No, I can't agree with your improvement of my statement. Why? Because we can't separate fiction from non-fiction when it comes to examining consciousness and how we express what we choose. I'm insisting that ALL consciousness is a selected stream of events happening in real time or recollected in past time or projected into future time. We can't possibly be conscious of each and every instance of actuality we experience. We select and reconstruct. That's why I also insist that vision is active, a reconstruction of optical and chemical/electrical stimuli and since that is so, it too is a reinvention, an amalgam, a fictional proposition, a make believe, that may or may not be "workable" in the continuing stream of consciousness.
I have to stick to this. All memory is fiction because it is a reinvention, and as such it is partial, missing many experiential memories, and thus distorted by the way in which we "fill in the gaps". Every day we find ourselves correcting our memories of past experience and tentatively projecting a make believe narrative -- fiction -- for the next moment or day or year, etc. This takes us back to that book Lehrer re Proust, and especially to Proust's own art. I will say that all memories are fiction. But not all fiction is wholly false, (that is without evidence) most of it is partially false even with evidence. WC --- On Wed, 12/31/08, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote: > From: [email protected] <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: Malcolm Gladwell and beliefs) > To: [email protected] > Date: Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 2:19 PM > Here is what you "actually say", William: > > > "there are numerous factual histories of the > American Revolution". . . each > > one is fictional to some degree" > > > Please tell us what your word is for those portions that > are NOT fictional to > any degree. > > This is also what you "actually said": > > "All stories are based on memory. All memories are > fiction." > > It is that universal that caught my interest. Do you now > want to modify it to > put it this way?: "All stories are based on memory to > some degree. All > memories are fiction to some degree." > > > ************** > New year...new news. Be the > first to know what is making headlines. > (http://www.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntaolcom00000026)
