Fiction and modal realism?

Oddsocks · Oct 26, 2008

According to modal realism (a philosophical theory designed to account for the truth of counterfactuals – statements like ‘If I’d studied harder, I would have passed that test’), all logically possible worlds really do exist and are as concrete and real as ours, although they aren’t spatially, temporally or causally related to our world. Our world isn’t special, it’s just one of the many. Everything that is possible is supposed to be actual in one or some of these possible worlds.

Now, admittedly, modal realism is often thought a crazy theory, and a lot of people look for some other way to account for counterfactual truths. But, what I’m wondering is this – assuming, for the moment, for the fun of it, that modal realism is true – how does that make you, as a fiction writer, feel?

When you write a story, assuming it’s logically possible (no plot holes/inconsistencies), you’re describing events that are actual in one of the other possible worlds. Your characters actually exist and are as real as you, they’re just not here.

My first thought was that it seems to become ethically impermissible to ‘torture our characters’, because real people somewhere are thereby going through what we describe. However, if these events are logically possible, they’re happening in a possible world somewhere whether we describe them or not – choosing to write something differently just means you’re describing a different possible world.

So, how do you feel about modal realism and fiction? Unnerved because the horrible things you’ve written could be real, or ecstatic because your favourite creations might actually exist?

Also, I apologise if this is in the wrong forum - i went with the most generic fiction specific forum I could find. Feel free to move it if it belongs elsewhere.

Joe DePlumber · Oct 26, 2008

Or, OS, do you have it backwards, and you are a fictional character is someone elses novel on another Dimension? And right about now some agent in another time zone is sending your author/creater a form rejection letter. and if all things are possible, on yet another level you are the protag in a novel on the NYT best seller list? Which would be fine with me so long as it's not a chik lit novel.
Interesting question you propose here. Is reality objective or subjective? Or both? I vote both.

Stunted · Oct 26, 2008

I'm not sure that I understand the theory (it's basically golden compass-ism, right?), but...wouldn't it be that all our characters are already being tortured, but we're just writing about it? I mean, we're not making it happen, it's already happening.

Anyway, the idea sort of makes sense to me. I often feel that when I figure out a plot, I'm not making up a story, I'm just trying to find something that's already there. (Crazy, right?)

Oddsocks · Oct 26, 2008

j guevara said:
Or, OS, do you have it backwards, and you are a fictional character is someone elses novel on another Dimension? And right about now some agent in another time zone is sending your author/creater a form rejection letter. and if all things are possible, on yet another level you are the protag in a novel on the NYT best seller list? Which would be fine with me so long as it's not a chik lit novel.
Interesting question you propose here. Is reality objective or subjective? Or both? I vote both.

Well, according to modal realism, if it's logically possible that there be a story in which you're a character - MC, villain, secondary character - then worlds like that exist. So it goes in all directions. There may be a world where your own characters have written about you.

It's not so much about reality being subjective though, I think - it holds reality to be objective in any given world, but there are so many of them that everythign that's possible is true in at least one fo them.

Oddsocks · Oct 26, 2008

@ Stunted - Yep, it's not that you're making X happen, you're just choosing to describe a world where X happens rather than one where it doesn't. Both, according to the theory, exist.

I agree with you about feeling like you're trying to work out what's already there - I think that's less about actually connecting with some other possible world, though, and more about what follows most logically while still being compelling and interesting given the way our own world usually works. Or, maybe those are the same thing...?

Kalyke · Oct 26, 2008

Unfortunately (for me) that is the same sort of logic Sprenger and Kramer, who penned the Mallius Maleficarum in 1540 (approx.) used to persecute witches in Europe used. If you believe/or imagined that something happened, then somewhere in some level of reality, it acutally did. They were of course mistaking reality with dreams, truth with "wishful thinking." It is amazing how many "new things" are actually very old and very disproved. I prefer to stick to conventional logic.

Oddsocks · Oct 26, 2008

Use Her Name said:
Unfortunately (for me) that is the same sort of logic Sprenger and Kramer, who penned the Mallius Maleficarum in 1540 (approx.) used to persecute witches in Europe used. If you believe/or imagined that something happened, then somewhere in some level of reality, it acutally did. They were of course mistaking reality with dreams, truth with "wishful thinking." It is amazing how many "new things" are actually very old and very disproved. I prefer to stick to conventional logic.

It would certainly be fallacious to argue that, because a person's counterpart in a possible world did something (because it was logically possible for that person to have done that), that the person in this world should be punished or held in any way responsible. To begin with, this would injure everyone - it's logically possible for each person that he or she be a murderer, so for every person, there are other world counterparts that are murderers. But that doesn't say anything about the versions of people in worlds in which they aren't. Nor does that fact that everyone has saint counterparts make this version of them a saint.

I can see how a mistaken interpretation of modal realism could lead to problems like this, but it really would have to be a severe misinterpretation. All modal realism is supposed to do is provide a truthmaker (as obvious as it sounds: a thing which makes something true) for truths like 'if I weren't allergic to cats, I would have bought one' where the first part is in fact false in our world. On modal realism, it's true because in the closest possible world where my counterpart isn't allergic to cats, she's bought one.

IceCreamEmpress · Oct 26, 2008

The novels of Jasper Fforde explore some of these issues playfully. And so do several short stories by Jorge Luis Borges.

Nateskate · Oct 26, 2008

If you're a character in a story, writing about a character in a story, writing about a character in a story...

Isn't that model unrealism. Nothing is real, so why worry???

Honestly, no disrespect but I'm not a fan of tail-chasing philosophies.

Oddsocks · Oct 26, 2008

IceCreamPrincess - I don't think I've come across any of those, I'll have to take a look.

Nateskate - it's not actually saying that you (as you are, there) are a character in a story - it's only saying that there could be a story in a possible world with a character who shares your name, your life history, your personality, and so forth, with you. It's not that nothing is real, it's that everything is real, for some world or other.

So there's no real infinite regress fear - the scenario you described would only arise in a logically psosible world in which a person actually wrote a story, and detailed the story written by their character in that story, as well as the story written by their character's character...and so on. There would be a world where an author went to that degree of detail...but that's not, by far, the weirdest thing modal realism says is real somewhere. Theoretically, there should be worlds with talking donkeys, among other things.

MagicMan · Oct 26, 2008

It sure is possible. I checked into a few, and yes, the talking donkeys say "Hi-ha". In most of those worlds that can see ours, they are disgusted with the attrocities we have performed. So write on, you can never write an event as vile as actual events occuring everyday.

josephwise · Oct 26, 2008

Assuming all realities play by the same rules, we can't create anything. We can only describe it.

Ms Hollands · Oct 27, 2008

IceCreamEmpress said:
The novels of Jasper Fforde explore some of these issues playfully. And so do several short stories by Jorge Luis Borges.

Yeah, I'm reading The Eyre Affair at the moment and even though alternate worlds are not my 'thing' in a novel, I'm really enjoying it so far (more than half way through). So far, we've met a few characters from classics who have either been transported to the book's reality or who others have gone into the world of the novels. Interesting concept.

NeuroFizz · Oct 27, 2008

Modal realism is certainly an interesting philosophical construct, and it takes the mind away from the practical by suggesting an alternate practical (or practicals). I also find it interesting how it is capable of dodging (at least partially) all attempts to refute it. It's the product of a brilliant mind (or brilliant minds). However, for novel writing, it takes analysis to a plane I find of little personal use. This may sound crass, but when I write, I just make stuff up. I turn my mind on matters with much more traction--I try to make the characters and their actions consonant with this world (obviously, I don't write fantasy). And I don't reflect on such higher-level philosophical aspects of that story because I'm too busy working on the next story.

I give kudos to those who attempt to bring such philosophical cerebrations into their writing--it's a clever writer who can pull it off. Unfortunately, I'm just trying to entertain readers within the reality with which I can best identify. If anything of mine addresses another reality, it's not due to my cleverness, but rather by chance (which doesn't make it any less an alternate reality).

