cosmological catastrophe, that those things contribute to human happiness while ignoring that humanity has higher rates of mental illness and slavery today than any other time in a global world culture defined for the last 200 years by technological progress. Scientific altruism is just as much a faith and just as exploitable as religious dogma by powerful people and organizations.
There are quite a few problems with your assertions, such as the fact that it's hard enough to gather good statistics on mental illness in the present time, much less over the past 200 years, and the idea that secular humanism should somehow concern itself with "cosmological catastrophes" that humans can't do anything about.
Finally, it's not clear that your last sentence really tells us much about the nature of altruism. What can't be turned into a matter of faith by someone whose business is selling faith?
Finally, it's not clear that your last sentence really tells us much about the nature of altruism. What can't be turned into a matter of faith by someone whose business is selling faith?
I doubt scientific altruism is just as exploitable as religious dogma. I think the abysmal record of religion in such fields as education, race relations, gender equality, human rights, slavery, genocide, rape, the outright fighting of scientific advancements including stem cell studies, etc., can stand as its' own negation of your statement.
Religious beliefs center around sacrifice of 'earthy' norms to satisfy an ideal moral logic. That way of thinking doesn't stop when you leave the halls of worship. It leads to self-righteousness that is ultimately destructive in the world around you. Humility is not often slung from fiery pulpits, except that it is perverted for ensuring the dominance of that leader's place in moral authority.
Scientific altruism places faith in innovation. It can allow us to ignore reality, assuming someone else will fix things.
We should aspire to be scientists in our own lives. Not accepting conclusions at face value and working to improve understanding for people beyond ourselves.
Scientific altruism places faith in innovation. It can allow us to ignore reality, assuming someone else will fix things.
We should aspire to be scientists in our own lives. Not accepting conclusions at face value and working to improve understanding for people beyond ourselves.
Well, religion isn't always bad w.r.t literacy at least. Many Catholic institutions were the first to introduce and run very good english-medium schools in India, which have benefited millions. It actually had its own term: "convent schools".
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I catch myself thinking about my own life in story/movie ideas constantly
I have not read that book or yet seen that show, but I enjoyed your analysis. It rings true.
See also: Cognitive trope therapy [1]
[1] http://yudkowsky.tumblr.com/post/103192100330/cognitive-trop...
[1] http://yudkowsky.tumblr.com/post/103192100330/cognitive-trop...
Another way of saying that is "Life is a story; however, it's not Fiction"
Still dangerous, just slightly less so; the set of life experiences documented in non-fiction suffers from selection bias, as we (mostly) gloss over the boring and don't always include all of the unpleasant.
Not to mention that generally people (especially programmers) are terrible at understanding parallelism and multithreading.
I am reminded of Pratchett and co's ideas on narrativium, which I apparently imbibed and internalized early enough that it has made me one of these life-writers.
"We are not Homo sapiens, Wise Man. We are the third chimpanzee. What distinguishes us from the ordinary chimpanzee Pan troglodytes and the bonobo chimpanzee Pan paniscus, is something far more subtle than our enormous brain, three times as large as theirs in proportion to body weight. It is what that brain makes possible. And the most significant contribution that our large brain made to our approach to the universe was to endow us with the power of story. We are Pan narrans, the storytelling ape. (II: 325)
...if you understand the power of story, and learn to detect abuses of it, you might actually deserve the appellation Homo sapiens."
http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Narrativium
"We are not Homo sapiens, Wise Man. We are the third chimpanzee. What distinguishes us from the ordinary chimpanzee Pan troglodytes and the bonobo chimpanzee Pan paniscus, is something far more subtle than our enormous brain, three times as large as theirs in proportion to body weight. It is what that brain makes possible. And the most significant contribution that our large brain made to our approach to the universe was to endow us with the power of story. We are Pan narrans, the storytelling ape. (II: 325)
...if you understand the power of story, and learn to detect abuses of it, you might actually deserve the appellation Homo sapiens."
http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Narrativium
I think having a story is fine, but being a story is much more dangerous - mostly for reasons like lacking control, choice, and agency over it. The answer isn't to abandon the story, but to choose your story and how you relate to it.
Well said - I agree with you that considering oneself to be a story is dangerous, but I believe the danger is primarily to the people around you. It's important to find the rest of the world real and valid, even more important than one's own journey through life.
I'm not calling for great acts of self-sacrifice, just suggesting that over-consideration of one's own narrative can lead to acts of great selfishness.
I'm not calling for great acts of self-sacrifice, just suggesting that over-consideration of one's own narrative can lead to acts of great selfishness.
