Fiction or non-fiction?
 

If you were to raise an individual, what do you think would be the worst - denying him/her access to fiction or denying him her access to non-fiction?

For simplicity we will define the terms as given by wikipedia:

Fiction: Fiction is story telling. More specifically, fiction is an imaginative form of narrative. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingere, "to form, create", works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events.

Non-fiction: Non-fiction is an account or representation of a subject which is presented as fact. This presentation may be accurate or not; that is, it can give either a true or a false account of the subject in question. However, it is generally assumed that the authors of such accounts believe them to be truthful at the time of their composition.

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

I vote non-fiction and its not close, but then I've never had the patience to continue past page 10 of a fictional story*. (And I don't feel lacking because of that, or feel that anyone I have met who was into fiction had any "edge")

EDIT - I did manage to read significantly more than 10 pages of The Bible, but I considered that reading to fall within history/philosophy/science of cults etc. It also helps that it is very funny in parts.

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

I vote fiction and its not close. Reading fiction is one of life's great pleasures and incredibly useful in helping us learn about life without trial and error. Non-fiction is essentially (though not necessarily) trivial and can be learnt or looked up later.

chez

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

I'd have to vote non-fiction...All the math, science and other fields of learning as well as history (which people are suppose to be smart enough to learn from, but that's debatable) are non-fiction, besides truth is stranger than fiction so I guess I could find something amazing in non-fiction as well as fiction...

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

If analogy is allowed then it's non-fiction and fiction isn't on the same planet. Is 'Godel, Esher and Bach' non-fiction? for example.

luckyme

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

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If analogy is allowed then it's non-fiction and fiction isn't on the same planet. Is 'Godel, Esher and Bach' non-fiction? for example.

luckyme

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I'm assuming vital works like Theory of Poker aren't fiction or non-fiction.

chez

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

The Theory of Poker...truly an inspired work...but are inspired works fact or fiction? lol

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

I'd try to substitute fictional stories with entertaining real stories. Books like Donnie Brasco, Monster, and Lucky are quite entertaining and of course they still contain a literary element. History in a broader sense is pretty interesting too.

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

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The Theory of Poker...truly an inspired work...but are inspired works fact or fiction? lol

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Well Fawlty Towers was inspired and is clearly fact whereas some claim the clearly fictional bible was inspired.

So it seems fairly obvious that inspirational is independent of fictional/non-fictional.

chez

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

Awww you're so hardcore Chez... [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

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If you were to raise an individual, what do you think would be the worst - denying him/her access to fiction or denying him her access to non-fiction?

For simplicity we will define the terms as given by wikipedia:

Fiction: Fiction is story telling. More specifically, fiction is an imaginative form of narrative. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingere, "to form, create", works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events.

Non-fiction: Non-fiction is an account or representation of a subject which is presented as fact. This presentation may be accurate or not; that is, it can give either a true or a false account of the subject in question. However, it is generally assumed that the authors of such accounts believe them to be truthful at the time of their composition.

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Can you explain the purpose of the exercise?

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

You can "learn" anything from a fiction book by living a full life. I read little to no fiction, and I probably know more about social interaction etc than anyone on this site. I cant learn how to program in Perl, or the odds of a poker hand w/o non-fiction, I can on the other hand learn how women think, and how to make good business relationships w/o reading anything.

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

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I vote fiction and its not close. Reading fiction is one of life's great pleasures and incredibly useful in helping us learn about life without trial and error. Non-fiction is essentially (though not necessarily) trivial and can be learnt or looked up later.

chez

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100% agree. For the vast majority of human beings, it is much easier to learn important lessons through fiction. This is how humans have learned things throughout history and there is good empirical support that people learn and remember things better when placed into a fictional narrative. If I give you a list of ten nouns to try and remember, and I give OP a list of ten nouns and a story that works all ten into it, he is going to crush you on the test at the end.

I read more non-fiction than fiction (probably like 70/30) now, but fiction is still much more important, imo.

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

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If analogy is allowed then it's non-fiction and fiction isn't on the same planet. Is 'Godel, Esher and Bach' non-fiction? for example.

luckyme

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I'd say definitely fiction. All fiction books have some non-fiction in them (chairs really exist, the city of London really exists, and so on) but non-fiction books cannot have large segments that are entirely fanciful and do not directly relate to real persons or events. The little stories at the end of each chapter alone put GEB squarely into the fiction category.

Obviously there is some grey area, and as you say, many "non-fiction" books operate primarily by analogy, so it would be hard to say they aren't somewhat fictional.

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

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If you were to raise an individual, what do you think would be the worst - denying him/her access to fiction or denying him her access to non-fiction?

For simplicity we will define the terms as given by wikipedia:

Fiction: Fiction is story telling. More specifically, fiction is an imaginative form of narrative. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingere, "to form, create", works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events.

Non-fiction: Non-fiction is an account or representation of a subject which is presented as fact. This presentation may be accurate or not; that is, it can give either a true or a false account of the subject in question. However, it is generally assumed that the authors of such accounts believe them to be truthful at the time of their composition.

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Can you explain the purpose of the exercise?

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There can be many purposes, I merely ask the question and the answers can dictate the purpose - but one that comes to mind meaningful debate over the worth of non-fiction and fiction illustrated by hypothetical choice of which one is preferable.

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

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If you were to raise an individual, what do you think would be the worst - denying him/her access to fiction or denying him her access to non-fiction?

