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Meaning, Reality, and Fiction

Alistair Reid, a writer who was also a translator and close friend of Jorge Luis Borges, developed a list of attributes that he believes represent what Borges believed about meaning and language in the context of the idea of fiction.

Working with one or two others, identify parallels between one or more of these attributes (you will find out which in class today) and what you (individually and collectively) feel Yuval Noah Harari means by “fictions” in his TED Talk, “What explains the rise of humans?”

  1. A fiction is any construct of language—a story, an explanation, a plan, a theory, a dogma—that gives a certain shape to reality.
  2. Reality, that which is beyond language, functions by mainly indecipherable laws, which we do not understand, and over which we have limited control. To give some form to reality, we bring into being a variety of fictions.
  3. A fiction, it is understood, can never be true, since the nature of language is utterly different from the nature of reality.
  4. . . .
  5. . . .
  6. Fictions bring things to order for the time being only. Given a shifting reality, they have constantly to be remade.
  7. We are physical beings, rooted in the physical cycle of life and­ death. Yet we are also users of language, fiction-makers, and language and fictions are not, like us, subject to natural laws. Through them, we are able to cross over into a timeless dimension, to bring into being alternate worlds, to enjoy the full freedom of the imaginable.
  8. . . .
  9. The most common of all confusions is to imagine that we have changed reality when all we have done is to alter our fiction of it. It is crucial never to lose the sense that our fictions are in fact fictions, even while appreciating their usefulness, and suspending our disbelief when we choose to.
  10. Reality is given to us: making fictions of it is in large part what we do with it.

Responses

  1. Marissa Avatar
    Marissa

    Marissa, Zoe, Emilie

    In the Tree of Knowledge, it talks about how we create cooperations to make sense of our world. This becomes a reality once it is put into use and large groups believe in it. He explains how we use fiction to make sense of reality.
    He says that even when a group believes something it is not true, which means reality is not what we think it is.

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  2. aknowlt5 Avatar
    aknowlt5

    Ashley and Carmela

    We think this relates in the sense that humans give meaning to things like words as mentioned in the Tree of Knowledge text, and “laws” that is mentioned in the quote. Without humans giving some kind of meaning to both things, there would be no sensible reality in which we can live and communicate.
    This relates to the Tree of Knowledge because humans have the ability to give and change meanings of words as our communication evolves. We can “suspend our disbelief” or disregard meaning to things or accepting fictional beliefs.

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  3. Sydney McDonald Avatar
    Sydney McDonald

    Sydney and Chaeli:
    9- We can create the narrative/fiction that we will live forever, even though we will die anyways. We can keep this alive and pass this idea from generation to generation.
    11- We have created politics, religion, and everything in between. It only exists in our minds because we allow it to. We have created our own beliefs and fictions. He also mentions this in the Tree of Life.

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  4. Gabriel Powlison Avatar
    Gabriel Powlison

    Group:
    Luke, Connor, Gabriel

    A fiction is not to be confused with a hypothesis, which poses a fiction as a truth and attempts to verify it from the reality.

    In the tree of knowledge, fictions are understood as a socially constructed thing with real meaning. Religion is used as an example of a collective fiction. A hypothesis is an example of a fiction (or idea) that has been tested upon reality. A fiction is not a measurable science but can be accepted by culture.

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  5. Gina Sferra Avatar
    Gina Sferra

    In the passage, he mentions that we have made up religions and laws to make sense of things we cannot understand. We use these things to have order in a society. It shapes reality and gives some sort of purpose. We make things so complex as humans because we want a reason for everything. Without fiction, there would not be a shape per se to reality.
    He almost said the opposite because he said there isn’t a change to social behavior without a genetic mutation. It can be hard to find a parallel because #6 mentions fiction needs to be remade.

    Luke, Maddie, Riley, Gina

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  6. Abby Avatar
    Abby

    Abby, Evelyn, Briana
    We are physical beings, rooted in the physical cycle of life-and­ death. Yet we are also users of language, fiction-makers, and language and fictions are not, like us, subject to natural laws. Through them, we are able to cross over into a timeless dimension, to bring into being alternate worlds, to enjoy the full freedom of the imaginable.

    In the tree of knowledge, talks about how we evolved to be able to talk about more than what we can physically see and branch out into what we can not to build connections and purpose as a collective.

    A book is an irony, mocking the person who writes it. By making his fiction out of language, the writer moves it into a timeless dimension, while he must remain rooted in time.

    We became able to create ideas and companies that can out last the original thinkers. Like it was said in the Tree of Knowledge the original family that created the car compony are dead, but cars are still being produced.

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  7. Griffin Avatar
    Griffin

    Group: Griffin, Quinn, Emir

    He talks about how Peugeot developed as a company and had to adhere to the French Parliament’s code. They had developed their own laws and rituals that had to be followed and Peugeot had to follow them. It was important for them to follow these beliefs in order to sustain their company. The belief was almost necessary for their situation.
    He used an example of animals communicating with each other in the natural world. Each species developed something from the reality they were created in and humans managed to develop languages. Every species used whatever they were given to develop their own connections and the life around them.

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