# Making events (believable or absurd) realistic



## DarkGhost (Dec 18, 2018)

Do your events need to be grounded in reality to be realistic? I would say no, have the most crazy story out there but keep it believable.

For instance, if the entire world population is now living on Mars or some huge space station make sure the reason for leaving earth is good. Like Really good. 

Remember that all of our resources are here and that places like Mars have no oxygen and it would be very hard to live there. Which would make earth have to have worse conditions. Mars ain't Hawaii folks! It's not like we would be back to our normal lives in like.........forever! It's not a decision that's made overnight, so make sure that your characters have a reason for being wherever they are. Don't just give a vauge backstory to cover up you not wanting to think about that.

Maybe I'm stating the obvious too much but it seems to me that this gets glossed over too many times. 

And remember that the readers like things that make sense. Even the absurd.


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## Guard Dog (Dec 18, 2018)

My story has three artificial planetoids that were built as "lifeboats" by a certain segment of a population to save _them_.

Now granted, that didn't work out quite the way they planned, but I hope that the explanation is sufficient to satisfy people here and now... which is really all you have to do. 

By the way... Places like Mars _do_ have oxygen, and probably anything else a human needs to survive... It's just that they're locked up in such a way that they're too expensive, or we're too stupid, to access just yet. But they are there.



G.D.


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## Bloggsworth (Dec 18, 2018)

Readability is the key, if your reader keeps going by being drawn into the narrative, you can get away with a wardrobe to another world, complete with talking lions... Any tale is acceptable if well told, it doesn't need to be believable, did you, when young, believe that there was a tin man and cowardly lion? Incidentally, I finally, after nearly 70 years, forced myself to watch the Wizard - That's 2 hours of my life I won't get back...


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## bdcharles (Dec 18, 2018)

I think if you have a good writing voice and awareness of the absurdity of your events, much can be excused. If not, the internal logic of your events - cause and effect, mainly - just needs to stack up.


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## Theglasshouse (Dec 18, 2018)

Depends on the genre. If science fiction the science needs to be real nowadays. If fantasy you probably need to create a magic system for not having a deus ex machina device in your plot. I could be wrong as any person can be. I liked bloggsworth example of the wizard of oz. His post is a good one since fantastical events in fantasy is something you have to write, and not let the conflict be solved by magic but by human error of the character who is in trouble. Of course sometimes magic can solve the story problem, and you can break story rules. But keep in mind what deus ex machina is, that's my advice if I were in that situation.

For your example having aliens seems to be more realistic, since we have no scientific explanation like guard dog is suggesting and which needs to be researched if on the cutting edge of science.


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## Guard Dog (Dec 18, 2018)

Learn the difference between 'possible', 'plausible', and 'unimaginable'.

Once you have a handle on that, you'll know what you can get away with, with a particular audience.



G.D.


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 18, 2018)

DarkGhost said:


> *Do your events need to be grounded in reality to be realistic?* I would say no, have the most crazy story out there but keep it believable.
> 
> For instance, if the entire world population is now living on Mars or some huge space station make sure the reason for leaving earth is good. Like Really good.
> 
> ...



Bolding mine.

I think the answer to that question is, "It depends." 

It really does depend on what the author is presenting.

Harry Potter, with the magical realm, is not realistic. It is, however, believable, since the magical world had rules, and not just from the Ministry of Magic. It is, however, fantasy.

If you're writing something that is supposed to be realistic, not fantasy, then suddenly ignoring a law of physics, say gravity, because it's inconvenient is going to cost you readers. You will have pulled the rug out from under them. 

So if you establish what the reader can expect early on, stay true to that, and keep it believable, you should be fine.



Addressing inhabiting Mars --

Earth is not the only source of water, oxygen, etc. If we are ready to establish a colony on Mars, we are probably also ready to rob asteriods, Jupiter's moons, etc for raw materials. And Mars may have more to offer than it seems. Less gravity, cold and radiation are three stumbling blocks to putting a colony there. But with Earth continuing to be overpopulated, I suspect there will be some who will make the attempt within the next 50-100 years.


