All religions have it’s own myths, own stories, own set of values. And these are/were good stories, I mean, even though they are not true, they are certainly interesting. You won’t feel bored by it.
Harry Potter has the same effect on people, like, why should I take Harry Potter seriously, why do I care what happens after Dumbledore dances with Snape (won’t give actual spoilers :')
I mean, it doesn’t make sense to me. Why do I care so much about a soap opera that I am watching. Harry Potter is the product of just one brilliant woman’s imagination. It has no real value on my life. I have no real motivation to read that other than the fact that I like it and I want to know. Harry Potter is somewhat irrelevant to my life, than why does it or any other good story capture our imagination?
Why do I care what the next season of House M.D. entails? Why? What should I care if he dies or lives? Why :')?
The world is complicated and difficult to navigate. Stories usually give you a simplified world where it’s easier to understand and relate to. Just think of most religious stories and myths, they exist to explain something unexplainable (how the world was created) or how to behave in a society (cautionary tales and parabolas)
I would say the simple answer is in why we still teach “story problems” in math.
The “story” of the math problem gives us a way to contextualize knowledge in how it can be applied to real life.
Most stories impart social knowledge, not math knowledge. Stories are primarily about relationships and how to (or how not to) navigate them.
In philosophy, what you’re asking about is called the paradox of fiction.
thank you very much! This is one of the most helpful comments here
This is an interesting question, I hope someone answers!
Edit: I did some googling npr
On functional MRI scans, many different areas of the brain light up when someone is listening to a narrative, Neeley says — not only the networks involved in language processing, but other neural circuits, too. One study of listeners found that the brain networks that process emotions arising from sounds — along with areas involved in movement — were activated, especially during the emotional parts of the story.
Also interesting, maybe not as related to the question:
As you hear a story unfold, your brain waves actually start to synchronize with those of the storyteller, says Uri Hasson, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton University. When he and his research team recorded the brain activity in two people as one person told a story and the other listened, they found that the greater the listener’s comprehension, the more closely the brain wave patterns mirrored those of the storyteller.
nice article thank you!
Sharing, and believing in, fictions is how distilled units of information are efficiently passed down generations and is one of the bedrocks of our development as a species. This is what allows us to have laws and corporations and agreeing to drive on particular side of the road.
Yuval Noah Harari covers this more eloquently in his book Sapiens. You would definitely dig the relevant chapters.
Yuval Noah Harari covers this more eloquently in his book Sapiens.
time to read it again I think. It is a wonderful book, but I dont remember reading about this particular topic in enough detail. Thank you for your comment
You are more than welcome! The chapter is called Unification of Humankind for anyone else interested, here is a little excerpt:
“Myths and fictions accustomed people, nearly from the moment of birth, to think in certain ways, to behave in accordance with certain standards, to want certain things, and to observe certain rules. They thereby created artificial instincts that enabled millions of strangers to cooperate effectively. This network of artificial instincts is called ‘culture’.”
time to read it again I think. It is a wonderful book, but I dont remember reading about this particular topic in enough detail. Thank you for your comment
haha, thank you again!