A life is certainly not a story, since we are never the sole authors of our circumstances. If you accept the "narrative model," a whirlwind of events and situations authored by others surrounds the tiny moments of our life which we have the ability to author.
...And so, a life is an Exquisite Corpse.
...And so, a life is an Exquisite Corpse.
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If life's a narrative, I'm inclined to think it a Terry Gilliam movie.
Life is a game, I pity those thinking life is a story or movie, since that's quite a passive life to live.
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Maurice Blanchot, you are still waiting for us to catch up.
"Un récit? Non, pas de récit, plus jamais."
"Un récit? Non, pas de récit, plus jamais."
This entire thread seems somewhat missing without the famous predecessor article Against Narrativity http://lchc.ucsd.edu/mca/Paper/against_narrativity.pdf by the same author.
The linked article provides some phrases/concepts which seem more amenable to grappling with/interacting with. Specifically, it breaks the concept of Narrativity into the psychological Narrativity thesis (That it is human nature to experience their lives as a story or collection of stories, with narrative arcs and plot points as we're used to describing in fiction), and the ethical Narrativity thesis (That the act of experiencing/conceiving of one's life as a narrative is a capital-g Good Thing, and that narrativity is essential to full personhood).
From there, it splits outlooks based on truth values. One could think that humans are innately narrative-driven in their thoughts and that this is good (many people here). Alternately, one could think that people are narrative-driven and this isn't good (This also shows up in the article). Contrarily, one could think that people aren't innately narrative (but that it's good to aspire to), or lastly that narrativism isn't innate, and that it isn't good to assume that this is the case.
I find the last one compelling, myself. Many people do continually tell themselves the story of themselves, but this isn't innate/required. One can have a series of events, see the causality, and have plans for the future without a Narrative. Believing in the Narrative would suggest things like believing that your life is part of the Campbellian Hero's Journey.
This is sometimes helpful, as it can suggest to people that they can hold on for things to get better, but it's also where we get things like the decried Nice Guy behavior where men expect that inputting kindness coins leads to the sex payoff, because those are the stories they're immersed in and the ones they believe in. I've seen schizophrenics describe their mental models as taking this pattern-matching wiring in humans and having it turned up to eleven. Seeing data points and watching connections form to where there's a Grand Narrative connecting things. (Not a point against them, though to me at least it does point towards narrative pattern-matching as something people can vary more and less in feeling tendencies towards.)
As for myself, I sometimes tell narrative tales of myself, but it feels like a deliberate thing. I can describe my past in narrative arcs (and it's a really good point made above that there's many incentives to do so in the workplace), but it's not something I feel is actually the case or needs to be the case. "Plucky young farmboy gets into computers, is drawn to the Big City by Megacorp, has a fall-from-grace there". Where does the story go from here? Under a Narrativist mindset, there's some predictive capacity here. Fall-from-grace leads to soul-searching and redemption? If we could use narratives to predict the future, that would definitely point towards Narrative as a driving force. On the other hand, being able to say "No, my story doesn't have to go like this, I don't have to have a story leading me in this direction" is powerful. By throwing off those chains of narrativity, it allows some measure of greater control.
So yes, I think people are drawn towards personal narratives. They're compelling. We're surrounded by stories all the time. There's incentives to talk about one's past in that way. But they can be confining, and they can lead to harmful behavior as people are immersed in stories suggesting specific arcs.
The linked article provides some phrases/concepts which seem more amenable to grappling with/interacting with. Specifically, it breaks the concept of Narrativity into the psychological Narrativity thesis (That it is human nature to experience their lives as a story or collection of stories, with narrative arcs and plot points as we're used to describing in fiction), and the ethical Narrativity thesis (That the act of experiencing/conceiving of one's life as a narrative is a capital-g Good Thing, and that narrativity is essential to full personhood).
From there, it splits outlooks based on truth values. One could think that humans are innately narrative-driven in their thoughts and that this is good (many people here). Alternately, one could think that people are narrative-driven and this isn't good (This also shows up in the article). Contrarily, one could think that people aren't innately narrative (but that it's good to aspire to), or lastly that narrativism isn't innate, and that it isn't good to assume that this is the case.
I find the last one compelling, myself. Many people do continually tell themselves the story of themselves, but this isn't innate/required. One can have a series of events, see the causality, and have plans for the future without a Narrative. Believing in the Narrative would suggest things like believing that your life is part of the Campbellian Hero's Journey.