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## Ralph Rotten (Dec 18, 2018)

I try to ground my works in science, but sometimes when I write speculative scifi I have to take a leap or 2.  But even my theoretical stuff has some moorings in science and physics. Either that or it is so far beyond modern science that I have no worries of anyone disproving me within my lifetime.

My biggest worry is that readers may not believe some of the 'real things' in my writing. Often I find amazing facts on a topic and I worry that readers will chalk them up to artistic license.


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## pyroteqnix (Dec 18, 2018)

I don't think realism is the real issue.
I think it has more to do with what can capture your audience's attention.
It's easier to relate to thinks they know, so it's easier to grab attention that way.
But if your story is thrilling and engaging, people will lap it up whatever the topic.


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## DarkGhost (Dec 19, 2018)

Jack of all trades said:


> I think the answer to that question is, "It depends."
> 
> It really does depend on what the author is presenting.
> 
> ...




Just because something is fantasy doesn't mean it isn't realistic, remember I'm not talking about objects or things, I'm talking about situations that characters find themselves in. For example A Song of Ice and Fire is very much a fantasy story, but the way all the events and situations happen make sense, people make decisions that probably would be made in a non fantasy world.

When I say "Realistic" I'm not talking about wether there can be dragons or creepy space dogs, I'm talking more about how situations are handled by the characters.

i do know that places like a couples of Jupiter's moons have oxygen and ice. However it's not enough to support life even short term, also they don't have a balanced Eco-system like earth. It would be like living in Antarctica, possible? Yes. But not for long term.

And BTW studies show that the population of the world is decreasing and has been for a while now.


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## DarkGhost (Dec 19, 2018)

pyroteqnix said:


> I don't think realism is the real issue.
> I think it has more to do with what can capture your audience's attention.
> It's easier to relate to thinks they know, so it's easier to grab attention that way.
> But if your story is thrilling and engaging, people will lap it up whatever the topic.




You're right, object realism isn't the issue. For instance I don't care if your book has flying kangaroos or if there can be a phasing vibranium android. 
It's how the characters handle their situations and things like that.


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## DarkGhost (Dec 19, 2018)

Bloggsworth said:


> Incidentally, I finally, after nearly 70 years, forced myself to watch the Wizard - That's 2 hours of my life I won't get back...



To tell the truth, I've never seen Wizard either!


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 21, 2018)

DarkGhost said:


> Just because something is fantasy doesn't mean it isn't realistic, remember I'm not talking about objects or things, I'm talking about situations that characters find themselves in. For example A Song of Ice and Fire is very much a fantasy story, but the way all the events and situations happen make sense, people make decisions that probably would be made in a non fantasy world.
> 
> When I say "Realistic" I'm not talking about wether there can be dragons or creepy space dogs, I'm talking more about how situations are handled by the characters.
> 
> ...



If you are narrowing your focus to behavior, why are you bringing up Jupiter's moons and how long someone could survive there? That seems to indicate realism is covering more than chatacter behavior. Also, I don't see a contradiction between what I said and what you're saying here. (Only a little confusion about Jupiter's moons.)

The year's planetary resources are used up earlier and earlier each year. I'm pretty sure that's due, in part, to increased population.



> Thereafter, the global population reached four billion in 1974, five billion in 1987, six billion in 1999 and, according to the United States Census Bureau, seven billion in March 2012. The United Nations, however, estimated that the world population reached seven billion in October 2011.
> World population -Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/.../ World_ ...





> World Population Prospects, the 2012 Revision | Latest Major ... www.un.org/.../ world-population-prospe... Jun 17, 2013 ... The current world population of 7.2 billion is projected to increase by 1 billion over the next 12 years and reach 9.6 billion by 2050, according to a United Nations report launched today, which points out that growth will be mainly in developing countries, with more than half in Africa.



Perhaps some *countries* are have a slowing of population growth, or even a decrease, but globally the population continues to rise. If you supply links showing otherwise, I'd be happy to take a look at them.


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## DarkGhost (Dec 23, 2018)

Jack of all trades said:


> If you are narrowing your focus to behavior, why are you bringing up Jupiter's moons and how long someone could survive there? That seems to indicate realism is covering more than chatacter behavior. Also, I don't see a contradiction between what I said and what you're saying here. (Only a little confusion about Jupiter's moons.)



Ok, I will say that I did get a little sidetracked talking about Jupiters moons, sorry about that.
I'm just saying that even if there is a place that could support life, it still wouldn't be a realistic decision to decide over night that we should move a good portion (heck even 25%) of earth population to somewhere else. 
This is a thread I started after a similar conversation in another thread about the future.



Jack of all trades said:


> The year's planetary resources are used up earlier and earlier each year. I'm pretty sure that's due, in part, to increased population.




Have you ever been to the Midwestern U.S? There are literally hundreds of millions of acres that are just waiting to be planted, and farmers who have the equipment to do it. They just need to get permission, and that could feed the world for a while.




Jack of all trades said:


> Perhaps some *countries* are have a slowing of population growth, or even a decrease, but globally the population continues to rise. If you supply links showing otherwise, I'd be happy to take a look at them.




Let me rephrase, population increase is beginning to decrease
https://ifstudies.org/blog/half-the-worlds-population-is-reaching-below-replacement-fertility


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## luckyscars (Dec 23, 2018)

DarkGhost said:


> Have you ever been to the Midwestern U.S? There are literally hundreds of millions of acres that are just waiting to be planted, and farmers who have the equipment to do it. They just need to get permission, and that could feed the world for a while.



Not in a way that is remotely sustainable unless you want to raze national parks and forests (therefore losing carbon capture) and destroy multiple ecosystems and probably end up in another dust bowl situation further down the line. It's not just a question of land, it's a question of water, and the loss of what that land was once used for.

I'm not sure where you have in mind but most of the Midwest with good arable soil has already been farmed OR put to some use that is deemed more economically or environmentally valuable. There certainly isn't "hundreds of millions of acres" that can be planted without causing problems. Capitalism doesn't allow for much untapped potential.



> Let me rephrase, population increase is beginning to decrease
> https://www.prb.org/us-population-growth-decline/
> and it's not just the U.S, Russia and China also have declining population rates due to low birth rates, high death rates and high abortion rates.


[/quote]

It doesn't really matter if the rate of population increase decreases so long as it is still in net increase, does it? 0.005% net increase when we talk about a global population of billions is still going to yield a lot more people than, say, a 0.05% net increase when we talk about a global population of just millions. It might be interesting from a sociological perspective for long-term trends but as long as the net is still an increase overpopulation remains inevitable.


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 23, 2018)

DarkGhost said:


> Ok, I will say that I did get a little sidetracked talking about Jupiters moons, sorry about that.
> I'm just saying that even if there is a place that could support life, it still wouldn't be a realistic decision to decide over night that we should move a good portion (heck even 25%) of earth population to somewhere else.
> This is a thread I started after a similar conversation in another thread about the future.
> 
> ...




Moving off world is a huge decision, and not one to make lightly. I doubt the first colonists would be 25% of the global population. Maybe 25 people.

There have been two failed attempts to create a sealed ecosystem here on Earth, so I am well aware of the difficulty of attempting such a project on another planet. But I think the increasing population is going to prompt some to take the risks, and within 100 years. Like all predictions, this may be wrong. It is, after all, just my opinion.

The US is heading for another dust bowl scenario, even without plowing more land in the Midwest. Those farms are watered using water from a huge underground reservoir that was filled by the melting glaciers from the last Ice Age. It is being drained, without new water going in. When it runs dry, dust bowl conditions are likely to return. While the American Midwest is easy to plow, easier the the forest regions in the East, it does not have the necessary rainfall to support the crops being grown there. But the whole thing might end up covered in ash and lava from the super volcano first, so ...

And I can agree that the population growth is slowing, but has yet to be halted or reversed.


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## DarkGhost (Dec 24, 2018)

Thanks JoaT I'm glad we got that cleared up!


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## Guard Dog (Dec 24, 2018)

Here's a question for ya, DarkGhost:

You remember hearing or seeing anything about multiple impacts from a comet on Jupiter, over the past few years?

Have a look here if you don't.

What would you call the possibility of same thing happening here on Earth, or a very near miss?

Is that believable or absurd?

