The Paradox of Fiction
Why are we scared by things that don’t exist?
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Scared by things that don’t exist?
The paradox of fiction arises from three seemingly true but incompatible claims:
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We have emotional responses to fictional characters, objects, and events that we encounter in works of art.
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To have emotional responses to something, we must believe that it exists.
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We do not believe that fictional characters, objects, and events exist.
The paradox is that we cannot accept all three claims at the same time without contradiction.
If we accept 1 and 2, meaning that we accept that we have emotional responses to fiction and that, therefore, we must believe that these fictional things exist, then we cannot accept number 3 (that we do not believe that fictional things exist). Otherwise we would be both accepting and not accepting that fictional things exist, which would be a contradiction.
In a similar way, let’s say that we accept 2 and 3. Now we accept that, in order to have emotional responses to something, we must believe that it exists. We also accept that we don’t believe that fictional things exist. But now we must conclude that we cannot possibly have emotional responses to fiction, and this clearly contradicts our own experience as an audience for movies or books.
And finally, if we accept 1 and 3 (we do have emotional responses to fiction and we do not believe that fictional characters exist), then we must reject 2, which means that emotional responses do not require existence beliefs. But that leaves us with a riddle: how can it be that we respond emotionally to something that clearly does not exist?
Does fiction really cause emotions?
Let’s see what we can do. How can we solve this paradox? Given our three assumptions, any solution must deny one or more of them in order to resolve the contradiction.
So one way would be to deny claim 1: “We have emotional responses to fictional characters, objects, and events that we encounter in works of art.”
Perhaps we don’t. We could argue that we do not really have emotional responses to fiction, but only make-believe or simulate them. According to this theory, when we watch a horror movie, for example, we play a game of make-believe in which we imagine ourselves to be in the situation of the characters and act as if we are afraid of the monster.
The problem with this theory is that it seems to contradict our experience. When we see a really good monster movie, we are really scared. When the love interest finds a tragic death in the icy ocean, we are really devastated along with the heroine – we don’t just pretend to be. Cinema audiences cry and laugh and recoil in fear in response to what happens on the screen. It just doesn’t ring true to say that we are only pretending.
Is belief necessary for emotion?
Another way would be to deny claim 2: “To have emotional responses to something, we must believe that it exists.”
Perhaps emotional responses do not require is to believe that the fictional characters exist. Perhaps just a thought is enough to cause emotions in us. When we watch a horror movie, for example, we do not need to believe that the monster exists or existed, but only need to have a thought or a mental image of it. This thought or image is enough to trigger our emotional response.
This seems plausible at first sight. When I think of my own death, or of the destruction of my treasured car in an accident, I might become sad. This sadness is not due to any belief of mine that I’m already dead or that my car has been destroyed. My emotional reaction is a reaction to the thought alone, not to any belief that this thought describes a reality.
But is this really so? If this was the case, we would expect to have emotional responses to all sorts of thoughts. But we do react differently to a government report on poverty and to a moving story of a poor child. Stories are more gripping than statistics. The most horrible statistics of crime, poverty or genocide fail to elicit the same response as one single picture of a suffering child. Movies are much more powerful in moving us than PowerPoint slides. But why is that? Perhaps the appearance of reality that the movie provides is indeed necessary for our emotional response.
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Do we believe in the existence of fictions?
“We do not believe that fictional characters, objects, and events exist.”
Finally, we could deny claim 3 and argue that we do have existence beliefs when we engage with fiction, but only temporarily or partially. According to this theory, when we watch a horror movie, for example, we suspend our disbelief and allow ourselves to be immersed in the fictional world. During this immersion, we form beliefs that the characters and events are real, even though we know they are not. These beliefs are then responsible for our emotional responses. However, these beliefs are not stable or consistent, and can be easily overridden by our background knowledge or external cues.
But again, this does not seem to really describe what happens when we watch a movie. Is there any point at which the audience of Alien or Titanic believes that they are in a sinking ocean liner or a futuristic spaceship? We also know that some of the strongest emotional experiences in movies are provided by animated movies. Think of any Pixar feature. But animations are even more clearly fictional than live-action movies. Nobody can be fooled for a minute that the fish Nemo could possibly be real, talking and behaving the way he does.
So the problem remains. The emotional power of fiction is clear to everyone who has ever come out of a cinema crying, inspired, happy, angry or sad. But how exactly can we explain what happens between the moment we sit down in the chair and the credits at the end?
What do you think? Which of the three solutions agrees best with your own experience? Tell me in the comments!
Andreas Matthias on Daily Philosophy:
