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.