And what would be the effect if it did happen? ( Assuming that it doesn't hit in such a way as to destroy all life here except for maybe bacteria? )

Remember, a close-enough miss can still do all sorts of damage, without the usual impact/explosion related stuff.


G.D.


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## Megan Pearson (Dec 26, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> Learn the difference between 'possible', 'plausible', and 'unimaginable'.
> 
> Once you have a handle on that, you'll know what you can get away with, with a particular audience.
> 
> ...




Yah, I seem to recall having read a few of Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone series as a youth and found most of what was in them unimaginable. I may not have been his right audience, though. He did have a 'right' audience, and they made him very wealthy for what I thought were unimaginable stories. I guess my point is, know your audience. They may have more to do with your success than the believability of what you write. (But if you don't know your audience, it would be best to stick with Guard Dog's advice.)


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## Guard Dog (Dec 26, 2018)

Sheesh... I haven't thought of  Elric of Melnibone in ages.

His sword was possessed by a demon or something of the like, wasn't it?


G.D.


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## Megan Pearson (Dec 26, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> Sheesh... I haven't thought of Elric of Melnibone in ages.
> 
> His sword was possessed by a demon or something of the like, wasn't it?
> 
> G.D.




Hah! I don't know anymore--too long ago! BTW, what happens to all that old pocket fiction we devoured in our youth? Surely it must have some strange effect on what we think is possible/plausible/unimaginable in our writing today. 

So if I see any possessed swords popping up in my writing, now I'll know where they came from! :joyous:


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## Guard Dog (Dec 26, 2018)

Megan Pearson said:


> Hah! I don't know anymore--too long ago! BTW, what happens to all that old pocket fiction we devoured in our youth? Surely it must have some strange effect on what we think is possible/plausible/unimaginable in our writing today.
> 
> So if I see any possessed swords popping up in my writing, now I'll know where they came from! :joyous:



I dunno where it all went. I know I'd like to have it all back now.

Thinking about Elric though, I can certainly see where he might have had an influence on albinos showing up in certain movies, like _The Da Vinci Code_.
( I wondered why that character in the movie seemed so familiar at the time. That may have been what he was reminding me of. )




G.D.


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## Megan Pearson (Dec 26, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> I dunno where it all went. I know I'd like to have it all back now.



me too.




Guard Dog said:


> Thinking about Elric though, I can certainly see where he might have had an influence on albinos showing up in certain movies, like _The Da Vinci Code_.
> ( I wondered why that character in the movie seemed so familiar at the time. That may have been what he was reminding me of. )
> 
> G.D.




Could be. What counts as creativity today on the big screen tends to be highly derivative. (Umm...probably because it's more--and to use your term again--'possible', since it's already been done and has a an existing cultural context which can be exploited for financial gain.)


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## Guard Dog (Dec 26, 2018)

Y'know, it's a funny thing about 'possible'... Back when they did the first Star Trek, for example, things like tricorders, phasers, communicators, and those handy little data storage things that looked a lot like 3.5 inch floppy disks looked 'impossible' to most people. Pure fantasy.

Now days though, even liquid metal androids don't seem all that far-fetched, and the stuff from Star Trek looks rather antiquated by comparison.

So really, when you think about it, is there actually an 'impossible'? Or is it more a 'not just yet'?


G.D.


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## DarkGhost (Dec 27, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> Here's a question for ya, DarkGhost:
> 
> You remember hearing or seeing anything about multiple impacts from a comet on Jupiter, over the past few years?
> 
> ...



G.D. 

A comet or an asteroid hitting the earth would definitely cause waves and kill a lot of poor folks, however despite the fact that it would cause extreme changes to the climate would it really be enough to cause us to move to a place that is in as much if not more danger of the same thing happening? Not to mention once again the lack of mass reproducible reasources.

the solution to something bad isn't to find something that is potentially worse. You and I both know that! And unless somebody in a story has 1/8 of a brain they will know that too. I'm just trying make sure that the characters decisions make sense.

sry it took me so long to reply. Hope you had a great Christmas! DG


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## Megan Pearson (Dec 27, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> Y'know, it's a funny thing about 'possible'... Back when they did the first Star Trek, for example, things like tricorders, phasers, communicators, and those handy little data storage things that looked a lot like 3.5 inch floppy disks looked 'impossible' to most people. Pure fantasy.



OMG, I remember the first time I walked through an automatic slidingdoor! Or, the first time I saw VHS movie. It played on demand! It was AMAZING! I was just a little thing and I held that VHS cassette up to the light, poking everywhere I could as I was tried to figure out how the movie got out! (That sense of _wonder_ is still catchy for me in well-written sci-fi.)

Babylon 5 did a good job, I think, of showcasing how a futuristic 'possible' where advanced technology might look like magic. (But then again, I think they also ran into some thematic issues in crossing genres that could have been avoided had they not acquiessed to the idea that what looks like magic must also function like magic.) 




Guard Dog said:


> Now days though, even liquid metal androids don't seem all that far-fetched, and the stuff from Star Trek looks rather antiquated by comparison.
> 
> So really, when you think about it, is there actually an 'impossible'? Or is it more a 'not just yet'?
> 
> G.D.




Actually, I have a lot of thoughts on this. Culturally, I wonder if we haven't already abstracted ourselves from the existence of reality so that reality itself becomes an impossibility. (There's a lot in what I just said I don't personally subscribe to, but it is a major problem in our culture's epistemology that seems to grow worse the more we try to fix it.)

For example, I just watched the first two episodes of _The Orville_ the other day. Haven't seen it before, and hadn't heard about it either. (I've been a bit too busy for TV lately.) What I recognized as being derivative of that which I knew was hilarious. What I recognized as derivative of that which I couldn't identify was unsettling in that I _knew_ I was missing the underlying meaning of the comedy. It was funny, kiind-of, but it sure would have been a lot funnier had I kept up on the latest sci-fi movies & tv shows! I had fallen victim to Baudrillard's semiotics. (Where a sign points to another sign in order for the receiver to understand the meaning of the sign received.) 


I think the better question is, _should_ we look for writing the impossible into our stories and at what point _ought_ we give up that quest, and choose another?


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## Sir-KP (Dec 27, 2018)

Children believe in elder dressed in red, riding flying sleigh, infiltrate their house through chimney to drop gift for them while they're asleep.

So, no, it doesn't have to be grounded.  It's how much convincing you are at telling the story.


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## DarkGhost (Dec 27, 2018)

Sir-KP said:


> Children believe in elder dressed in red, riding flying sleigh, infiltrate their house through chimney to drop gift for them while they're asleep.
> 
> So, no, it doesn't have to be grounded.  It's how much convincing you are at telling the story.



I'm not talking about whether there can be a fat guy who has broken his back for some milk and cookies for who knows how long (go listen to the Wierd "Al" Yankovich song 'The Night Santa went Crazy'.) 

I'm talking about the reasons and such of character's decision making, I'm using space as an example, it's not the basis of the argument. Go read my earlier posts, I did get a little sidetracked but you should be able to figure out the gist of it.


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## Guard Dog (Dec 27, 2018)

DarkGhost said:


> G.D.
> 
> A comet or an asteroid hitting the earth would definitely cause waves and kill a lot of poor folks, however despite the fact that it would cause extreme changes to the climate would it really be enough to cause us to move to a place that is in as much if not more danger of the same thing happening? Not to mention once again the lack of mass reproducible reasources.
> 
> ...



My point here was that although the scenario with a comet strike like hit Jupiter is a very real possibility, the average person's mind can't/won't accept it as such sometimes. To them, it will always be an IMPOSSIBILITY. ( Nah, never happen here. That's crazy. )

Does that make sense?

( By the way, a daisy-chain strike on Earth would be catastrophic. The only chance of survival would be to see it coming soon enough to get off the planet. )


G.D.


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 27, 2018)

Sir-KP said:


> Children believe in elder dressed in red, riding flying sleigh, infiltrate their house through chimney to drop gift for them while they're asleep.
> 
> So, no, it doesn't have to be grounded.  It's how much convincing you are at telling the story.



Or maybe it's the parents who believe the fairy tale (that the kids are buying it), and the children go along with the game of pretend just to get the payoff.


