Originally posted by Lana
But the idea had to come from somewhere.Even if it's something like changing one number in an equation, it's because of someone wondering what would happen and being curious about the answer.
The answer is in your post. Curiosity drives people to know. Facts lead to more facts and eventually to an answer.
Advancement in relation to fact and fiction.
I have been considering this, and I think it could be that I made a statement in error. I am a behavior analyst, and we consider insightful problem solving to be the combining of previously learned behaviors, and not an act based on some fictional sudden insertion of knowledge. Advancement is thus merely the combining of previously acquired knowledge to better the current state of affairs. Fiction is not necessary for advancement, but it is necessary for improbable directed and expeditious advancement. Given this, such a world would be decent to live in as expectations would not be above the probable, and thus more easy to meet than in a world where fiction sets expectations higher than they should be.
Curiosity is not separate from imagination; they fuel each other. Think of a situation where they don't.
For instance: "I wonder if...I could do that too? I could transcend that? They are better than me? I could figure that out?"
We are curious about things we don't understand, things we haven't been exposed to yet. We have ideas of what they are or what they'll be like. We coudn't have that without fiction
The concept of future is fictiononal in nature.
I wonder if you'll be able to further defend yourself...
I wonder if I've got it all wrong.
Originally posted by WrathfulDwarf
The answer is in your post. Curiosity drives people to know. Facts lead to more facts and eventually to an answer.
But curiosity itself is based on fiction...Like DaVinci's "Flying Machine" everyone thought that was fiction at one time, and now we can travel the world in hours in a plane.
Considering that most of society is built on fiction, take it away and society collapses until we evolve into beings capable of honest and compassionate existence.
Oh...that's not what you meant?
Fiction, especially science fiction, allows us to "test out" alternate As-Ifs. It gives us blueprints for dreams by which we may improve the quality of life.
Or is that itself a fiction, without which we would lapse into despair?
Before everything when the world as we know it didn't exist, the sun had no light and didn't exist either, space was just vast cold plus empty.
There was most likely dark matter [ the matter that makes up that vast empty spaces in space] , it basically makes up what looks like nothing. In order for the creation of all that we know " nothing matter" may have collided leading to a small explosion that may have started evolution.
Thats as early on into the galaxy as I know.
Originally posted by Trainspottinger
I think you have a good idea. My girlfriend always gets on me because i like sci-fi movies. She says they "aren't real." But ultimately, what is real. Are "true stories" in movies actually real. No, they aren't. We perceive them as real because they are supposedly true, but what makes them true? Is it because we can see it on the screen? I believe that it's only real because our imagination has told us that it is true. It's our imagination that separates us all as humans, but ultimately, what is imagination and to what extent is it real? How far do we as humans go to make our imagination real and how real is our imagination?
You've made good points. Here's another...
The point of sci fi is not to "be real" like the way, say, soap operas are (yes, I'm being sarcastic). Scifi is a genre which asks "What if?" It allows us to consider alternatives and possibilities, encourages us to push the envelope of what could become real (as scifi has done in the past with, eg, TV, space travel, internet, ipod; all the things your gf no doubt takes for granted). It is an exercise in imagination.
Obviously, your gf doesn't get enough exercise.