This is sometimes helpful, as it can suggest to people that they can hold on for things to get better, but it's also where we get things like the decried Nice Guy behavior where men expect that inputting kindness coins leads to the sex payoff, because those are the stories they're immersed in and the ones they believe in. I've seen schizophrenics describe their mental models as taking this pattern-matching wiring in humans and having it turned up to eleven. Seeing data points and watching connections form to where there's a Grand Narrative connecting things. (Not a point against them, though to me at least it does point towards narrative pattern-matching as something people can vary more and less in feeling tendencies towards.)
As for myself, I sometimes tell narrative tales of myself, but it feels like a deliberate thing. I can describe my past in narrative arcs (and it's a really good point made above that there's many incentives to do so in the workplace), but it's not something I feel is actually the case or needs to be the case. "Plucky young farmboy gets into computers, is drawn to the Big City by Megacorp, has a fall-from-grace there". Where does the story go from here? Under a Narrativist mindset, there's some predictive capacity here. Fall-from-grace leads to soul-searching and redemption? If we could use narratives to predict the future, that would definitely point towards Narrative as a driving force. On the other hand, being able to say "No, my story doesn't have to go like this, I don't have to have a story leading me in this direction" is powerful. By throwing off those chains of narrativity, it allows some measure of greater control.
So yes, I think people are drawn towards personal narratives. They're compelling. We're surrounded by stories all the time. There's incentives to talk about one's past in that way. But they can be confining, and they can lead to harmful behavior as people are immersed in stories suggesting specific arcs.
what is it then?
I heard a fella once say that's rather a play, with all of us playing our parts in turn... Bill something or other...
"Life is a fountain."
"What does that mean? How is life a fountain?"
"... Fine, have it your way, it isn't a fountain!"
It's just a ride http://youtu.be/KgzQuE1pR1w
Life is a highway.
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Everything in human existence is a narrative. The reality for human beings is a story; in fact that is all that metaphysics is a meta story about the nature of human reality. If it's not a story, then it's just one damn thing after another, which is what it really is... but we prefer our stories and narratives about how things are, versus how they actually are. All meaning is built from narratives, without narratives there is no meaning. And for many people narratives help people find meaning in their suffering, which is a solace to having nothing.
For instance most people don't know what they are doing at all. That includes politicians and leaders. But they build narratives and they use those narratives to lead, rule, assign punishments, and so on. Without narratives of history and the present, we would be utterly lost as to what to do now or next.
For instance most people don't know what they are doing at all. That includes politicians and leaders. But they build narratives and they use those narratives to lead, rule, assign punishments, and so on. Without narratives of history and the present, we would be utterly lost as to what to do now or next.
The reason we cast our memories into narratives is that narratives are easier to remember. Our brains are hardwired for them. In fact, a lot of memory techniques practiced by people who compete in memory contests involve making a bizarre narrative to encode things like the order of card decks.
I don't think we do it just because they are easier to remember, though we are definitely wired for it. I think the main reason we do it for our existence to mean something. For our actions to signify something about ourselves and the world. And that actually affects our present and future behavior. For instance narratives about marriage and love. We are now breaking down the traditional narratives and that is having a profound impact on relationships.
To build on your thoughts I would say that narratives are the glue that bind and distinguish our societies and give meaning to the the individuals within those societies. They are largely synonymous with religious, political and economic ideologies.
It's interesting today, in a world more connected than ever, to see how these narratives rub up against each other. It is clear that not all narratives have equal value. Older and more static narratives in particular aren't doing so great.
How would we evaluate a narrative? One way is by it's practical effects on peoples' lives and the levels of health and suffering it actively promotes, for both its adherents and opponents.
Another way is by the narrative's approximation to absolute reality. Thanks to the scientific method and its tools we are creeping closer to achieving an objective understanding of reality (although we are unlikely to ever reach one).
It seems obvious (at least to me) that understanding reality better will allow us to create better narratives and therefore enable us to think and act better. In other words, basing our actions on a narrative that is as true as possible would likely lead to better practical effects.
Of course measuring the positive or negative value of a narrative's effects is somewhat subjective, and what is 'better' for one person might not be for another, or even for the same person later on. For instance, when people use relatively poor narratives to give meaning to their suffering it might be some comfort to them (and therefore seem positive) but ultimately will lead to action that causes more suffering.
TL;DR: A better existence is achievable if we do not just accept whatever narratives are thrust upon us but instead actively refine and change them based on their practical results and to more closely approximate reality.
It's interesting today, in a world more connected than ever, to see how these narratives rub up against each other. It is clear that not all narratives have equal value. Older and more static narratives in particular aren't doing so great.
How would we evaluate a narrative? One way is by it's practical effects on peoples' lives and the levels of health and suffering it actively promotes, for both its adherents and opponents.