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## ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord (Dec 27, 2018)

Sir-KP said:


> Children believe in elder dressed in red, riding flying sleigh, infiltrate their house through chimney to drop gift for them while they're asleep.
> 
> So, no, it doesn't have to be grounded.  It's how much convincing you are at telling the story.



Hey, I'm not above believing in Santa. I certainly didn't believe in him as a kid, but now I'm a bit more agnostic about the whole thing. . .but anyways, maybe it's not about whether the story is told in a convincing way, but about whether in rings true in the universal sense. It follows, in a kind of poetic, human way, that the generous work of Christmas would take place secretly, that Santa would have the methods of a burglar but the mission of a saint. It's the same thing when you're writing a story about humanity colonizing another planet (like the discussion was focused around earlier). The reasoning doesn't need to be positively watertight for it to make sense. Humans have crossed the ocean, and explored the bottom of the sea, and not always for the most logical reasons. Why wouldn't we go to another planet, if it was possible?


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## Dluuni (Dec 28, 2018)

If the characters in the setting treat things as mundane and treat your non-euclidean dragons as just another thing to delay them getting to work, for instance, and then you go off on side topics instead of delving into them, your readers will not think all that much about it either. You control their attention.


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## Megan Pearson (Dec 28, 2018)

That's it. My take on 'making events (believable or absurd) realistic 'has forever been changed by watching children's shows with granddaughter. Last week I had the tune to "Baby Shark" stuck in my head all day. This evening it was a submersible diving schoolbus that toured the bottom of the ocean (featuring the shark family in the background, of course). Or maybe this revelation came from realizing that little three-year old knows all the moves to the Kaboochi Dance Song -- even with the dazzling discotheque with its spinning, wheeling, reeling lights and colors and yada-yada-yada pulsating on the screen. (Wow, can she keep time!) This fanfare is clearly very real and believable to her, as she is being taught entertainment programming is her universe. (I hope she becomes an actress. Or a talk show host. I'm having a difficult time picturing the usefulness of this education for much else... :concern: ) This brings to mind several (potentially) unanswerable questions: 

1. What is real? How do we define it? Acquire it? Create it? Destroy it?

2. Does something have to be believable to be real? Or rather, does it first have to be real to be believable? (Not as far-fetched a question as it might at first seem. Consider Plato's cave.)

3. I have crossed into some alternate universe where that which is absurd has become the new 'normal'. 


(So far I'm betting on #3. "Baby shark, do-doo, do-doo. Baby shark, d...")


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## Guard Dog (Dec 28, 2018)

Y'know, given the fact that everything we experience as 'real' is nothing more than our mind's interpretation of the input our senses provide, I personally think that anything we can imagine is no less real in some respects than anything else we know.

Take the sense of touch, for example. According to physicists, none of us have actually ever touched anything, due to the atoms and molecules holding each other apart. Their respective fields don't allow any real contact, and if you push past that, you get a nuclear explosion.

So the sensation of touch is actually a lie... Nothing more than an interpretation of our brains.

Along these same lines of thought, I have to wonder what sort of world our minds would generate, if we were completely cut off from any sense or stimulation from our bodies. And I mean completely cut off. No awareness of having a body at all.

What then?  What would separate 'possible' and 'impossible', under that condition/situation?



G.D.


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## luckyscars (Dec 29, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> Y'know, given the fact that everything we experience as 'real' is nothing more than our mind's interpretation of the input our senses provide, I personally think that anything we can imagine is no less real in some respects than anything else we know.
> 
> Take the sense of touch, for example. According to physicists, none of us have actually ever touched anything, due to the atoms and molecules holding each other apart. Their respective fields don't allow any real contact, and if you push past that, you get a nuclear explosion.
> 
> ...



I'd say if you had a brain in a vat which had been born/created as a brain in a vat with no sense stimuli (and therefore no foundation of knowledge or memory) its pretty safe to assume the resultant 'world" would not exist in any meaningful way. Because why would it? We have to assume the simplest option in order to be rational.