CaroGirl · Oct 27, 2008

What does the philosophy mean by "worlds?" I take it to simply mean alternatives to this world, wherein the term logic applies to what's logical in this plane of existence, in terms of everything from gravity, chemistry and physics, to people and their personalities. If "worlds" refers to other planets, you have a problem with the stated "logic," because laws of gravity, chemistry and physics wouldn't apply in the same way, not to mention the creatures themselves, who are a product of those physical "laws."

While I "get" the philosophy of modal realism, I don't particularly buy into it. I mean, when I have a dream I'm a butterfly, I don't wake up and wonder if I'm now a butterfly dreaming I'm a human.

Charlie Horse · Oct 27, 2008

Wasn't this a Will Ferrell movie?

Seriously, though, I'm eager to believe anything is possible and the subject of alternative realities, especially ones in which I can play God are certainly always in play in my work because it's a fun philosophy to subscribe to. If there's any sort of loose theme I tend to drift toward in my work, it's the theory of total plausibility.

Sassee · Oct 27, 2008

If an alternate universe exists with my character in it, I feel very, very, very sorry for her.

Is this the same theory that where in this existance you might narrowly avoid a car crash, but in the other one you got hit and died? This is reminding me of that Jet Li movie... "The One."

Albedo · Oct 27, 2008

Modal realism has similarities to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which has a small but serious core of supporters amongst theoretical physicists. The existence of multiple branching worlds representing every possible outcome elegantly explains away many of the problems with traditional interpretations of quantum mechanics, but it's kind of impossible to prove and so belongs more in the realm of philosophy along with modal realism.

So yeah, with infinite possible worlds, it's highly likely scenarios indistinguishable from the plots of our books play out somewhere. As long as you don't go violating the physical rules of this universe, anyway. Those are immutable.

tehuti88 · Oct 27, 2008

There's actually a name for that theory? Interesting. I figured it was just something I thought about at times, and I'm strange that way.

I see no ethical dilemma in it because, as you said, such events would happen whether we write about them or not, unless there's a world that exists specifically BECAUSE we write it into existence. And I shan't get into that as my head would hurt or else I'd sound nuts.

In truth I find the theory appealing and it fits in with my own views of things, but aside from that I can't spend much time thinking about it because I can't do anything about it either way. It's just something interesting to mull over now and then. *shrug*

Sorry that I'm not particularly philosophical, but I never have been! I'm better at thinking about such things than with putting them into words. Nice to know I wasn't the only one to come up with such an idea though. In fact I hope to use a similar idea for a future story in my series, which is itself set in an alternate yet parallel dimension where various things went somewhat differently.

tehuti88 · Oct 27, 2008

Albedo said:
As long as you don't go violating the physical rules of this universe, anyway. Those are immutable.

But would they be immutable even in alternate universes where different rules might apply...?

Okay, NOW I'm done, and out of here before the headache comes on.

Albedo · Oct 27, 2008

tehuti88 said:
But would they be immutable even in alternate universes where different rules might apply...?

Okay, NOW I'm done, and out of here before the headache comes on.

MWI in our universe doesn't preclude the possibility of other universes existing with different initial states and their own infinitely branching cosmoses. I've read articles by non-crazy physicists saying this is just as likely. Again, though, impossible to prove.

Albedo · Oct 27, 2008

And then there's another level of multiverse. Well, within ours. The universe is so bloody large (probably infinitely so) that every possible arrangement of matter within a volume must play out. It must play out infinite times. So at a certain distance from where you're sitting (an article in Sci Am actually calculated it: it was huge, but finite) an exact copy of you, down to the atom, statistically must exist. They're even reading the same thread on this forum. And a little bit further over, there's a volume that has by chance had its matter arranged into Camembert.

This is all entirely within what we consider THE universe, without even considering spooky stuff like quantum worlds. The universe is substantially crazier even than the American presidential race would indicate.

Bufty · Oct 27, 2008

I found it an interesting exercise until I reached the 'ethically impermissible' paragraph. That pushed the 'theory' a tad far for me, I'm afraid.

willietheshakes · Oct 27, 2008

Huh.

Hang on... I just need to pack my bong. I'll be right back.

Phaeal · Oct 27, 2008

What about those sad realities where no fiction exists? Or is this possible?

Gotta plot bunny, gotta go throw it in the pen with the others.

Fiction and modal realism?

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