Another way is by the narrative's approximation to absolute reality. Thanks to the scientific method and its tools we are creeping closer to achieving an objective understanding of reality (although we are unlikely to ever reach one).
It seems obvious (at least to me) that understanding reality better will allow us to create better narratives and therefore enable us to think and act better. In other words, basing our actions on a narrative that is as true as possible would likely lead to better practical effects.
Of course measuring the positive or negative value of a narrative's effects is somewhat subjective, and what is 'better' for one person might not be for another, or even for the same person later on. For instance, when people use relatively poor narratives to give meaning to their suffering it might be some comfort to them (and therefore seem positive) but ultimately will lead to action that causes more suffering.
TL;DR: A better existence is achievable if we do not just accept whatever narratives are thrust upon us but instead actively refine and change them based on their practical results and to more closely approximate reality.
you get it.
Life is a obviously an open-ended sandbox game.
See also the /r/outside subreddit, full of gems like "Please nerf the inheritance system." and "Question: why can't I understand most other players?"
> "Please nerf the inheritance system."
The random spawn system is broken in that game!
The random spawn system is broken in that game!
Time to go bowling with my cousin
narrative means structure, structure means judgement. pro narrative is pro judgement.
A mind must seem divided to its owner (since we're parallel processors and consider many things at once) but unified to most observers (so they can model us and our behavior without immense time and effort). Stories about ourselves, that we believe, give us a self-knowledge that can be imparted. The quality of these knowledge-nuggets varies wildly, as does our belief in them.
Anyway, saying that we're natural story tellers isn't saying much. What's a story? Wikipedia: "A narrative or story is any report of connected events"
i.e. a story (in this context) is some carefully curated data about the past, featuring us, and a pattern imposed on that data.
Obviously life isn't (just) a story. I imagine though, that someone who thinks they're very good at curating and connecting data about themselves, would place a high value on their stories, and those stories' predictive power. In the limit, the storyteller might disregard the gestalt data of their senses once the narrative is formed, which might give the impression that life is a story. This may work very well for the storyteller, but it's not the whole... story... the raw material remains in our minds, and has its own value. The best story misses much, adds much. Life is a process, stories are one product.
Another thing to notice: many of us here are assuming that 'story' means '..like in a book or movie!' I submit to y'all that the vast majority of told stories are vastly vastly different from such, to the point that we can often tell when someone's fictionalizing even when they're trying hard to disguise it. Stories about real life often have a meaningless or fractal bent that reveals the structure of their basis-memories, which is beautiful, I think.
Anyway, saying that we're natural story tellers isn't saying much. What's a story? Wikipedia: "A narrative or story is any report of connected events"
i.e. a story (in this context) is some carefully curated data about the past, featuring us, and a pattern imposed on that data.
Obviously life isn't (just) a story. I imagine though, that someone who thinks they're very good at curating and connecting data about themselves, would place a high value on their stories, and those stories' predictive power. In the limit, the storyteller might disregard the gestalt data of their senses once the narrative is formed, which might give the impression that life is a story. This may work very well for the storyteller, but it's not the whole... story... the raw material remains in our minds, and has its own value. The best story misses much, adds much. Life is a process, stories are one product.
Another thing to notice: many of us here are assuming that 'story' means '..like in a book or movie!' I submit to y'all that the vast majority of told stories are vastly vastly different from such, to the point that we can often tell when someone's fictionalizing even when they're trying hard to disguise it. Stories about real life often have a meaningless or fractal bent that reveals the structure of their basis-memories, which is beautiful, I think.
The "happy endings, fairness, justice, heroes, villains, turnabouts, karma" JoshTriplett lists are the narrative projections which make life feel valuable in spite of life's trending towards wavering extremes of boredom and suffering.
The OP's argument coincides with the Buddhist and Taoist positions, who prescribe a lack of attachment to all mental constructs -- be that family, culture, love, hate, beauty, honor, good, evil, progress, and so on.
I get the logic behind it, it's an attempt to reduce life to the unassailably true. However, I think that sort of detached reductionism invariably leads to the view of the universe as a meaningless expanse of material, with an ordered procession of predestined material actions and reactions.
Is the meaningless material universe the true universe? Perhaps, but life feels like much more than that.
I prefer the ancient Hindu philosophical counterpart. They also believed, as the Buddhists and Taoists do, that at the most fundamental level it's all meaningless, but that by some miracle the meaningful emerges from the meaningless by way of our experience of it. The mind gives reality to the unreal, and that's a good thing.
Sure, the narrative we project onto the world may be fiction, but without it the material universe is a blank book. If life be fiction, give me fiction.