We do know that in human thought everything we think comes down to perception in some way. It can be singular (I see a bread, I think about bread) or conceptual form (I see bread and cheese and lettuce and I think of a sandwich) but its always still based on things that are real in some fixed way. There is nothing completely innate, unless you want to say an embryo has thoughts, but even then to the degree a fetus can conceive of the world it is still built upon its (very restricted) stimulus in utero. The world as we know it begins to exist only when the mind gains the ability to perceive its surroundings. Therefore dismissing senses as being "nothing more than an interpretation of our brains" is a meaningless criticism, like dismissing an airplane for being "nothing more than a flying object". What is there outside of brain interpretation?

I am not saying there is not a world beyond our perceptions, of course. A fetus may not have an idea of what the sun is, but that doesn't mean it does not exist. The point is if we can't perceive it, nor conceive it second-hand from those who can (as we do through writing), it's useless to us.

The whole touching isn't real it's just atoms and molecules stuff doesn't matter in practical terms, because it nonetheless makes up what we call _touching_, which in our known universe is solely a human concept and has no meaning outside of human capability (or lack of capability as the case may be). In a world where any closer contact is physically impossible, molecules bouncing off each other is real touch. As close as dammit. Hence you have a useless distinction speaking of it as being somehow insufficient. Even if a godlike being can experience "real touch" (with no evidence such a being exists, of course) its irrelevant if we can't experience it ourselves. 

So the sensation of touch is not a "lie" really, is it? For something to be a lie there has to be an accessible truth. Does it really make sense to talk about a truth that is physically impossible for a human being to know?


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## Guard Dog (Dec 29, 2018)

luckyscars said:


> What is there outside of brain interpretation?



This...^... is exactly my point in a nutshell.

If you can get a person to be open to the idea, then it quits being an impossibility.

It comes down to what a person is either able or wiling to accept as possibility or reality.

It's like  Dluuni said up there a ways, if you can get a person to accept it as normal or mundane, then even the most outlandish and impossible of things quits being so. The person simply accepts it and moves on.



G.D.


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## Megan Pearson (Dec 29, 2018)

Guard Dog said:


> Y'know, given the fact that everything we experience as 'real' is nothing more than our mind's interpretation of the input our senses provide, I personally think that anything we can imagine is no less real in some respects than anything else we know.
> 
> G.D.




Oooo... I just _have_ to reply. Reality as being 'the mind's interpretation' is a _very_ popular view that has been reinforced within our culture for some time yet is of recent origin. There are some reasons why philosophical positions like this have come into vogue, and in my opinion very little in them has anything to do with either truth or reality. The problem is, most people either accept them as true, or accept that science has accepted them as true. In truth, the practice of science could not be carried out _if_ this were in fact true. There are some logical inconsistencies within these kinds of arguments which invalidate them. However...the general public generally doesn't know that _or_ they studied a philosophical position that tried to argue for internal consistency on such a view. (I am such a rebel!)

However, as a philosophical viewpoint within story, it can be highly useful _and_ general audiences will most likely support this view.

Back to your prompt specifically, nothing could separate 'possible' from 'impossible', should one begin with the premise that all is interpretation. But, and like you've pointed out in being cut-off from sensation and stimulation, what's happening in this viewpoint is there is no way to access reality. Thus, there is no way to even become informed about anything. Philosophically, it breaks down into nihilism. 

What's really cool about your scenario is that there are a lot of people right now actually dealing with this from an academic standpoint because it's causing a lot of problems in how people are approaching life. For example, how do you get morality on this view? What about laws? Or justice? What do we do when society rejects any basis for morality? Currently, many philosophical views generally take to come form of conventionalism. (While debatable, I can recognize its impact).

What's even cooler is that there is a lot of thought out there in fiction, particularly science fiction, dealing with what--exactly--all this means, and it generally seems to have (historically speaking) preceded work being done in academia--which may account for some of its widespread acceptance in popular culture. Although imaginative and seemingly receptive to society's consumeristic demands, the caveat here in creating their pop-culture philosophy is that fiction writers generally lack the logical consistency required to support their conclusions, relying instead on emotional appeal and rhetoric to make their arguments persuasive. 

Great prompt! Keep up the great questions!


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## Megan Pearson (Dec 29, 2018)

luckyscars said:


> Does it really make sense to talk about a truth that is physically impossible for a human being to know?




Hmm. Good question. Mind if I reply with a question asked in multiple parts? 

