Feeding My Ignorance

One recurrent theme of my blog entries is the difficulty we each experience separating reality from fiction. I don't mean that we are consciously deluding ourselves - although I expect that we all do that from time to time - rather that we simply lose track of what is real as against what is "made up".

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I would contend that this is a phenomena that has been present throughout history - however it is (perhaps) exacerbated by the fact that modern day technology gives us all access to much more "information" - resulting in an increasing overload on our already overworked brains.

The specific trigger for this post is the tendency for many of our tv and cinema productions to be "re-makes" in one way or another of previously told stories.

Irrespective of whether the original was "better" or whether the remake has improved special effects the mere fact that there are two alternative interpretations of the same story is bound to result in - possibly small - but almost certainly significant - discrepancies. As works of fiction this is clearly no big problem - although even small differences will certainly upset the purists!!

Representing a well known novel on the cinema screen necessitates 'shortcuts' and additions to improve the "watchability" of the final movie. Thus the "story" of the film will diverge from the "story" of the novel. Sometimes this is taken to extremes and the final product is unrecognisable as a "copy" of the original.

My daughter is currently studying in Nottingham - the "home" of Robin Hood. The folklore associated with him dates back to the 14th century and the 'legend' has clearly grown through the years. There have, to date, been over 70 representations of Robin Hood on the screen. I am sure that I have seen quite a few - but no idea exactly how many.

My own "mental model" of Robin Hood is almost certainly a combination of some of those. It will differ from everyone else's (I expect) because it has been filtered through my experience. Now, you could argue that it doesn't matter too much which is the "real" Robin Hood because he is (probably) entirely fictitious anyway.

Now change the subject - how many films have you seen about the second world war - or about the Vietnam war - or about any other "real" event that has been portrayed onscreen? Where is the reality now? To what extent has reality been twisted by the particular perspective of the film. Even when we know that it is "just a movie" the events of that fictional world get intermingled in our brains with the "reality" and it becomes harder and harder to discern one from the other - and to remember where particular ideas orginated from.

Therefore - we have seen the "real" events covered in lots of different ways - we have (in some cases at least) no way of determining the veracity of the depictions - we have an nbuilt inability to remember things properly anyway - how are we going to judge how good our "memory" of what happened actually is? I would suggest that we have little or no chance of ever being sure that we have got it right.

That applies to 'legends' like Robin Hood - to relatively recent history, such as the cold war or the second world war - and to our events that we ourselves witnessed first hand. I can think of lots of things that I have seen in my lifetime that I would be completely unable to describe in detail. There are other things for which I have (allegedly) extremely detailed memories - which are just plain wrong with added niceties and omitted essentials.

So - again I ask - what is real (and does it matter!!)?

POST PUBLICATION ADDITION

Within a few days of me publishing this someone (in an online forum I contribute to) said "no human can discern illusion from reality" - which is rather similar to what I have written above.

A loosely connected paper on this topic can be found here.