tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post847418204656453338..comments2024-01-31T22:54:35.635-08:00Comments on Raise high the roofbeam, Carpenters!: The Narrative FallacyAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-60142129405211803352010-05-12T13:44:49.004-07:002010-05-12T13:44:49.004-07:00I think that stories themselves aren't the pro...I think that stories themselves aren't the problem. I will give an example to show the problem I'm talking about.<br /><br />We have a particular situation (let's say the data set is: a pretty girl is laughing at my jokes and she asks for my number). And we are compelled to make a story about this situation. But there are a number of different storylines which can fit onto this data set. How do I choose the right storyline?<br /><br />For instance:<br /><br />1) the girl likes me.<br /><br />2) the girl is pretending to like me.<br /><br />Etc.<br /><br />The narrative fallacy is that when we are choosing a particular storyline, we are more likely to choose one with narrative satisfaction.<br /><br />But in our situation above, what if simple explanations like 1) and 2) don't explain the pretty girl's behavior? What if the reason for her flirtatious behavior was so complicated and strange that it just doesn't make a lot of sense? What if she liked me but then also liked another guy and when we were talking together she thought I was better than the other guy but then later she realized the other guy was better than me but she couldn't really be sure and so she still acts like she likes me?<br /><br />I think narratives are necessary to understand life. For me the problem isn't narrative at all.<br /><br />I think there are two sides to the problem. With the stories we make about our own life, we just have to learn to accept that we're going to be wrong sometimes.<br /><br />With the stories we make about the wider world (which are much more likely to suffer from the narrative fallacy, I believe,) we should do something else. We should inform ourselves about the outside world in different ways. Most specifically, I think that journalism should focus less on making good stories, and more on the explanation of human phenomena--> I want journalism to stop being a refuge of mediocre creative writers, and start being a refuge of mediocre social scientists.<br /><br />Not gonna happen.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17900805412894078404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2670908921204855195.post-59626896721085591232010-05-12T06:49:31.540-07:002010-05-12T06:49:31.540-07:00Brendan! Nice to see you writing on your blog agai...Brendan! Nice to see you writing on your blog again. I enjoyed your post and you're totally right, this "narrative fallacy" pervades our every perception and has certainly been the subject of philosophical inquiry. Specifically, David Hume comes to mind with his skeptical empiricism and focus on the fact that there is almost never a "necessary connection" or causality between one occurrence and another. Causality is the basic building block of a good story or narrative, and even when we seem to have all the facts ("the market rose due to investors exuberance about the change in interest rates") it often turns out that we are dead wrong or at least omitting a ton of other forces in play. My question to you is: what stance do we take in the face of this recognition? Our minds must piece together these narratives to filter out extraneous information so that we can function. However, we often go too far in ignoring or rejecting information that doesn't fit into the nice neat stories we tell ourselves (ideology). Can we have one without the other? Is there a way to limit the damage that we do with "the facts"?cfshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09059188039985851828noreply@blogger.com