_If_ all knowledge of reality comes by the senses, and all knowledge (according to physicalists) can be measured, then how can a human being actually talk about truth? 

If truth is not measurable, it cannot not be physical. If this is so, how can the person who only accepts what is physical explain truth? 

Now, whatever answer the physicalist gives (and they do have a work-around to determining truth _values_), there still remains one more problem. 

However the truth value of a matter may be explained, what _is_ truth? If truth is not a thing, is it a concept? Let's say we decide it's a concept. Then, on what grounds can we describe a concept as physical? 

So, If all knowledge is based on what's physical, and concepts are not physical, then reality cannot be based entirely on what's physical either. :shock:


Hence, it makes sense to talk about truth that is physically impossible for a human being to know.


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## luckyscars (Dec 29, 2018)

Megan Pearson said:


> Hmm. Good question. Mind if I reply with a question asked in multiple parts?
> 
> _If_ all knowledge of reality comes by the senses, and all knowledge (according to physicalists) can be measured, then how can a human being actually talk about truth?
> 
> ...



Concepts _are_ physical in practice. Take something like love. It's a concept, sure. But when you attempt to describe *it* you do so in physical terms - "heart pounding" etc. We talk about loving acts, not love as love, because the concept itself is meaningless.

Go on, try it. Describe love purely in conceptual language. It cannot be done. Certainly it cannot be done in a way that transfers meaning to anybody else and therefore it is meaningless. Don't like love? Try another concept. Any. "Trust", "Betrayal", "Anger", whatever. Try to explain beauty without appealing to _something _beautiful, something _physical_. You can't do it. No more than I can explain a sandwich, or you can think of one, without visualizing its component parts.

There's a word for indescribable, conceptual values that seem universal: Qualia. It's an interesting concept that has merit as far as a shorthand for that which is shared yet intangible but when you get down to the nitty-gritty there's nothing that does not appeal to an individual's relationship with the physical world. Which is why my point stands about a brain raised from birth without sentience holding no real inner life.


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## Megan Pearson (Dec 30, 2018)

luckyscars said:


> Concepts _are_ physical in practice. Take something like love. It's a concept, sure. But when you attempt to describe *it* you do so in physical terms - "heart pounding" etc. We talk about loving acts, not love as love, because the concept itself is meaningless.
> 
> Go on, try it. Describe love purely in conceptual language. It cannot be done. Certainly it cannot be done in a way that transfers meaning to anybody else and therefore it is meaningless. Don't like love? Try another concept. Any. "Trust", "Betrayal", "Anger", whatever. Try to explain beauty without appealing to _something _beautiful, something _physical_. You can't do it. No more than I can explain a sandwich, or you can think of one, without visualizing its component parts.
> 
> There's a word for indescribable, conceptual values that seem universal: Qualia. It's an interesting concept that has merit as far as a shorthand for that which is shared yet intangible but when you get down to the nitty-gritty there's nothing that does not appeal to an individual's relationship with the physical world. Which is why my point stands about a brain raised from birth without sentience holding no real inner life.




Hey, Luckyscars, thanks for your thoughts! So, what is a concept? You've given me physical decriptions about concepts, but what _is_ a concept? You've got a character, and he's not practicing his concepts. He's stuck on that Klingon ice-planet prison and he's got lots of ideas of escape, but no physical possibilty for escape, and no one to share his ideas with as he doesn't speak Klingon. Worse, he's homesick and he thinks it's just plain wrong he got dumped mining dilithium. If concepts are physical in practice, then what are they before they can be put into practice?


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## luckyscars (Dec 30, 2018)

Megan Pearson said:


> If concepts are physical in practice, then what are they before they can be put into practice?



Pointless.


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## Megan Pearson (Dec 31, 2018)

It has occurred to me several times in this thread that for something to be possible / probable / believable (& so on... I think I missed one), then what really matters is how the character who responds this way reacts. I like writing dialogue between characters of opposing views. It creates a fine tension that helps carry along the storyline. But in order to do this, I have to remain consistent within each character's viewpoints. So if I have a character arguing for, say, 'saving the whales', and one arguing for 'whaling', the crucial part may not be so much whether or not the audience thinks their argument is believable, but that the characters do, each from their own perspective.


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