Abstracted Ideas
We’ve read novels, seen movies, watched plays, and we’ve learned from them all. The problem is: we do not realize that many of the things we know, we learned from fiction. For example, if you have an image in your mind of how people interact in the bedroom, it is probably based on what you have seen in movies and read in books. When else have you seen people pillow-talking?! When we watch a movie, we know at the time that it is fake. But when we assimilate ideas from it, and apply them to our lives, we abstract the context, removing all traces of fiction. Over time, the idea is completely cleansed of its sources. And, because we have no idea inventory that tracks the source, freshness and expiration date of our beliefs, we cannot say definitively that they are not constructed from fiction piled upon fiction.
7 Comments:
"[W]e do not realize that many of the things we know, we learned from fiction. . . . [W]e cannot say definitively that [our ideas]are not constructed from fiction piled upon fiction."
But the fact that something is in a movie or a novel doesn't make it fiction. To use your example, "pillow-talk" in a movie: (1) is actually being said; (2) by real people; (3) in a manner that approximates, dramatizes, or satirizes the way in which pillow-talk happens outside of that movie. In other words, that scene is not a fiction (i.e., in my imagination), nor is it in any sense "untrue." So, if I watch the scene and derive from it some understanding of pillow-talk in the outside world, whether through viewing the scene literally or understanding it as a representation of something else, the scene becomes just as real as any other pillow-talk.
Clarifying my earlier comment:
(1) In the last sentence, I meant to say "is," not "becomes."
(2) To summarize the whole comment in 25 words or less: Book and movie portrayals are metaphors; metaphors are, by definition, aids to understanding; understanding based on metaphors is "real" understanding, not fiction.
I take issue with (3) in your argument. How do you know that the scene in a movie dramatizes "the way in which pillow-talk happens outside that movie"? In other words, how do you know it is a representation of actual pillow-talk, and not the imagined events of pillow-talk from someone who has never experienced it?
The idea that books and movies are metaphors is only true for a certain set of books and movies. Dr. Seuss books, for example, might have symbolism, but the stories themselves are not representations of real-life events. If Dr. Seuss had a pillow-talk scene in one of his books, it would not be a metaphor, but rather a made-up version of bedtime conversation (my head is on the bed, my lover is under the cover, etc.)
The problem with thinking of metaphors as "real" understanding is that they are abstractions, and do not approach the specificity or detail of actual life. If I were to identify with the pillow-talk scene in the movie, it is a lot like identifying with my horoscope: it is at such a vague level of generality that something is bound to resonate. If I take the horoscope or the movie to be an aid to understanding, as you suggest, then I am allowing generalities to pass for actual knowledge. So, although I hear what you are saying that a movie metaphor might not be abject fiction, it is somewhere inbetween I suppose, and perhaps would better be called nonsense.
"[H]ow do you know it is a representation of actual pillow-talk, and not the imagined events of pillow-talk from someone who has never experienced it?"
It's irrelevant whether the author/writer/actor has ever engaged in the depicted scenario -- the scene isn't an historical reenactment. It's a metaphor for something outside the bounds of the book/movie. (See below.)
"The idea that books and movies are metaphors is only true for a certain set of books and movies."
No, they're all metaphors. That doesn't mean they're metaphors for the actual situation depicted in a given scene, nor does it mean that they're "symbols." A pillow-talk scene COULD be a metaphor for "real-life" pillow-talk, but it also could be a metaphor for love, or for the military-industrial complex, or whatever. The end result is that, by watching/reading the scene, I gain an understanding about *something*, and my understanding is genuine. (See below.)
"The problem with thinking of metaphors as 'real' understanding is that they are abstractions, and do not approach the specificity or detail of actual life."
What does abstraction have to do with specificity and detail? And what do specificity and detail have to do with reality? To take the most extreme case I can think of: A sentence in a book that says "We exist." This is a completely abstract, nonspecific, undetailed statement, yet I can gain real understanding from it. In contrast, I've had incredibly detailed and specific dreams, but they're not real, and, to the extent that I gain any understanding from a dream, it's only because I understand the dream as a metaphor (or a symbol, but not necessarily so) for something outside the dream, thereby effectively converting the dream into a "movie" inside my head. Anyway, disgression aside, the point is that "reality" and "abstraction" are not only not mutually exclusive, one is basically a subset of the other.
To put it in philosophy-speak:
All literary/cinematic fiction is metaphor.
All metaphors link something known to something unknown.
The linking of something known to something unknown provides some understanding about that unknown.
Therefore, all literary/cinematic fiction provides understanding about an unknown, i.e., something outside the bounds of the book/movie.
"If I were to identify with the pillow-talk scene in the movie, it is a lot like identifying with my horoscope: it is at such a vague level of generality that something is bound to resonate."
If you take a horoscope as a prediction of the future, your analogy doesn't work. But if you take it as a metaphoric reflection of the generalized hopes and fears of horoscope readers, then yes, something does resonate, and you can gain a lot of understanding through that resonance.
To me, your argument can be summed up as follows: movies are metaphors, and metaphors aid understanding. Therefore, when I watch movies, I learn something. What that something is, is not the issue.
Although I don't see why you consider movies to be metaphors - I do see what you are getting at. As far as I can tell, you are more concerned with establishing that we learn from movies rather than understanding the value of what we learn. I'm interested in the value.
My original pique was about how our understanding of events from movies gets assimilated along with our understanding of events in real life, and in our jumbled up memories, the source of the understanding is lost, i.e. I see people pillow-talking and I think I know what pillow-talking is like in real life, even though my only experience with it was in movies.
What I am pointing out is the danger of this natural tendency to lose the source of our knowledge. It requires a significant (unrealistic) amount of doubt to think every time we encounter a situation, "If I feel I know what is going on here, why do I feel that way, and on what grounds is it based? Am I applying knowledge that I learned from my experience or from a fictional environment?" The danger when we do not do this at all is harnessing unrealistic beliefs about events and people, and conferring on them the kind of certainty that we do of our own experience.
How on earth are you differentiating between "fake pillow talk" and “real/authentic pillow talk?” If everyone thinks I’m famous then aren’t I famous?
The idea in this pique is about how we assimilate information, remember it and use it. Because we make no hard distinction between fake and real pillow talk in our memory, we wind up with a real/fictional blended concept in application.
Your "everyone thinks I'm famous" comment indicates to me that you share this idea. My guess is that you don't see the distinction, or doubt the distinction, between fake and real in this case because you believe that the fictional example will be taken as real enough by those who watch it. People will imitate what they see, and it will become real. This is a result of the process I'm referring to - abstracting from our experiences and losing the source of our concepts.
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