For simplicity we will define the terms as given by wikipedia:

Fiction: Fiction is story telling. More specifically, fiction is an imaginative form of narrative. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingere, "to form, create", works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events.

Non-fiction: Non-fiction is an account or representation of a subject which is presented as fact. This presentation may be accurate or not; that is, it can give either a true or a false account of the subject in question. However, it is generally assumed that the authors of such accounts believe them to be truthful at the time of their composition.

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Can you explain the purpose of the exercise?

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There can be many purposes, I merely ask the question and the answers can dictate the purpose - but one that comes to mind meaningful debate over the worth of non-fiction and fiction illustrated by hypothetical choice of which one is preferable.

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If you're interested, I made a video about the value of mythology:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftuin...CB&index=2

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

I would do neither. Both fiction and non-fiction are important to a balanced education.

The caveats are to make sure the person you are mentoring understands that while fiction is made-up, it often offers hypotheitcals uselfull in making real world judgments, and while non-fiction is not made up, no writer is objective and will slant research/statistics/examples to fit into a preconceived conclusion.

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

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If you were to raise an individual, what do you think would be the worst - denying him/her access to fiction or denying him her access to non-fiction?

For simplicity we will define the terms as given by wikipedia:

Fiction: Fiction is story telling. More specifically, fiction is an imaginative form of narrative. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingere, "to form, create", works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events.

Non-fiction: Non-fiction is an account or representation of a subject which is presented as fact. This presentation may be accurate or not; that is, it can give either a true or a false account of the subject in question. However, it is generally assumed that the authors of such accounts believe them to be truthful at the time of their composition.

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Can you explain the purpose of the exercise?

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There can be many purposes, I merely ask the question and the answers can dictate the purpose - but one that comes to mind meaningful debate over the worth of non-fiction and fiction illustrated by hypothetical choice of which one is preferable.

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If you're interested, I made a video about the value of mythology:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftuin...CB&index=2

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That was a nice video, my interpretation of Jonah and the whale story would probably differ, but I definitively do agree on the conclusion that stories can have values beyond what they seemingly represent or 'facts' they deliver.

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

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I would do neither. Both fiction and non-fiction are important to a balanced education.

The caveats are to make sure the person you are mentoring understands that while fiction is made-up, it often offers hypotheitcals uselfull in making real world judgments, and while non-fiction is not made up, no writer is objective and will slant research/statistics/examples to fit into a preconceived conclusion.

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Yeah, I think most people here agree on that, so that is why I asked which one would be the 'worst' to take away.

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

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I read little to no fiction, and I probably know more about social interaction etc than anyone on this site.

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it's hard to believe that you know how to avoid being a jerkoff but choose not to.

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

Given the question as posed, I'm firmly in the fiction camp. The power of a creative narrative to deliver a message, illustrate a concept, spark the imagination, and inspire a sense of wonder is unparalleled. Nonfiction, by contrast, is pretty irrelevant. We don't need accounts that are presented as fact - the content of a story doesn't depend on whether it really happened, and since textbooks/etc are allowed abandoning nonfiction wouldn't greatly affect human knowledge.

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

A narrative can be good, whether the events narrated are real or not. I, for one, have found plenty of inspiration from non-fiction reading.... and such little bits of fiction as I have enjoyed have been the ones that created an exceptionally strong sense of "this really could have happened", not the ones which were ridiculously fanciful.

It's a shame to have to make all-or-nothing decisions. I would like to see about 90% of the world's fiction disappear, and about 90% of the world's nonfiction remain.

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

Good thread, btw. I am pretty divided on this! I guess I'd pick fiction since I tend to remember the stories I've read as opposed to textbooks and assume your typical student tends to forget most of the stuff from the textbook after the school year is over anyways. But I like creativity, perspectives, and interpretation of it and I feel that lack of imagination and stuff would make life dull.

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

Fiction by a mile.

I learnt more about living through WW1 reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birdsong_(novel) 'birdsong' than I did studying it for a year for GCSE history.

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

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Fiction by a mile.

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Once I discovered GEB was in the fiction category it really doesn't matter to me anymore. I assume "Intentional Stance" and "Brief History of Time" and "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" fit it also. so, ok, fiction. Autobiographies and first person accounts would be fiction also ( always suspected they were anyway :-)
Math texts with scenario word problems ... hmmmmmm.

luckyme

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

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Fiction by a mile.

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Once I discovered GEB was in the fiction category it really doesn't matter to me anymore. I assume "Intentional Stance" and "Brief History of Time" and "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" fit it also. so, ok, fiction. Autobiographies and first person accounts would be fiction also ( always suspected they were anyway :-)
Math texts with scenario word problems ... hmmmmmm.

luckyme

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Well admittedly, when we look at fiction and non-fiction we know they are 'intertwined' do a degree that makes separating them v/hard, so we'll have to use a little common sense and a little biased guesswork to separate them properly.

Re: Fiction or non-fiction?
 

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I would do neither. Both fiction and non-fiction are important to a balanced education.

The caveats are to make sure the person you are mentoring understands that while fiction is made-up, it often offers hypotheitcals uselfull in making real world judgments, and while non-fiction is not made up, no writer is objective and will slant research/statistics/examples to fit into a preconceived conclusion.

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Yeah, I think most people here agree on that, so that is why I asked which one would be the 'worst' to take away.

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If I have to choose, the fiction is the worst to take away simply because of the implication that everything else is true.